The Reluctant Goddess (The Montgomery Chronicles Book 2) by Karen Ranney

my big girl panties and be an adult about all this, so I took the call.  
    It wasn't Maddock.
    It was Kenisha. I hadn't seen Kenisha since she arrested my mother for vehicular homicide. The pitying look in her eyes still stayed with me, however.  
    We hadn’t spoken since that night. Nor had we discussed my mother’s famous words: Paul knew you were a genetic mutation, a freak. He was going to make us money by turning you over to the vampires.  
    Kenisha had never asked me about that statement and it was like the sword of Damocles hanging over my head. One of these days she would and I’d have to come up with something.  
    Right now I had zip, nada.  
    I’d heard someone call Kenisha an angry black woman and she was, but she had a perfect right to be. First of all, her son had turned her and been executed for that violation of the Council rules. Secondly, she and another of the fledglings, Ophelia, had been close friends. My mother had killed Opie. In her defense, she’d been trying to kill me.  
    "I need to talk to you," Kenisha said now.
    If it had been anyone else I would've flippantly said, “So talk."
    But this was Kenisha and she was a vice cop in addition to being a vampire. One did not sass the police. At least that's one of the rules I remember my mother imparting to me as I grew up. She’d also sent me to Sunday School where I learned the Ten Commandments. Thou Shalt Not Kill was on the list, something she’d evidently forgotten.  
    "All right," I said. "What about?"
    "Not on the phone."
    She named a restaurant. Thankfully, not The Smiling Señorita where Opie had been killed.
    "At midnight," she said.
    Before I had a chance to think of an excuse, she hung up.  
    At eleven thirty, we were in Dan's Jeep. He was driving, I was riding shotgun and Mike was in the backseat.
    He didn't understand why I insisted on him coming along. Both men had looked at me funny when I said I wanted extra protection. I don't think they bought it, but it didn't matter. From the first moment I met Mike, I thought he and Kenisha might make a couple. They were both the paramilitary type, neither one took guff from anybody, and they each had a pugnacious attitude about the world.
    I didn't know if Kenisha had a significant other, but I frankly doubted it. I hadn’t actually come out and asked Mike if he had someone in his life. According to Dan, strategic people lived at Arthur’s Folly, in apartments in the east wing. Mike was one of those strategic people and if he had a roommate, she was invisible.  
    I’d already mentioned to Mike that I thought Kenisha might be a great date for him. He’d countered with the comment that he couldn't date a vampire. If nothing else, tonight might provide me with the answer why not.  
    I’d freshened up a little, which meant I put on new black jeans, a pale pink top, and a lightweight flowered jacket. I kept my sneakers on, however. I never knew when I’d have to run like hell.
    That's one of the great things about retiring, in a manner of speaking. I didn't have to wear heels anymore. I didn't have to wear heels ever again.
    Dan was dressed in one of his ubiquitous polo shirts. This one, a pale yellow with a dark blue jacket and trousers. I'd always liked that yellow/blue combination, but I didn't tell him. It wasn't that I didn't want to complement him. It's that mentioning his clothes was a giveaway that I noticed what he was wearing. I didn't think that was a good idea.
    Mike, on the other hand, never seemed to change clothes. Tonight he was wearing the same kind of dark blue shirt he always wore, coupled with black trousers. Another reason I knew he and Kenisha would get along. They had the same fashion sense.  
    His face was grim, as if he'd forgotten how to smile. With any luck, maybe he’d be smiling by the end of the evening. Either that, or wanting to strangle me.
    Get in line.
    Of all the people who wanted to see me breathe my last, I probably should've felt the worst