Read Online Addict by Lexi Blake - Free Book Online

popped up, but their cases seemed fairly inconsequential. One needed me to track down a spouse who’d run out on his child support and the other wanted to know if her boyfriend was cheating on her. The first was solved by a simple skip trace and the other answer was probably yes. She was obnoxious. I would have been cheating on her.
    “Hi.” Justin Parker greeted me with a somewhat uncomfortable smile. His eyes looked pretty much everywhere but where I was standing.
    “You didn’t want this job.” It didn’t take a lot of detective work to see the kid was anxious and a little intimidated.
    “But it’s a cool job,” Lee argued, frowning at the vampire.
    “I just got here. How can I already be in trouble?” Justin was a new type of vampire. I like to call them veeks. Geek turned vamp. They like blood and MMORPGs. They can’t dress for shit and are socially awkward. I couldn’t blame them much for the last two parts. Marcus tended to lay out my clothes¸ and he was forever telling me which fork to use.
    Justin Parker was prime veek. He was all arms and legs and big sad eyes. He wore a Halo T-shirt and sweatpants and carried a thermos in his hand.
    “Tell me your mom didn’t send you a snack.” I wouldn’t put anything past a veek. The millennial vamps aren’t known for their raging independence.
    Justin shook his head. “It was my girlfriend. I get hungry. Do we have a fridge?”
    “There’s a kitchen next to the bathroom,” I offered. “Look, I’m sure Quinn pressured you into this. I assure you I can work without an assistant. I did for years.”
    Lee looked up at me. “I can help you. You don’t need another assistant.”
    “You have to go do homework, buddy.” I’d talked to his mom not five minutes before. She’d known exactly where to find him and, unlike her husband, she hadn’t sent the cavalry in to save him. She’d called and politely requested I send him home for dinner. “Your mom wants you home. If you want to be allowed to come back tomorrow, you need to get your butt upstairs.”
    Even Lee could see the sense in that. “Okay. Tell Uncle Marcus I’ll see him tomorrow and to save me some candy.” He stopped at the door and came back to me. He motioned me to kneel down before whispering his question in my ear. “How are you going to get to that club?”
    I smiled at the sweet, smart boy. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t be able to leave until one thirty in the morning. You’ll be asleep by then. I’ll find a way out and I’ll tell you all about it after school tomorrow.”
    Lee nodded and hugged me before running out the door.
    “The king’s son seems taken by you,” Hugo noted as he glanced around the office.
    “I like him, too,” I said, smiling. My smile disappeared as I took in my veek assistant. It was best to put our relationship on a realistic footing. He was really a spy for Donovan. I wasn’t an idiot. I handed him the list of things I had for him to do. “As long as you’re here, I could use some help. I need you to run a skip trace on Greg Houston. I want to know where he is and how much money he has. Second, find out if Lance Belton is screwing someone other than his girlfriend. We have a file on him. Call his friends and lean on them for info. Call a man named Alan Kent. He’s a shifter so we probably have his number on file. I need to talk to him tonight. Tell him to meet me at Ether at ten or so. If he gives you trouble about it, remind him who I am now. You’re a vamp, use that persuasion thing.”
    Justin’s eyes had gone wide. “I’m actually not very good at that.”
    “Consider it practice then,” I offered as Hugo and I edged closer to the door. “Also, this place needs snacks. There isn’t any food in that fridge. Get me snacks and some beer. No one has beer around here. And peanut butter cups.” Another thought struck me. “And find me a comfy couch. That thing Quinn bought is pretty, but I can’t nap on it. Think big pillows. If