Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"There are a lot of fish in the sea, Inspector; you need to fish a little farther out into the ocean, that's all," Edward said.

"But all the good fish are taken," she said, looking at him.

"Not all of them," I said.

She looked at me then, and gave me wide eyes. "Well, you certainly have caught your limit."

"Or a little over," I said.

She smiled. "Well, let me know if you're going to throw one of them back. I might want to be there with a net."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, smiling.

"I think Anita and her men in the hallway still need food," Edward said.

"We can have food brought in for everyone," Sheridan said, "unless you think that eating and looking at the photos will be a problem?"

I looked down at the torn throats, the mangled bodies, and then had another thought. "I let myself get distracted; are any of the skull, brain, head parts in the debris I'm seeing in the pictures?"

"What do you mean, Blake?"

"I mean, did they crush the head and mix it up with the other small bits, or did the killer take the heads?"

"We haven't found any brain matter at the crime scenes," she said.

"So whoever is killing them is taking souvenirs after all."

"Why wouldn't they eat the head?" Sheridan asked.

"It's like all animal heads, not great eating raw, though I'm told that brains mixed with eggs make really fluffy scrambled eggs."

Sheridan made a face at me. "Have you eaten brains?"

"No, but I went to college with a girl whose family owned a cow farm, and her mom mixed the brains into her scrambled eggs without telling the kids. They thought it was delicious and didn't know, until they got out on their own and tried to make eggs like Mom did, and couldn't get the fluffy, creamy texture."

Edward gave a low chuckle as Sheridan's face paled. Nolan joined him in the chuckle and tried to turn it into a cough. Edward apologized. "I'm not laughing at you, Rachel. I'm laughing at Anita telling that story when we're thinking about getting food."

"We're going to be looking at crime scene photos while we eat. I didn't think the egg story would be a problem."

He laughed again and patted my shoulder. "You just keep thinking there, Butch. That's what you're good at."

I rolled my eyes at him and wished I could remember a movie-line comeback, but nothing sprang to mind.

Pearson stuck his head back in the room. "What does everyone want for lunch?"

"Not eggs," Sheridan said.

63

THE SANDWICHES WEREN'T Irish; they were just food. When you're ordering sandwiches that can be eaten while you look at paperwork and photos on a crowded table, a sandwich is a sandwich is a sandwich. It wasn't a bad sandwich, but it wasn't great, either. It really was just another work trip for me except that I was the only one who got a Coke to drink; even Edward got bottled water. He told me if I behaved myself today maybe the detectives would let us all eat in the big room with desks so we weren't all having to share the little kids' table.

"I don't know what you mean by that, Ted," Sheridan had said. Pearson apparently had decided to eat elsewhere, or was skipping lunch and holding Logan's hand, or maybe beating the shit out of him. I really didn't care which, as long as Logan was somewhere else. I knew I'd have to deal with him again, but later was better than now.

"It'd be much more comfortable sharing this meal at your desk like we normally do," he said with that Ted smile that seemed to melt women into their socks but had never worked on me, because I'd met him when he was being just Edward. His cold-blooded-killer mode was far less charming than good ol' boy Ted.

She actually got a little flustered, spilling bits of her sandwich on one of the photos. Thanks to modern technology, we could print more almost instantly, but still you tried not to get the evidence messy. While Sheridan grabbed for napkins I gave Edward a raised-eyebrow look. He smiled innocently back at me as if butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth, then went to help her clean up, which made her start to drop things again. I didn't know what game he was playing, only that he was playing one. I was so bad at being devious that I didn't try, but he was really good at it. I just didn't know why he was being devious in Inspector Rachel Sheridan's direction. Maybe it amused him? I wouldn't know unless he told me, and if I asked outright, he wouldn't, so I just watched the show.

Nolan, who was sitting at the end of the table again, caught my eye, and just the look let me know that he was wondering what game Edward was playing, too. I gave a small shrug and took another bite of my sandwich.

"I wonder if Jacob Pennyfeather would have any insight into these crimes," he said as he helped Sheridan pick up the papers she'd managed to knock off the table.

She looked up at him, brown eyes wide and a little startled. "I don't know."

"He knew more about saving vampires than we did at the last crime scene. Anita and I know more about killing them than healing them."

She stood up with the papers clasped to her chest. "I don't think this case is about saving vampires."

