Hollywood Dead: Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective Read online

  His expression remained impassive. “I can’t tell when you’re lying.”

  “Excuse me?” The correct response was, “My day was great. How about yours?”

  “I suspect my presence disturbs you but I can’t tell if you’re lying and you intended to stay until you realized I was here.”

  “Oh.” I took a step back for a second, leaning against the door I’d just come in. He’d gotten it exactly right. Apparently William was a great judge of character. I didn’t want him to know that though. I could lie some more—he’d just admitted he couldn’t tell—but instead I went with a misdirect. “Is it because I’m a spirit witch? Does that screw up your ability to detect lies?”

  “Edward didn’t mention your abilities.”

  “Didn’t I?” The man in question came out to the dining room table, holding a bowl of stir fry. The smell of the peppers and onions made my mouth water. I should have taken him up on his offer.

  “No,” William replied coolly.

  “Well, she is. A pretty good spirit witch at that.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I flushed under the compliment. Even though he hadn’t changed from his work uniform of khaki pants and an embroidered Serenity Spa polo, my boyfriend looked great. Compliments like that, him looking great, and good food were exactly the kind of Saturday night I had in mind. I yanked myself back on track. “Not much of a spirit witch, actually. I can’t project or make people feel things they don’t want to. I can only read emotions and lies.”

  “And talk to the dead.”

  William raised his eyes at Ted’s comment.

  I had a sudden desire not to be so interesting. “Only the spirits of the newly dead. I’m not a death witch—I can’t call people back or anything.”

  “Have you tried?” William asked me. Something about his look scared me.

  “No, never,” I shook my head. “But I handled enough bodies in the war that if they had something to say, I would have heard it. Speaking of the war, what’s the latest with OPS?”

  “The fifth member of our team—”

  “Jen,” Ted interrupted him.

  “Is in a state care facility in Arizona,” William finished.

  “So you boys taking a road trip tonight?”

  “No.” Ted sounded firm and I thought I saw a touch of fear in his eyes.

  “Driving would be needlessly long. I’ll fly there as soon as the sun sets completely, check on her, ensure the facility is well guarded, and return.”

  “Does flying really cut that much time off?” Jo never flew anywhere. LaRue preferred to travel as mist.

  “It cuts the time by half, sometimes more.”

  “Huh.” I’d never seen a vampire fly, but I wasn’t anxious to see it either. “Well, I hope Jen is okay.”

  “She was last night.” William told me.

  We looked at each other in silence for a few beats while Ted ate his dinner, unaware of the growing awkwardness. “Okay so…I’m working in LA tonight. I’d better get going.”

  “I thought you were headed to your mother’s?” William continued asking questions I didn’t want to answer.

  “I have to stop there first to borrow clothes from my little sister. Nightclubs tend to balk at the jeans and T-shirt look.” I stood, ending our conversation. “Walk me to my car, lover?”

  Ted nodded, putting down his bowl of food. We were in the garage when he pulled me close to him, giving me kisses that tasted like soy sauce.

  “You know he can still hear you,” Ted whispered in my ear, his lips so close to me that I could feel them move as he spoke.

  I nodded, not willing to give anything away.

  “How late will you be?” he asked. His hand drifted down to my waist. In an instant, his fingers were under my shirt, gently caressing the flesh above my jeans. It was a familiar off-handed gesture that made every nerve on my body stand up and beg for more.

  “I could be late or I could be early.”

  “William won’t be back until after one, so if you want to stop by…”

  He trailed off as my other hand touched him in places that made it more than clear that yes, I wanted to stop by, and yes, I expected us to do a whole lot more than talk when I did.

  5

  I stopped by my parents’ place, delighted that I happened to be in time for dinner. My mother shared my joy, and added another plate to the table.

  “You know when you started this business, I was sure I wouldn’t get to see you for months, but you’re always home for Sunday supper and church, and then you just drop by—”

  I grunted, not sure I liked Mom cataloging my total lack of a social life.

