Ray looked enough like Antonio Banderas to make my heart thud the fandango. Then he smiled, the sparkle reaching his chocolate brown eyes, and my tongue swam in a pool of drool.
Oh, my. A vampire whose eyes sparkled with humor instead of glittering with hunger? Talk about babe bait. For the club, of course. Not for me. I had Saber. I wrenched my gaze from Ray to study the older couple who looked like they’d been in their mid-forties before they were turned.
“Miranda, how long have you and Charles been married?”
The woman smiled back. “Oh, my goodness, Princess,” she said in a British accent, “it must be close to a hundred years.”
“One hundred and two,” Charles said in an equally clipped tone and took Miranda’s hand.
“Miranda and Charles normally act as my household staff,” Ike put in. “I brought them here to get them out of Laurel’s way. And Ray is my longtime friend and attorney.”
A vampire attorney? That was as bad as a vampire comic, and my eyes watered with the effort not to laugh. Ray startled me by chuckling. “Yes, a vampire attorney is somewhat redundant, is it not?”
I returned his grin. “No comment.”
“Ah, and here is Donita. Donita, this is Francesca, Princess Vampire of St. Augustine.”
Seeing Donita Ward in brighter light vaporized the last of my expectations. Medium height and slender, her hazel eyes were clear, her gaze direct, her expression open. She wasn’t a sweet young thing, either. Maybe thirty-four, she was dressed in a beachy version of business casual.
She stuck out a hand for me to shake. “Francesca, good to meet you.”
“Uh, you, too.” I motioned to the clipboard in her left hand.
“You must be very organized.”
She laughed. “I hope so, since it’s my job. I’m a business consultant focusing on organization and image.”
“And working solely for me,” Ike said, his hand on her shoulder.
Donita smiled up at him, not like she was infatuated out of her mind, but something comfortable passed between her and Ike. Ike going domestic? Nah, couldn’t be.
“Captain,” Donita said. “Would you like to go through the lost and found now?”
In silence, Jackson lifted the cardboard lid and pulled out one thing after the other. A lipstick, two brown plastic hair clips, a Dallas Cowboys cap with a bent bill, and a dingy white sweater. I swear he growled in disappointment.
“I assume what you seek is not there?” Ike said.
“No,” Jackson snapped.
“Not to tell you your job, but has it occurred to you that bite marks are not always the work of a vampire? As Saber and the Princess know, the French Bride’s bite was made using a fanged prosthesis.”
“We’ll check that out,” Saber said, “but we’ll also be contacting the VPA to compare the casts of your fangs with the entry wound.”
“By all means. We have nothing to fear.”
“Do they, Marinelli?” Jackson shot at me. “Do you smell blood on them?”
I knew he’d be disappointed. Unless the security cameras showed something, the search had been a bust. But I wouldn’t lie, so I shook my head.
“No one here has bitten anyone tonight, Captain. Not even each other.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely positive.”
“All right.” He signed a receipt for the computer tower his officers had brought down from Ike’s office and left.
“Thanks for your cooperation,” Saber said when the cops were gone.
“It kills you to say that, does it not?” Ike returned.
Saber hesitated. “No. I’ve learned to give credit where it’s due. You seem to be making changes, Ike.”
“As does the princess.” Ike pinned me with those inky eyes and a sudden flare of suspicion. “I hear you have taken a vampire under your wing. Is this so?”
I gaped. “How did you find out about Jo-Jo?”
Ike waved a hand. “Laurel told me, though I didn’t know his name until now.”
“Uh-huh, and how did Laurel know about him?”
“If Laurel’s been spying on Cesca—” Saber began.
“It was not on my orders. But I believe Laurel heard the news from that lispy chatterbox, Cici.”
Had I not been watching the blood bunnies—Claire, Tessa, and Barb—from the corner of my eye, I’d have missed the startled look they exchanged.
“Ladies,” I asked them, “where is Cici tonight?”
Claire tossed her long black hair over her shoulder. “We don’t know. She moved to St. Augustine to go to school and work at”—
Claire leaned forward to stage whisper—“WalMart.”
“Well, good for her,” I said, doing an inner happy dance that Cici had dropped out of the bunny club. “But if Cici’s been in St. Augustine, when could Laurel have talked to her?”
Tessa shrugged. “Cici stopped by on Saturday night to hang awhile. I guess Laurel talked to her then.”
A quick psychic flash, and I knew that wasn’t true. Not even Tower and Zena bought it, and they didn’t seem to have two thoughts to rub together. So, who was lying? Laurel or Ike? And why?