Vamp by Loren D. Estleman

Author:Loren D. Estleman [Estleman, Loren D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

21

“IS IT MY birthday?”

Hastily, Valentino sat up in bed, smoothing the covers across his lap to make room for the footed tray Harriet had brought to his bedside. The dishes were covered and a crisp napkin rested in a silver holder. He took sly satisfaction from evidence that the evenings he’d exposed her to Cary Grant and Greer Garson had borne fruit. The slope of the sunlight coming through the east window told him the morning was almost gone.

“You haven’t been asleep quite that long,” she said, arranging the tray across his middle. “Before you tie into the egg whites and turkey bacon, you might want to read the late-breaking news. It might upset your indigestion.” She drew a sleek tablet from the tray’s side pocket (designed, appropriately, to hold a traditional newspaper), tapped a key, swiped the screen, and handed it to him.

It was the online edition of Los Angeles Times, where a familiar face smiled out from three columns of text; it was always a shock to come across himself looking back at him from anything other than a mirror. The unaccustomed evening dress told him the picture had been taken at the grand opening of The Oracle, and somewhat clumsily cropped so that a hand (he forgot just whose) rested on his right shoulder with no arm visibly attached; some bleary-eyed employee in composition had made hasty work of it in order to meet the deadline. It was headed:

UCLA ARCHIVIST QUESTIONED IN APPARENT HOMICIDE

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