Page 52 of Almost Midnight

Maybe more than that, given these wereactualespresso beans.

Nick, knowing that a few thousand credits didn’t even qualify as couch-cushion money for St. Maarten, didn’t really give a fuck.

He stuck the metal container up into the milk steamer, and twisted the dial.

It’s amazing what a person… or a vampire… remembered.

He dumped out the metal espresso arm in the sink once it had finished making him the two shots of dark, creamy liquid, washed it out, washed all of those glorious espresso beans down the disposal, then brought it back and filled it up again.

Four fucking shots.

Fuck. Yeah.

By the time the second full portafilter of hot espresso had joined the first in his mug, the milk was hot and frothy as hell, so he pulled it out from under the steamer.

Seconds later, he had the first, real, semi-cappuccino, semi-latte he’d had in as long as he could remember. No leaf patterns or chocolate sprinkles, but he didn’t care.

He walked his now-full mug over to the high table where St. Maarten still perched, and leaned a hip against the stone countertop. He took a luxurious sip, and his eyes practically rolled up into the back of his head.

Even as a vampire, with vampire tastebuds, it was… something.

“I should force-feed this to James,” Nick said, conversationally. “Fucker has absolutely no clue what coffee is supposed to taste like.” He gave St. Maarten a cold look. “Of course, Icouldhave just bought him the real thing, back on my home world.”

Lara St. Maarten looked singularly unimpressed.

“Are you ever going to stop whining about that?” she asked.

Nick thought about the question.

“Probably not,” he answered, a touch colder.

Her voice contained more than a hint of viciousness when she spoke next.

“You know my questions to you aren’t optional anymore, Detective,” she sneered. “You work formenow, far more than you do Farlucci or the N.Y.P.D.” She sat on those words for a beat, then added, “Speaking ofwork,why are you back here so soon? You can’t possibly have caught the killers already. I thought it was some kind of roaming band of vampire vigilantes you and Morley got tasked with. Isn’t that something that concerns you? Vampire murderers, giving all of your kind a bad name? Particularly with the heightened anti-vampire sentiment of late? They might as well be recruiting forEifah.”

Nick stared at her.

Lara wasn’t exactly being subtle.

Not about her level of access, nor about her open disdain for the safety of New York’s vampire community. She was practically confirming what Brick had hinted at earlier.

Clearly, the masks were now meant to be off.

Nick took his second luxurious swallow of the mind-blowingly good espresso drink. Realistically, it was probably closer tomediocreespresso drink––at best––when compared to what Nick used to drink in San Francisco before he left.

Given the difficulty of growing a crop like coffee under a dome and with an artificial sun, not to mention contaminants that could never befullyeradicated from the soil and water and air here, no matter how disgustingly rich a person was, there was no possible way it could be as good as the espresso Nick grew up drinking.

He didn’t know how he knew that so confidently, but he felt certain he was right.

“We solved the case,” Nick said, lowering the mug to the counter.

“Oh?” Lara continued to sound bored, and now openly disbelieving. “And how did that happen, exactly?”

“Confession. The killer felt the need to come and tell me personally he’d done it.” Nick grunted, remembering Brick’s very unconvincing denials. “Well. Sort of.”

Lara stared at him.

Nick glimpsed the faint blue flash in her irises as she did, the one that indicated she’d had her eyes enhanced artificially, and could probably see almost as well as he could, even in the dark. Given who she was, she might even seebetterthan he did, since she’d have access to every flavor of cutting-edge tech, and would definitely take advantage of that, assuming it was safe.

---