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Bowing his head, the drone—who was also the police chief of Endover—moved across the room to the hardwood bar, a modern contrivance but one he liked. Fieldner removed a velvet case and set it on top. Opening the lid, he extracted a beautiful cut-crystal wineglass and then a jeweled, razor-sharp dagger.
“I apologize for the girls, sir. But there is something else. Something you should know before I proceed.”
“You wouldn’t be trying to stall, would you, Fieldner?”
“No, master.” He held his wrist over the wineglass and, clasping the dagger in his other hand, laid the blade against his own skin. He would do as commanded. But his blood would be gamey. Male blood always was. And the blood of a man as weak-minded as Fieldner would lack spark and power.
The vampire sighed. “Go on, then. Tell me what it is I should know.”
“That one. The dark one,” the chief said with a nod of his head toward Delia. “She managed to make a call on her cell phone.”
He lifted his brows. “And how did she manage that?” he asked.
“Cowering in the back of my car. I didn’t realize what she was doing.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple swelling and receding like a wave. “Her brother is in town.”
The girl gasped. “Jason?”
Fieldner sent her a quelling look. “You shouldn’t ought to have made that phone call, girl. What happens to him now will be on your shoulders.”
The vampire felt her panic returning, and glanced again at the child. “No harm will befall your brother, Delia. Trust me.”
“But what about him?” she cried. She pointed a finger at Fieldner. “He kept us locked up in the bottom of some lighthouse for hours! It was dark and we—”
“Calm,” the vampire said. He drew the word out, aiming more power at the girl. Teenagers—God, but their minds were so much more difficult to control than those of adults. “Relax, child. Everything is fine.”
She gulped back a sob and sat on the chaise once more.
Turning to Fieldner again, he said, “Perhaps you’d better begin at the beginning.”
The other man nodded. “The two girls were passing through town. Stopped at the old visitor center. While they were looking for rest rooms, I pulled a couple of the plug wires, so their car wouldn’t start. Then I offered them a ride to the nearest diner, where they could wait for a tow truck to arrive. They trusted me.”
Of course they had, he thought. Fieldner was a policeman. He wore a uniform and drove a marked cruiser. Any woman would trust him.
“That was this morning. I couldn’t very well bring them out here then, so I locked them up in the lighthouse. But on the way there, that one caught on that something wasn’t right and called her brother. I don’t know how she even got through, with the reception being as bad as it is. There must be a hot spot on the highway somewhere.”
“And why didn’t you hear the phone call?”
“By then they were making a fuss, demanding I stop the car, let them out. I.I put on the radio to drown out the noise.”
Disgusted, the vampire rolled his eyes.
“So she told her brother where she was.”
Fieldner nodded. “He was in my office not an hour ago, asking if I had seen her.”
“Her car?”
“I’d already hidden it.”
The vampire nodded slowly. “That makes one smart move you’ve made this week,” he told Fieldner. “Where is he now?”
“He’s staying at the North Star. I think he suspects something.”
“Of course he suspects something, if he’s less than a complete moron.” The vampire heaved a deep sigh. Complications. God, how he hated them. He’d created an idyllic life for himself here, one where he was in complete control. Anytime unexpected complications crept in, they put his entire lifestyle at risk.
He would have to deal with this as quickly and cleanly as possible. “I’ll speak with these children, and then you may return them and their car. Leave them far from the shores of Endover. They will remember nothing, of course. This brother of hers will not find them here, and he’ll go on his way to discover them safe and sound.” He nodded at the man’s wrist. “Proceed.”
“There’s more.”
Closing his eyes slowly, the vampire sighed. “What more?”
“This,” Fieldner said. He took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it over.
He took it, skimming the glossy flyer, which advertised some sort of detective agency. But then he went as still as if he’d suddenly turned to stone. His eyes were riveted to the photographs of the women on the front. One of the women, to be more precise. It was impossible. Impossible.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, and his voice was no more than a whisper.
“The resemblance is amazing, isn’t it, master? I thought the same.”