  “Well, it’s nice. That’s all I’m saying. For a while I thought it would be like when you joined the Army, with you just gone. You’re not and I like it.”

  “Thanks Mom, I like it, too. You should come by the shop soon. I’ve finally got everything cleaned up enough for you to see the apartment.” Mom had pestered me for a tour for months. I hadn’t wanted her to see the empty upstairs and think things weren’t going well. Now that Jo’s matching luxurious furniture was in place, there was no fear of that.

  “Maybe I will.” She grinned at the thought.

  “Will what?” Gina demanded, blowing into the kitchen.

  “Come see my place,” I told her.

  “Oh, the empty room of wonders.” My sister rolled her eyes at me.

  “It’s not empty. Jo helped me decorate.”

  “Seriously? I don’t know why someone like her takes pity on someone like you.”

  “Maybe because I’m not an annoying twit.”

  “Girls!” Mom’s voice boomed with the force it had held when we were teenagers. “Not at the table.”

  My father joined us, putting his book on the counter to say grace. We dug into meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans long enough that Gina and I forgot we were fighting.

  “Jo and I are going to check out a new club tonight. Can I steal some clothes?”

  “Sure thing,” Gina replied. I waited for a minute, expecting the usual questioning of what we were doing and where. My little sister was in awe of Jo. Normally, she begged to come with us and even when I said no, showed up at the same places.

  “Don’t you want to ask to come along?” I finally prompted her.

  “Uh, I have a date.”

  “A date?” my father asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Yeah, he wanted to come by the house and meet you two…”

  “Sounds a little old-fashioned,” Dad commented. My father rarely took the effort to string seven words together in a sentence. This much talking meant he was shocked.

  “He’s a sweet old-fashioned kind of guy.” Gina smiled. “He holds doors open for me. Stuff like that.”

  “So he’s what? Seventy? Eighty?”

  Gina stuck her tongue out at me behind the bowl of mashed potatoes.

  Needling my sister was an old comfortable habit I knew I should break but never did. “Hey you’re the one dating a grandpa, not me.”

  “And you just can’t contain your jealousy. I mean, you tried to get Jeremy interested in you and instead he’s dating me. Must suck for you.”

  “Jeremy? Dude from the wine bar with more muscles than brains? Really? Him?”

  “How would you know what his brain was like? You ran off with Jo backstage in like five minutes.”

  “Wait, a minute ago I was trying to steal him. Now I ran off. Which one is it, little sister?”

  “Whichever one gets you to admit you’re jealous that I—”

  “Girls!” Mom silenced us with a shout and a glare. “What’s this man like, Gina?”

  “Oh, you know him. He’s an actor—Jeremy Steel.”

  My father grunted and Mom translated. “Seeing someone on film doesn’t mean you know them, Gina.”

  “I know, like you would never guess that Jeremy is into World War II history or that he likes old movies. You know all this time People magazine has said he
keeps his love life secret when really, there wasn’t any. He’s been waiting for the right girl for ages.” She finished with a triumphant smile that said she, not me, was the right girl.

  “So he’s going to meet Mom and Dad on the first date?”

  My comment turned her smile into a frown. I was willing to bet Gina had snuck off to see him before, not telling anyone.

  “What clothes did you want to borrow?” She changed the subject before Mom noticed but I suspected Dad’s look meant he’d caught on.

  “Something dressy but not too dressy. I need to blend in, not be all that memorable.”

  “Shouldn’t be that hard,” she sniffed.

  It wasn’t hard. Gina dressed me, did my hair, put on my makeup, and had me out the door long before her date arrived. I didn’t doubt that she planned it that way. I got back to my place in time to tuck the leftovers Mom had forced on me into the fridge before the sun finished setting. I wasted some time on the small camera I hoped to use to earn my paycheck. Jo’s knock came as I deleted my test shots.

