“I look forward to whatever will be served,” he murmured, patting her hand.

Even if the sweets to be consumed were, temporarily, him and his cousins.

After all, orgasms were as good a currency as any . . . and he was quite certain that Naasha and her “dearest friends” were free for the purchasing in that regard.

TWENTY-NINE

“Thank you so much for coming. I was, ah, hoping that we could talk about . . .”

As Jo Early ran lines to herself, she stirred a packet of Sugar In The Raw into her cappuccino, messing up the pretty brown-and-white heart design that had been made in the foam.

The I’ve Bean Waitin’ coffee shop was Caldwell’s indie version of Starbucks, a tall-ceilinged, narrow-walled shotgun space with padded chairs and sofas, lots of mismatched little tables, and baristas who were allowed to wear their own clothes under their black smocks. It was one strip mall over from where the real estate office was, a quick trip to make at the end of yet another too-late workday for her too-hot, too-distracted boss.

He’d been in a dark gray suit today. With a bright white shirt and a blue-gray-and-black bow tie that, on him, was about as far away from geek as his Gucci shoes were.

Taking a sip from the rim of the fat white bowl-cup, she gave her little speech another shot. “Thanks for meeting me. I know this sounds odd, but—”

“Jo?”

Jumping, she nearly dumped her ’cino all over herself. The man standing by her table was six feet tall, with shaggy black hair, black-rimmed glasses, and the kind of skinny-jeaned, tight button-down’d, floppy-jacketed, earth-toned hipster clothes she’d expect to see on somebody ten years younger. But on William Elliot, it all worked.

Shaking herself, she said, “Hi, yes, hello, Mr. Elliot—”

“Call me Bill.” He glanced over at the coffee bar. “Let me get a latte, two secs?”

“Sure. Please. Ah, thanks. I mean, that’s great. Good luck.” Shit. “I’m sorry.”

Bill frowned and eased himself down, unwrapping an army-green scarf from his neck, and opening that maroon felt coat. “Is there something wrong with my house or something?”

“Oh, no.” She pushed her hair back. “And I didn’t mean to bring you here under false pretenses.”

Except she kinda had.

“Look, I’m a happily married man—”

Jo put both hands out. “No, God no—this is, this is actually about an article you wrote almost a year ago in December? About Julio Martinez? He was arrested back then downtown as part of a street fight?”

Bill’s eyebrows popped up over his glasses. “The gang member.”

“That’s right, the one who was injured and apprehended in that abandoned restaurant.”

As the reporter fell silent, Jo wanted to kick herself in the ass. She should have known better than to get involved in any of Dougie’s foolishness—even more to the point, she should have avoided getting anyone else sucked into the funhouse.

“You know what?” she said. “I was way out of line. I shouldn’t have asked you to—”

“What exactly do you want to know about the article?”

As she met Bill’s narrowed eyes, everyone and everything else in the café disappeared; the sounds of hissing steam and brewing coffee, the chatter, the comings and goings, all of it went on the dim. And not because the two of them were sharing a romantic moment.

“Are you aware of the YouTube video Julio’s been in?” Jo asked. “And what he said?”

Bill looked away. “You know, I think I will get that latte.”

The reporter got up and went to the counter. When he was addressed by name, and a, “Would you like the usual?” she wondered whether it was true that all writers were powered by caffeine.

And it was weird, this place wasn’t near his work or his new house. Maybe he’d lived in the area before?

Bill returned with a tall mug that was more beer stein than anything you’d put a latte in, and as he sat down again, she could tell he’d taken the time to get his head back on straight.

“You’ve seen the videos,” she said.

The man shook his head slowly. “I interviewed Julio when he got out on bail, as part of a series on the upswing of gang-related violence downtown. Most of those kinds of kids—and he was just a kid . . . is one, I mean—a lot of them don’t say a thing when they’re approached. And if they do talk? It’s a lot of posturing about territory, their version of an honor code, their enemies. Julio wasn’t interested in any of that. He just kept going on about . . .”

“A vampire.” For some reason, her heart started pounding. “That’s what he was focused on, wasn’t he.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t mention anything like that in your article, though.”

“God, no. I don’t want my editor to think I’m nuts—but I did go online, and I saw the videos. Spent about three days doing nothing but watching those things all night long. My wife was convinced I’d lost my mind. Seventy-two hours later, I wasn’t too sure I hadn’t.”

Jo leaned in, her elbow pushing her ’cino forward until she had to keep it from falling to the floor. “Look . . . what are the chances that Julio saw something? And can I just take this moment to say, I cannot believe I’m asking that at all.”

Bill shrugged and tried out his latte. As he set the tall mug back down, he shook his head some more. “I thought it was crazy at first, too. I mean, I’m into facts—that’s the reason I wanted to be a journalist even though it’s a dying field. But after I saw everything that’s been posted? It’s just . . . there’s an awful lot of stuff about encounters like that happening in Caldwell. If you audit similar content, even on a cursory level, across the U.S., it’s astonishing how so much of it focuses right here in the five-one-eight. Yeah, sure, you get your garden-variety crazies all over the place, like ghost hunters and whatnot. But when it comes to vampires specifically, it’s like . . .” He laughed and looked at her. “Sorry, I’m going off the rails.”