Ripper by Lexi Blake Page A

twice what they eat, and I won’t even go into how much I can drink. Guys really get intimidated on my fifth beer. Any dates I had usually ended up being spectacular failures. Not that this was a date because it totally wasn’t. It was more like a kidnapping, but I still didn’t want to look bad in front of him. I smoothed down my T-shirt and wished it was at least new. It was an old concert T-shirt from my college days with the name of a punk band splashed across it.
    He shook his head when I finished my order and had the waitress stop. “Why don’t you bring us a couple of lobsters, too?”
    She nodded and walked off.
    He stared at me seriously. “What was that about?”
    “Dinner. I thought.” Had I burped and not noticed it? That could happen.
    “Kelsey, I’ve been friends with your brother for a couple of years. Do you seriously believe I haven’t heard stories of your legendary appetite?”
    “I don’t eat that much.” I was going to kick Jamie’s ass the next time I saw him. What did he do? Did he go around advertising that his sister was a complete freak? Did he have a stand-up routine focused on how weird I was?
    “Hey,” Gray said softly and this time he let his hand find mine. He covered it with his big one and squeezed a little. I should have pulled away, but I enjoyed his warmth too much. “I wasn’t insulting you. You’re different. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s one of the reasons I’m interested in you.”
    “Did you really ask Jamie to set us up?” Not that I was going to go out with him on a date that didn’t involve some form of kidnapping. I was simply curious. In our last year of high school and the first two of college, I tended to date friends of guys who wanted to date Liv. Since then the pickings had been slim.
    He smiled and it lit up his face. It took him from brooding to gorgeous with one little tug of his lips. “I’ve been bugging your brother to give me your number for about a year and a half.”
    I whistled because that was a long time to wait. “And it never occurred to you to look me up in the phone book? I’m pretty sure if you can turn on the GPS in my phone you can find my number.”
    “I respect your brother, Kelsey. He said you weren’t ready so I backed off. You should know, though, that I had planned to require your investigative services in a couple of weeks if I couldn’t get Jamie to come around. I was tired of waiting.”
    “What was I going to help you with?”
    His smile turned rueful and he looked younger than his thirty years. It softened the hard lines of his face and made my heart melt a little. “I don’t know. I was going to come up with something. I was going to show up on your doorstep sooner or later, Kelsey Atwood.”
    He took a drink of his wine and sat back. I tried the ruby-red liquid. I was really more a beer girl, but I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. It tasted rich on my tongue and I vowed to expand my horizons. “Well, now you can really use my services. Tell me about the missing girls.”
    And just like that he clammed up.
    “Kelsey, it’s an ongoing case,” he tried smoothly. “I’m not at liberty to talk about it.”
    I huffed a little and sat back. I wondered briefly if Jamie was forever going to be the only man who believed I could get a damn thing right. I should have taken my chances with the vampire. At least he would have been honest about what he wanted. Sloane tried to tell me he was interested in me, but then didn’t want to talk about my work or his work. We were single people in our late twenties/early thirties. We were our work. I took another long drink of the wine and focused on something other than the man across from me.
    I needed to find a vampire, possibly one named Alexander. I wondered if I showed up at the club at sundown tomorrow night, if this Vorenus person would be there. He’d seemed willing enough to talk with me. At least he’d seemed flattered by my attention. I wondered if