Chapter 3: Brotherly Love

I stalked away from Bobby's office and attempted to get my temper under control. It wasn't like I didn't know that the conversation was going to end that way. But it still got so damn old having to listen to him throw me out if I didn't kowtow to whatever it was that he wanted that week.

The words didn't hurt anymore, but that didn't make them any less damaging, no matter how hard I tried to pretend that he meant nothing to me. He was still my father, or at least as close to one as I could remember. Not for the first time, I wondered if there would ever be a day that I made him happy. Probably not. I walked around the skirts of the room until I made it to the team office and stepped through the door before shutting it quietly behind me.

Our office was small, especially when you compared it to Bobby's, but it was our own private space away from the hubbub of the main office. We had three desks crammed together in the middle of the room with larger windows showing the activity of the city outside.

My favorite part of the office was the couch that was shoved against the wall, the perfect place to splay out when you're exhausted from a middle-of-the-night call. Maybe just as nice as the couch was the coffeepot on the counter or the mini-fridge full of seltzers on the floor. Girly drinks or no, they were the perfect post-case drink.

I settled behind my desk and jiggled my mouse to wake my computer up.

"No nap today?" Duncan asked from beside me, a faint smirk on his face. He knew better than just about anybody that the meeting I had just had would put me in a terrible mood.

"Duncan," I said sweetly, though I knew my smile was more of a grimace. "Aren't you still seeing Tabatha?"

"Yes…" he said slowly, trying to see where the conversation was going. He studied me with uncertainty.

"I thought so," I said with a grin. "I really do like her, you know. Really nice girl. Pretty, too! I wonder what she would think if I told her you were also boinking Melinda on the side?"

His pretty face turned beet red as my words sank in. I heard Andrew turn a laugh into a cough behind me.

"You wouldn't," Duncan seethed, his blue eyes staring daggers at me.

"Oh, I would. It's like you don't know me, brother."

"You're not my sister."

"You don't mean that. I am going to give you some sisterly advice. I'm a little cranky today. Could be because I only got three hours of sleep, but who knows?" I bared my teeth at him in an imitation of a smile. "My advice to you, dear brother, is to keep your mouth shut if you're thinking about testing me today. Because once I'm done telling your two lovers about the other, I will kick your butt from here to Tombouctou. Got it?"

He glared at me for a moment before turning back to his computer. "Whatever you say, boss."

I ignored the anger dripping off of his words and turned my seat to Andrew, who currently had a hand over his mouth, staring at me in amusement.

"Andrew, will you please catch me up on the case? What little information there is, at the very least."

"Sure thing, boss," he said, emphasizing the title. I gave him a dark look of my own. He knew I hated it. Just not enough to give it up to Duncan. "Victim's name was Marcus Salinas. He was twenty-nine years old and a bartender at a blood bunny club."

"Which one?" I asked. Blood bunnies were the term vampires used for humans who would line up just for the slight chance of getting noticed by them. The humans who were willing to do anything to sleep with one. Vampire groupies, basically. Dumb people, in my book. But it's not fair to kill all the dumb people in the world, so there we were.

"Immortal Reflections," Andrew said, scorn dripping off every word. I rolled my eyes. Of course, it was Immortal Reflections. Why wouldn't it be? It was the blood bunny club of choice.

I wasn't entirely sure why, but apparently, it was the place to be if you wanted to get picked up by a vampire. We'd staked out the place so many times, I couldn't even keep count anymore. But every time we went there, it was nothing but wannabe humans dressed up in black with fake fangs and some cranberry and vodka drinks. Because it looked like blood if I had to wager a guess.

"So, I ran financials on the victim," Duncan said quietly, looking chastised. He gave me an apologetic smile, and I found myself smiling back at him. It was impossible for me to stay mad at him. He was a pain in my rear, but damn it, he was my brother.

"Did you find anything?"

"You could say that. Our bartender was living the big life. He just purchased a nice place over on National Street," he said, naming the street where the wealthier population lived. Definitely not somewhere a bartender would be living. The club made money, sure. But not that kind of money.

"How did he manage that one?" I asked, confused.

"Oh, he had the money, if that's what you're wondering. He had a transfer of fifteen thou."

"Fifteen thousand dollars? Are you serious?" I asked in disbelief. How the hell had he managed that? Nothing good, no doubt.

"Oh, yeah. I'm serious. I'm not sure what he did to get it. I've still got to do a bit more digging. But it's definitely promising."

I leaned back in my chair, mulling everything over in the silence. What could a bartender have done to get such a big deposit? Drug dealing, maybe. It would have to have been a pretty big drug deal to pull in that much money. The chances of that happening were pretty slim. If I had to wager any money, I would bet that it had something to do with the vampires.

"Think he might have been one of their 'volunteers'?" Andrew asked next to me, referring to the blood donors who usually ended up giving more than just blood in the transaction.

"I don't know. They usually don't give that much money for something like that. It had to be more than that for the vamp," I said, chewing on my lip in thought. Volunteers could definitely make some decent cash by donating their blood and usually their bodies, but nothing like what Marcus had raked in.

"What could it have been, then?" Andrew asked, looking just as confused as I was.

"I honestly have no idea. Which is a big problem. How are we going to find the killer without having any idea why he might have paid that money?"

"I might have an answer for that," Duncan said, voice triumphant. I whipped my head over to him, raising my eyebrows in question.

"I think I found him," he said, after letting the tension build for a minute. Duncan was nothing without his flair for dramatics.

"Who is it?"

"Amos Carpenter. His file claims he's thirty-six and living in the penthouse in the apartment building that Marcus just bought."

"How convenient," I said, standing up and stretching. "Well, boys. Time to suit up. We've got a vamp to hunt down."