Undead 10, Undead and Undermined - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,9

salary? Which was just pitiful, by the way . . . A good executive assistant made more than the average homicide detective, and admin staff were rarely shot at.

I had it in my head that N-Dick was the heir to the John Deere tractor fortune, but he didn’t talk about it much in my old timeline, and frankly, what with my husband being rich and my best friend being rich, I wasn’t all that curious about other people’s money. In any timeline.

I can hear it now: you’re not curious about money because you’ve always had some! Well. Yeah. I mean, my folks weren’t rich or anything—my mom was a teacher, for cripe’s sake—but they never wondered if there’d be money left at the end of the month, either. I’m not gonna apologize for being born into the upper-middle class. There were all sorts of more important things to apologize for.

Besides, there was always the chance I had Nick/Dick mixed up with someone else. That happened a lot. Shit, sometimes I got myself mixed up with someone else.

Well! Time to grasp the D-Nick by the horns. There wasn’t a subtle or classy way to ask, so . . . “Are you rich right now?”

D-Nick gasped. “You remembered! I am im-pressed, oh attentive undead queen with the short-term memory of a tree frog. Half the time you’re telling me to dress better, the other half you’re telling me it’s disgraceful for a trust-fund baby to hog the last of the milk. Time travel has been good for you.”

“That’s a lie and you know it.”

It helped that he was rich, which is why I’d asked; Jess had been screening gold-diggers out of her dating pool since before she graduated high school. In fact, if Nickie/Dickie hadn’t been rich, I wondered if their relationship would have come this far.

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have guys only want you for your money. Pre-Sinclair, most guys only wanted me for my terrific tits, and that was enough of a dating burden.

“If we could stay focused,” Sinclair suggested, so I quit thinking about Nick’s blue-with-flecks-of-gold eyes, his lean and powerful build (shoulders! yowza), and the way he didn’t hate me.

“Even for us, we’re having trouble staying on track,” Marc agreed. “Jesus! How lame are we?”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in front of my vampire husband.” There was a phrase I couldn’t say enough. Sinclair’s expression was still frozen in midflinch. “You know it bugs him, and then he bugs me.”

“Also,” Jessica prompted with a wicked grin, “it’s a sin.”

“Right! I would have remembered that in a few more minutes. In fact, I—”

The swinging door whooshed open. Which was strange, because most of us were here, and shoving doors open wasn’t Tina’s style. I’d been so busy yakking I hadn’t heard anyone coming down the hall.

“You’re back.”

I looked up and assumed I was experiencing my first-ever seizure. Great milestone, a personal goal for some time, freak-out induced seizures, woo-hoo! Next, probably my first-ever brain hemorrhage. Then I’d probably need my tonsils out.

Oh, it was going to be a wonderful week.

Standing in the kitchen doorway, looking rumpled and pale and not dead, was one of my dead roommates, Garrett.

And the last time I’d seen him, he was in the middle of killing himself.

Did I mentioned he’d succeeded in spectacular fashion?

CHAPTER FIVE

“Gaaaaah,” was all I managed as the kitchen floor rushed up and hit me in the forehead. Stupid rushing floor, why did it have to move when I’d had a terrible, terrible shock? Oh, wait. I’d fallen and I couldn’t get up. That old lady in the commercial had a buzzer . . . Where was my buzzer? I wanted a buzzer. Bring me a buzzer! The queen has spoken. “Too much . . . weirdness . . . blacking out . . .”

Nick (?) helpfully dripped smoothie on my forehead and I realized Sinclair was rubbing my hands between his while Marc tried to check my vitals.

“Why do I always do this?” he bitched. “Why do I ever try to get a pulse or BP off you?”

“Because you’re an idiot in every timeline.” I resisted the urge to shout that into the bell of his stethoscope.

“I must apologize.” Sinclair’s dark eyes were wide. He was rubbing my hands so hard, I assumed he was trying to start a fire. “My poor queen! I should have predicted your reaction.”

“Why? When have you ever been able to do that? I’m all right.” If I had a