“Friend of Mr. Rossi’s?” Crow asked.
“No,” Ryder said. “He’s here with me. Mr. Monroy is looking at investing in land and businesses in town. I told him I’d show him around while he’s here.”
“Are you selling land?” I asked Rossi.
He finally realized he wasn’t going to get rid of me or Crow and turned his body to open up the circle of conversation.
“I am not selling.” Rossi motioned to the living room and we all made our way toward a more comfortable setting.
“I might be interested in hiring Mr. Bailey to remodel my studio.”
Maybe that was the truth. Rossi used the second home on his property for his classes, and I didn’t think he’d done much to update it in all the time I’d known him. But it was too much of a coincidence that he had a dead vampire covered in Ryder’s blood show up yesterday and now was keenly interested in hiring Ryder today.
“An upgrade,” I said. “Is business that good? I mean, with our weather being so wet this year, you can’t be bringing in that many vacationers.” I gave him an innocent look.
He gave his own look that said I was laying it on a little thick.
“Not at all. The weather has given me time to contemplate the changes I’d like to implement. I’ve been impressed by Mr. Bailey’s concepts and creative vision. I’m excited to see what energy he can bring to this project.”
All of that was pleasant enough. A pleasant pile of bologna. The only thing Old Rossi was excited about was keeping Ryder close at hand in case he felt like killing him.
I could just picture them going over the details: Hey, Ryder? What do you think about re-doing the edge of the balcony? Shove.
No. That wasn’t going to happen. I might not be able to admit out loud that I loved him, but even if I hated Ryder, I wouldn’t leave him in Old Rossi’s hands when the vampire was literally out for blood.
“Could you and I speak privately?” I asked.
Old Rossi narrowed those ice blue eyes, but I squared off to him, my hands on my hips, letting him know it wasn’t really a question.
“Maybe after I’ve given Ryder and Jake my time and attention,” Old Rossi said. “I know you’re a busy man, Ryder, with other appointments today.”
“No, that’s fine.” Ryder had folded down on the couch and looked more relaxed than any of us except maybe Crow who was mooching around the edges of the room. “I’ll jot down some notes about that studio. Go on ahead.”
Of course, Ryder also caught my eye. He didn’t think I was there on some kind of casual house call either. He knew I was investigating a murder—a murder that I wasn’t giving him any details about. I was pretty sure he was leaping to all sorts of conclusions as to why I needed to talk to Old Rossi.
He wasn’t right about me thinking Old Rossi was a suspect, but he wasn’t wrong about my reason for being here. Or at least what my reason had been before I’d seen Ryder’s truck in the driveway.
“How considerate,” Old Rossi said, his voice tempered but his eyes hot. “And you, Mr. Monroy?”
The man I did not like even though I’d barely spoken to him, shoved both hands in his pockets, the right one stopping short as it caught on a squared-off ring on his finger. “No, it’s fine. You go on and deal with the...officer. Our business can wait.”
Wow. Could he have sounded any more resentful and condescending?
There is a thing vampires do right before they go for the throat. It’s sort of a black heat that radiates from them. I knew this because my father had told me. He knew it because he’d seen vampires attack before.
In all my years in Ordinary—which was all my life—I’d never seen any real vampire violence. Bar fights? Sure. Yelling matches? Yes. Petty squabbles and some dirty underhanded revenge that involved rotted shrimp and old eggs? Of course.
But the pure distilled anger and violence Old Rossi radiated at being told what to do, like a child, was eye-opening.
A little heart-stopping too.
And just as quickly as it had happened, that dark violence was gone. Old Rossi wasn’t radiating anything except a sort of vibe that advertised he was fond of sandalwood and long walks on the beach.
“Miss Reed.” He extended his hand as a sign for me to follow him out of the room. He never called me Miss Reed. I suddenly felt like I was being called out of class to see the principal.
He was upset I’d interrupted him. Well, too bad. He wanted to know who killed Sven and so did I. And only one of us was a police officer.
“Drinks?” Crow asked, having found his way to the bar in the corner of the room. It wasn’t even noon yet, I didn’t think alcohol would make any of this easier.
I flicked him a look that I hoped said: Behave yourself over my shoulder as I walked out of the room. His look said: La-la-la. I can’t hear you, as he studied the label on the vodka.
Rossi strode—well, with his grace it was more like glided—angrily into the eggshell room.
He opened the door with enough force to make the chicken shells tremble.
“What,” he snarled, “do you want?”
I shut the door carefully behind him and refused to be intimidated.
“Why is Ryder here?”
“I told you.”
“You told me a lie. Now tell me the truth.”
“I don’t like him. I don’t trust him. I don’t think he is innocent in the death of one of my own.”
Well. He didn’t mess around. Good. I liked it best when Rossi was being blunt.
“You don’t have to like him or trust him. But you do not get to decide on any creature, deity or mortal’s innocence in this town. That’s my job, and I am good at it. So you want to try that again? Tell me that you didn’t bring him out here to kill him?”
One eyebrow rose up toward the curl of black hair that brushed his forehead. “If I were going to kill him he’d already be dead, and buried so quickly, he’d still be steaming six feet under.”
“Why don’t you trust him?”
He paced over to his couch. He didn’t sit, instead walking along the back of it, his hands gripped at the wrist behind his hips. “That is a question I would rather not answer. Are you sure it’s the question you want to ask?”
“Yes.” I could tell him I had ideas, theories as to why he had been trying to warn me off Ryder ever since he’d found out we were dating. But I didn’t want to influence what he was going to say.
“That isn’t the question you came here to ask me, is it Delaney?”
No. “Yes. One of them.” See? I could be truthful.
He had reached the far side of the couch and studied the eggs in cases there for a moment before turning back toward me.
“He smells funny.”
Okay, that was not what I expected him to say.
“Funny how? Like ha-ha? Or like weird? Is it a blood thing? A fanger thing?”
He looked mildly offended by the fanger remark, but continued as if I hadn’t said anything.
“Throughout the years there have been those who hunt. Those who seek out the creatures of this world. Those who would eradicate anything that is different, misunderstood, alien.”