  I pulled the door open to every man’s fantasy. She wore a sheath dress in an artistically mutilated silk. The right side was solid, but the left side was only spikes of fabric, leaving wide expanses of pale skin open to view. The two triangles of creamy flesh drew the eye more than the band of solid silk that covered her small breasts. Her shoulders were bare, and a loop of silk came from the back to form a small square knot. It gave the impression all of that silk would just fall to the floor in strips if you managed to untie it.

  Looking down at the dress Gina had loaned me, the soft cotton with fitted long sleeves and a deep V-neck, I looked like hell next to Jo’s silk extravaganza. A minute ago the way the cool blue color brought out the blue in my eyes was enough, now it barely registered.

  “I should change,” I announced after looking Jo up and down a second time.

  “Nah, you look fine.”

  “You look amazing.”

  She twirled, the dress moving with her. There wasn’t an inch of fabric there that shouldn’t be. “Thanks! Jean-Laurent went nuts when he saw it.” She grinned and the heat of the memory magically came to me.

  “Which was more fun—putting it on or getting it off?”

  “Tough call,” she mused. “Tough call.”

  “Uh-huh.” I grabbed the purse that matched my dress, tucked the camera inside, and we were off.

  The Follies had a theme, which didn’t surprise me—every club in LA had a theme. It was more the nature of it: vaudeville. You didn’t get many clubs that made their image on sepia toned photos of some unlabeled boardwalk. Burlesque girls, piano players, and comedians all stared up from wooden frames artfully arranged on the dark red walls. The place looked like a theater—it even had a small raised stage at the end of the room. I expected a line out the door and a packed house but this wasn’t a grand opening. Just a hundred people, dotting a space designed for at least three times that.

  Thirty minutes inside and no one tried to pick either of us up, making me wonder about the clientele. They were all men, Hollywood executive types. The place was either a gay bar or not really open for business. I waited for Dan while sipping a fruity cocktail that had no right to taste as good as it did.

  “Are you sure this counts as work?” Jo asked me after a few hours of drinks.

  “Not really.” I shook my head. The later it got, the more packed the club became but Dan never showed. Had his wife gotten bad information or did he know I was tailing him? Or… “There aren’t any other women here, are there?”

  “Nope.” Jo popped the word out of her mouth with an exaggerated head shake. “Any chance he’s gay or bi?”

  “Maybe, but his wife was pretty sure it was an affair with a woman.” I slugged back the last of my drink. “Well, he’s not here and neither is she. Three hours of waiting is enough. Let’s get you back to LaRue.”

  She dropped me at home but I only spent ten minutes there before I drove to Ted’s place. It was just after one, far too early for anyone to have been to Arizona and back, even if he was flying. My lover opened up the door for me, his eyes wide.

  “Wow.”

  “Like the dress?” I asked, even though I could tell he did.

  “It’s amazing. I mean, it makes your eyes so…blue.”

  “Yeah, they’re blue.” I shut the door behind me. I didn’t usually knock, and I didn’t usually wear dresses. It was nice to see him so dumbfounded.

  “I know but I mean…that dress is…” He gave up and kissed me, his mouth hungry on mine, his arms pulling me close. Our kiss lasted a long time with his hands running up and down the soft cotton of my dress. Where we touched a spark of magic told me how much he’d missed me.

  “Come on.” He pulled my hand and led me to the bedroom.

  When we got there, nothing else mattered as we concentrated on each other. Moving with him, connected by magic, brought me to such a powerful pleasure I never wanted to end. When it did, we collapsed onto the bed, his body still tight against my back. He curled around me, kissing my neck through my hair. I leaned back, breathing deep to catch the air I’d lost to screaming. With his arms around me, the world felt far away, and I drifted off to sleep.

  Frightening images came to me in dreams—the vampire that had attacked me, the feeling of having my leg and arm lain bare without skin or muscle, and worst, that vampire somehow here, in the town where I lived. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me dealing with William was bringing up old memories.

  My back arched into a stretch, reaching my hand under the pillow, where it hit the gun Ted kept there. It held silver bullets and it never left that spot. He had been kidnapped as a child by a group who lived outside the law murdering and kidnapping without remorse. They happened to be werewolves. Did people ever really recover from things like that? Would I ever get to the point where I saw vampires like William as just another person? Would Ted—well, he had been Edward when the wolves had taken him—ever forget?

