3

John grabbed his jacket, held the door open for Savannah and motioned her to walk through it ahead of him. A gentlemanly move, yes, but it also meant that he could follow her with his eyes, eyes that instantly dropped to her ass. Maybe for once he should have foregone his Southern manners, because looking at that shapely ass, those firm, round cheeks, gave him all kinds of ideas wholly inappropriate for this situation. He prided himself on being a civilized vampire, a man who kept his needs and desires firmly leashed. But just looking at Savannah as she sashayed out of his office and into the hallway, made him want to snap that leash and toss all his good intentions out the proverbial window.

Savannah suddenly turned and looked at him. Startled, he froze. Shit, had she somehow sensed that he was checking out her ass?

“Where to?”

“Uh, this way,” he said and motioned to the elevators. As he walked next to her, the silence between them felt awkward, so he asked, “Ms. Rice, I’m sure that even with Detective Donnelly’s recommendation, you considered other companies to help you with the search for your daughter. Why choose Scanguards?”

“I spoke to several of the other companies in the field, but none of them struck me as even remotely qualified.” She gave him a sideways look. “They all started the initial meeting by laying out their fee structure and per diems, expenses, and what not. I knew then that they couldn’t care less whether they found Buffy or not, as long as they could bill me a bunch of hours.”

“Hmm.” He would have had the same concern had he been treated that way.

“But when your first move was to ask me to tell you about Buffy and what had happened, I knew Scanguards was different. Detective Donnelly’s recommendation certainly helped, but I don’t rely on other people’s opinions. I form my own.”

Maybe that attitude was what Donnelly had meant by bossy and opinionated, but John considered it good instincts. Very good instincts.

“I’ll do my best not to disappoint you.”

When they arrived at the elevators, John pressed the button, and Savannah turned to him. “I didn’t have much confidence in the police to begin with. But after what you just told me about the other children, I know I can’t rely on them to find Buffy. I hate to put more pressure on you, but Scanguards is my last hope.”

Before he could respond, the elevator doors opened and Amaury, Scanguards’ founder Samson’s best friend and a high-ranking director of the company, stepped out. As always, he was casually dressed in cargo pants and a shirt that was open at the collar. His long dark hair, shorter than John’s, touched his shoulders, shoulders that were as broad as a tank. He was linebacker material for sure, though John knew Amaury had never played American football in his youth, which he’d spent in sixteenth century France.

“Hey, John,” Amaury greeted him and nodded to Savannah.

“Amaury, evening.”

“Glad I’m running into you. There’s been a small change in the schedule.”

John raised an eyebrow. Would he have to hand Savannah over to somebody else? “Yeah?”

“Damian and Benjamin requested to do their hands-on-training exercises with you starting tomorrow night. Take ‘em patrolling and find something for them to do.” Amaury grimaced. “Sorry, but I had to approve it, or they would have talked my ear off.”

John shrugged and reached for the elevator door, preventing it from shutting. “I don’t mind. Like I said to Gabriel earlier, the boys need to start pulling their weight. We need the extra pairs of hands.”

Amaury slapped him on the shoulder. “Glad you see it that way. Not everybody is keen on training the next generation.” He made a motion to walk away, then stopped and grinned. “Oh, and I told them that your word is law. They run roughshod over me, ‘cause I’m their father, but there’s no reason for you to tolerate such behavior.”

John had to chuckle involuntarily. “They’re good boys. You could have done worse.”

Amaury winked at him. “Yeah, I could have gotten Grayson as a son.” With a nod and a “Ma’am” to Savannah, he left.

John looked at Savannah and motioned to the elevator. “Shall we?”

Inside the elevator, John pressed the button for parking level two and watched the doors slide closed.

“I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re patrolling. What kind of patrolling?” Savannah asked.

“We have a contract with the city. For security services.” When she gave him a curious look, he added, “The city’s police force is too small to handle all of the city’s security needs. So they hired Scanguards to patrol certain areas at night. Make sure the city is safe.” Safe from creatures of the night. From creatures like him.

“The city seems to have lots of confidence in Scanguards.”

“We’ve been working with them for a long time.” The former mayor of San Francisco, a hybrid and a friend of Samson, had negotiated the deal. When the new mayor had taken over, he, as well as the chief of police, had been let in on the secret that vampires existed. Fortunately, they’d agreed to honor the prior mayor’s arrangement and sworn to keep the existence of vampires, witches, and other paranormal creatures secret. The deal worked well for both sides: the city was safe, and Scanguards received steady pay from the city’s treasury.

The elevator doors opened. “Go ahead, my car is parked to the left.” He followed Savannah out into the clean, well-lit garage.

“The SUV?” she asked, pointing to a blackout van, one of Scanguards’ preferred modes of transport because it shielded the vampires riding in it—including the driver—from the sun.

