A color photograph dominated the front page. Someone had snapped a shot of Maximo kissing me in the cantina last night. The blood drained from my face. “Slow news day?” I said in a squeaking voice. “No. He’s big business in Sedona. Any time he’s spotted out and about, his picture ends up in the paper.” She jabbed her finger at the photograph. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a date with him?” The blood returned to my cheeks in a rapid flush. “It wasn’t a date. He has something of mine, and dinner was the price he asked for it back … to start.” “Yeah.” She drew the word out across three seconds in a tone filled with disgust. “The guy has a stranglehold on Wipuk’s resources, but you think it’s okay to date him.” “I’m not dating him!” Nell gestured toward herself, and then toward no direction in particular. “I thought it was us versus them, the outcasts versus the established Wipukans. But you’re off dating the head vampire and getting visits and calls from the dictator himself!”
