Under Suspicion

“Nina, I don’t have time for this right now. Look at my office.” I spun around, with excess room to do so—now that more than half my file cabinets were gone.

 

“I think it looks great. Now listen. ‘Athena Bushant holds a master’s degree in the mystical arts from Oxford University. When not sailing—’”

 

“Does Oxford even have a department of mystical arts? Does any school other than Hogwarts?”

 

“It’s called artistic license.”

 

“Nina, listen. Dixon, Vlad, and the rest of the Fang Gang board members have moved all my files out. They’re taking over more than half my cases because I’m apparently not”—I made air quotes—“in line with my clients. I basically have nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs all day.”

 

“Consider yourself lucky. Do you know how hard it is to have a full-time job and be a novelist?”

 

I put my hands on my hips. “Do you even know where your office is?”

 

Nina growled at me. “Funny.” She looked around, dark eyes raking over my pillaged space. “Sophie, you’re overreacting. So Dixon came in and handed a few of your cases over.”

 

“He’s edging me out, Nina, I know he is.”

 

“He already fired you once.”

 

“Thanks for never letting me forget that.”

 

“What I’m saying is, if he wanted you out, he would fire you. He did it before, and he’ll do it again.” Nina held up her hands when I tried to protest. “But it’s probably not that. The economy is bad everywhere. There’s a mass exodus out of the city. Everyone’s workload is getting cut.”

 

“Is yours?”

 

“No, but I’ve got the novel.” She flopped her hands around. “I think I’m getting carpal tunnel syndrome.”

 

“Is that even possible? Ugh!” I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. “I need some answers. I need help.”

 

Nina slid her arm across my shoulders and pulled me to her in a marble-cold embrace. “Okay, sorry. What can I do to help, Soph?”

 

“Aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned about any of this? Mrs. Henderson—she was murdered, Neens. And Bettina, and the centaur.” I swallowed a desperate sob as images burned into my brain.

 

“I’m immortal.”

 

“Unless someone knows how to hurt you.”

 

Nina nibbled her bottom lip as if considering. “Okay. So?”

 

“So I need you to check up on Dixon.”

 

“Why me?”

 

“Because Dixon can smell me a mile away. I just need you to tail him a little bit, find out what’s going on. Everyone on management is a vampire. Are they trying to take over?”

 

Nina cocked her head. “You realize I’m a vampire, right?”

 

“But you’re not one of those vampires.”

 

“Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll tail Dixon. I’ll see if I can find his file folder marked ‘Dixon’s Evil Plan.’”

 

“That’s all I ask.”

 

Nina’s dark eyes glittered. “I think my vampire romance is going to have a mystery in it, too.” She tapped a perfectly manicured fingernail against her chin; then she pulled her literary-minded half glasses from her sweater pocket and cleared her throat as she began to free associate.

 

“Cecila LeChambray stared at the mysterious stranger before her. Something about the darkness in his eyes cut her like ... like ...” She scanned my office; then her eyes settled on mine, expectant.

 

I flopped back into my desk chair, my forehead thunking against the cold wood of my nearly naked desk. “I can’t help with your fiction career right now, Neens. My nonfiction life is out of control.”

 

I heard Nina spin, and heard her voice dropping as she walked down the hall.

 

“Cecilia’s best friend, Stephanie Littleman, was of no help at all. An overanxious mortal, she had trouble with looking a gift horse in the mouth... .”

 

I spent the rest of my workday holed up in my office, determined that neither a vampire management team nor clients who didn’t want me around were going to push me out of the Underworld Detection Agency. By the time the clock rolled around to five, I had organized everything that remained in my office by color and subject, created a master list of “Things That Could Be Responsible for the Underworld Killings” and hung up on Alex’s voice mail six times. Finally I resigned myself and headed out the door, aiming only for a bottle of wine and a good, long session with my down comforter and pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning I woke up to ChaCha’s kibble breath pouring over my face and what passed for sunlight during a San Francisco summer pressing through my window. I growled at the red numbers on my alarm clock—10:52—and rolled out of bed and into a pair of sweats, which were either clean or stained consistently enough to look clean. I was lying on the couch balancing a mammoth bowl of Lucky Charms (I’m donut free, remember?) and watching a string of Disney TV shows when Nina plowed through the front door and gaped at me, eyes wide.

 

“Don’t tell me you’re wearing that,” Nina said.

 

“Okay,” I said, mouth filled with cereal, “I won’t.”

 

Nina snatched the remote and clicked off Hannah Montana smack in the middle of a song about ice cream.

 

“Hey! I was watching that.”