I unlocked the apartment door and Valdez trotted up to me.
" Thanks for the night off. Flo took me out with her." He followed me into the kitchen. I popped open a Bloody Merry.
"I could eat."
"Flo didn't feed you? Where is she?" The apartment was silent.
" I'm not supposed to say." Valdez plopped his bottom on the linoleum and watched me dump Cocoa Puffs into his bowl. I topped it with milk and held it just out of reach.
"Excuse me? Whose dog are you, anyway?" I knew he could do one of his tricks and get to the cereal, but I also knew he shouldn't be allowed to keep secrets from me.
"You got me. She's with Richard Mainwaring."
"Oh, my God!" I slapped the bowl on the floor, splashing milk everywhere. "How could you let her go with him?"
" He's okay." Valdez was busy licking up the spilt milk before diving mouth first into his bowl.
"He's not okay. He could be staking other vamps with crosses, for crying out loud." This was bad. Had Blade left yet? I looked out the window but his car was gone.
"He's not staking other vamps. He said so and Flo and I believed him. I have a b.s. detector, you know. The guy was telling the truth."
"I thought she went out with Kenneth Collins." I walked down the hall and flung open Flo's bedroom door. The usual chaos associated with her decisions about what to wear. But the bed was made and that told the tale.
"She did. But that ended early. So we went out looking for Mainwaring. And found him."
"Where are they?"
" His place. Flo dropped me off here and went with him. He's a tough dude. No one will get by him. She musta spent the day with him too." Valdez had cleaned out the bowl. " Seconds?"
"No. I'm so glad you and 'Ricardo' bonded. I can't believe you let Flo leave with him." I watched Valdez rub his face clean on the living room rug.
" You think anyone can stop Flo from doing what she wants?" He gave me a long suffering look. " Both of you females are stubborn as hell."
Was I going to stand here trading insults with my dog? I stormed off into my bedroom. Valdez was just another macho male in a furry body. Had Mainwaring done some kind of whammy on both Flo and my dog to get them to accept his story so completely? And if he wasn't the religious psycho staking vamps, then who was? I showered the smell of sex off my body, taking a minute to reminisce about the pleasure Blade had given me and three minutes to seethe about that bitch Mara before worry about Flo took the upper hand.
I pulled a hot pink fifties circle skirt and white twin set with pearl buttons out of my closet and stepped into the loafers that went with it. I dragged my hair into a ponytail and tied a white scarf around it. Now I looked like a teenager. Which made me feel marginally better. Mara had been close to thirty when she'd turned vampire and I'd been a young looking twenty-four. Yeah, I was bitter. Right now, if Mara and I had a bitch-off, I'd win, hands down.
"Come on, you worthless hound." I threw my stuff into a cute fifties Lucite box purse which I would never sell and unlocked the door. "We're going down to the shop."
Ryan was working the evening shift. At least nights were getting longer as the season changed. Which is a really good thing in the vamp world. Not that Texas seasons seemed dramatically different from each other. But the nights were cooler and my sweater felt good. So did the hours stretching out ahead of me.
I stuck my worry about Flo onto my mental to-do list and plastered a smile on my face as I entered the shop. Ryan looked up from straightening a stack of sweaters. And, yes, that stack was shrinking every day. My business was booming and I had good help.
"How'd it go today?" I stuck my purse in the storeroom and picked up a pile of receipts.
"Sold that leisure suit to Tony Crapetta. He said you told him he could have a family discount?" Ryan squinted at me through his thick glasses. He'd stuck with the Gatsby look, this pin-striped suit a dark brown.
"Sure. Twenty percent." I tapped in some numbers in the calculator next to the register. "You've got a nice commission coming this week."
"I know." Ryan gestured around the shop. "I tried to call you about the discount, but your cell phone must have been off. So I just gave it to him. I hope that was okay."
Cell phone off. Yes, I'd turned it off at Blade's, after I'd called home. Lacy knew enough not to try to reach me during the day, but we hadn't made a big deal out of that to Ryan.
Of course common sense should tell him I had to sleep most of the day if I worked all night. I looked at him and focused, trying to read his mind. Flo was right. White noise. Weird. I wondered if Lacy could read his mind. Maybe not. And that would be part of his appeal. No random thoughts interfering during sex like "Check out those thighs" or "Will this woman ever come?" The worst? "Why won't she just blow me so I can go home and catch the end of the game?" Been there, done that. Another reason I usually swear off mind reading.
