“Knock it off, Overstreet,” Hewitt said sharply.
“We’re wasting our time,” the reporter said, his eyes darting around the room. “She lives with the guy. She must know where he sleeps.”
Shannah fisted her hands on her hips and lifted her chin defiantly. “Well, I don’t.”
“Did you ask him if he was a vampire?” Hewitt asked.
“Of course.”
“What did he say?” Both men leaned forward expectantly.
“Do you mean before or after he stopped laughing?”
“She’s lying,” Overstreet said. “He’s here. All we have to do is find him.”
Hewitt nodded. “I’m sorry about this, Miss Black,” he said.
Shannah thought he meant breaking into the house until he pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his coat pocket. Before she could protest, he pulled her toward the staircase and handcuffed her left wrist to the banister.
“What are you doing?” she cried, tugging on the cuff. “Let me go this instant!”
“Just sit tight, sister,” Overstreet said.
Shannah stared at Hewitt. “I’ll have you arrested for this!”
“I doubt it.”
Furious tears filled her eyes as she watched the two men split up to search the house. She tugged on the handcuff again. What if one of the men found Ronan while he slept, she thought frantically. But surely they wouldn’t find his hiding place. She never would have found it save for the blood bond they shared. Hewitt and Overstreet had no such bond. But Hewitt was a vampire hunter. He would know where to look and what to look for.
Leaning against the banister, she tracked their movements through the house by listening to their footsteps and the sounds of doors being opened and closed. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to relax. As long as they were upstairs, there was nothing to worry about.
The two men searched for what must have been an hour before they returned to where they had left her.
“I told you he wasn’t here,” she said icily. “Now will you let me go?”
Overstreet glanced at the window. “It’ll be dark soon. Let’s get out of here while we can.”
Hewitt nodded. “I think you’re right.”
He removed the cuff from Shannah’s wrist. She rubbed it, then let out a shriek when Hewitt grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the front door.
“Let me go!”
“I think you’d better come with us,” Hewitt said, hauling her along behind him. “You’re not safe here.”
“You’re the ones who won’t be safe if you don’t let me go!”
“Uh, just where are we going?” Overstreet asked, hurrying outside after the two of them.
“I’m not sure,” Hewitt said. “We need a place with a powerful threshold.” He frowned as he opened his car door and pushed Shannah into the passenger seat. He grabbed hold of her ankle when she lunged toward the driver’s side door.
“My aunt’s got a place not far from here,” Overstreet said, glancing anxiously over his shoulder.
“It’s been in the family for years. We can stay there.”
“Good,” Hewitt said. “Get in and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Trapped between Overstreet and Hewitt, Shannah stared out the front window, her heart pounding. She told herself there was nothing to be afraid of. Ronan had always found her before. He would find her this time, too.
She repeated that over and over again as the city fell behind and darkness spread her cloak over the land.
The house that belonged to Carl Overstreet’s aunt was located at the end of a long dirt road. It appeared old and weather-beaten, the paint faded in some places and peeling in others.
Shutters that had once been green covered the windows. There was a large barn, painted a rusty red, on one side of the house and a ramshackle garage on the other.
Hewitt stopped the car in front of the garage. Overstreet got out of the car and opened the garage door and Hewitt pulled inside and killed the engine.
The car had barely stopped when Shannah flung open the door and started running across the yard. With any luck, she could find a place to hide and then make her way back to town.
“Stop her!” Hewitt’s voice cut through the stillness.
Not daring to glance over her shoulder, Shannah kept running. She was certain she could outrun Overstreet. Hewitt was another matter. She hadn’t gotten far before he tackled her. She screamed as his hands closed around her waist, saw stars as her head hit the ground. He landed on top of her, driving the air from her lungs.
She glared up at him. “Get off of me.”
Grabbing the handcuff that still dangled from her wrist, he pulled her to her feet and practically dragged her back to the house.
Overstreet grinned at Hewitt. “Nice tackle.”
Hewitt grinned. “Thanks. Where’s your aunt?” He tugged on the handcuff and Shannah followed him into the house.
“In Boston visiting her sister,” Overstreet replied. “She doesn’t spend much time here anymore.”
