I cradled Tara's plaque in my hands.

"Wow, that's a happy face," said Tara. "Fill me in."

"Oh, let me see. I screwed up and a girl died because I wasn't going to risk losing my job crying wolf. Which job, by the way, I lost anyway. I blew away three vampires, so the army's p.i.s.sed at me, because they wanted to have a little chat with them. I've breached the secrecy terms of my agreement, so I bet the army's legal department wants me shot. Morales knows about me. The rest of the police, well, G.o.d knows what they think. Maybe that I'm some kind of mutant soldier experiment that escaped from a laboratory. Half of them are probably p.i.s.sed at the army for doing that to me and the other half at the army for letting me out."

"Or both."

"Or both. Don't interrupt when I'm sobbing." I sighed. "The colonel hasn't had me hauled back to base. Yet. That's the real good news. He's not going to get me another job, so what do I do? I've got to get a job, even if it's cashier at McDonald's. On the big a.s.sumption that I'm allowed to stay here, whatever job I get, I'm still going to be working for the army, for expenses and peanuts, and I'm expected to be available as a consultant for Morales. He hasn't even got any peanuts, so I guess I'm doing that pro bono."

"Who's Bono? Not the singer?"

"Not funny. Where am I going to get a job that lets me drop everything to go chasing vampires for the police and the army?"

"Doh! You have a job offer."

"I had a sort of job offer. That was on Monday. Today is Tuesday."

"Call."

Sane advice, given it came from a voice in my head.

I called Whitman.

"Mr. Whitman, it's Amber Farrell. I'm sorry about missing the call yesterday. It got kinda busy at the station."

"No problem, Amber, no problem. Y'know, you could make my day brighter..."

"Yeah, about that, Mr. Whitman. I...ah...I'd like to come in and talk about it."

"That's great! Fantastic! Look, I'm in meetings until silly time tonight. Come in first thing tomorrow, nine o' clock?"

"Will do."

"That's great," he said again. "Talk tomorrow."

"Looking forward to it. Bye," I said, trying to get the tone right as I ended the call. Positive, upbeat. Yeah!

I'd have to practice that. If I actually got clients, I'd have to make nice. I shuddered, and while the cell was in my hand, I decided I'd better make the next call before I lost my nerve.

"Mom, hi."

"Amber! This is a pleasant surprise. Is it one of your days off?"

"Uh, not quite."

"Hmm." There was some background noise. "Well, dear, I'm sitting down. You can tell me now."

"I've left the police."

"Oh, that's-" she managed to stop herself from saying how wonderful it was, "-interesting. What are you going to do instead? Back to accounting? There's this firm John knows-"

"I have...um...the thing is, I think I'm going to be a private investigator," I blurted out.

"Let's not be too hasty here," she said, hastily. "You're under no pressure to get a new job, Amber. You know you can come and stay anytime. Heaven knows, I owe you so much-"

"Thanks, Mom, but I need this. Really, it's okay. It's safer than being an accountant."

"Exactly how did you come up with that?"

"Okay, it was off the top of my head. But I don't think it's like the PI shows on TV. It's not that exciting."

I hadn't changed her opinion, even after another fifteen minutes. I'd never be able to explain to her. The best I could do was guide her generally in the direction of my needing my independence, and wanting a job that didn't mean too much time behind a desk.

The truth about my life, the threat of the prions in my body, the obligations to the army and the police? Those I'd never be able to explain to her, even if I wanted to.

Far away in front of me, edges softened by the haze, lay Denver.

Sure as taxes, there were vampires down there. A community that had been hidden for who knows how long. And the army wanted me to find out all about them. In my free time.

There were roads down there as well. I-70 would take me to Kansas, I-25 to Cheyenne, I-76 and I-80 to Omaha. I pictured the network of roads spreading out like rivers across the land, full of little backwaters where I could hide. I could do it. I'd been trained by the best. It would be the easier option. But what would I say, as I-80 took me past North Platte and the biggest railroad junction in the country?

Sorry, Valerie.

And how many Valeries might be out there, now and in the future?

I drove back down into the city and went to the Schumachers' shop, on the off chance they were around.

