Lover's Bite by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

me.”
    â€œTell him I said hi,” Jack said.
    She didn’t. Reaper could hear the greeting for himself. He sighed, and said, “Be careful, Topaz.”
    â€œBelieve me, I am.”

4
    â€œO h, hell.”
    Jack rejoined Topaz at the checkout counter of the 7-Eleven, having ditched her just long enough to place a call of his own. She was handing the cashier a wad of bills to pay for her shampoo, conditioner and the dozen other beauty supplies she’d insisted she couldn’t get along without for one more night, things she hadn’t packed because it was “so much easier to just buy them here.”
    At Jack’s muttered curse, Topaz shot him a quick look over her shoulder. “Anything wrong?” she asked.
    He didn’t speak out loud, because he didn’t think the checker had made the connection just yet and he certainly didn’t want to encourage her to. Take a look at the tabloid in the rack—upper left slot, he told Topaz mentally.
    Frowning, she glanced at the rack of magazines and newspapers standing beside the cashier. Jack had no doubt that the banner headline and side-by-side photos of Topaz, back in her mortal days, and her mother, caught her eye just as quickly as they had caught his. When her eyes widened, he knew for sure.
    DAUGHTER OF LEGENDARY ACTRESS RETURNS FROM THE GRAVE TO AVENGE HER MOTHER’S MURDER
    She blinked in shock and quickly grabbed the issue, folded it over the sensationalistic front-page headline and dropped it onto the counter. “This, too,” she said. He thought her voice seemed to quiver. Not so much that a mortal would detect it. Maybe not even another vampire. But he was more attuned to her than most—than anyone alive, he imagined. And that realization bore some further thought, but not right then.
    The cashier nodded and snapped her chewing gum. Looking bored, she continued ringing up purchases and stuffing them into a bag.
    Topaz gripped the plastic bag by its handles and hurried out of the store. Following, Jack hit the key ring button to unlock the car before she got to it, and by the time he slid behind the wheel she was in the passenger seat with the newspaper unfolded on her lap.
    â€œListen to this,” she told him as he started the car. “‘Tanya DuFrane, daughter of the legendary actress Mirabella DuFrane, vanished a decade ago. It was rumored at the time that she had been very ill, and most of Hollywood assumed she simply wanted to die in privacy. However, a reliable source claims that Ms. DuFrane is alive and well, and has returned to L.A. determined to learn the truth about her mother’s death.’” She looked up at Jack. “It goes on, sensationalistic blatherings about how Mirabella was shot and—” She lowered her gaze to the paper, scanning it again. “A half-dozen crackpot theories as to who did it and what became of her body. The fact that an eyewitness has seen me, and that I appear to be in ‘the pink of health.’ The pink of health. Do I look pink to you?” As she asked the question, she ran her fingertip over the pale skin of her forearm.
    â€œDoes it say where you’re staying?”
    â€œNo, but it’s implied.” She ran a finger down the column of text. “Here. ‘The younger Ms. DuFrane appears to be retracing her mother’s steps on the final night of her life.’” She clenched her jaw and muttered “Idiots” through her teeth.
    â€œDo you think Rebecca Murphy…?”
    â€œThere hasn’t been time,” Topaz said. “We only left her ten minutes ago.” She shook her head. “No, it couldn’t have been her.”
    â€œSo who else have you spoken with while you’ve been here? Who else even knew you were coming?”
    She shrugged. “You knew.”
    â€œOh, come on, Topaz, be realistic.”
    â€œThese rags pay a lot for this kind of garbage. And it wouldn’t be