“You can tell that just by looking at the place.”
Shrugging, Overstreet said, “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
Hewitt nodded. “Lock the door.”
“Right.”
Shannah glared at Hewitt. “What do you hope to gain by this?”
“You’ll thank us later.”
“Thank you for what? Kidnapping me?” She crossed her arms under her breasts and glared at both men. “I want to go home, and I want to go now.”
“Listen, Miss Black, Eva…”
“My name is Shannah Davis.”
Hewitt blinked at her. “So, Black is just a pseudonym? I figured as much.”
“Really? Well, figure this. That man you think is a vampire is the romance writer, not me.”
Overstreet stared at her, his eyes narrowed. “You’re not the author?”
“No.”
“Then why were you…?”
“It’s a long story,” Shannah said imperiously, “and none of your business.”
Overstreet slumped into a chair. “Okay, Hewitt, we’ve got her here. Now what? You’ve got some kind of plan, right?”
“Plan to do what?” Shannah asked, though she had a terrible feeling she already knew the answer.
“Destroy the monster, of course,” Overstreet said. “After I get my interview, although I don’t know how the devil we’ll get it now.” He glared at Hewitt. “Are you sure this guy’s a vampire?
Who ever heard of a bloodsucker writing romance novels?”
“He’s a vampire,” Hewitt said. “I’ve destroyed enough of them to know.”
Shannah stared at him. She had known he was a hunter but hearing him admit to killing vampires was unnerving.
“What about you?” she said, speaking to Overstreet. “Are you a vampire hunter, too?”
“No, I’m a freelance reporter, like I said. The interview I did with you appeared in a couple of the magazines I work for. I’ve also been doing a weekly series on vampires which wasn’t going anywhere until I met Jim, here. He promised me an interview with your vampire before he takes his head.”
Shannah stared at Overstreet, her stomach churning at the image his words conjured in her mind.
And then she frowned.
And then she laughed. “So, you two plan to capture Ronan and render him helpless, and then you expect him to give you an interview before you kill him?”
She laughed again. “I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous. Of course, Overstreet might get a good story out of it before Ronan has the two of you arrested for assault.”
Overstreet looked at Hewitt, his expression worried. “Maybe he isn’t a vampire.”
“Of course he is. You told me so yourself!”
Overstreet shrugged. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“Well, I’m not wrong,” Hewitt said, bristling. “He’s a bloodsucker and I aim to take him out.”
Overstreet canted his head to one side. “How many vampires have you killed?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just answer the question. How many? One? Five? Ten?”
“Twelve. This one will make lucky thirteen.”
“So,” Overstreet said, looking slightly mollified, “what do we do now?”
“We wait for him to come to us.” Hewitt looked at Shannah and grinned. “We’ve got something he wants.”
Ronan woke to a stillness that told him he was alone in the house.
Rising, he showered and changed clothes, then went into his office. Booting up the computer, he wondered where Shannah had gone. Shopping, perhaps, or maybe she had just felt the need to get out of the house for a while. He couldn’t expect her to stay in the house twenty-four hours a day. Though they had discussed having her keep his hours, it hadn’t worked out too well, though she was going to bed later and sleeping later all the time.
He wrote steadily, his mind focused on his work in progress. It had been days since he had found the time to write and he quickly lost himself in the story, the words flowing almost faster than he could type them. For this moment in time, he was the hero. He was the heroine. He was the villain. The world he had created from his imagination was more real, more tangible, than the solid walls that surrounded him. He finished one chapter and began the next.
It was only when his hunger began to stir that he glanced up at the clock, surprised to find that he had been writing for almost four hours.
When he reached the end of the next chapter, he saved his work and shut down the computer, the first hint of worry rising in his mind when he realized that Shannah had not yet returned home.
Leaving his office, he went into the living room, snarling softly when he caught the scents of Hewitt and Overstreet. Muttering an oath, he took a deep breath. The two men had been in his house recently. Why hadn’t he noticed it sooner? He knew the answer even as the question surfaced in his mind. He had been so lost in his work that the house could have gone up in flames and he probably wouldn’t have noticed until it was too late.