The Thrill of the Chase Page 6

  Chuck waited until David had returned to his corner office and closed the door. “Did you come on board because you want to be a journalist? You know, work your way up from the bottom?”

  Brandon blushed, hesitant to admit that had been his initial thought upon joining the paper. However, it now seemed clear to him, given the small scale of the operation, that such a hope was a fantasy at best. Turning away, he busied himself with shuffling through the avalanche of mail on the counter. From what he could see, many were bills and ads, and a lot of them were indeed for the personals column. The numbers on the envelopes were a giveaway, though they also reminded him of letters meant for prison inmates. Brandon put those in a separate pile to deal with later, after the mysterious Leverett arrived.

  “Nah,” he fibbed, since Chuck was waiting for an answer. “I did major in journalism, but you know how it is after you first graduate from college. Any job, even in a related field, will do when you’ve got loans to pay back.”

  “Well, it’ll take a while, I’m afraid. The newspaper business is a dying one in these days of the Internet and cable, my friend. Pursue marketing instead. That’s where the future of our capitalist society lies.”

  “I don’t know. Working on a progressive paper seems like fun. I can get more involved in the community and actually be paid for it.”

  “Ah, an idealist. I had such dreams once upon a time. Anyway, don’t let my cynicism discourage you. I hope you’ll be happy here. The last guy took off without an explanation. We weren’t what he was looking for, I guess.”

  “I wouldn’t do that. I’d at least give proper notice.”

  Chuck laughed and went back to his computer.

  The hours passed quickly. Brandon learned all about sorting the mail, though in fairness it wasn’t exactly difficult. Outside the windows of the lobby, which he glanced up at now and again, the parking lot grew dark and gloomy as another crisp fall afternoon slowly came to an end.

  Just before quitting time, he heard tires rumble into the gravel lot. Looking up, he saw a silhouetted figure get out of a black sports car and walk toward the lobby entrance. A moment later, he stepped up to the window.

  Instinctively, Brandon glanced into the newsroom to ask if he should deal with the late customer himself or if David or Chuck wanted to do it, but both of them seemed to have disappeared. When Brandon looked back at the service window, he was glad they had.

  To say the guy standing there was attractive would have been the understatement of the decade. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, he wore a black leather coat and gloves with silver snaps at the wrists. After tapping once, he rested his long fingers on the glass while he waited for Brandon to walk over.

  “I’ve come to place an ad,” he said. While Brandon watched, he reached inside his coat, withdrew a sheet of paper neatly folded into thirds, and slid it through slot in the partition. When Brandon unfolded it, he found a quantity of cash tucked inside. “That should cover the first issue. If my initial foray proves unsuccessful, I will return and renew it.”

  “Most people mail this kind of stuff in,” Brandon said, placing the cash on the counter and scanning the contents of the ad. As he’d suspected, it was for the personals column. What he couldn’t have predicted was the content. He gaped, open-mouthed, while his customer waited patiently for him to look up again.

  “I don’t trust the mail,” he continued when Brandon raised his head. “I tried to submit the same ad once before, but it apparently got lost before it could actually be published. Do you know what I mean?”

  Was he implying someone at the paper had deliberately lost it? Still, maybe there was a reason for that. Glancing down, Brandon perused the text again to be sure he hadn’t been hallucinating.

  No—no mistake. Single Vampire Seeks Consort, he read. Must be comfortable with vampire lore and lifestyle and willing to indulge in safe, consensual bloodletting sessions.

  Brandon cleared his throat. “Well, to be honest, I don’t know if ... “ he began, but he never had to finish his sentence. When he looked up at the window, the guy was gone. The cash and the ad remained, which was a good thing, or else he would have begun to question his sanity. He could almost hear creepy soundtrack music ringing inside his head.

  Fortunately, Chuck and David chose that moment to stroll out of David’s office with their coats over their arms.

  “What happened to you?” Chuck asked, seeing Brandon’s stunned expression. “Did you just see a ghost back there?”

  “Pretty close,” Brandon muttered. He didn’t object when Chuck approached and took the unfolded sheet of paper from his hand. A smile crossed his face as he read it and then handed it to David, who laughed out loud.

  “Is that ... you know, is that all right to print?” Brandon asked, feeling stupid and naïve. “I mean ... I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  “Oh, we get all kinds,” David reassured him. “Nothing illegal about it. It’s really up to Leverett, but my opinion would be that we should go ahead and run it.”

  “A little controversy never hurt a paper like this one,” Chuck pointed out. “If it gains us a few new readers, even outraged ones, that’s all to the good.”

  “It’s probably not that controversial in today’s world,” David said. “Just some lonely guy role-playing. I wouldn’t worry about it. What they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms doesn’t concern us as long as he pays the monthly fee.”

  “He left it in cash.” Brandon duly handed the bills over.

  “Ah. Anonymity. Probably the safest thing for a vampire,” Chuck said, starting to laugh again. “You never know if some budding van Helsing is reading the man-to-man personals on the sly.”

  They were still chortling as they walked out to the parking lot with Brandon and got into their cars while he climbed onto his bike. He was so absorbed in thinking about the ad—and the man who had dropped it off—that he barely felt the chilly air whipping around him as he pedaled down the dingy city streets toward his equally dingy apartment house. Of course, he’d assumed the Rainbow Rag took kinky ads, like all of them did nowadays, but guys claiming to be vampires, looking for people to donate blood for them to drink? The entire concept shocked and unnerved him, so much that he found himself glancing over his shoulder as he unlocked the front door to his house.

  At the same time, he felt intrigued by the idea of surrendering his body and his blood. Giving himself utterly and completely to the man who had dropped off the ad turned him on more than he cared to admit. A bond like that, whether the guy was really a vampire or was just pretending to be one, would go way beyond any casual hookup or experimental blind date. It was like something out of a weird novel or a horror movie ... and yet, on some level at least, the whole bizarre scenario was real. There really was a guy out there in the city waiting for someone to answer his ad and offer his blood.

  Brandon fell asleep thinking about just who that someone might turn out to be.