Was Edward flirting with her because he saw an opening to manipulate her? Nothing specific, but just a possible way to gain an edge if he needed it. Was that it? If so, it was very calculating. He was my best friend; sometimes I forgot how cold-blooded he could be dealing with other people. Would he talk Sheridan into doing things we wanted and risk damaging her career? Would he care? He told me once that he'd tried manipulating me like a girl--i.e., flirting--and I'd been so oblivious to it that he'd stopped trying. I watched him with the detective and wondered how different things would have been if I'd been more susceptible to his manly wiles.

Nolan shook his head, so I looked at him, giving him encouragement to explain his expression if he wanted to. "Good to know that one of us has gotten better at it." His smile was a little ironic, but not unhappy. He just seemed amused.

Edward turned and gave that version of a younger smile again. "That's not the only thing I've gotten better at."

Nolan laughed out loud, which startled me and Sheridan. We exchanged one of those looks that women have probably been exchanging around men since cave painting was the new thing. I shrugged, because in this instance I really had no clue. I watched the two men, their eyes sparkling with laughter and some secret adventure that their long-ago selves had had together.

"If I ask what's so funny, would you tell me?" I asked.

They did another of those looks that meant more to them than it did to us. Nolan shook his head. Edward said, "You wouldn't think it was funny."

I said, "You know, a few years back, I'd have said, Try me," which made Nolan laugh again and he hid his face with his hand. I frowned at him, but continued. "Now, I'll just trust you that it won't amuse me."

"Thank you," Edward said, his face still shiny with suppressed humor. "I know that's high praise from you, because you like to know everything that's going on around you."

"What if I want to know what it is?" Sheridan asked.

The two men looked at her, looked at each other, and then cracked up like a pair of twelve-year-olds. I'd never seen Edward like this; I liked it and found it unsettling at the same time.

"Trust me on this, Sheridan. If Ted doesn't think I'd find it funny, you won't either."

"Is this a male-bonding type of thing?" she asked.

I nodded. "Oh, yeah."

She shook her head, and we got to have one of those shared moments when women shake their heads at the men in their lives. I was usually all alone when these moments happened, so it was nice to have someone to roll my eyes with and feel vaguely superior because we weren't men. Men get to do it in reverse.

I finished my sandwich while they continued to do the straight-guy version of giggling. The flirting with Sheridan for whatever purpose was put on hold while the men bonded, or maybe rebonded. Between the flirting and this, my bestie was just surprising the heck out of me this trip.

We'd all finished our lunch, and Pearso

n rejoined us without Logan. I was okay with that. Sheridan actually did talk to Pearson about getting Jake's input on the case. He didn't say yes, but Edward's little bit of flirting had paid off. It made me wonder, if he actually took her to dinner, how much more cooperative she'd be with us, but that seemed a slippery slope since I was going to be best "man" at his wedding.

"Mr. Pennyfeather and his partner aren't in the hallway to invite inside even if I were so inclined, Sheridan. It's only Murdock and Santana on post currently."

"They were going to take turns grabbing sandwiches," I said. "It's hard to eat standing up in a hallway. An international flight takes a lot out of you, so we're still a little beat."

"We could have offered your men a desk or something to eat their lunch at," Pearson said.

"That would have been nice," I said.

Pearson got up and started for the door. "I can see what I can find for them to use."

"Thank you, Inspector, but I'm pretty sure that at least two of them will stay on the door."

"I know you're implying they're standing guard, but we are inside a police station."

"True, but until they have more of a role in the case, they're going to do the only job they have."

"The men with you don't even have badges in your own country. I can't justify letting them see evidence in an ongoing investigation."

"Totally reasonable," I said.

Pearson gave me a narrow look. "Why does that sound like a criticism?"

"It's not meant as one," I said.

He looked from me to Edward and back. He looked downright suspicious. People usually had to know me longer before I got that look. I did my best to give inoffensive and pleasant back. I used to try looking innocent, but I really wasn't good at it, even when I was innocent.

Pearson looked even harder at me. It wasn't his hardest look--I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he hadn't made detective without being able to stare the socks off a suspect--but he was still trying to give me a "hard" look. I smiled at him. I'd found it an effective way to either irritate people or win them over. It could go either way when they were already trying to intimidate me by being a hard-ass.

"Now, Anita, I'm sure Superintendent Pearson is just doing his job," Edward said in his drawling Ted voice, which managed to be pleasant and theatrical. I wondered if the Irish police were disappointed that my accent wasn't the same as his.

I started to say, I never said he wasn't, but one minute we were doing some mild double-team manipulation and the next minute the hair at the back of my neck rose and goose bumps ran down my arms. I think I stopped breathing, my throat tight with the power that was reaching out.

"Anita," Edward said, "what's wrong?"