“He’d say I work too many hours, but he knows this time it isn’t my fault.”
“Is it ever?” he asked, holding back a smile.
“Sometimes,” I said, with a shrug. “But not tonight.”
“Come on in.”
He moved so I could step in, and shut the door behind me.
The living room was scattered with comfortable couches and chairs, rich patterned rugs, and art on the walls that didn’t look fussy, but probably cost a couple arms and legs. Three of the Rossi clan were gathered on the couch and a chair, a table with a complicated looking board game set up between them.
Senta, who worked on our emergency response team, and Keenan who often pulled night shifts at the lumber yard, came into the room carrying sodas and bags of chips tucked under their arms.
The Rossis usually got their sustenance from the blood drive bags, but even vampires got the munchies.
“Chief.” Senta tipped her chin at me, her silver-white hair swinging with the movement. Leon lifted a couple fingers and the others in the living room raised a hand my way without looking.
I waved back to the crew.
It was great to see his family here, relaxing and hanging out. It was even better to see that not one of them were hovering near him, snarling at anything that approached.
They’d nearly lost him. We’d all nearly lost him. But he’d finally turned the healing corner. He looked much more solid. Strong. The relief from every vampire in the room was palpable.
“Did you hear we have a monster hunter in town?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Bertie, right? She isfast.”
“It’s a requirement in her line of work.”
I didn’t know if he meant dragging dead heroes off the battleground or dragging volunteers into community events. Both worked.
“Vivian Dunn,” he said. “Is she government?”
“That’s her last name?”
“Bertie,” he said.
“Okay, so that’s her last name. Yeah, Vivian will tell you she handled interior design for that company Ryder worked for in Chicago, but now she’s found journalism and wants to write about all the quirky little backwater towns she travels through. To make people happy.”
“Which is utter yak shit. Do you know if she’s looking for something in particular?”
“I don’t know if she was tipped off, or if she just decided to roll through Ordinary because Ryder was here. She might have been sent to find out why he quit the DoPP. But why now? At the worst damn time, too.”
“Well, not the worst,” he said. “Unless Bertie’s throwing a three-ring circus again?”
The vampires snorted.
“Oh, gods, no. Can you imagine?”
“I don’t have to. I was there for the last one. Roselord the Ravishing.” He made a loopy hand wave from forehead to waist amid several gagging sounds from the peanut gallery.
“Dare I guess what your act was?”
“Oh, I hope you dare.”
“Striptease.”
