Josh checked his watch as he pulled into Tessa's apartment complex. It was just after 10pm on a Friday night - perfect timing for her to be home from work and settled in for the evening.
Josh knocked on Tessa's door, trying his best to suppress the devious grin that threatened to split his face. She swung it open a few moments later, clad in pajama shorts and an oversized t-shirt, her feet bare. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and her face was free of makeup besides a lipstick she hadn't gotten off yet.
But she still looked effortlessly pretty in that low-key way of hers.
As Tessa swung the door open, a genuine smile spread across her face, lighting up the dimly lit hallway. Josh couldn't help but feel a rush of warmth at the sight of her.
"Hey, Tessa," Josh greeted her, returning her smile with one of his own. He leaned in, planting a soft kiss on her lips before pulling her into a tight hug. "Missed you," he murmured against her hair.
Tessa melted into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest. "Missed you too," she whispered back, her voice tinged with sincerity.
After a moment, they reluctantly pulled away, though the lingering closeness remained.
"What a nice surprise!" Tessy smiled warmly at him, seeming genuinely delighted to see him. They hadn't spent much time together at all due to their busy work schedules. "Come on in, please."
She smelled faintly of vanilla and fabric softener. "Sorry to drop by unannounced like this. I just figured we were long overdue to catch up, you know?" He brandished the wine bottle with a little self-conscious shrug. "Brought this as a peace offering for my nosiness."
Josh shook his head slowly in mock disbelief, putting on an award-worthy performance of playing dumb. "Damn, Tess...I really had no idea this went so unbelievably deep. Your dad must have been one hell of a brave, badass truth-seeker to get that far up under Rose Shelley's skin before she felt the need to permanently shut him down."
She sniffed wetly and nodded, swiping at her eyes with a knuckle.
"He was the bravest, most honorable man I ever knew. Didn't have a single dishonest bone in his whole body." Her fist clenched around the delicate wineglass until her knuckles turned white. "And that's precisely why I'll never, ever rest until I can take that bitch, Rose Shelley down for what she did, no matter what it costs me. My dad deserves that much at the very least."
Leaning forward intently, Josh prodded for as many more juicy details as he could extract. "I can't even imagine how insanely personal this whole twisted saga must feel. So what at all did your dad manage to find out before the end about Rose's shady operations, exactly? Any clues from his casefiles that could maybe help the world expose her nasty shit at last?"
Over the next half hour, Tessa seemed to unburden herself by spilling out virtually everything she had uncovered in her dad's casefiles, code words and all - whispers of shady blood bank heists and raucous underworld vampire raves lurking beneath the streets of the city tied to Rose and her undead brethren.
"...And those are just the verifiable bits and pieces I could make out through Dad's coded logs and progress reports," Tessa said, seeming to be working herself back up into an agitated state again.
"But who the hell even knows what other unholy levels of vampire depravity and cruelty Rose Shelley has clawed her way into over the centuries, thanks to all her seedy underworld connects and enhanced supernatural abilities. The possibilities are too sickening to even want to imagine."
Josh struggled to contain his sense of mounting, feral glee as Tessa vented and ranted, making sure to keep gently asking leading questions and feigning sympathy in order to milk out every last crumb of highly valuable detail he could.
By the time he finally excused himself from her place around midnight, arms laden with the near-empty wine bottle and the fresh round of information, he felt certain he had potentially hit a seamy mother lode of new intel to bring back to his lover.
He could hardly wait to debrief with his ruthless lover over drinks and further indulge her all-consuming obsession with bringing Rose Shelley's entire dark nexus of crime and depravity crumbling down around her undead head.