But even as he said it, he knew it would be a matter of only hours before he began craving her again. He talked of the killers being addicts.

Yet who, precisely, was the true addict?

Chapter Thirty-three

2:00 P.M. EST, Friday, April 16

ABN Building

520 Madison Avenue

New York, New York

I know who you are,” Tabitha Worthington Stone said in a breathless voice. “Or I guess I should say what you are.”

“Do you?” The tall, dark-haired young man looked down at her with a gaze that smoldered, a faint smile playing on his perfectly formed lips. “What am I?”

“You’re a…a…” Taylor glanced away, biting her luscious lower lip and throwing an arm dramatically over her forehead. “No! I can’t say it. It’s just not possible!”

“Say it.” Maximillian Cabrera grabbed her by both shoulders. “Just say it!”

“Oh, hey.” Paul, one of the breakdown writers, nodded at Jon. “Here to see Meena?”

Jon tore his gaze from the incredibly passionate scene being acted out on the empty soundstage in front of him. Taylor Mackenzie still somehow managed to look sexy in leggings and a large gray cardigan, which she wore open over a belly-revealing black T-shirt.

Too bad Jon didn’t have anything as good to say about her costar-to-be, Stefan Dominic. He thought Dominic looked terrible, all black skinny jeans, greasy hair, and a two-day growth of razor stubble.

No way they were going to give him the part, Jon thought. They’d be way smarter to give it to someone cleaner-cut looking. Like Jon, for instance. Dominic was just so…obvious. For someone supposed to be playing a vampire, that is.

“Yeah,” Jon said to Paul. “I mean, Meena knows I’m here, anyway. I had to phone up in order for security to let me sign in.” He pointed to his visitor pass, clipped to the collar of his jean jacket. “But I haven’t seen her anywhere.”

“She’s in her office,” Paul said. “Under the pile of breakdowns I just handed her. You better look out. She’s in a foul mood.”

Jon frowned. “Really? Why?”

“If I had to guess, that’s why,” Paul said, nodding toward the soundstage.

Fran and Stan, Meena’s bosses, had stepped out in front of the cameras and were giving Taylor and Stefan some feedback.

“That was fantastic,” Fran, a middle-aged lady with a lot of pendant necklaces and wildly curling gray hair, was saying. “Stefan, you gave me goose bumps.”

“Thanks,” Stefan said laconically, standing around with his hip bones poking out.

Jon wanted to punch him in the kidneys.

“Right, Aunt Fran?” A skinny girl with very straight black hair and wearing a pencil skirt stepped out from behind a heavyset man. Shoshona, Jon realized. And the heavyset man was Meena’s other boss, Sy. “He’s just brilliant.”

Brilliant. About as brilliant as Jack Bauer. The dog, not the one played by Kiefer Sutherland.

“Thanks,” Stefan said again, pushing some of his dirty-looking hair from his eyes.

“I get a really good feeling from him,” Taylor said in her tinkly little voice. “I think we’ve got good chemistry. It works for me.”

Oh, God, Jon thought with an inward groan. Why had he even bothered showing up? This was just torture. To see-actually see, in real life, not on a television screen-his beloved Taylor in the arms of another? It was too much.

And then the next thing Jon knew, Taylor was coming toward him in her little white tennis shoes. He sucked in his breath-and his gut, although he didn’t have much of one, because he’d really been working out this time, not just saying he was going to, since he was serious about this police exam thing-and said, “Hey, Taylor,” as she walked by, leaving a faint scent of grapefruit in her wake.

She turned her head and saw him, her heavily glossed lips parting in surprise…then curling upward in a smile of recognition.

“Oh, hey…” She clearly couldn’t remember his name.

“Jon,” he said quickly. “Jon Harper. Meena Harper’s older brother?”

“Oh, right,” she said, giggling. “I’m so bad with names. How’s it going?”

“Great,” he said. His heart was thumping like a basketball. “I just caught the last bit of that scene with you and…what’s-his-name. That was some fantastic work.”

“Oh, thanks,” Taylor said, her eyes shining. “His name is Stefan. He’s going to play the new vampire on the show. I’m so psyched ’cause it’s really going to pull in a younger demo for the show. Isn’t Stefan fabulous?”

No, Jon thought. You’re fabulous. Not Stefan. That guy sucks.

“So they’re definitely going to cast that guy, huh?” Jon asked. “Because, you know, I did some acting in high school-”

“Oh, I think so,” Taylor said. “The network wants him. And he’s got the same manager as Gregory Bane, you know, from Lust? That guy over there. Dimitri something-or-other.”

She pointed to a man who was standing in one corner, talking to Stan and Fran and Sy and Shoshona. Dimitri Something-or-Other was huge-physically, just really tall and broad-shouldered, a little like Meena’s prince-and in an impeccably tailored suit that had probably set him back a cool three grand or so. He seemed to have a couple of bodyguards with him.

So he was rich, too.

Another guy Jon was going to have to punch in the kidneys.

“Interesting,” Jon said, pretending not to care. “Hey, what are you doing now? Wanna go grab a drink?”

“Oh,” Taylor said. “I would, but I have to go meet my trainer. Maybe next time, okay?”

Then she actually stood up on tiptoe, placed a hand on his wrist to balance herself, and gave him a little kiss-light as the brush of a butterfly wing-on his cheek.

And then she was gone, skipping away to go work off some imaginary fat.

Jon stood there staring after her for a minute or two before he was able to rouse himself enough from the spell she’d cast over him to go look for his sister. He eventually found her exactly where Paul had said she’d be, in her office-which, strictly speaking, was actually more of a cubicle than an office, although it did have a narrow window with a view.

She was typing furiously, pages spread all across her desk and every other available flat surface in a seemingly random fashion, though Jon knew from experience that if anyone dared to touch them, she’d scream bloody murder, because there was some kind of order to them; only his sister knew what it was, however.

“Hey, Meen,” Jon said. Since there weren’t many seats for him to choose from, he settled onto a stack of scripts piled perilously high on a chair in front of her desk.

“Go away,” she said. She didn’t take her eyes off the screen in front of her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Everything,” she said. “Nothing. Just go away. This place is imploding. Like my life. You wouldn’t believe the lines Fran and Stan-no way Shoshona was smart enough to write this-gave me to feed poor Taylor. Not to mention Cheryl. There’s product placement everywhere. I’ve never even heard of any of this stuff. I don’t think they’re CDI products. Revenant Wrinkle Cream? Strigoi Sunglasses? There’s even some kind of spa where Victoria goes to get a total rejuvenating make-over-have you ever heard of the Regenerative Spa for Youthful Awakening?”

Jon shrugged. “No. But, Meena, what did you expect? They’ve got this new vampire story line, and CDI thinks the show has a chance of getting some younger viewers. Why wouldn’t they throw in some product placement? They’re trying to make some money.”

She sighed. “I don’t know. I thought that they’d show some integrity. Respect for the devoted audience this show has had for thirty years. But I’m the idiot, I guess. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Oh,” he said. “I’m here for the audition.”

“What audition?” Meena looked at him bewilderedly.

“For the part of the vampire,” Jon said. God, she really was out of it.