“I told you, he’s a jerk.” Right then the image of him shirtless walking toward her filled Della’s mind. She opened her bag, looking for the photograph of her grandmother with her father and his brother.
“Is this whole bag thing a ploy just so you don’t have to talk about your weekend?” Miranda asked.
“No,” Della said. “I just want to make sure that…”
She unzipped the bag, looking for the little white envelope she’d carefully placed between her underwear and her PJs. It wasn’t there! She started tossing everything out. She even turned the bag upside down and shook it, praying it would flutter out. Nothing fluttered. No picture.
“Nooo!” she muttered, thinking she might never get it back. It was probably the only picture her dad had of his brother, too. She couldn’t have lost it. Her father would kill her.
No, he wouldn’t, the thought hit. He’d just be disappointed in her even more than he was.
“This can’t be happening,” Della said.
“What can’t be happening?” Kylie asked.
“He took it. Why the hell would he have taken it?”
“Took what?” Kylie asked.
Della didn’t answer. She had to find that piece-of-shit vamp and find her father’s picture. She flashed out of the room.
When she went into full fly mode she realized she wasn’t alone. Kylie had transformed into a vampire and was chasing the wind beside her.
“What did he take?” she asked, her hair flipping around her face.
“A picture,” Della said, searching the terrain below her for the dirty little thief. “An old picture that belongs to my dad. I swear, if he even dog-eared one corner of that photograph, I’m…”
“Why would he take your picture?”
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out. And you might not want to be a part of this. Because if I have to, I’m beating the answer out of him.”
“You can’t…”
“Watch me,” she snapped. Then her blood started firing into full-on vamp mode when she spotted the guy walking through the woods.
Chapter Three
Right before Della’s feet slapped against the earth, the thieving vamp’s gaze shot up. Della landed about five feet in front of him. Kylie, forever the peacemaker, landed between them.
“Where is it?” Della asked, gripping and ungripping her hands, leaning to the right to look over Kylie to see her potential victim.
The vamp focused on Kylie for a second, reading her pattern. Since she morphed into vampire, he didn’t seem to worry. Right then, Della kind of hoped the bastard would lay a hand on her and then Kylie’d go into protective mode. Between the two of them, they’d be tossing his vamp butt around like a dead squirrel.
He cut his eyes back to Della. “Well, whatcha know, Smurf girl returns. At least your underwear doesn’t have Disney characters on them.”
Della’s blood pressure shot up a few points, or maybe a lot of points. “What? You get a kick out of going through a girl’s panties? Pervert,” Della growled, low and deadly. Taking a step forward, trying but unable to get around Kylie, she glared at the boy. “Where is it?” she asked for the last time. He’d better decide to come clean, or she was gonna get dirty.
Kylie looked back at Della and held out her hand as if to say “calm down.” She couldn’t calm down. The guy had stolen her dad’s picture. The fact that Della had stolen it first was beside the point.
“Are you talking about this?” The smartass guy pulled the folded envelope from his back pocket.
She snatched it from his hand. “Why did you take it?” She opened it to make sure he hadn’t ripped or damaged the photo. It looked unharmed. Relief filled her chest.
“I was bringing it to you now. When I found the backpack, I went through it to see whose it was. I left it on your porch. It wasn’t until I was walking back that I saw the envelope on the ground right where I’d opened your bag, and when I looked, I realized it must have fallen out.”
“Liar,” she accused, even though his heart didn’t claim his words as an untruth. She shot around Kylie.
“Slow down,” Kylie said, moving between them again and giving Della a pleading look. “You got the picture back,” Kylie said. “And I checked his heartbeat. He was telling the truth about bringing it to you.”