As he said it, the police chief looked up. So did the vampire. He looked up at the portrait of the woman with the delicate facial features of a porcelain doll and beautiful blond hair flowing over her shoulders. She wore a gown from an era long, long ago, and her wide, expressive eyes were as black as the night.
He kept looking from the face on the flyer to the face on the wall. “Tell me what you know of these two women,” he whispered.
“The girl’s brother—Jason Beck—he had this flyer in his wallet. It fell out when he took out his sister’s photo to show it to me. As to the women, I know only what’s on the flyer, sir. Their names are Maxine Stuart and Tempest Jones. They’re some kind of investigators for hire, who work, apparently, out of an office in Maine. When I asked who they were, Beck said they were old friends of his.”
Another good move on the chief’s part. One that might keep him alive a little bit longer, the vampire thought. He paced closer, removed the blade from the police chief’s hand and returned it to the case. “I’ll need you at full strength, Fieldner.”
“I await your command, my lord.”
He drew a deep breath, moving back to the girls. The second girl, Janie, was sitting up now, watching the men with unfocused eyes. She was confused and frightened.
“I’m afraid you two will have to be my guests for a short while.”
The blonde found both her voice and her courage. “Don’t put us back in that cell. Please. We haven’t done anything to you.”
He pursed his lips, shook his head. “No, no cells for you. My servant has treated you grievously, but I will make up for that. You are my guests, my cherished and honored guests. No harm will come to you in my care. You have my promise.”
They seemed to absorb the mental commands he was sending. Delia had already relaxed to a great degree, and Janie’s fear began to ease, as well. He leaned closer to Fieldner, spoke softly. “Take them up to the guest rooms. Lock them in.” Then he turned to the girls again. “My man here knows now that he was mistaken in his treatment of you. You have no more to fear from him, I promise. And if all goes well, you’ll be home with your families in a day. Two, at most.”
He nodded to Fieldner, again lowering his voice. “Photograph them, and then hurry back here, Fieldner. There is work to be done.”
4
Maxie couldn’t hide her excitement from Lou—he thought there wasn’t a hell of a lot she could hide from him—when she jumped out of Stormy’s car in the curving, white gravel driveway and stared at the beautiful house. He didn’t blame her. The place was a freaking dream house, a pristine white mansion resting on the rugged coast of Easton, Maine. She was racing up the white flagstone walk to the front door with its tall, oval stained-glass inset even as he parked the van. He smiled as she used her new key to let herself in.
Then he shut the van off and sent a look back at Stormy. She was fiddling with some things in the trunk of her car, obviously not as eager as Max was to rush inside. Preoccupied, perhaps. Maybe Max’s worry about her wasn’t as overblown as Lou wanted to think.
He climbed out of the van and joined Max in the house. She stood in the great room, taking it in. The chandelier in the domed ceiling above. The gleaming hardwood floors and the rugged, almost Norse-looking furniture. The way the stairs widened at the bottom so that they seemed to spill down from above, like a waterfall flowing into the room. She loved this place—it practically glowed from her eyes. Mostly, Lou thought, she loved it because it was her sister’s. It seemed filled with Morgan’s presence, her touches, even when she wasn’t here.
“Aren’t Morgan and Dante here to greet you?” Lou asked.
“No. They’re traveling. A delayed honeymoon, I guess.” She smiled up at him. That smile hit him in the solar plexus every time she flashed it, and this time was no different. “Besides, I think Morgan wanted to make sure I understood the place was really mine now. Give me time to settle in, get comfortable here. You know?”
He nodded, looking around. “So where’s the office going to be?”
“Oh, we already started setting up—took a drive up here last weekend. It’s the room Morgan used for her writing when she was here. I think it was originally a den.” She walked as she spoke, glancing over her shoulder once. “Stormy …?”
“She’s going through some stuff in her car,” he said. He saw the way Max’s eyes clouded with worry. “Was she okay the rest of the way here?”
“Seemed to be.”
“But you’re still worried.”
She sighed. “You think I’m being dumb.”
“I think it’s great the way you worry about her, Max. You’re the most loyal person I know.”
