Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [10]
At least I could explain it away as his driving me to heights of heretofore unimagined, romance-novelesque passion. A little white lie was far better than blurting out I was a were.
I should have told him the first night we met, at the club where his band was playing. Definitely after the first time I slept with him. I checked the lunar calendar on the wall of the office and saw that the full moon was sixteen days away—too early for any signs of the phase to be showing, thank the gods. How I would explain this one away, I didn’t know.
My e-mail in-box lit up with a few pieces of spam. Not surprising. Who would want to talk to me in the mopey state I was in?
The last remaining e-mail in the box caught my eye, and I vowed I would be strong, I would not click on it. Would not, would not…
I moved the mouse and clicked with the same compulsion as when I bid on vintage pumps and purses at auction, and the resulting emotional gut punch was the same.
From: dsandovsky31@netmail.ru.com
To: wilderlu@nocturne.pd.gov
Subject: Don’t worry about me…
Dear Luna,
Don’t worry about me, darlin’. I can’t talk long but I’m in the Ukraine and I’m okay. Don’t talk to anyone about me, or you, or us. Please. Can’t say exactly what will happen if you do, but things could get serious.
I’ll try to protect you. Don’t know if I can…
—Dmitri
Dated almost a month ago, the last I’d heard from Sandovsky. That night, I had gone out and met Trevor. The last line of the message haunted me, in the times when I was halfway between waking and dreaming. I’ll try to protect you.
“Well, Dmitri, you’ve done a great gods-damned job so far,” I muttered. Footsteps thudded above me and Trevor called down the stairs.
“Babe, you down there? Got any breakfast for me?”
I stabbed at the monitor’s power button and hustled out of the office. “There should be cereal in the kitchen. I’m late for work—I have to go.” How old the cereal was, I wouldn’t testify to. I wasn’t late, either, but looking at Trevor in the aftermath sent a flush of guilt through me. I should enjoy him more—or less. Or what the Hex was wrong with me? Since when had I become a whiny urbanite whose biggest concern was boinking?
Trevor hurried down to stop me, grabbing me by the elbow in his way. I fought the instinct to growl at what the were perceived as an attempt to dominate.
“Do you really have to run off?”
I kissed him on the cheek. “I’m afraid so.”
He still held my arm. “We’re doing a show tonight at Belladonna. It’s a big deal. I’d really like you to be there.”
I mentally calculated how many busts Narcotics and Vice had made at the Belladonna club and decided that for Trevor, it was a big deal. The people at Belladonna didn’t posture—they were real badmen. Poor Trevor.
“I’ll try,” I promised, still grinding away at the whole “Be a decent girlfriend” thing. “Now I really gotta go.”
I got my gun, badge, and jacket and escaped to the Fairlane, happier to be away from my house and my boyfriend than any sane woman should be.
CHAPTER 4
I floored the Fairlane along the Appleby Expressway, taking a downtown exit rather than my usual so I could avoid work for a few minutes longer. My cell phone rang while I was sitting at the light on Devere and Branch. The caller ID said the medical examiner’s office wanted to speak with me, so I answered even though driving and talking were worth a $200 fine within the Nocturne City limits.
“Luna, it’s Dr. Kronen.”
I managed to shift and make a left turn with one hand, and jockeyed the phone to my other ear. “What’s up, Bart?”
“I have the results of the tox screen on your overdose case, if you’d like to stop by.”
Visiting the Nocturne City morgue was right up there with taking a relaxing vacation to the Middle East, but I cut across two lanes and turned back into the maze of downtown. “I can be there in ten.”
The morgue, one floor of the subbasements beneath the main laboratories for the