Page 14 of Be Still My Unbeating Heart

“Stop looking at his neck,” Whitby chirped. “Bad manners.”

“Quiet, you.”

De Luca gave the cat an uneasy glance, and Bastian waved a hand. “She has a lot of opinions. You learn to filter them out.”

“At least Ihavea filter,” Whitby drawled.

De Luca’s lips pressed together, and Bastian decided it was time for some fast-tracking.

“I’m the first vampire you’ve encountered,” he said. De Lucaopened his mouth to speak, but Bastian kept going. “Not a question, it’s obvious you’re a vampire virgin. Oh, don’t be embarrassed, love, everybody has their first. I’m honored, really and truly.”

He cleared his throat, retying his hair, which had come loose.

“Okay, here it is, the undead one-oh-one.Yes, I can go out in the sunlight if I wear sun cream and,yes, a stake will kill me, I’m sure you’re delighted to hear, although beheading and fire do the trick, too. Not that I’ve ever tried.”

He paced the floor, thinking out loud. “No,I’m not afraid of crucifixes or holy water, that’s just for the old-school suckers, andno, I don’t sleep in a coffin, because have you ever tried sharing a coffin with an attractive man? The word iscramped. Hmm, also, I love garlic, I’m a Sagittarius, I live for the queen Kate Bush, dancing is my religion, and I believe thatPurple Rainis the greatest film ever made. Anything I’m missing? Whitby?”

“Animal blood,” the cat said.

Bastian clapped his hands. “I almost forgot the most important part! As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I’m on a strict farm animal diet. I haven’t touched human blood in five years. Haven’t taken a single life, if you don’t count the mouse that ate through every wire in the flat last summer. Which, thankfully, doesn’t count as murder, though you can bet Whitby made me feel wretched about it. But yes, there it is. That is why this whole sorry affair, if you’ll pardon the pun, well and trulysucks. Because I’m not a killer.”

Standing by the sink, De Luca’s eyes were wide, his mouth pressed closed. It was a lot to take in, Bastian knew, especially for somebody more accustomed to working the beat than worrying about the lack of one.

“If nobody objects,” Whitby said, dragging a paw in circles behind her left ear, “I think I’ll take a bath.” She had finished thesalmon and lay in the sun, fur tufting from the heat. Beyond her the sea shimmered and beckoned, and Bastian felt a powerful surge of longing.

“Now,” he said, “knowing that I didn’t kill the girl on the beach, we must also assume that the killer is still out there. And I fully intend to find them and bring them to justice.”

“You have to be joking,” De Luca said.

Bastian’s smile dropped. He leveled the other man with a rigid stare.

“No, Inspector. On this matter, if no other, I am entirely serious.”

“You are not permitted to leave the apartment,” De Luca said.

Bastian sniffed defiantly. “As much as I’d love to stay here with you, I refuse to take the fall for somebody else’s crime. Together, we can solve this.”

De Luca’s pulse picked up again and he looked at Bastian,reallylooked at him for the first time. It was intense, that blue stare. Bastian found it fascinating.

“I don’t need your help,” De Luca said.

“Darling, look at me,” Bastian said, picking up a ChapStick and dabbing it on his lips. “Do I really look like somebody capable of murder?”

He stood in his tiny robe, one bare foot lifted and resting against his calf, lips glossy with balm. De Luca’s gaze remained on him a beat longer than Bastian expected it to, then the inspector spun back to the sink. He began to dry the pan with a dishtowel.

“I can pick up on things you might miss,” Bastian said. “I know your cologne is Tom Ford, and if you gave me a minute, I could tell you the brand of your washing detergent. Also, you haven’t eaten in at least ten hours and your stomach gurgled when Imentioned coffee, but you said no because you were probably afraid I’d poison you.”

De Luca hung the pan over the stove, heart beating faster still. The sound filled Bastian’s head, and it was oddly intimate, that pulse.

“If this is your idea of foreplay,” Whitby said, “it’s both fascinating and repulsive.”

They both looked at the cat. Bastian wouldn’t be deterred. It was time to change tactics.

“Listen, De Luca, a killer is still out there. If they strike again—and there’s nothing to say they won’t, given they’re getting away with this first kill—I hate to think who the townspeople will blame.”

De Luca picked up the dishcloth again and started to wipe crumbs from the table. His tolerance for mess seemed surprisingly low, considering his line of work.

“Darling, what if they blameyou?” Bastian continued. “You’re supposed to have the killer under surveillance. But I’mnotthe killer. Whoever murdered that girl is still out there, and if they kill again, how will that make you look? What will it do to your promotion?”