Fearless in High Heels Part 20

"Why? Because the b.i.t.c.h was blackmailing me, that's why," he spit out, just this side of foaming at the mouth.

"So this never did have anything to do with vampires," Dana mused.

Blaise shot her a look. "Of course it did. What do you think she was blackmailing me over?"

"Wait," said, my little mental hamster jumping on her wheel as I took in his outfit again. "You mean, you are a vampire?"

"Oh, don't be so Moonlight. Of course I'm not. There is no such thing as a real vampire. But, once a month I played vampire at one of Sebastian's parties. Goldstein turned me on to them one night while I was in town signing some doc.u.ments. He said they were a great way to unwind."

"And when Alexa started working here, she saw you at one," I finished.

He nodded. "Yes. Yes, she did."

"And she threatened to tell your wife about your dress-up fetish?"

Again he shot me a look like I was denser than a fruit cake. "No. She threatened to tell my wife that I slept with Becca after the party."

Mental forehead smack.

"So these are hook-up parties?" Dana asked.

Blaise nodded. "Nothing happens here, but if you want the fantasy to continue after hours, the girls are usually wiling to accommodate." He paused. "And I couldn't have Phoebe knowing that. She's a very sensitive woman. It would have killed her."

"So Alexa saw you here, watched you leave with her friend, then used that information to blackmail you," I said.

Blaise nodded. "Stupid wh.o.r.e thought I would actually pay her. Do you know how much money I've given her over the last three years?"

I shook my head. Not that I cared. But I realized that the longer we kept him talking the longer he wasn't shooting at us. I knew from many hours of CSI watching, that the bad guys never confessed unless they planned to get rid of the witnesses. The fact that he was spilling all didn't bode well for our future.

But it could buy us some time.

"Thousands," Blaise spit out, answering his own question. "Every month she came to us with her hand out, expecting me to empty my bank account. And then she had the nerve to ask for more to keep her mouth shut? Ha!" he laughed, though there was zero trace of humor in it. "No way." He paused, his demeanor changing. "My poor wife," he said, his voice low. "She is such a generous creature, and that Alexa just ran right over her. Exploited their relations.h.i.+p for everything she could. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let Alexa ruin us that way. I had to protect my wife."

"So you killed Alexa," I said, trying to keep him talking. I heard Marco moan at my feet, coming to. He s.h.i.+fted, and I noticed that Blaise hadn't had time to disarm him of his vampire hunting kit yet. Which might have come in handy if Blaise were a real vampire. As it was, gun trumped barbeque skewer any day.

Blaise nodded. "It was too easy, really. I followed her to Crush, then slipped a little something into her drink and waited. As soon as I saw her start to stumble, I jumped in, 'helping' her to the ladies' room," he said, doing an air quote with his free hand.

"Then you staged it to look like a vampire had killed her?" Dana asked, her eyes going to Marco and his bag. She noticed the same thing I did. She looked back up at me, and raised one eyebrow in a silent question.

Sadly, I couldn't think of any way to disarm a killer with Evian. I slowly shook my head in answer.

"I knew the vampire bite would keep the authorities guessing," Blaise continued, oblivious to our silent exchange. "There are enough shady things going on here, enough people with secrets, that the police could be chasing their tails for weeks trying to figure out which one of Sebastian's guests did it."

"And that's all you needed," I said, a light bulb going off as I remembered our last conversation with him. "Just some time. You were stalling until after the funeral, when you were going away with your wife." I paused. "You're not coming back are you?"

Blaise grinned, his face a spooky jack-o-lantern imitation in the pale flashlight beam. "No. I believe an extended vacation in the Bahamas is just what my wife and I need to reconnect."

"But what about Becca?" Dana asked. "Why kill her?"

"Because she had the nerve to pick up where Alexa left off," he spat out. "She said she knew I'd killed Alexa. That she'd seen me take her into the restroom at Crush, and she would tell the authorities if I didn't pay her off."

"What did you do?" I asked.

He grinned, obviously pleased with himself. "I told her to meet me at the next party. That I'd have her cash for her then. She did, I got her a drink, and then I told her I wasn't paying up. That she could go to the police if she wanted, but she had no proof, and I'd just tell them that she did it."

"But you knew she wasn't going to the police," I pointed out. "Because you spiked her drink."

