Free Downbeat (Biting Love) by Mary Hughes Page A

Liese Schmetterling last spring. Inexplicably, Logan and Liese loved each others’ awful puns.
    The Steels lived and worked in Redfox Village, in a large building that housed both their business and their home. Logan had bought out half the block and razed the old structures, then put up new construction that was stylish, had a useful floor plan and was energy efficient besides.
    I’d gotten the tour at the housewarming. Steel Security took up the first two floors, several apartments took up the next two, and the Steel penthouse was on five. The rooftop had both garden and helipad. There was a swimming pool and gym in the basement.
    Zajicek dropped me off in front of the building, waited while I rang the doorbell and was admitted, then went to find a space on the street to park his car. Logan had parking on a subbasement level, but the place was super-secure and while my fingerprints and retinas were in the system, the keycard to unlock the alarm was in my car. So it was the front door for us.
    Steel Security’s chirpy PA, Zinnia, answered the door. Blonde and toned, she was so energetic she could have been the bastard child of pink erasers and superballs. “Ms. Hrbek! Come in, come in. Are you here to see Mr. or Ms. Steel? Business or social? Can I offer coffee, tea or an assortment of soft drinks? Well, what are you waiting for? Come in, come in!”
    PA—which stands for personal assistant but also covers Zinnia’s loudspeaker voice and her attitude toward life—grabbed me by the arm and dragged me inside.
    A large man stood behind her like a guard. He scrutinized me with black eyes so deadly my shock blurred him into an impression of topknot, sword handles and vest dripping weapons before I blinked and he was gone.
    Zinnia dragged me to the left toward the sitting room, but I planted both feet and resisted. For all of a second. The lady worked out. She pulled me, stumbling, into the waiting area.
    “Zinnia, hold on. Someone is with me—”
    “Who? I didn’t see anyone else on the stoop.” She dragged me back to the foyer and peered out the peephole. Under her jacket she wore her signature low-rise capris and cropped top showing off her super-flat stomach; Steels encouraged individuality and though Zinnia was a PA now some part of her had never gotten beyond high school cheerleading. As she moved, the diamond stud in her navel caught the bright entrance light and splintered it straight into my eye.
    Liese once told me that diamond gave her a headache. I have to admit, it wasn’t just Zinnia’s diamond that gave me a headache. “He’s parking the car. He’ll be here in a moment.”
    “He?” Her tone, if possible, brightened. “Who, he? A friend of Mr. Steel’s? Or perhaps of Mr. Emerson or Mr. Strongwell? Is he a supporter of the people of the night? Is he one of us?”
    Zinnia had this thing about civil rights for “people of the night”. Liese, when I asked her about it, flushed and stammered and mumbled something about third shift workers. Coupled with her new husband’s unearthly good looks, it had been another whack of the big foam clue bat for me.
    Bat. Vampires. Heh.
    Damn. Liese and Logan’s propensity to make bad puns was apparently contagious.
    Zinnia still waited expectantly for an answer to her “people of the night” question. “He might be,” I said. “But I didn’t ask. I didn’t think it was polite.”
    “Ah,” she said sagely. “Very tactful. Why should they have to talk about it? I don’t blather on about my racial minority, do I?”
    Zinnia was blonde and blue-eyed and so white-bread her middle name was Yeast.
    “What racial minority are you?” I asked politely.
    “Canadian. Tell you what. I’ll set the remote bell and we can wait in the sitting room while your friend parks.” She pressed a button then dragged…er, led me back into the waiting area.
    The room was festooned with vampires; stenciled vampires, decoupage vampires, and a garland of little paper vampires