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for a shake. “Thanks again.”
    “Yeah, Maury, thanks. And good luck with your daughter’s wedding this weekend.”
    “Ah.” The bartender flapped a towel in flippant dismissal. “They’re eloping to Vegas to a tiny chapel that has scrub brush for decoration, I’ll bet. Only the best for my kid.”
    Dawn grinned, walking with Breisi out the door, but not before she spent a glance on Stanton. He now had drool coating his chin and, since it wasn’t going to hurt him, Dawn let it go.
    Outside, the moon paled the sidewalk, turning it ghostly as they headed in the direction of Breisi’s tricked-up 4Runner. She’d modified it herself, jacked up its speed and put in extra storage compartments that held an arsenal of monster-fighting equipment—everything from spirit-hunting temperature gauges to pump-action shotguns for more solid attackers, like ghouls. Not that they’d ever run into any. Yet.
    “You okay?” Dawn asked.
    “Why?” A gust of warm night wind stirred the sharp edges of Breisi’s bob.
    “I don’t know.” Dawn didn’t want to get all mushy, but…“You looked a little sad in there. More than usual.”
    A pause languished between them. Breisi shrugged. “Some nights it’s worse than others. Sometimes I can feel Frank walking next to me, not in a preternatural way, but because…” Her voice got tight. “Because I want to feel him there.”
    Dawn didn’t know what to say. She’d never loved a man like that. Sure, she’d slept with more than a few, but she wasn’t stupid enough to confuse sex with something more.
    She stole a peek at Breisi, just to see if she’d maybe started crying, hoping she hadn’t.
    But her coworker’s jaw was tensed, like she was warding off the vulnerability. Dawn could relate to that, too.
    The wind tossed Breisi’s hair again and, absently, Dawn thought about how different this woman was from Frank’s first love, Eva. Where Breisi was petite and dark, Eva had been elegant and light. Where Breisi was feminine yet tough, Eva seemed absolutely unguarded.
    As Dawn kept staring, Jacqueline Ashley, Eva’s starlet look-alike, superimposed herself over Breisi. Dawn’s chest sucked into itself in utter fear and darkness.
    Jac’s resemblance brought all Dawn’s competitive neuroses, her inferiority complexes, to the surface. Growing up, she’d done her best to avoid comparisons with Eva, rebelling against being her daughter in any way possible, even becoming a rough stuntwoman as a big “screw you” to the Claremont glamour. Now, with Jac, Dawn didn’t know how to feel, how to react to a woman who seemed to have Eva’s magnetism within her.
    A woman who might not be human at all….
    Stop it, Dawn chided herself. Jac wasn’t a vamp. The Voice would’ve said something if it was even a possibility.
    Wouldn’t he?
    The night had gone quiet as they approached the curb-parked SUV. As another car passed on the street, its moaning roar lingered, mingling with the wail of a soft wind.
    The skin on the back of Dawn’s neck tingled.
    But when she saw someone step away from the front of the vehicle, where he’d clearly been waiting, she knew her heightened senses had nothing to do with the atmosphere.
    Her blood pistoned through her veins. “Matt?”
    Breisi positioned herself in front of Dawn, stiffening.
    “Whoa, whoa.” Matt Lonigan held up his hands and took a couple of steps to the side, into a pool of light from a streetlamp. He was holding something—flowers? “I know you don’t believe it yet, but I’m one of the good guys.”
    His low voice abraded Dawn, and she enjoyed the gentle torture, the memory of how good his mouth felt against hers.
    Hands still raised, he waited for Breisi to relax, his pale blue eyes running over Dawn with the usual hunger. He had short brown hair and a face of bruised beauty that intrigued her as much as it disturbed her.
    Once again, Dawn couldn’t help thinking that if life were a movie, he’d be cast as a street thug who