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duty.
    “It’s not a bottle. It’s a cask.”
    Sliding behind the wheel, he thought for a moment. “Oh right. Not a bottle, a cask. I’ll try to remember that.”
    “When can I look at it?” The eagerness in Nik’s voice brought a smile to Bobby’s face.
    “I’m in the car. If you give me directions to your place, and are free, I’ll come get you right now.”
    A silent pause, like Nik had to think about it, filled the air.
    “If you don’t have time today, I can come on Monday and bring you back to the lab.”
    “No!” Nik’s strident protest surprised Bobby. “I’ll be ready. I’m not doing anything except grading papers anyway. Do you have a pen for the directions? I live all the way in Chelsea.”
    “Better than a pen, Professor. I have a GPS. Just give me your address, and I’ll find my way to your place.”
    Bobby didn’t like a lot of technology, but even he admitted that having a GPS made driving easier.
    “Okay.” Nik rattled off his address while Bobby typed it into the device.
    “Says I’ll be there in forty minutes. That give you enough time to get ready?” Bobby started the car.
    “Forty minutes is fine. I’ll bring some books that I think might help.”
    “Why am I not surprised?” he muttered, checking over his shoulder before he pulled out of his parking spot.
    “What do you mean by that?” There was an edge to Nik’s voice now.

    DRACUL’S BLOOD
    Carol Lynne and T.A. Chase

    34

    “Nothing bad. You just strike me as a guy who has a book for every occasion, you know. That’s not a bad thing though. It’s helpful to a guy like me who had to get punished by nuns before he cracked a book.”
    Bobby slid into New York traffic without a problem. He hated the bland uniformity of the department cars. The sedans were plain beige, with only the police modifications done to them to make them exciting.
    “Nuns?”
    Not much of a conversationalist. Bobby didn’t have a problem talking to anyone, which made him a good cop.
    “Yeah. I went to Catholic school until my senior year, then my parents moved from Queens to Long Island. Ended up at a public school for my last year. I couldn’t wait to graduate. Didn’t have a clue what I was going to do, though I figured I’d end up on the police force like my old man.”
    Rustling came over the phone and Bobby wondered if Nik was getting dressed. Damn.
    He really needed to keep his mind out of the gutter, at least until the case was over, or he’d never get anything done.
    “Your father was a policeman?”
    He grinned at the thought of his pop. “A thirty year veteran of the force. Seen some nasty shit happen, but never let it get to him.”
    “That’s good, right?”
    “It is good, considering a lot of cops let the job eat them alive. They become drunks or druggies. Depression’s a big job risk, along with divorce.”
    Bobby turned at the corner the GPS told him and continued down the street.
    Reluctance to end the call hampered him, but he knew he needed to let Nik get ready.
    “Hey, I’m hitting some traffic, and I should let you go get your stuff together.”
    “Stuff? Oh, right, my books. I’ll see you in a little while, Bobby.”
    “See ya, Nik.”
    After snapping his phone shut, he tossed it on the seat next to him and had a discussion with himself as he drove.
    “You know you shouldn’t be thinking about the professor that way. He’s helping you out with a case and until it’s solved, you can’t cross that line.”
    He pursed his lips. Really, that rule applied to witnesses and suspects in cases. It was DRACUL’S BLOOD
    Carol Lynne and T.A. Chase

    35

    possible it didn’t apply to experts called in to help with said cases.
    Why couldn’t Nik be some stodgy old tweed-wearing professor instead of the gorgeous bookworm he was? The man was probably older than he looked, but those glasses and clothes lent him an air of innocence that flipped all of Bobby’s switches. Hell, who knew he went for innocent?
    Bobby