  “Penny for your thoughts.” He looked at me with those wonderful dark brown eyes.

  “Should I be nicer to William?”

  He laughed, then buried his face in my hair, kissing me. “Should I worry that you’re thinking about him after sex?”

  I scooted away from him on the bed.

  He laughed harder. “Okay, sorry, my mistake. No, you don’t have to be nicer to him.”

  “It’s just… I don’t want to be filled with hate. Yeah, I was attacked but I don’t want to carry it around for the rest of my life.”

  “Then don’t,” he said, as if it was that easy.

  “I thought I’d gotten over it. I mean, Jo and I are friends. I drink with Douglas. But William… He gives me the creeps.”

  “Sometimes he gives me the creeps, too.”

  “That’s not very helpful.” I turned to face him so he could see my frown.

  “How’s this: deal with people, all kinds of people, on a case-by-case basis and don’t worry so much about things. You handle each day and the rest of your life works itself out.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “Nope, I avoid werewolves like the plague and hope they all die,” he said cheerfully. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry. We should eat.”

  In the kitchen, we clowned around, talking about what to eat. It was technically morning, so while Ted offered to cook something that resembled a well-balanced meal, I demanded breakfast food. As always, he gave in. We took our bowls of cereal to the couch. Any other night, I would have slyly asked if he wanted to watch a video and then passed every one of the happy musicals in his collection to go straight for the hidden adult films. We’d watch curled up together on the couch before heading back to the bedroom for more fun. I ate Cheerios, wondering if we had enough time for that before William got back.

  “Jennifer is gone.”

  I nearly choked on my milk. William could have knocked or made some noise, not just appeared four feet from me. “Jennifer?”

  �
�She’s our last teammate,” Ted reminded me.

  “She was our last teammate,” William corrected him. “Before she was destroyed. There’s no chance they’ll mistake this for suicide.”

  “I thought she was in a secure facility?” Ted asked, still eating his cereal.

  William nodded. “Locked doors, cameras, in a secure room, but still they found her.”

  “What did they leave behind?” I’d seen what murderers forgot before, little things like hairs or sand from their shoes. They always left something.

  “Nothing, no trace.”

  I shook my head. “There’s always something.”

  “I saw nothing.”

  “Well, maybe you don’t know what to look for,” I snapped. I glared at the vampire and he looked back at me, just as angry and stubborn. I had zero right to step in here. Yet… “In fact, I think I’ll go take a look myself.”

  “You have no authority to do so.”

  I snorted, doing my best to let him know just how little I cared about authority. I didn’t have a good reason to go, other than to prove him wrong, but right now that seemed like more than enough to me. “I’ll just get my shoes while you draw me a map.”

  In the bedroom, I stole a pair of socks from Ted’s neatly organized closet. I was already wearing his shirt over a pair of jeans I’d left behind ages ago—why not complete the look? The spare sneakers I’d also left behind were half on when he came into the room, his face pale.

  “I should go with you.”

  “You don’t look like you want to.”

  He hesitated, then admitted it. “I don’t like care facilities—not state, not elder, not even posh resort-style places. They bother me.”

  “Then stay home. It’s late. You don’t need to come along.”

  “I think I should go though, even if I don’t want to.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood but it was important to him, so I just nodded.

  The nights were cooler in the desert than most people guessed. I drove with the windows up, silence filling the car. All around me, the landscape was flat—sand and rock, cactus and brush, not hostile but not welcoming either. I’d asked Ted if he wanted to talk about everything at the beginning of the drive. He’d said maybe, but that had been hours ago. He hadn’t opened his mouth since. Some things in life were like that, they stuck in you like the stinger on a bee, hurting and ready to hurt even more when you pulled them out. I knew we talked about things, but tonight, under a fat yellow moon in the cool desert on our way to see a dead friend, it didn’t seem like the right time to talk.