The Spinoza Trilogy by J.R. Rain Read Free Book Online Page B

Only” door. He didn’t look happy about his assignment. I didn’t blame him. I scanned the crowd and spotted two security guards patrolling the line. The security guards looked a little more into it.
    I knew from Detective Sparks that a plainclothes officer was in the store as well, looking for anything unusual. Granted, an endless line of chattering women waiting for a too-tan man seemed unusual enough, but whatever.
    I noted that one of the security guards had a piece of paper rolled up in his back pocket. The paper and the partial image I saw looked familiar. It was Veronica, an image no doubt distributed by the police. Good, there was nowhere for her to hide or to run. We were going to find her, and save her from herself.
    Or, at least, that was the plan.
    I checked my cell. Five minutes to go.
    She was here, somewhere. I knew it. I felt it. But so far no one matched her description: that of a tall, dark haired, seventeen-year-old girl with murder in her eyes.
    A murmur began behind me. The murmur turned into outright cheers and clapping. I turned to see a tall man emerge from a backroom door, escorted by two very serious-looking Borders employees and another police officer.
    James P. Storm waved to his adoring fans, flashed a white smile, and took a seat at the long table. He picked up a pen, nodded to one of the Borders employees, and the first in line was permitted to stand before the table. Both policemen took up their positions to either side of the author. Both policemen looked as if they would rather be anywhere but here. One actually yawned.
    As I stood watching the scene from about fifty feet away, I couldn’t help but notice that Storm seemed frail and sickly, despite his brilliant tan.
    Fake tan, I suddenly thought.
    So fake that I suspected it could have been make-up. I had lived in Hollywood long enough to have seen my fair share of fake tans. Bronzers they call them. Something you rub on the skin. No sun required.
    Perfect for a vampire.
    I should have laughed at the notion. I should have banished it from my thoughts. I should have done anything but take it seriously. But it suddenly made some sense. Weird, strange, incomprehensible sense. Oxymorons on top of oxymorons.
    I frowned and watched him smile brightly at the next girl in line. He took her book with an equally tan hand, and spoke quietly to her, smiling, and then leaned over and wrote something inside the book. As he wrote, I noted a change in his pleasant expression.
    He wasn’t smiling now; indeed, he looked like he was in pain. Or deathly ill.
    Like a vampire forced into the light of day?
    I shook my head. Craziness.
    As he handed back the book to the young lady, his white long sleeve rode up his arm a little, and I couldn’t help but notice the fanged head of a snapping dragon. A helluva big tattoo. No doubt that beast wrapped all the way up his arm, and probably then some.
    Don’t get caught up in the craziness, I thought. Lots of people have dragon tattoos.
    And then Storm turned his head slightly and caught my eye and something very close to a chill coursed through me. He gave me a half smile and nodded and held my eyes for a half a second. He squinted a little and then he turned back to the next girl, smiling brightly at her, as well.
    What the hell had that been about?
    I didn’t know, but there was nothing more to see here on the second floor. I had just turned toward the escalator, when I stopped short and almost gasped.
    Almost, but I kept my composure.
    It was her, Veronica the Vampire Slayer.
     
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
    It was as if I was staring at a ghost, something that might not really be there, something phantasmagorical and ethereal. But she was there, in the flesh, real as hell, and she was heading up the escalator to the second floor.
    After I got over my initial shock, I processed what I was seeing. Veronica was wearing a long blond wig and a long flowing white dress. She might have even gone unnoticed had I not