bedroom. It’s locked.”
A puff of breath escaped Chloe and she sagged. “Thank goodness.” Then she turned on Garner. “I swear I’m going to cut you into little pieces and feed you to my fish, you idiot!”
Garner’s eyes were huge. “I’ll tell her I was making it up.”
“She’s obviously not going to believe that now, you turkey! She saw some things last night. I had it all explained, and then you, you …”
“Calm down,” Jude said. “Just calm the hell down and let me think.”
He knew he could get into his office, locked or not. He had the code, after all, and the key card. But he wasn’t sure that would be wise, at least not yet.
He looked at Chloe again. “She really believed it?”
“Well, I don’t think she locked herself in your office because she thought Garner was telling a tall tale. And she certainly didn’t try to call the cops because she thought she was hearing the new and updated version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.”
Garner dared to clear his throat. “You can make her forget.”
Jude merely looked at him. “She didn’t exactly respond to the Voice last night.”
“Oh.”
No, when he’d told those guys to leave, there was no reason Terri shouldn’t have attempted to follow the order. He’d expected to have to go after her. Instead she had just stood there. Which meant … Well, it might well mean he couldn’t vamp her at all. He didn’t know, and frankly he didn’t want to try. It was a kind of violation he preferred not to inflict on innocent people.
However … He sighed and sat beside Chloe’s desk, drumming his fingers and looking at Garner. The young man seemed to shrink.
“I have to get in there by dawn,” he remarked.
Garner nodded violently, as if by emphasizing his agreement he could salvage something.
“And then there’s the job I’m not getting done.”
Garner gulped.
“And of course the matter of a needlessly terrified woman.”
Chloe spoke. “Like I said, he’s an idiot!”
Jude frowned at her. Not that he disagreed, it was just that such statements were pointless. That was one of the things he’d managed to learn in over two hundred years.
Although occasionally he indulged in them himself.
“Garner?”
“Yes, sir?”
Oh, now he was sir. “You give me a headache. I haven’t had a headache since I died, but you’ve man aged to give me a headache.”
“Sorry.”
Chloe glared at Garner. “Fish food,” she said.
“I thought she knew.”
Chloe folded her arms. “Blabbing confidential information just because you think someone knows makes you untrustworthy, you dweeb. And you want to work with us? Hah!”
“I’ll find a way to make it up, I swear.”
“Too little too late, you dummy.”
“Enough,” Jude said. “Grinding him under your heel isn’t going to fix this.”
“I’ll try to talk to her,” Garner said. “I think I can convince her I was making up a story.”
Chloe sniffed. “Oh, yeah, you’re so persuasive.”
“Well, she believed me before!”
“When you were telling her the truth.”
“Stop it,” Jude said again. “Just stop it. I’ll have to deal with this somehow, but I think a whole lot better when people aren’t arguing.”
The two of them fell silent at last. He gave an impatient huff of his own and started drumming his fingers again. “How long has she been in there?”
“Almost half an hour,” Chloe said. “I tried to talk her out.”
“Okay. Give her a little longer. At some point she’s going to start wearing down and then I’ll go in.”
“Maybe I should go in with you,” Chloe said.
“At this point I don’t think she’ll trust you too much, either. You’re such an inventive liar, remember?”
Chloe scowled at him.
He sat motionless, waiting for time to pass, ignoring Chloe and Garner who were tossing glares at each other like ping-pong balls.
Finally, he stood. He had to go in there, and as near as he could determine, there was only one way to handle it.
After swiping his key card, he punched in his code and listened to the dead bolts snap back. Then he walked into his office.
He faced a woman holding a sword in both hands. The hysteria had obviously passed to be replaced by determination and desperation. A lot easier to deal with.
She backed away from him until she could back up no farther. He left the door open, walked to the opposite side of the room and leaned back against the credenza, folding his arms.
“That’s a good sword,” he remarked. “I wore it on parade, even had to use it a few times at Waterloo.”
“Stay away from me.” Her voice trembled with intensity. And she still smelled so tempting.
“I have no intention of getting any closer. I just want to know one thing.”
“What?”
“Why you ran in here instead of running out of the building.”
She froze, biting her lip, then glared at him again. “I was frightened.”
“Well, I can understand that. The door’s open. Run any time you want. No one will stop you. Just, please, leave my sword behind. It’s one of my few keepsakes.”
But she stood there, anyway, legs braced, still waving the sword although her arms must be getting weary. “Is it true?” she demanded.
“Is what true?”
“That you’re a … a …” She apparently couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“I’m a vampire,” he said, keeping his voice calm, even pleasant. “Yes, it’s true.”
“And you kill people?”
“I haven’t killed anyone in a very long time
