We parked across the street, then ducked our way to the front of my father’s house, positioning ourselves in a thick bank of rosebushes. We hunched low against the moist dirt, our elegant gloves protecting us from the rosebushes’ thorns.
“See?” Nina said happily. “Better than latex.”
I squinted, frowned in the darkness. “Binoculars. I should have brought binoculars.”
“One step ahead of you,” Nina said as she leaned forward, her face pressed up against a pair of bejeweled opera glasses.
“See anything?”
“Not really.” She glared down at the long-stemmed binoculars. “These aren’t the best for this kind of thing.”
“Imagine that,” I said, my legs aching from my fifteen-minute squat. “This was a bad idea. I don’t think we’re going to find anything.”
“Shh!” Nina’s held out her hand, gloved fingers splayed. “What was that?”
“What was what?” I asked, relenting and flopping down on my butt in the flower garden. “I’ve got human hearing, remember?”
But then I heard it, too. A gentle rustling in the bushes to the left of us.
Nina sniffed at the air, her eyebrows raised. She furrowed her brow, then frowned, sniffing again. “Alex? Is that you?”
“It’s cool and disconcerting that you can do that.”
The bushes rustled again and Alex poked his head out, his skin translucent in the pale moonlight.
“Alex?” I asked.
He had a pair of binoculars—real binoculars—in one hand and was tastefully dressed in black cargo pants, black combat-style boots, and a yummy, formfitting long-sleeved henley shirt. He grinned when he saw me. “I guess we both had the same idea here. Of course, my tux was at the cleaners.”
“Very funny,” I scoffed. “You should be glad I don’t have a closet full of breaking-and-entering attire.”
“You really shouldn’t be here,” Nina said, pointing at Alex. “I could smell you from a mile away.”
“You shouldn’t be here, either.” Alex was looking at Nina but talking to me.
“Vampires don’t have a smell. You have a smell.”
“Sophie has a smell,” Alex said.
“Sophie is right here and not too crazy about people discussing her smell,” I said.
The opening of the garage door silenced our smell discussion. “Look!” Nina hissed. “Who’s that?”
I snatched her opera glasses and peered down at the garage, the yellow glow from the overhead light illuminating my father. My stomach dropped. It was him; it was the man I had seen on the corner on my way to Loco Legs, the man I had seen in a picture that my grandmother kept taped to the back of a picture frame.
It angered me to see him flipping his car keys in his palm. It roiled my blood to see him glide effortlessly to his car, to back out and drive away. Somehow, I had hoped that things were difficult for him. That going out to look for me, to find me, would be impossible due to paralysis or a lame leg or a rattletrap car. But my father was doing fine, gliding down the street in a midnight blue and perfectly well-running Audi.
“We need to get inside his house,” I said.
“We do?” Nina asked.
“Sophie’s right. We’re not going to find out anything out here. Nina, you stand watch, Sophie and I will go in.”
Nina stood up, put her cashmere-covered hands on her hips. “Why do I have to stand watch?”
“Would you rather I asked you to stand smell?”
She stomped out of the bushes and to the curb. “Fine. But I’m smelling from the car.”
Alex turned to me. “Are you ready?”
“For breaking and entering?”
Alex’s gaze was solid.
“I’m ready,” I said.
Alex and I picked our way across the sloping grass, being careful to stay in the shadows. Halfway down, a car drove by and Alex reached behind him, his hand grabbing mine, and we tucked behind a Japanese maple.
It may have been my adrenaline or my hormones on high alert, but the feel of his hand on mine was heavenly, the gentle brushing of our knees while we crouched, sweet.
“Okay,” he whispered, “we’re safe.”
We stood up, but Alex didn’t let go of my hand.
“So,” I said when we had made it to the front porch, “do you have some sort of magically angelic way of getting through locked doors?”
“Yep.” Alex dug in his pocket, revealed a long, skinny tool, and pushed it into the door lock. After a half-second jiggle we heard the lock click and give, and he pushed the door open, slipping the shim into his pocket.
I put my hands on my hips. “Alex Grace, what would God say?”
Alex rolled his eyes and ushered me into the dark foyer.
I went to turn on the light, but Alex stopped me. “Someone might notice it.”
“How are we supposed to see anything?” I asked.
“With my glowing angelic orb.”
“You have one of those?”
“In your world, it’s called a flashlight. Now come on.” Alex clicked on his flashlight and kept the beam low. We edged around the furniture in Szabo’s living room and made our way to the bookcases that lined one wall.