He grinned. "I did. Two hours and she'd be showing her mortality."

"And you'd get away with everything."

"Right." He paused. "As long as no one else came nosing after the truth before I had a chance to get out of town."

I gulped. "Like us?"

"Exactly." He took a step toward us, his eyes narrowing. "Goldstein called me after you left his office yesterday. Asking all kinds of probing questions. I can't have people asking questions, Maddie," he said, pointing the gun at me. "Least of all, you."

Instinctively, I pushed back against the wall, but there was no place left for me to go.

And he knew it.

I looked down at Marco, who was awake now, his eyes blinking furiously, his mouth drawn into an "O" of surprise. If waking up in the dark had been disorienting, I could only imagine what waking up to a gun being pointed at you was like.

"So now you're going to kill us?" Dana squeaked out, making herself as small as I was attempting to do.

Blaise nodded, slowly. "I'm sorry. Really I am. I'm not a bad guy. But I can't have all of this coming out. My wife can't be hurt anymore. If she knew all of this, it would devastate her. You understand, right?"

What I understood was this guy was seriously unhinged.

I watched as he took one more step forward and aimed the gun at me. I froze, feeling time stand still as I watched him wrap his fingers around the trigger.

What happened next was a blur of motion.

I acted on pure instinct, doing what every urban girl has been trained to do in the event of an attack. I grabbed my purse, closed my eyes, and flung it at the bad guy, screaming as loudly as I could.

I heard the gun go off, the smell of burnt powder filling the room.

Then I heard Dana scream, "No!", and I opened my eyes to see her lunging at Blaise. He pointed the gun her way, but Dana had the element of surprise, tackling him from the side, wrapping both arms and legs around his middle in a wild piggyback motion.

Marco sprang into action, jumping up from the ground. "Demon from h.e.l.l!" he shouted, reaching into his bag and throwing a vial of Evian at Blaise's face.

While it clearly didn't melt him with its holiness, it did stun him long enough for me to lunge forward on the floor, grabbing Blaise around the ankles and dropping him to the ground as Dana continued to wrestle him for the gun.

Another shot went off, pinging against the cement ceiling before it bounced down the corridor, causing us all to duck.

"Die, vampire sc.u.m!" Marco shouted, dipping into his bag and rus.h.i.+ng at Blaise for another attack, this time stabbing him with a wooden skewer.

Though with Dana wrestling him on the ground, it was a little hard to aim directly at the heart.

"Ow, d.a.m.n it," Blaise shouted, taking an over-sized toothpick to the arm.

I grabbed Marco's bag, digging for anything useful, and coming out with the spray can of tanner. I stood up, trying to take aim at Blaise as he struggled with Dana to maintain control of the gun. Dana's hours at the gym had given her muscles that were the envy of every other woman on the red carpet. But Blaise had her by a good hundred pounds, and it was clear she was losing.

"Die, you undead freak," Marco yelled, throwing another skewer, spear-style.

"Hey, watch it!" Dana shouted, taking a kabob spike to the thigh.

"Sorry," he said.

But it was just enough distraction to give Blaise the upper hand, wriggling from Dana's grasp and jumping to his feet.

"Don't move!" he shouted, panting as he straight-armed the gun at Dana.

She froze, doing a hands-up thing.

Then he swung it Marco's way. "And quit it with the poking!" he shouted at Marco.

Marco dropped the remaining skewers in his hand to the floor with a clatter.

"And, you..." Blaise said, spinning toward me.

But I was ready for him.

The second his eyes swung my way, I hit the b.u.t.ton on the self-tanner, sending a stream of golden bronze colored chemicals right into his eyes.

Blaise screamed, both hands going to his face.

Dana lunged forward, doing her best kick-boxing move right to his groin.

Which cut his scream unceremoniously short, ending it in a crumpled sort of moan as Blaise doubled over, dropping the gun at his feet.

I quickly scooped it up and leveled it at him, my breath coming in hard pants.

"Don't you move," I yelled. "I am pregnant, I am p.i.s.sed, and I have to pee. I will shoot you."

Chapter Twenty-One.

Ten minutes later, the foyer of Sebastian's house was crawling with police officers. And, oddly enough, my family members.

