"Huff, Tanya - Blood 4 - Blood Pact" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

It began with the call no daughter ever wants to get, the call that told private investigator Vicki Nelson her mother had died.
Mrs. Nelson's coworker at the Queen's University Life Science Department told Vicki that the cause of death was a heart attack, and that they'd be waiting for her to arrive in Kingston to make the funeral arrangements. But what started as an all too normal personal tragedy soon became the most terrifying case of
Vicki's career. For when Marjory Nelson's body mysteriously disappeared from the funeral home, Vicki, her sometime lover and fellow investigator, vampire Henry
Fitzroy, and her former homicide squad partner, Detective-Sergeant Mike Celluci, realized that there was something unnatural about her mother's demise. Vicki swore she'd find the culprit, and see that her mother was properly laid to rest. But what she hadn't counted on was that someone at Queen's University seemed determined to keep Mrs. Nelson on the job-alive or dead!
Copyright (c) 1993 by Tanya Huff.

All Rights Reserved. Cover art by John Jude Palencar. DAW Book Collectors No. 931.
If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."
For Mrs. Mac, who helped me through a rough time without having a clue of what she was getting into and never really got thanked. Thank you.
Thanks also to Michael Humphries of Wat-tarn's Funeral Home in Picton, Ontario, who gave generously of his time and expertise.
First Printing, November 1993 8 9
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES -MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
One
"Mrs. Simmons? It's Vicki Nelson calling; the private investigator from Toronto?" She paused and considered how best to present the information. Oh, what the hell. . . "We've found your husband."
"Is he . . . alive?"
"Yes, ma'am, very much so. He's working as an insurance adjuster under the name Tom O'Conner."
"Don always works in insurance."
"Yes, ma'am, that's how we found him. I've just sent you a package, by courier, containing a copy of everything we've discovered including a number of recent photographs-you should receive it before noon tomorrow. The moment you call me with a positive ID, I'll take the information to the police and they can pick him up."
"The police thought they found him once before- in Vancouver-but when they went to pick him up he was gone."
"Well, he'll be there this time." Vicki leaned back in her chair, shoved her free hand up under the bottom edge of her glasses and scrubbed at her eyes. In eight years with the Metropolitan Toronto Police and nearly two years out on her own, she'd seen some real SOBs; SimmonsIO'Conner ranked right up there with the best of them. Anyone who faked his own death in order to ditch a wife and five kids deserved exactly what he got. "My partner's going to talk to him tonight. I thinkyour husband will decide to stay right where he is."
The bar was noisy and smoky, with tables too small to be useful and chairs too stylized to be comfortable.
The beer was overpriced, the liquor over-iced, and the menu a tarted-up mix of at least three kinds of quasi-ethnic cooking plus the usual grease and carbohydrates. The staff were all young, attractive, and interchangeable. The clientele were a little older, not quite so attractive although they tried desperately hard to camouflage it, and just as faceless. It was, for the moment, the premier poser bar in the city and all the wannabes in Toronto shoehorned themselves through its doors on Friday night.Henry Fitzroy paused just past the threshold and scanned the crowd through narrowed eyes. The smell of so many bodies crammed together, the sound of so many heartbeats pounding in time to the music blasting out of half a dozen suspended speakers, the feel of so many lives in so little space pulled the Hunger up and threatened to turn it loose. Fastidiousness more than willpower held it in check. In over
four and a half centuries, Henry had never seen so many people working so hard and so futilely at having a goou time.
It was the kind of place he wouldn't be caught dead in under normal circumstances, but tonight he was hunting and this was where his quarry had gone to ground. The crowd parted as he moved away from the door, and eddies of whispered speculation followed in his wake.
"Who does he think he is . . ."
". . . I'm telling you, he's somebody ..."
Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, one time Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Lord President of the Council of the North, noted, with an inward sigh, that some things never changed. He sat down at the bar-the young man who had been on the stool having vacated it as Henry approached-and waved the bartender away.To his right, an attractive young woman raised one ebony brow in obvious invitation. Although his gaze dropped to the pulse that beat in the ivory column of her throat and almost involuntarily traced the vein until it disappeared beneath the soft drape of magenta silk clinging to shoulders and breasts, he regretfully, silently, declined. She acknowledged both his glance and his refusal, then turned to more receptive game. Henry hid a smile. He wasn't the only hunter abroad tonight. To his left, a wide back in a charcoal gray suit made up most of the view. The hair above the suit had been artfully styled to hide the thinning patches just as the suit itself had been cut to cover the areas that a fortieth birthday had thickened. Henry reached out and tapped lightly on one wool-clad shoulder. The wearer of the suit turned, saw no one he knew, and began to scowl. Then he fell into the depths of a pair of hazel eyes, much darker than hazel eyes should have been, much deeper than mortal eyes could be. "We need to have a talk, Mr. O'Conner."
It would have taken a much stronger man to look away.
"In fact, I think you'd better come with me." A thin sheen of sweat greased the other man's forehead.'
'This is just a little too public for what I plan to . . Slightly elongated canines became visible for an instant between parted lips. "... discuss."
"And?"
Henry stood at the window, one hand flat against the cool glass. Although he seemed to be looking down at the lights of the city, he was actually watching the reflection of the woman seated on the couch behind him. "And what?"
"Henry, stop being an undead pain in the ass. Did you convince Mr. O'ConnerISimmons to stay put until the police arrive?''
He loved to watch her; loved to watch emotions play across her face, loved to watch her move, loved to watch her in repose. Loved her. But as that was a topic not to be discussed, all he said was, "Yes."
"Good. I hope you scared the living shit out of him while you were at it."
"Vicki." He turned, arms crossed on his chest, and frowned in what was only partially mock disapproval.
"I am not your personal bogeyman, to be pulled out of the closet every time you think someone needs to have the fear of God ..."
Vicki snorted. "Think highly of yourself, don't you?''
"... put into them," he continued, ignoring the interruption.
"Have I ever treated you like my 'personal bogeyman'?" She raised a hand to cut off his immediate reply.
"Be honest. You have certain skills, just like I have certain skills, and when I think it's necessary, I use them. Besides," she pushed her glasses back into place on the bridge of her nose, "you said you wanted to be more involved in my business. Help out with more cases now that you've handed in Purple Passion's Pinnacle and aren't due to start another romantic masterpiece until next month."''Love Labors On.'' Henry saw no reason to be ashamed of writing historical romances; it paid well and he was good at it. He doubted, however, that Vicki had ever read one. She wasn't the type to enjoy, or even desire, escape through fiction. "Tonight-it wasn't what I had in mind when I said I wanted to be more involved."
"Henry, it's been over a year." She sounded amused. "You should know by now that most private investigating consists of days and days of boring, tedious research. Thrilling and exciting life-threatening situations are few and far between."
Henry raised one red-gold brow.
Vicki looked a little sheepish. "Look, it's not my fault people keep trying to kill me. And you. And anyway, you know those were the exceptions that prove
the rule." She straightened, tucking one sneakered foot up under her butt. "Tonight, I needed to convince a sleazebag-who deserved to be terrified after what he put his wife and kids through-to stay put until the police arrive. Tonight, I needed you. Henry Fitzroy, vampire. No one else could've done it."
Upon reflection, he was willing to grant her that no one else could have done the job as well although a couple of burly mortals and fifty feet of rope would have had the same general effect. "You really didn't like him, did you?''
"No. I didn't." Her lip curled. "It's one thing to walk out of your responsibilities, but it takes a special kind of asshole to do it in such a way that everyone thinks he's dead. They mourned him, Henry. Cried for him. And the son of a bitch was off building a new life, fancy-free, while they were bringing flowers, every Saturday, to an empty grave. If he hadn't gotten into the background of that national news report, they'd still be crying for him. He owes them. In my book, he owes them big."