“I’m sorry,” I said, breaking eye contact first. For a vampire that reveled in her independence, Mira was showing a surprising amount of protectiveness for a collection of creatures. But I had a feeling that Daniel had earned her respect. He was sticking his neck out to protect mankind and help Mira. What did I care if Mira compensated him for his troubles?

“Thanks,” Mira said gruffly, then turned and continued up the stairs.

It wasn’t until we had reached the third floor that James finally spoke up. “How did he find out…about everything?”

“His sister-in-law is a member of the local pack,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. There was a somewhat wry smile teasing at her lips as she spoke. “Only Daniel and his brother know, but it opened his eyes to the rest of us.”

That way was better than what I had been expecting. It probably hadn’t been a comfortable moment for Daniel Crowley, but I doubted it caused him to wake up in a cold sweat with a scream lodged in his throat. Those few humans who knew that vampires, lycans, and all the other creatures existed were generally survivors with gruesome tales of blood and pain, and poorly healed scars.

I stopped at the top of the stairs on the top floor next to Mira. There were only two apartments on the sixth floor. The apartment on the left had its door close to the stairs. A woven mat with WELCOME in wide black letters beckoned all visitors. A fake potted palm also stood next to the dark wood door, adding to the warm atmosphere. The door to the apartment on the right was at the other end of the hall. Yellow police tape was stretched across the entrance, warning away the curious.

“What are the odds the neighbor heard or saw anything?” Mira said blandly, jerking her head toward the door on the left.

“We’re not that lucky,” I said with a frown. If the neighbor had seen the attacker, he or she wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale. That, of course, is assuming the attacker didn’t have the power to wipe a human’s memory.

I walked ahead of Mira down the hall to the other apartment. I reached up to tear down the yellow tape, but my hand halted in midair as my eyes snagged on the streak of blood across the door. It wasn’t drawn in any kind of symbol, but looked like someone had wiped the blood off his or her finger, smearing it across the lacquer surface.

Mira reached around me and tore down the yellow tape, making a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. Using the key Daniel had given her, she unlocked the door and shoved it open. I moved to follow her into the apartment, but she pressed her hand to my chest, stopping me.

“What?” I demanded, barely resisting the urge to take a step backward away from her touch. After what happened at the little vampire gathering, I thought it better if I maintained some physical distance from her. One of us was having restraint issues, and right now, distance could only be a good thing.

“Wait.” Mira drew in a slow, deep breath through her nose and held it, her eyes closed. She didn’t breathe, but vampirism did heighten her senses. Mira was smelling the air.

I quickly snapped my eyes from the way her breasts rose as her lungs expanded and stared blindly into the room, vainly attempting to concentrate on why we were at the apartment in the first place. “Anything?”

Mira shook her head, frowning. She exhaled and drew in another breath, holding it longer. “There’s definitely something, but it’s…hard to pick out. Lots of humans were through here, mucking everything up. There’s something else, just a hint, but it’s not anything I’ve ever encountered.”

“So you’re saying it can’t be vampire,” I said thickly.

“No,” she growled, glaring at me over her shoulder. “But I can say that none of the nightwalkers we saw tonight have been in this apartment in the past few days. They would not be able to hide from me.”

Leaning my left elbow against the doorjamb, I shoved my fingers through my hair, pushing it out of my eyes. “Let’s get this over with,” I muttered. I wasn’t sure what Mira hoped to find that the police hadn’t already found. On the other hand, our minds were open to the idea that the woman’s attacker was not human.

The narrow hallway led into a large living room. The walls were made of the same redbrick and decorated with a collection of framed black-and-white photographs. One wall was filled with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto River Street and the Savannah River. The scent of apple-cinnamon potpourri hung in the warm apartment air.

However, the warm atmosphere suddenly chilled when my eyes dropped to the tape outline of where the woman’s body had been found before the moss-colored sofa. The white area rug with an ivy design was stained a deep brownish red from her blood, and the taste of copper filled my mouth.

Slowly, I walked around the sofa to get a better view of the site of the woman’s death. An odd tension twisted in my stomach as I quietly moved through the apartment. I had seen more than my fair share of corpses, but there was something strange about moving around the dead woman’s apartment, as if her absence left the air feeling heavier. I rarely investigated human murders. It was usually my job to punish the murderer once he or she was identified.

Around me, Mira flicked on the lights. Her eyesight was extremely sharp, but she was obviously unwilling to miss anything. The nightwalker moved easily about the room as if she had no qualms over the fact that we were investigating the brutal murder of a young woman. Her feet were silent on the patches of carpet and only lightly clicked when she stepped onto the hardwood floor. I couldn’t understand the vampire. Did she not care that the existence of one of her kind could possibly be hanging in the balance? Obviously not.

“Nothing looks disturbed. No sign of a struggle,” James said in a soft voice, as he, too, was afraid to disturb the oppressive quiet of the apartment. Nothing was tipped over, shattered, or torn. Even the lamp shades were perfectly balanced.

“The door didn’t look tampered with. So we can assume she let her attacker in,” Mira said, walking over to stand beside me. She paused and then her head jerked up. “Unless the attacker was a magic user, cast a spell to unlock the door and walk in.”

I shook my head, unable to tear my eyes away from the tape outline. “No residue.”

“I beg your pardon,” Mira demanded, her tone finally jerking my gaze back to her face.

“I have a…” I licked my lips, fumbling for the right word. “…sensitivity to magic. Spells tend to leave behind a residue. A spell to unlock the door would have left a residue behind in the wood. There was nothing.”

Mira just arched one questioning brow at me then returned her gaze to the bloodstained carpet. “So, she probably let her attacker in. Could be a friend or lover.”

The vampire squatted beside me, shaking her head as she looked over the scene. “It wasn’t a nightwalker.”

I couldn’t stop the snort of disbelief at her comment, earning a dark frown from her. “You can’t possibly know that by just smelling the air,” I argued.

“Look at the blood,” she said in a near growl. “There’s too much blood.” Standing, she walked across the floor and pushed the sofa off the edge of the area rug.

“Mira!” Her name escaped me in a harsh gasp. I pointed to the floor, showing her that she was standing in the outline of the body.

Mira looked up at me with a look of utter disbelief. “You’re strange. You do know that?” she said blandly, narrowing her eyes at me.

I know it was a strange qualm, but you didn’t walk on someone’s grave if you could help it and you didn’t stand in the place where a person died. Call it an old superstition. I did what I could to keep up with the changing times and ideas, but there were some notions that I struggled to shed.

Bending down, the vampire grabbed the edge of the carpet and pulled it toward me as she backed up. The sound of cracking filled the air as the crust of dried blood crumbled.