Werner was. Klara was with Emily and had sent Werner back to look after the shop. Emily was having another session down at the station. Rules dictated they had to give her plenty of breaks. Quite how they were explaining the need for the real story of what happened in the gallery to be secret, I didn't know.

I got a big hug from Werner and a suspicion of shiny eyes.

Regardless of the reason he was there, he closed the shop, and insisted I stay until Emily got back, bribing me with coffee and cookies. As if that would work.

Then, when I was sitting down in his little kitchen area, he brought out a box.

"These," he said, "these are for you, and this is my guarantee. Never, never so long as we live, will you not have a pair of my boots to wear."

They were beautiful. Handmade cowboy boots, lower in the heel than some, so I could wear them even when I was working. There was a matching belt. They were my unique design, my very own, that he said he would never make for anyone else.

Call me shallow. I put them on and felt better.

PREVIEW.

Read on for the opening chapters of Sleight of Hand Bite Back book 1 "Vampires are the flickering illusions of Hollywood.

They don't exist.

We do. We are the Athanate."

For Amber Farrell, post-military life as a PI has its ups and downs: She's been hit by a truck. She's being sued by a client. Denver's newest drug lord just put out a contract on her. The sinister Athanate want her to come in for a friendly chat. And it's only Tuesday.

Enter Jennifer Kingslund: rich, gorgeous--a tough businesswoman who's known for getting what she wants in the boardroom and the bedroom. Someone's trying to sabotage her new resort and destroy her company--and she wants Amber to find out who.

The answers lead Amber past Were and Adept, right back to the Athanate--and a centuries-old war that could threaten not just Denver, but the nation that Amber swore to protect and serve.

And all sides want to claim her for their own...

Sleight of Hand Chapter 1

MONDAY.

It had been a couple of years and I was neither dead, nor undead, which I ranked as an achievement.

It wasn't as if I lacked opportunity. Even when I wasn't really looking for it.

I was safe at the moment. My perch among the roof beams of the Crate & Freight warehouse in the Northfield section of Denver was only fifty feet above the concrete floor. Those SCAR a.s.sault rifles down on the loading bay weren't aimed at me. No one knew I was here and it was dark in this corner. That was safe, by some definitions of the word safe. I was kind of enjoying myself.

Still, I knew what a few SCAR rounds could do to a body. The guys down there weren't carrying them for show. If they pointed a flashlight up into the gloomy recesses, they would be surprised to see their afternoon visitor from the HR department, now minus her clipboard and big square gla.s.ses, in black coveralls and toting a camera with a zoom lens.

Given what they were involved in, they wouldn't stop to ask questions.

I needed to call this in and hand it over to the police. I wasn't armed tonight and besides, I was supposed to be a discreet PI, not a one-woman SWAT team.

I didn't want to risk them hearing me call 911. And I didn't want the nearest cruiser with a couple of bored officers to swing by and spook these guys, thinking the call was some crazy woman. I wanted the Denver PD SWAT team, tooled up for the job. So I was waiting for a few of the photos to download from my camera to my cell and I would text them directly to Captain Jose Morales with details.

I had his contact for a completely different reason, but surely he'd thank me for this?

A noisy problem outside with the last truck emptied the warehouse, and I took the chance to climb down. Climbing urban structures was a teenage hobby of mine, so the prominent bolts and cross struts made this about as difficult as coming down a ladder.

I lurked in the shadow of a pile of pallets, waiting for my cell to finish loading.

Campbell Carter, the CEO of Centennial State Crate & Freight, had hired me on my office landlord's recommendation. He suspected some of his drivers and dispatchers were stealing from him. Nothing major, just something he wanted straightened out. Crate & Freight was an important local business in Denver and Carter the kind of man who wanted to be squeaky clean. I knew he was gearing up to run for office next year.

He was absolutely right in his suspicions-a group of drivers were skimming a margin, just enough that they thought it was below the radar. So far, so routine, so tame. But Carter's a.s.signment had been to find out what was going on, and it turned out skimming was the least of it.

