Your Coffin or Mine? Read Online Free Page A

horizons.
    As I stared at Ash, I was fairly certain I hadn’t expanded quite that much. I decided to change my line of questioning before I became privy to his other ways. “Where’s Ty?”
    His gaze collided with mine again. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
    “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. I’m looking for him.”
    “Ditto,” he told me. Another glance out the window and he turned to survey the room.
    “How do you know him?”
    “He helps me out on the occasional case, and I help him out.” He eyed the chaos before running a hand over his face. “We had a meeting yesterday. He didn’t show. When he didn’t call, I thought I would swing by and see why he got held up.” His gaze lingered on the sticky pools of blood. “Something bad happened here.”
    “Ya think?” He flashed me a glare, but I was unmoved.
    He walked toward the kitchen and knelt down to examine the shards of glass. He dabbed a finger into the splattered blood and took a sniff, proof beyond a doubt (if there’d been one) that he wasn’t a made vampire. Otherwise, he would be tasting rather than smelling.
    I could feel my own hunger stir and tamped it down.
    “This looks pretty fresh. No coagulation. Which says that whoever did this was here pretty recently.”
    Which meant that Ty hadn’t been unable to pick up a phone these past few months to call me. He simply hadn’t wanted to. So much for soothing my ego.
    “Ty, on the other hand, hasn’t been here for a pretty long while.” He knelt near the dark stain. He touched his fingertips to it and took a whiff. “This smells like him and there’s definite coagulation.
    I hate to admit that this bit of news brightened my otherwise gloomy day, but it brightened my otherwise gloomy day. “You think so?”
    “This is what I do.” He examined the stain. “I know so.”
    “Or maybe you’re the reason he’s missing.” My brain started to piece things together and my suspicion stirred. Anger roiled in the pit of my stomach and I felt my jaw tighten. The sharp end of my fangs grazed my tongue. “How do I know you didn’t do this and now you’re trying to cover it up?” I took an intimidating step toward him. At least, it would have been intimidating to anyone else—human, vamp, or Other.
    But Ash…There was something about him that seemed almost invincible. Crazy, I know. While there were some powerful creatures in the world—yours truly included—none were invincible. Superman had his Kryptonite, vamps had wooden stakes, and weres had silver bullets. Whatever Ash was, I felt fairly certain that he had weaknesses as well.
    No, really.
    He stared at me, his gaze pushing into mine, but that didn’t stop me from taking another step forward. “How do I know,” I went on, “that you didn’t pull a Jeffrey Dahmer and stuff Ty into the fridge?” Because you’re mentally linked to him, bozo, and he couldn’t very well call out to you if he’d been dismembered.
    That, and the fact that the fridge door was hanging on for dear life, revealing an empty refrigerator, the light busted, the shelves demolished.
    I took one more menacing step before I stalled. (Okay, so my courage gave out, but we’re talking invincible. ) I waited for an answer and used the ticking silence to mentally calculate how far up Ash’s ass I could actually stick my primo shoe before he turned on me.
    If he turned out to be a vamp killer.
    “You’re right,” he finally said after carefully sizing me up. “I could be lying through my teeth.” That dark gaze found mine and again I saw his eyes brighten from a bleak obsidian to a blinding tequila sunrise. Then they cooled. “But I’m not.”
    I believed him. Hey, I had Super Vamp senses. Even more, he had spotless clothes. If he had, indeed, been responsible, there would have been some telltale sign.
    I started to tell him about my mental link with Ty, but then thought better of it. Hey, I knew absolutely zip about this guy except that