Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(95)

Matt shrugged, a little helplessly. “She doesn’t talk about that stuff to me so much. I know she brought him to Christmas dinner. He seemed like an okay guy, pretty laid-back. My dad didn’t like him, but she’s his little girl. Hell, I’ve got a daughter, and I’m damn sure going to hate every guy who comes near her.”

“Lindsay didn’t have any sisters. What about close girlfriends?”

“Sure, a few. I mean, in high school, some in college, but I don’t know who she’s hanging out with now.” That question, curiously, had made Matt uncomfortable. “Why are you asking?”

“Because I’m hoping she might have said something that could give us a lead.”

He saw the sense of that, but reluctantly, and he finally gave a shrug. “I guess check her cell phone? I don’t know.” He did, though. He knew something and didn’t want to give it up; his body language seemed off. Hannah let him keep the secret for now, because the cell phone was in Lindsay’s effects, and she’d already collected it for processing. She thanked Matt, trying to be gentle as possible, but his gaze was already fixed on the nondenominational stained-glass alcove at the front of the chapel. Lost in his own thoughts, or prayers.

She left him to it.

? ? ?

Lindsay’s cell phone was full of contacts; though Matt had described her as shy, she seemed a popular kid after all. Hannah sat at her desk in the Morganville Town Hall building and went through the list methodically, checking off those that she knew about already. That accounted for about half.

She was still studying the list when one of Morganville’s two police detectives walked in and took a seat in the chair across from her desk. “Hey, boss,” he said, and put a folder in her in-box. “Got the final write-up done on the Garza robbery. The case is going to court next month.”

“Slam dunk, Fred?”

“Three-pointer,” he said, and made an invisible basketball shot. “Didn’t even have to get in close. Crowd goes wild.”

She didn’t smile. She liked Fred, but she maintained a distance from those she had to manage; besides, he was a vampire. A vampire police detective. Trouble was, he was good at it—too good, sometimes. And she always felt that movie-star smile of his held just a touch too much arrogance for comfort.

Fred always dressed in suits. Today’s was a nice gray thing, tailored and elegant, with a bright blue paisley tie and a lightly striped shirt beneath. His hairstyle still seemed faintly antique to her, as if he had to resist the urge to slick it down in 1920s style, but he had fully embraced modern fashion.

Hannah held out the phone list to him. “Anything jump out at you?”

He studied it, and without looking up said, “Is this from your dead girl’s phone?”

“She’s not dead.”

“Okay.” He shrugged, as if it really didn’t matter to him, and then handed the paper back. “No vampires.”

“What?”

“No vampires in her calling list. Not a single one.”

Staying well away from vampires was good survival strategy for a human in Morganville, but what was strange was that Lindsay hadn’t programmed in her Protector’s phone number. In Hannah’s experience, Morganville residents always kept their Protectors on speed dial.

But Lindsay hadn’t. Even though her original Protector had died, she should have still had the previous number in the list, because people rarely remembered to delete contacts . . . and Oliver’s number should have been in there as her new one.

“Anything else, boss?” Fred asked. “I’ve got a thing.”

“What thing?” she asked, and glanced up to meet his blue eyes. He had very lovely blue eyes, wide and innocent-looking. He must have led a lot of victims to their deaths with that friendly look, and she’d long ago stopped taking vampires at face value. She’d never known Fred to step outside the lines of vampire good behavior, but she was always on guard for it.

“One of my people asked me to be there for her daughter’s baptism,” he said. “That okay with you? Nothing burning a hole on my desk right now.”

Vampires, as Hannah well knew, had religion—often the same one they’d been born into. There were Catholic vampires, and Jewish vampires, and Muslim vampires. A couple of religious institutions in town catered to vampires as well as humans with night services. Still, it was unusual to see a vampire attending any kind of daytime human religious ceremony, except funerals. “Sure,” she said. “Have fun.”

He gave her a smile that showed off even, white teeth—hiding the fangs—and stood up with an easy grace. “Good luck on that thing,” he said. “Sounds like human on human to me.”

“Maybe,” she said. Her gaze followed him out the door. “Maybe so.”

? ? ?

Hannah interviewed Lindsay’s boyfriend, Trip; he’d been eager to help, clearly knocked off-balance by what had happened, but he hadn’t had much to offer. She had a pretty clear sense that he was just what he seemed: a well-meaning guy with no real drama. Lindsay had good taste in stable guys. That hadn’t helped her much, in the end.

Halfway back to the station, her cell rang. She glanced down and saw it was Oliver’s number. When she answered, she didn’t even have time to deliver her standard Chief Moses greeting before his voice was growling at her.