I'd worked out a cover story for the day with the Crate & Freight HR manager. She'd even given me a real HR survey they wanted done, laconically wishing me the best of luck with it. I'd wandered around the depot that afternoon with my clipboard, asking mind-numbing questions about job satisfaction.

Every stuttered answer, every shifty eye, every sweaty face, told me something was happening today.

They hustled me out at 5 p.m., and I was back, over the fence, at 9 p.m. I'd left the clipboard and the gla.s.ses behind. I was in black coveralls, black ski cap, black boots and some real good makeup.

The photo transfer completed and I texted Morales: URGENT! Northfield Crate & Freight depot. See pix-large drug shipment moving NOW. RIFLES! SWAT team ASAP. Txt only. Amber Farrell.

The text took forever to transmit with the photos, while I stared at the screen wondering how it would play with Morales. I was supposed to be low profile. I was supposed to be on call for him and not the other way around. I sighed. I'd find out soon enough what he thought about it.

Of course, I'd come straight to the place they hadn't wanted me this afternoon; the old warehouse. It was a vast building, about three stories tall, with a drive-in, drive-out loading area. It was stacked high with pallets and containers waiting for shipment. Normally, storage was all it was used for, but tonight they'd wanted to be able to load trucks with the shutters closed, away from prying eyes. Except mine. And my shutter was wide open.

I'd expected to get photo evidence of some shrinkage of the stock. Not a sign of it, at least not tonight. There were thirty-two big rigs scheduled to leave the compound before morning. So far, a dozen had been driven into the warehouse and loaded just across from my hiding place. From what I'd seen, four were just regular loads. The others were carrying something extra, hidden in a compartment between the trailer and cab. From the lengths they went to for security and the size and shape of the packages, it was both drugs and weapons.

All of the illicit stuff came from a blue box truck parked alongside the loading area. I didn't recognize the company, Ranchos Rigs, but the plates were from New Mexico. In among a lot of edgy men, the driver, Nokes, had been the edgiest. He'd stood watching the transfer impatiently, talking only to Guy Windler, the Crate & Freight driver in charge of this operation. Windler took no c.r.a.p from anyone else, but he was wary around Nokes.

I checked the cell in case the vibrate wasn't working. Nothing.

Come on, Morales, the clock's ticking. Look at your freaking texts.

Given what was going on, the outer gates were locked and the eight drivers, site manager, forklift operator and dispatcher in the compound were all in on it. But you don't keep a shipping depot like this closed for long. Other drivers would be arriving. They had to get those trucks out of the depot before then. Of course, the police would be able to round them all up eventually, but who knows if the drugs and guns would still be on board. And the credit for the bust would be shared with whichever cities the trucks were bound for.

Morales, you want it for Denver PD, you come get it now.

No one had come back inside the warehouse yet. I crept out of my hiding place and risked taking shots of the box truck plate and logo with my cell camera. I sent them to Morales: Delivery vehicle.

I registered that the blue box truck had been closed up. The delivery had been completed, and Nokes was going to want out of here soon. Not on my watch. There was a chance he might lead Morales back up the supply chain.

I checked his doors-locked. There are lots of ways to sabotage a truck, but I needed it to be quick and quiet. I also didn't want to be obvious. There weren't many good places to hide in this depot, if someone were really looking for you. I started with a tire. Front and left, where he'd see it. I got a thin splinter from a pallet and jammed the air valve open.

I lay down to see how much of the engine I could reach from underneath. And the loading bay exit door in front of the truck started to rise.

Oh, c.r.a.p.

The huge steel door would take about four seconds to get high enough for someone to see underneath. I pulled the splinter out and ran to the back, where the matching entry door was closed. Three seconds. Next to the truck entrance was a personnel door that was unlocked.

Someone had left a stockman's coat tossed on a chair near the entrance. Two seconds. I grabbed it and put it on as I opened the door. One. It was a calculated risk taking the coat, but it was what everyone was wearing outside. I closed the door gently. Zero. Through the small gla.s.s panel I watched Nokes go to his truck and stare at the half-deflated tire.

Double c.r.a.p. I'd been flushed from hiding and all I'd gained was a few minutes.