John shook his head, clicked his key remote, and the lights of the car next to the SUV flashed briefly.

Savannah’s gaze snapped to it. “The sports car?” There was a hint of surprise in her eyes, as if she hadn’t expected him to drive a sports car or make enough money to afford such an expensive vehicle. Or maybe it was just appreciation for the fine German machine he owned. For whatever reason, he had a hard time reading her.

The black Mercedes AMG was a sleek two-seater and his pride and joy. It had also been made vampire-safe, its windows coated with a film UV-rays couldn’t penetrate, while still letting in enough light so the car didn’t look suspicious.

He opened the passenger door and waited for Savannah to slide into the leather seat, before closing the door behind her. Then he got in on the driver’s side and engaged the engine. Moments later, he merged into traffic on busy Mission Street, before turning North toward Cole Valley.

“We’ll start with the school,” he announced.

“There won’t be anybody there right now. It’s night.”

“Doesn’t matter.” In fact it was better if he could snoop around without any school staff asking him questions. Besides, a visit during the day was out of the question. “I’ll be able to see what I need to see.”

“You work nights a lot?” she asked.

“Mostly.” Though not by choice.

“Don’t you mind it?”

“You get used to it.” After a couple of hundred years.

“Hmm.” She looked out the side window and fell silent for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you can get used to a lot of things if you have to.”

He could sense sadness in her voice, and knew it was time to guide the conversation in another direction. Just as well, because he still had plenty of questions pertaining to Buffy. “You said there was no Mr. Rice. So where is he, Buffy’s father?”

She turned her head to him. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“Because we can’t rule out the possibility that he might have kidnapped her. It happens all the time that non-custodial parents kidnap their own children in order to get back at their ex-spouse.”

“I was probably not very clear earlier.” She sighed. “There is no father. None that Buffy would know. I was never married.”

“Your ex-boyfriend then?”

From the corner of his eye he noticed her shake her head. “I wanted a child, but I didn’t want a man in the bargain. Buffy’s biological father has no idea he has a child. He donated his sperm to a sperm bank, and for all I know, he has lots of children he doesn’t know about. He was a very desirable donor.”

That news surprised him and made him curious. “What do you mean by desirable?”

She shrugged. “You can choose from profiles at the sperm bank. You know, to pick the kind of attributes you hope the donor will pass down to your child. He had a PhD from MIT, an IQ that put him in the top brackets at Mensa. I know some people would judge me for how I chose him. But I wanted the best genes for my child.”

Stunned at her words, John stared at her. “Those were the only criteria they gave you? Nothing else to identify him by?”

She shook her head slightly. “I knew he was Caucasian, had blue eyes and dark hair. But they don’t give you much else. No pictures, if that’s what you mean.”

“Hmm, I see. So I assume he would never find out that his sperm had resulted in a child.” Knowing how strict privacy laws were, John didn’t expect an answer. “Just like you don’t know his name, he doesn’t know yours.” A dead end then.

“No, sorry. Maybe I should have gotten more information on him back then, but I didn’t.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean? How?”

“Their systems are hackable.”

“Hackable? How do you know that?”

“I’m a programmer. I was tempted to find out more about Buffy’s potential father back then. I got into their system. It was easy.” She sighed. “But I didn’t go through with it. In the end, I decided it was best not to know too much. So I never accessed his file. What I knew was enough. The sperm donor was healthy, young, and intelligent. That was all that mattered.”

John nodded, contemplating her words. She’d made a wise decision not to pursue the matter any further, though one thing made him curious. “Do you still use your skills as a hacker?” After all, it could be entirely possible that by hacking into a system, she’d drawn somebody’s attention on herself, who now wanted to hurt her by kidnapping Buffy.

She shook her head. “I actually work in cyber security now. That experience showed me how vulnerable certain organizations are. So I made it my business to help them patch those areas that are vulnerable to a cyber attack. One of my first independent jobs was to shore up security at the sperm bank.”

“You run your own business? As a cyber security expert?” He glanced at her, running a long look over her feminine features.

“Why does that surprise you? Because I’m a woman?”

“I didn’t mean to—”

She lifted her hand. “No need to apologize. I get that a lot.”

“It’s just that when I think of a cyber security consultant, I imagine somebody a bit geekier.” And Savannah was anything but geeky. She was sensual, sexy, like sin itself. And he was back to thinking about her sexually again. How long had he managed to keep his mind off her delicious curves by acting professional and asking her about things that should have been completely innocent? Five minutes? Ten?

If he continued like this, one of two things would happen. He’d either find himself pressing Savannah against the nearest flat surface, burying his cock in her while he drank her blood, or he would return home at sunrise, needing either an ice-cold shower or a hand job, or possibly both.

The former, he couldn’t allow under any circumstances, and the latter didn’t sound in the least bit appealing.