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suggested you weren’t,” he said, “I was just giving
you a choice.”
    “And I asked to go to Brady’s place.”
    “Fair enough.” He pulled away from the curb and headed down
the street. It all looked so normal and Paige wanted to stand in the middle of
the street and scream that vampires were real. Instead she just watched the
streets pass. “Is there any news yet?”
    “Nothing.”
    True to his word, he nodded without offering any sort of
empty reassurances. Paige stared out and tried to figure out what she should do
now that her first plan had fallen flat. Maybe she shouldn’t put quite so much
faith in the police, but sixty-five percent of murders got solved, and that was
the lowest solve-rate in a decade. Their department was running close to an
eighty percent close rate and she had this fantasy that she’d call and the
detectives would magically find the assholes who had hurt Brady.
    And that’s about where the fantasy ended because Paige was
pretty sure she didn’t want the department to find out that Brady had caught a
bad case of death.
    “Here we are.” The profiler pulled to the side of the road.
The entrance to Brady’s apartment was still blocked by a black-and-white, and a
large crowd had gathered on the street, including a camera crew that had parked
in the dirt and was set up by the mailboxes. “Can you even get to your car?”
    Paige looked at the mess. “Probably not.”
    “And that camera crew would love to get film of you.”
    “You’re just a glass-half-full kind of guy,” Paige said.
    The profiler cracked a smile. “I can be. I can also be the
guy who drives you home.”
    “Fine.” Paige knew she wasn’t being very gracious to someone
who was just trying to help, but she wasn’t really in the mood to be grateful
to anyone right now. She was going home to Brady and she didn’t have any
answers for him.
    “You might want to tell me where we’re going. I don’t really
know the town that well.”
    Maybe Paige was just having a shitty day, but she frowned as
it occurred to her that she didn’t know this guy from Adam. Yeah, he was a cop,
but he was also a stranger and he’d been awfully quick to offer his help.
    “Maybe I should just get a ride from a uniform,” she said as
she reached for the handle.
    “Fair enough,” he said without even a pause and now Paige
was pretty sure she had imagined everything because he had the same pleasant
expression. “Look, I know what it is to lose a partner. I wouldn’t wish it on
my worst enemy, so whatever you need, I’ll get it for you if I can.”
    Paige opened the door and felt better once she had one foot
outside the door. She was just too off-balance here. “I just don’t want to take
more resources away from this rape case. These women deserve justice and Brady
does too, but not at the cost of letting this guy get away,” Paige said.
“Brady’s a cop. He’s going to put civilian lives first. It’s the job, right?”
Paige hated how insecure she suddenly sounded.
    The profiler nodded. “For good cops, it is.” He didn’t say
anything else as Paige got out and she closed the door and raised a hand in
gratitude and farewell before turning toward the apartment. Maybe she should
just ask the uniforms to pull out so she could get her car. She really didn’t
want to spend any more time in a small space with another human being. She
wasn’t fit company right now. Rubbing her sore arm, she headed into the
complex.

Chapter Five
     
    “Brady?” Paige stood in her empty bathroom and called the
name out softly. If he was a vampire, he couldn’t have gone wandering very far.
Could he? Paige’s stomach curdled as she remembered her early morning
observation that he was acting like a predator. She might respect certain
predators—like coyotes and wolves—but she sure never trusted one too far. If
she had Brady in front of her where she could keep an eye on him, she’d feel a
lot better.
    Her bedroom was silent, the books