The Vampire's Kiss by Vivi Anna, now you can read online.
Chapter 1
Olena Petrovich had had close to three hundred years to perfect sin to an art form. In the past, she’d used her vampiric charms to get whatever she wanted in life—money, sex, power. It helped, she supposed, that she was curvy and possessed a mouth some men had said was made for sin. But it had always proven to be too easy.
She didn’t want easy any longer. She liked working for the things she received. Like this case.
This was Olena’s first time as lead investigator and she was excited about it. She didn’t want to make one mistake. It wasn’t often that Inspector Gabriel Bellmonte let go of the reins. But he had for her. Or it could’ve been because she had begged him for the past three months.
The crime scene at the National Bank of Nouveau Monde wasn’t typical for a bank robbery. Usually the robbers took the money, but instead these guys—four armed, masked men—had herded everyone in the bank into the vault, then blasted apart the safety-deposit boxes.
Olena and her team wouldn’t be able to get a clear view of the situation until they’d pieced together all the boxes that had been destroyed. And by the looks of the mess, that was going to take considerable time.
The odor of smoke still hung oppressively in the air as Olena eyed the wall of boxes, taking in the destruction. Charred residue marred an array of the shiny metal squares in a circular pattern. The explosion had caused a lot of damage.
“I wonder what they were looking for.” She glanced over her shoulder at her investigative partner, Sophie St. Clair, who was busy taking pictures of the metal and plastic shrapnel scattered all over the black-and-white-tiled floor.
“I guess someone must’ve lost his key.” After snapping her last photo, Sophie stood beside Olena and surveyed the destroyed wall. “Kellen called. He said he’d be on scene in about fifteen minutes,” Sophie informed her.
Olena nodded. “Good. He can figure out this blast pattern on the remaining safety-deposit boxes.”
Kellen, a recent addition to their crime-scene team, was a damn good ballistics expert. He had come from America to France for treatment for a rare blood disease and had ended up completely cured, with a new job on the team and an engagement to Sophie.
Fate had a grand sense of humor.
“What did the bank manager have to say?”
“He said that around nine-thirty, about the time that they open for business, four men with black ski masks burst into the bank, waving guns around, and told everyone to get facedown on the floor.”
“Could he tell if they were vamps or lycans or anything?”
“No. He said he couldn’t really get a bead on any of them.” Olena frowned. “But he did say one of them smelled like menthol.”
“The manager’s a lycan?”
Olena nodded.
Sophie shrugged. “Maybe that guy had a cold and he’s been using cold medicines.”
“Yeah, that could be it.”
“I have my moments.” Sophie smiled.
“Once everyone was on the floor, one of the gunmen demanded that the manager open the vault and another two herded all the employees and patrons into it. The same one took the keys from the manager and shut the vault with everyone inside.”
“So nobody saw anything after that?”
“No.” Olena flipped her notebook open and read from her notes. “But three of the ten people in the vault said they heard an explosion at around ten-thirty.”
Sophie glanced at her watch. “Let’s see. It’s one now, so two and a half hours. Not bad to be on scene already.”
“A regular bank patron named Madame Fonteneau called 911 when she couldn’t get into the bank at eleven-thirty.” Olena smiled. “Whoever cased the bank didn’t count on Mrs. Fonteneau’s fortitude to cash her monthly social-security check.”
“Did she see anything?”
Olena shook her head. “No. Unfortunately, she was so upset about not cashing her check that she cried through most of the interview.” She flipped her notepad closed and slid it into the inner pocket of her blue nylon jacket, the standard coat for all crime-scene technicians.
A young police constable stuck his head into the room. “Here are all the tapes from the security cameras.” He came in holding five tapes and handed them over to her.
“Thanks.” She smiled at him.