"You don't have to call me about discounts. I have the price I paid for each item in the inventory list in the computer. The program Derek set up for me. Just look up what I paid, use your best judgment. I like to get at least double what I paid to cover costs." And wasn't that computer technology the coolest thing? I looked around and saw some empty spaces crying out for new merchandise.
I hoped Miranda would come by with her latest finds from the weekend estate sales. Austin has lots of old homes, old families and great sales to hear Miranda tell it. I got a little wistful for a moment, but that was useless. I'd never be able to check them out for myself. Estate sales didn't go on at night. Period.
"Something wrong?" Ryan was still squinting at me. "You're quiet."
"I'm okay. Do you need new glasses? You look like you're straining your eyes." I reached for the glasses and Ryan jumped back, out of reach.
"No! I mean, I've got really bad eyes. Can't see worth a damn without the glasses and not much better with them." He adjusted the frames and looked down at Valdez who was studying him intently. "What's up with the dog? I don't think he likes me."
"Valdez is probably jealous. He knows you're with Lacy. And he really likes her." I grinned at Valdez's snarl. "Of course that's conjecture. He's just a dumb dog." Valdez turned and trotted to sit by the front door, obviously miffed. Too bad. He'd let Flo go off with a dangerous man. I hated to, but I was going to call Damian as soon as Ryan left. Someone had to check on Flo.
"You can leave now, if you want to. I've got it covered."
"There's a customer in the dressing room." Ryan glanced back at the curtained area. "I'll wait until she gets out. Commission, you know."
"Hey, head out. I'll make sure you get the credit." I put my hand on his sleeve and he jumped. Gee, he was really uptight. Surely he didn't have a clue that I was anything but a night owl, did he? But weird people came in the shop all the time. Shape-shifter friends of Lacy's. Vampires who wanted to sell their old clothes.
I was going to play this by ear, but I might have to let Ryan in on my little secret if he was going to keep working here. Of course that might send him screaming for his life. My real problem was that I didn't know Ryan that well. I'd hired him on Lacy's say-so and she'd known him about five minutes at the time. So far all the books balanced, and the son of the SuitMasters mogul wouldn't need to steal anyway.
Ryan had been thinking over my offer. "Thanks. I'll go home and change. I'm supposed to meet Lacy here later. Tell her I'll be back by nine. So we can go out to dinner."
"Will do." Out to dinner. What a concept. I watched him leave, giving Valdez a wide berth. The curtain moved and a woman stepped out of the dressing room. "That looks great on you!" I smiled and got involved in a discussion of the mini versus maxi skirt debate. The woman had great legs. We went with the miniskirt and Ryan got his commission. An hour zoomed by, with customers, a vampire with an armload of clothes and Miranda all stopping by. I had a good assortment of stock to tag and inventory and was alone in the shop doing just that when Lacy came in.
"Yoo-hoo! Ryan, love dumpling, are you back there?" Lacy sauntered into the back room. "Oh, Glory. Hi." She turned red.
"Where's Ryan?"
"I let love dumpling off early." I glanced at the clock. "He went home to change and will be back in a few minutes." Lacy picked up a fifties sundress. "Cute stuff. Miranda?"
"Yes. I think I'll keep the summer stock back here until spring. I got in a great fur coat a while ago." I held it out. "Chinchilla. Feel."
"Mmm. Soft. I had a chinchilla once." Lacy smiled, her canines gleaming in the light. I had a feeling she wasn't talking about a coat.
"Let me ask you something. About Ryan."
"He's working out, isn't he? I know he's enjoying it here." Lacy grabbed a pink lace teddy. "Mine. He'll love this."
"Can you read his mind?" I leaned against the table.
"I don't know. Well, no, when he has on his glasses. And I refuse to try when he's got them off." Lacy got a dreamy look. "I can't tell you how many lovers I've lost because of the whole mind-reading crap. Some thoughts just kill the mood, you know?
There's a lot to be said for mystery."
"I agree. Blade never lets me read his mind. Not unless he's got a message for me." I had a feeling I was getting my own dreamy look. "Never mind that. Ryan is mortal, isn't he?"
"Of course he is." Lacy held the teddy up to her, then tossed it down. "Too big." She found a black one and checked the tag.
"This will work."
"Earth to Lacy. This is serious, Lacy. Why can't we read Ryan's mind? Any thoughts?"
"Well, he wears those thick glasses, everywhere but in bed. I usually look in a mortal's eyes to read minds. The windows to the soul, you know." She shook her head. "Don't ask me to read his mind in bed, Glory. Even though he says he's blind as a bat, I don't want to go there."