“Yeah?” She smiled again. “That’s sweet, coming from a guy who’s as miserly with compliments as you are.”
“Am I?”
“You’d think they were an endangered species.” She looked toward the door again. “Lou, something’s wrong with Stormy.”
He frowned, a little shiver tingling up the back of his neck. “She said she fell asleep.”
“She lied.” Max shook her head and paced back to the entryway to stare out at Stormy, who was still picking through the luggage in her trunk. “I think she’s been keeping something from me for a while now. Since the coma.”
“Any idea what it’s about?”
Max shook her head. “Back there, when she went off the road, I could have sworn for just a second that her eyes were jet-black.”
Lou frowned at her. “What color are they usually?”
“Blue,” she said. “You telling me you never noticed the color of Stormy’s eyes?”
“It’s not the kind of thing I notice. So shoot me.”
“You’re a cop. You notice everything.”
“Ex-cop,” he corrected.
Max flattened a palm over her eyes. “What color are mine?”
They were green, he thought. Huge, sparkling green eyes like a pair of emeralds in the sunlight. Aloud, he said, “I haven’t got a clue.”
She lowered her hand, looking partly hurt and partly skeptical.
“So you’re saying Storm’s eyes changed color?”
“It was more than just the color, Lou. It was like—like they weren’t even her eyes.” She rubbed her outer arms as if she were suddenly cold.
“You wanna know what I think?”
“Of course I do.”
He nodded. “Good, because I was going to tell you, anyway. I think you’re overly worried about her. And you’re overwhelmed with this move, the new business, the new house.”
“In a good way, though.”
“Doesn’t matter. Max, it was only a few months ago you found out your birth mother was a reformed prostitute and that you had a twin sister. You located Morgan, only to learn she was terminally ill and apparently being stalked—by a freakin’ vampire, of all things. Then you found out the vamp was the good guy, after damn near getting him killed.”
Max shrugged and averted her eyes. “So shoot me for thinking undead meant evil. It seemed like a logical assumption. Besides, it all worked out okay. He changed her. She won’t die now. Ever.”
“Still and all,” Lou said. “You’ve barely had time to digest all that. You’re suddenly unsure about everything you ever believed. What’s real and what’s not. The lines that used to be clear are all blurry in your mind.”
Max looked at him intently. “That’s pretty good.”
“I know it is. Don’t think I haven’t been going through a lot of the same stuff, Max. But here’s the thing. With all that fueling it, your imagination is bound to be stuck in high gear. Even more so than usual.” She sent him a smirk but he kept on talking. “So Stormy—after damn near dying on you a few months ago—goes off the road, scares the hell out of you, and you rush back there, your emotions heightened to the breaking point, and the sun hits her eyes in a certain way, and bam! There you have it.”
She tilted her head. Her copper-red curls brushed past her shoulder on one side, fell behind her neck on the other. He tried not to notice, and noticed, anyway. “You really think that’s all it is?” she asked.
“I really do.”
Max sighed, nodding slowly. “I suppose you could be right.”
He almost gaped in surprise, until she added, “But I doubt it.”
Yep, that was the reaction he’d expected. The two of them were so opposite it was predictable. “I suppose you have a theory of your own?”
“I’m working on one.”
“And I suppose it’s something flaky.”
“By flaky you mean …?”
“Paranormal. Supernatural. Otherworldly. Extra—”
“Yeah, something flaky.”
He sighed, disliking the way this conversation was going. Now that one of her far-fetched theories had been proved correct, there would be no talking her down from the next one. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“Then don’t. It’s still in development.” She shrugged, dropping the subject. “I’m really sorry I made you miss your fishing trip.”
“No you’re not.” Hell, he wasn’t, either. He would rather spend time with Max, far-fetched theories and outrageous flirting and all, than in a boat with a fishing pole. But he would be damned if he’d admit it. It would only encourage her.
“You’re right, I’m not.”
At least she was honest. For the most part, though he had no doubt she was even now plotting ways to get him to stay longer than he intended.
