The Flash of a Firefly Read Free Page B

wasn’t anything left but the stench of death.”
    I raised an eyebrow at her and shut the closet door. I carried my sneakers over to one of the chairs and sat down to untie the laces. “You checked it out?” I asked in disbelief.
    She scowled at me. “I do useful things sometimes, Kaden.”
    “Not often.” I slipped the first sneaker on and started to tie it. “That’s not why you’re here.”
    “Of course not,” she scoffed. “I wouldn’t bother coming all the way out here for something like that. Dealing with those baby vamps is your department.”
    It wasn’t like I chose to be in charge of the city. It had just happened. I was the first vampire to settle here, and when other, younger ones started to move in, I had to step up. It was either that or the Enforcement Team would show up to control the chaos. No one wanted to open that can of worms.
    “So what are you doing here then?” I asked.
    She clicked the power button on the remote. “They’re remodeling my apartment. I need a place to crash until it’s done. I figured I haven’t seen you in fifty, sixty years, so I thought I’d come here instead of a hotel.” She smiled, her pink, glossy lips pulled back to show her fangs. “So, what about this murderer?”
    I tied my second sneaker and stood up, fixing my jeans. “I’m going to find out who it was and kill her.”
    “Her?” She cocked a well-manicured eyebrow at me. “How do you know it’s a female?”
    I hadn’t meant to say that. I didn’t want to tell her whom I suspected until I was sure. Flo had a hot temper. I could only imagine what kind of rampage she would go on. It was better not to wake that sleeping dragon unless it was necessary.
    “Him,” I added. “It. What’s the difference?”
    There was a knock on the front door before Reece came inside. He was talking on his phone as he shrugged off his coat and tossed it onto the back of the couch. He waved at me and looked curiously at Flo before sitting down. He was saying a lot of uh-huhs but not much of anything else.
    Flo made a little disgruntled noise and turned her attention back to the television. Apparently it was too much for her to pay attention to. I, on the other hand, wanted him to hang up and tell me everything.
    It seemed like ages before he ended the call. But even then, he didn’t say anything. He held his finger up to tell me to wait a minute and clicked around on his BlackBerry. I huffed, and after clicking a few more buttons, he handed it over. “Pictures,” he sighed.
    I looked at the screen and scrolled down the e-mail. There were two pictures of the dead man’s neck from different angles. I felt a wave of relief at the spacing. The fang marks were too close together. But there was still a problem. There was a vampire out there breaking the rules and making a public spectacle of us. I’d have to take care of him or her before someone else showed up to do it.
    “So is it Francesca or not?” Reece asked.
    Flo shot up in her chair and looked at me. I groaned and handed the phone back. “Thanks, Reece,” I hissed under my breath. He looked at me like I was crazy and scratched his head.
    “Kaden,” Flo demanded, “what’s he talking about?”
    “Nothing,” I lied. “I was just being a little paranoid. I thought I saw Francesca the other night and figured she was the one that killed that guy, but it wasn’t her.”
    Now that I said that out loud, it seemed to click. She might have had someone else kill him, but it wouldn’t have made sense. There was no point in leaving a calling card to let me know she was in town if she wasn’t going to do it herself. It must have been a girl that looked like her on the street. As for Sid’s bar, I didn’t have an answer for that, but it seemed unimportant now.
    “It wasn’t her?” Flo started. “How can you be sure? What made you think it was? Kaden, don’t you walk away from me.”
    I kept going all the way out the door. I wasn’t in the mood to play