“How about I make us both some coffee?” I asked. “We can talk this out. Take our time.” It was a peace offering. A cease-fire. He nodded, accepting both. “Sit down and get comfortable.”
I walked into the kitchen, which was mostly hidden from the living room. I made myself busy at the sink, then the coffee pot, measuring out my favorite grounds, putting in extra. I needed either espresso-strength coffee or whisky, and my day was far from over yet.
By the time the coffee was done, and I had two cups poured and made the way we liked them, he was sitting on my couch.
“Just so you know,” I handed him the cup, “I’m on your side here, Ryder. There are a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t be, but I refuse to throw you under a bus because you make a convenient scapegoat. I really do want justice. I really do want to catch the killer. It won’t do me or anyone any good if I pin the crime on someone who was stupid enough to get sucked into this insanity.”
He swallowed coffee. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.” Sarcasm. Yeah, well, I had just told him he was stupid.
“You’re welcome.” I took the chair across from him, blew across my coffee, then took a sip. “What are you caught up in?”
He drank, and for a long moment, I thought he wasn’t going to talk. Then something changed in him, as if he had made a decision, and even though he wasn’t comfortable with it, he wasn’t going to shift course.
“I was approached by a man who wanted to know about Ordinary.”
“When you were working for the firm in Chicago?”
“Sophomore year of college. His name was Frank Walsh.” He lifted his eyebrow as if to say his name really wasn’t Frank Walsh.
“Is that what we’re calling him?”
“That’s what he called himself. But it wasn’t who he was. Eventually, when...things weren’t adding up, I looked into him. Name and driver’s license number belonged to a man who had been dead for fifty years.”
“Vampire?”
“That wasn’t the first thought that went through my mind, no. I confronted him about it. Thought it was identity theft. That’s when I realized it was a test of sorts. That I questioned him. That I was observant.”
“Is Frank one of those men you met in the bar?”
“No. Frank was my boss.”
“Is he a vampire?”
“No. Though I still don’t know what his real name is.”
“I thought you worked for yourself.”
He took a gulp of coffee. His fingers pressed into the mug, knuckles white. “I do.”
How could two little words hold so much ambiguity?
“All right.” I’d let it slide for now. “How is Frank involved with Sven’s death?”
“Frank is a part of a research group.”
I waited. He drank coffee. I rolled my eyes.
“Do not make me get the pliers to pull this out of you, word by word, Ryder, because I will.”
The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “Bossy.”
“Stop enjoying this,” I grumbled.
A full smile curved his lips and set a sparkle in his eyes I hadn’t seen for far too long. “You just hate not knowing something. Have all your life. It makes itsoeasy to needle you. If I stop talking, if I do nothing, you’ll lose your nuts. You do know you don’t actually have to know everything about everyone everywhere all the damn time.”
“And you do know I’m an officer of the law. It’s my job to know things. A lot of things.”
“You’re nosy.”
