Chapter Six: The Irony

It was cloudy again and the weather forecasters were predicting light showers. Emma was grateful to them because it kept families off the beach. On a Sunday afternoon it was usually crowded with small, screaming children or teenagers wearing bikinis made of string. However, on a cloudy Sunday only a few came out to partake of the ocean's many delights.

She was there to listen and to sketch. That image she'd been working on was still out of reach so she tried something else. Unfortunately it turned out to be her subconscious reaching out to her. A man and a woman dancing, clinging to each other like that was the only way to keep their balance. Josef.

Emma snapped her sketchpad shut and started rubbing at the charcoal on her hands. His name kept popping up in her mind. She'd dreamed of him, too. Last Saturday had been far too intense. She hadn't realized just how accurate she'd been when she told him he was too dangerous for her. Not just dangerous, lethal. A man like him could disrupt her entire life.

Her cell phone started ringing and Emma frowned at it. No one called her cell unless it was an emergency. Or unless they weren't acquainted with the rule. Josef. He'd called her house phone a few times the past week, probably testing her resolve. But her cell phone? She picked up.

"Hello?"

"Em, it's me." Emma let out a breath when she heard Sheryl's voice. Then she tensed again. Sheryl knew the rule. Something was wrong.

"What's happened?"

"My brother's dead." Her voice broke and she started sobbing. "Oh, God, he's dead. I can't… I can't…"

"Sheryl, where are you?" Emma asked. She was shoving things into her bag, getting ready to sprint across the beach and break the speed limit once she was in her car.

"At his house. I already called the cops but… Please, Emma, I'm all alone."

"I'll be there as fast as I can, I promise. Just hold on." She hung up.

On the way, Emma tried to come to grips with the fact that a thirty-two year old guy was dead. Sheryl and Michael Larson had been thick as thieves. He'd been good to Emma as well, giving her a substantial loan that he hadn't expected her to pay back as quickly as she did. They hadn't been tight friends but they both loved Sheryl.

Emma beat the sirens by two minutes. She ran out of her truck and up the steps to the old Victorian house. A replica, true, but a really excellent one. Sheryl was on the porch swing, still sobbing. Emma hugged her as soon as she could reach her.

"Emma, oh God, Emma!" she cried, burying her face in her friend's clothes. "I c-can't do this. I'm n-not supposed to do this." Emma just hugged her close. She knew what she meant. Sheryl was younger than Michael so one day, if God was kind, she would have had to bury him. But not now. Not when they were both still so young.

It never ceased to amaze Emma just how professional the police could be. The paramedics came, too, but they didn't make eye contact. It was awkward, meeting the people who once knew the corpse lying in the other room. Maybe that wasn't a kind thought on Emma's part but she didn't care.

The officers questioned Sheryl. A sobbing, broken woman who could barely string together a sentence. Slowly she got out her story. She'd come over to visit. The door had been broken down. She'd started calling for Michael but there hadn't been a response. Then she'd found his body lying in the living room. Emma didn't go inside to see the blood her friend talked about. Apparently there had been a lot pooled around the body. 'The body'. Strange how death removed your humanity. You became 'the victim' or 'the body'. Maybe they called him that because it wasn't Michael anymore. He was gone.

Sheryl's parents finally arrived and Emma surrendered her position as constant hugger to Mrs. Larson. She back off, giving them space. All of them were grieving. Instead she listened to the police discuss it among themselves.

"Two wounds in the neck, massive blood loss. This is like that murder all those months ago. That alleged vampire attack." Emma frowned. Vampire attack? How ridiculous was that?

"Hey, are you Sheryl Larson's friend Emma?" She looked at the man addressing her. He definitely wasn't a cop. His face was chiseled, his eyes dark and he had brown wavy hair. The dark thigh-length coat added another level of appeal, at least to her.

"That's me." He nodded then paused, looking at her a little closer.

"Have we met before?"

"Not that I can recall," Emma told him. And she definitely would have remembered him. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Mick St. John. I'm a private detective."

"Emma Bradford." His eyes widened. This was Emmaline. Now he could see it in her face. Those photos really hadn't done her justice, not that he'd memorized them. They just hadn't caught her right. "Isn't it a little early for the Larsons to have called you in on the case? They just found out he was dead."

"No, I'm not here for that," Mick explained. "I was hired to find someone and it led me here." Hired to find a vampire and it led him to a victim of a vampire attack. And the victim's sister just happened to be a close personal friend of Emma Bradford. This was one of those times when the word irony didn't even begin to describe the situation. "Did you know Ellen Hayes?"

"Sure I did," Emma said, raising a brow. "She and Michael were going to get married in a few months. She didn't have any close friends because she was relatively new in town so I was going to be a bridesmaid. We hung out a few times, got to know each other. Why?"

"Hey, Em?" Emma looked over her shoulder at Sheryl.

"Just a second," she called. When she turned back to talk to Mick, he was gone. Emma frowned. All right, that had been eerily like Josef.

Mick called Josef once he'd reached his car. As usual, he picked up after the first ring.

"Josef, I just met Emma." There was a moment of silence on the other end.

"Deliberately or accidentally?"

"Accidentally," Mick answered, noting the slight possessive quality of his friend's voice. "Although considering the circumstances, you're going to wish I'd hunted her down just to get a good look at her. She's at a murder scene right now, comforting her friend who just lost her brother to a vampire." Every now and again, vulgarity was the only option.

"Shit!"

Emma understood why the cops finally ushered her off the scene. She wasn't exactly serving a useful purpose anymore. The family was leaving and the media had begun to flock around the house. She was pretty sure a few cameras had spotted her but she was gone before any of the reporters got their microphones in her face. During the ride home she tried piecing it all together in her mind. First of all, Michael was dead. That was an earth shaking reality in itself. Then Mick St. John, looking for Ellen, who no one had actually seen for a week. What was the story there? Had Ellen killed Michael? No. No way. Ellen had been crazy for Mike, there was no way.

Two wounds in the throat and massive blood loss. That didn't necessarily equate to some sort of vampire-worshipping psycho. Still, Emma didn't rule it out.

There was a car parked in front of her house when she arrived. Emma pulled into the driveway and got out. That had to be a Lamborghini. She looked up at her porch and there was Josef Konstantin. He leaned against the railing casually, studying her face.

"You were on the news."

"I'm not in the mood, Josef," she told him shortly, walking up the steps and toward the door. Emma was going to go inside and attempt to lock out the world.

"Are you all right?" he asked, reaching out to touch her. She jumped out of the way.

"I'll be fine once I can get a little peace and quiet." Emma didn't want anyone comforting her. She dealt with pain her own way. Alone. No touching required. She got inside and started to close the door but Josef's foot blocked it.

"You shouldn't be alone right now." Emma glared at him.

"You do not have any idea what I need," she hissed, attempting to push him back. Instead he squeezed his way in and shut the door himself. Then she was fighting against his embrace, against the arms that were holding her tight to his chest. "Don't do that, don't do that!" She didn't want to break down, not in front of him. Josef didn't say anything and didn't let go.

Soon she started crying, the struggle coming to an end. "He was a good guy," she whispered hoarsely. Emma was holding onto him now. She'd wanted her pillow to cry into but instead she got Josef. "He was a really good guy."

Josef stroked her hair, silent as he knew she needed him to be. He didn't comfort people but he comforted her. He hadn't been able to stop himself just like he hadn't been able to stop himself from driving down and seeing her. That urge to protect her overpowering years of insensitivity. "You're safe," he told her. "Safe with me."

But was she?