Monday morning, I showed up for work. Marshall and Dudley were holed up in the former’s office. Marshall only surfaced once to show me how to work the coffee machine and give me a pile of non-paying client files to call. Why didn’t he mention that I’d be doing that on Friday? I might have thought twice about the job. Reluctantly, I took the stack of files. Then the surly detective gave me forty bucks to go buy them breakfast with. Heck! How long had they been talking?

When I finally sat down to make the phone calls, I realized this job wasn’t as meaningless as I supposed. Actually, it was quite the opposite. The first file not only had the billing information but also contained the whole case history. Marshall was supposed to track down a missing person. Marshall had found them—wife gone astray—just as I suggested on Friday. Now the husband was pissed and didn’t want to pay.

It wasn’t until the fourth file that I found something regarding vampires. It was a simple case. The client just wanted to know if someone they knew was a vampire. They weren’t. Case closed.

After that, almost every case was about vampires. For the most part, the conclusions Marshall arrived at were less than satisfactory to the clients, hence they wouldn’t pay.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Dudley came out of Marshall’s office, carrying a stack of files. He stopped and balanced them on one of the chairs in the waiting room while he sorted them into his briefcase. I felt his eyes on me as I opened the last file.

“Am I that cute?” I ask humorlessly, looking into his unimpressed eyes again.

“You look familiar to me. That’s all. I just can’t place you.”

“Maybe we knew each other when we were growing up?” I suggested, not believing a word of it.

He cocked his head to the side. “It’s possible. I remember I knew a girl with the same name as you once, but it couldn’t be you. You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who would ever choose to slaughter a pig.”

The late afternoon sun came through the window to my left and the Venetian blinds cast horizontal shadows across his shirt. It was hard to say what made him so attractive to me at that moment. Even though his face was made up of perfect lines and the sunlight made his brown hair shine like copper—the feeling came from somewhere deeper. Something about him screamed that if he knew everything there was to know about me, he would get it. He would get everything. He would understand why I killed the vampire. He would toast me for not hesitating to do what I had to. He would approve of my protecting my sister and allowing myself to grow old and unused at her side. Maybe it was just a passing fancy—or maybe he was my soul mate and I was going to have to let him slip through my fingers like I had every other man I’d ever wanted to pursue.

He leaned on the desk and looked at my face. “Do we know each other?”

“My memory isn’t so good,” I said limply.

“Well, I’ll think about it,” he said as he swung his bag over his shoulder and marched out.

Through the glass partition, I watched him walk down the hall before I got back to work. He had great shoulders.

Then I had a look at the last file’s contents. It was an older file—opened three years ago. It was a request from a person who seemed to be a vampire. That surprised me, but I supposed even vampires sometimes needed a detective service. I bet Marshall was liberal-minded enough to retire vampires on vampire requests as well as human requests. This particular bloodsucker was looking for two vampires who had gone missing. In human time, a person is missing after they have been gone for two or three days. In vampire time, no one thought to look for these bloodsuckers until they had been missing for five years. I stared at the pictures in disbelief. One of the vampires he was searching for was Schroder, and the other one was my sister, London.

I was so shocked I felt like I was having a panic attack, but I refused to lose my visible cool. Rather than worry about the details, I forced my eyes to the front page to see Marshall’s conclusion. When I looked at the billing information, I saw that the client was a paying client. Their balance was zero. If that was the case, why was I being asked to call him?

Then I saw something that made me clamp my hand over my mouth. Tucked in the file was a picture of London leaning against a pole at a bar, with me standing in the background. I picked up the picture and examined it carefully with my heart pounding in my throat. Had Marshall realized that I was in this picture? Was he showing it to me intentionally?

Marshall probably needed to contact the client because he’d found a new lead.  This file was in the wrong pile.

The old detective began to stir in his office.

I put the picture back and closed the file. Then I stuck a post-it note on the front that read, “No amount owing. Action required?” Then I picked up the pile and went into Marshall’s office like I wasn’t worried about a thing.

I tapped on his door politely and he called for me to come in.

“I finished the pile,” I say nonchalantly. “There are a few minutes before five o’clock. Is there anything else you’d like me to do before I go, Mr. Marshall?”

He turned around and looked at me. Dudley wasn’t the only one with an unreadable expression. I couldn’t tell if he knew I was connected with London, but If he didn’t know, it was only a matter of time before he figured it out. My resume had my address on it and if he followed London home when he saw her at the bar, she would lead him to the same address. However, there was also the possibility that he didn’t look at my address carefully. I didn’t talk to London at the clubs. Maybe he hadn’t made the connection, but all the pieces were there.

I had to do something.

“No,” Marshall said, interrupting my thoughts. “You can go home.”

“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

I gathered my things and walked out of the office, thinking about evasive action. I could send London home to our parents. That wouldn’t be too hard. I could handle her mail (if there was any) while she was in the country and my parents could keep an eye on her until Marshall stopped looking for her. As for me working in his office—it was perfectly fine. You keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

Besides, our parents lived in the boonies. I wouldn’t have to worry about London looking for a mate out there. There is never anyone interesting out there. I only met one remotely appealing boy when I was growing up. He lived next door to us when we were teenagers. He was closer to London’s age—totally gawky—but kind and the fabric of some of my best memories growing up.

“What are you thinking about so completely?” Dudley said abruptly, coming up behind me as I exited the building. “You should be more aware of your surroundings. Someone could sneak up on you.”

Like him?

I answered wearily, “I guess someone could. Did you forget something upstairs?”

“Not really,” he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder in that way of his. “I just thought you might like me to walk you home.”

And lead him straight to London, no doubt. Marshall might not have noticed the duplicate addresses, but Dudley could have. He was a P.I. in his own right, wasn’t he?

I smiled coyly and prepared to tell a few lies. “Actually, I wasn’t going straight home. My fridge is completely empty. I was going out to eat, but I’m sans a companion tonight. Would you care to join me?”

“Your treat?”

“As long as I get to pick where we’re going. I’m a receptionist—not a billionaire.”

“Does that mean you’re going to take me to the café across the street?” he asked, indicating the saddest little joint with grubby windows and no one eating inside.

“Yep,” I said positively and began making my way toward it.

Dudley grabbed my arm. “No. That’s not even a real restaurant. It’s a drug nest. The only people who pop in there are going to get stoned.”

“So? I’m sure they still serve food,” I said, with my nose in the air.

He sighed. “The point is, the bread will be moldy and the meat will be expired. I’ll treat you to a real restaurant.”

I nodded.

I was actually hoping he’d refuse me entirely and leave, but having him pay for my meal was a close second.