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is the place I have to come. And that it's best to, you know, spend a lot of money here and all that."
     
    "Oh." Who was "everybody"? The all-vampire newsletter one of the local undead librarians put out? Street gossip? My mother? What? "Well…"
     
    This was my chance to say, don't sweat it, my good man. I'm just an ordinary gal, not a dictator-for-life asshole like Nostro was. You don't have to do anything—just try to keep your nose clean. You certainly don't have to come to my bar. But thanks anyway.
     
    "Drink up," is what I
did
say, and sure, I felt a little crummy about it, but hey, everybody's got to make a living.
     
    ----
     
Chapter 7
 

     
     
     
    I groaned when I pulled into my driveway. It wasn't even nine o'clock and the whole evening was crumbling apart. I hated how things had gone with Sophie—and what was I going to do if she disobeyed me? "Disobeyed," ha! Even the word was silly. Everybody said I was the queen, but in my head, I was still Betsy Taylor, shoe fashionista and part-time temp worker. It had been almost a year since the Aztek had creamed me, but it still felt like about two days.
     
    Meanwhile, there was a Ford Escort in my driveway, one that smelled like chocolate. Detective Nick Berry, Jessica's new boyfriend.
     
    Marc's beat-up Stratus was parked next to it. Lucky Marc, he'd missed all the excitement the night before, but it looked like he was on days again for a while.
     
    And a rental car—a Cadillac, no less. The Europeans were back.
     
    It took a long moment for me to open the door of my car. I damn near put the engine in reverse and got the hell out of there.
     
    In the end, I got out and trudged into the mansion. Where was I supposed to go, anyway? This was home.
     
    I zeroed in on the conversation—the third parlor, the one that took up a good chunk of the first floor. I could hear Marc squawking like a surprised goose: "Whaaaaa?"
     
    I hurried down the dimly lit hallway.
     
    "You guys
saw
Dorothy Dandridge?" he was saying as I entered the parlor. He was delighted and surprised, jumping up on the couch cushions like Tom Cruise with a boner. "You saw her live, on stage?"
     
    "Yes, on a visit to New York City." Alonzo was watching Marc like an amused cat. He was sleek and cool in a black suit, black shirt, black socks and shoes. I didn't know the brand—men's shoes all look the same to me. His were spotless and polished to a high gloss, the bows in the laces perfectly tied. "She was wonderful—a joy."
     
    "It was the last time I saw you," Sinclair commented, "before last year." He was more casually dressed—an open-throated shirt, dark slacks. Shoeless and sockless. This was a message, I knew, one for Alonzo:
I'm not worried enough about you to dress up
.
     
    "Correct, Majesty," Tina said courteously. "We left for the West Coast right after."
     
    It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I had very little clue what Sinclair—my fiancé and current consort—had done in the decades before we'd met. One night I'd have to get his whole life story out of him. It wouldn't be easy. When there wasn't a crisis at hand, he was about as chatty as a brick.
     
    "You
saw
her." Marc couldn't get over it.
Boing, boing
on the couch. "Live and everything. Did you get to meet her?"
     
    "Did you bite her?" I asked. I had no idea who Dorothy Dandridge was.
     
    "That's the tragedy of her," Jessica said. She was on the couch beside Marc, trying not to be pitched onto the floor with all his antics. As usual, her hair was up—skinned back so tightly her eyebrows arched—and her mouth was turned down. She was dressed in her usual "I'm not really a millionaire" style: blue jeans, Oxford shirt, bare feet. In the spring! It made me cold just to look at her and Sinclair. Tina, at least, had wool socks on. Marc hadn't even taken off his tennis shoes. "That you've never heard of her."
     
    "I didn't
say
that," I said.
     
    "Oh, please, it was all over your big blank face." Her broad