Apparently, Ramirez had gone home early that night, baring a plate of empanadas courtesy or his mother for yours truly. Only instead of me he'd found Mom and Mrs. R hard at work baby proofing again, having forgotten to install the wall straps on all of our furniture over three feet tall. While they strapped, Ramirez had wandered into the bathroom and seen the Fixodent and smoky-eyes make-up out. Being the brilliant detective he was, he'd put two and two together and quickly surmised that I was once again at Sebastian's house.

He, along with Mrs. R and Mom, who had insisted on coming along to make sure her practice grandbaby was okay, had arrived at the party just about the same time Blaise's gun had gone off. While no one might have heard the sound of us yelling, my husband knew the sound of a gunshot only too well. He'd called for backup, then run to the scene. Or at least as close to the scene as he could get.

As it turned out, our corridor was actually a secret pa.s.sage built behind the library in Sebastian's house, one that Blaise later admitted to finding on a previous party visit. Ramirez had spent several minutes trying to figure out just where the sounds in the wall were coming from before employing Sebastian's help to unlock the secret door. (Which, by the way, was done by pulling out a Bram Stoker book from the bookshelf. I totally should have looked there first.) By the time Ramirez had finally made it to our private party, I had Blaise pinned to the ground with his own gun, Dana was nursing a sprained foot from the force of kicking Blaise's groin, and Marco was emptying the rest of the can of spray tan on a noticeably warmer colored Blaise.

Ramirez took one look at me and shook his head. "Oh, Lucy," he said, wrapping me in a tight embrace as his backup officers took Blaise into custody.

I returned it, only too glad to have the cavalry come to our aid.

"Oh, Maddie!" I heard behind him as my mom and Mrs. R pushed past the officers. She pounced, grabbing me in a hug so tight I feared she'd pop the baby right out of me.

"Oh, my darling, are you okay?" she said, pulling back to give me a once over.

I moved to nod, then, remembering my headache, thought better of it. "I'm fine," I rea.s.sured her instead.

"What happened?" Ramirez asked.

So I told him. Everything from our suspicions about Sebastian all the way to Blaise's confession and his threats at gunpoint.

"And you threw your purse at him? As the gun went off?" Ramirez asked, his voice going high.

I nodded slowly.

"Jesus," he muttered. "Maddie, you could have been killed." If I didn't know better, I'd say Ramirez's skin paled a shade.

"It was pure instinct," I protested. "It's a big bag. I thought maybe I could duck behind it."

The three of us looked down at my Santana bag on the ground. There was a neat, round, bullet hole in the center of it. I watched as a uniformed officer wearing a pair of latex gloves held it up. He peeked inside. Then he pulled out Baby-So-lifelike by its chubby vinyl hand. Right in the center of the doll's duckie-covered onesie was a neat, round hole.

Mom gasped and put a hand to her heart. "Oh, Maddie!"

I bit my lip. "Sorry, Mom. I swear I'll do better with a real one-" I started.

But she cut me off, going in for another boa-constrictor hug that nearly knocked the wind out of me. "I don't give a d.a.m.n about that stupid doll. I'm just glad you're safe," she murmured into my hair.

I let out a deep sigh of relief.

The sun was just starting to come up as we left Sebastian's, Dana in an ambulance (though she protested that she was fine and ready to kick more b.u.t.t if needed), Marco with a uniformed officer who promised to return all of his vampire hunting items as soon as they were logged out of evidence, and me with my husband. Who, once we got home, made me the biggest breakfast omelet in the world, brought me my fuzzy slippers, and tucked me into bed without even hinting at a yell over the fact that I'd nearly gotten our baby killed.

Again.

I wasn't sure how long I slept, but it felt like a million years. By the time I finally awoke the next morning I was stiff, but my headache had faded to a dull roar, which I took as a good sign. I slipped on a pink robe and padded into the kitchen where I put on a pot of coffee. Decaf. On the weak side. But that first sip tasted like heaven.

I took my cup into the spare room where I found Ramirez huddled over a mountain of paperwork. I felt just the tiniest twinge of guilt that I'd probably caused most of it.

"Knock, knock," I said from the doorway.

Ramirez spun around, a slow smile spreading across his face at the sight of me. "Hey, sleeping beauty. How you feeling?"

I shrugged. "Not bad." I held up my cup. "Getting better with every sip."