Книга - Lover’s Bite

Lover's Bite
Maggie Shayne


Once bitten, twice shy… Before she joined Reaper in hunting Gregor’s gang of rogue bloodsuckers, spoilt Topaz was gunning for just one vamp: Jack Heart. The gorgeous con man had charmed his way into her bed, her heart and her bank account, taking her for half a million dollars and vanishing without a word.Now she and Jack – maddeningly attractive as ever – are supposedly on the same side. As Reaper’s ragtag outfit scatters, Topaz sets out to solve a mystery that’s plagued her all her lives, mortal and immortal. And what stake does Jack have in discovering the truth about her past?A MUST-READ for fans of SHERRILYN KENYON and CHARLAINE HARRIS







Multiple New York Times bestseller Maggie Shayne is one of the hottest authors currently writing paranormal romance.

Her works are fresh and sexy, carrying the reader into a darkly compelling and fully realised world where vampires are creatures of the heart, not just the night.


Also by

MAGGIE

SHAYNE

DEMON’S KISS LOVER’S BITE ANGEL’S PAIN

NIGHT’S EDGE

(with Charlaine Harris and Barbara Hambly)




Lover’s Bite

Maggie Shayne










1


Mirabella DuFrane exited the beachfront adobe mansion as if she were floating, rather than walking. The skintight gown—paisley print, plunging halter neckline, slit up to her slender hip—clung to every perfect curve, despite the fact that she’d given birth only three months ago. No one would have known it to look at her.

Speculation about the identity of her baby girl’s father was rampant, but no one except Mirabella knew for sure. And Mirabella wasn’t saying. It just added to the mysterious allure of Hollywood’s brightest star.

She was the silver screen’s flavor of the year. An exotic blend of Italian and Spanish, with copper skin, almond eyes, a figure most women would die for and many men would kill for—she was the ideal. And that she was so elusive—never married, and promising that she never would be—only added to her massive appeal. She was fond of telling the press that she was too free a spirit to ever be tied down, that no man could ever own her, possess her, or even hold her for very long. She would never be tamed. The tabloids were constantly pairing her with one man or another. Politicians, businessmen, actors. Any photo of her with a male was fodder for gossip in the rags. She never denied or confirmed any of it, just smiled her mysterious smile and answered questions with more questions when the reporters cast their lines into her waters on their fishing expeditions.

That was Mirabella.

And yet, there was something else about her. Something frail and otherworldly that rarely showed. It lingered beneath the surface, like a fragile seashell resting on the ocean floor and hoping no rough currents stirred it up to the surface.

Mirabella floated toward the black stretch limousine that waited at the curb, her gown’s hemline skimming just above the sidewalk, creating that airborne illusion she so loved. Paparazzi swarmed, held at a distance by Bella’s ever-present bodyguards.

Once it had been unusual for the press to be in Santa Luna in such droves, but this small coastal town, twenty-five miles south of Los Angeles, had become a haven for the rich and the famous. Too expensive for common folk, too remote for fans, it had become the hot spot for celebrity get-aways—quick ones, when there was no time to go on a real trip. Mirabella had been a guest at an exclusive party at the mansion known as Avalon. Its fanciful and somewhat pretentious name had been thought up by its former owners, a Hollywood pair who’d peaked in the fifties before retiring here. The Avalon Ball had become an annual event, and Hollywood’s elite hungered to see their names on the guest list. Because being invited was such a coup, no one complained too much about the press.

Cameras flashed in the night as Mirabella made her way along the clear path to the waiting car, smiling and waving all the way.

Then there were different kinds of flashes. Three of them. Bella’s smile froze in place as her body jerked in perfect synch with those bright eruptions. Her milk-chocolate eyes fluttered, lashes lowering as she looked down. Blood flowers blossomed in slow motion like a Hollywood depiction of an acid trip over the front of her designer gown. She lifted her head, the huge gold hoops in her ears jangling. One hand rose, as if reaching out for help, and then Mirabella’s heavily lined eyes fell closed, and she folded over herself and sank to the sidewalk, graceful, even with three bullets in her abdomen.

The press swarmed as her bodyguards fought to hold them off. Police on crowd control duty closed in to help, and within a minute, sirens could be heard as more police and an ambulance arrived.

“It was too late to save Mirabella DuFrane,” a vaguely familiar male voice said.

It was some retired news anchor, Jack Heart thought, hired to narrate documentaries once he was replaced by a younger model at the news desk. He couldn’t remember the guy’s name.

“She died in the hospital that very night. But that’s far from where this story ends. The starlet’s body was stolen from the hospital morgue, and to this day, it has never been found, leading to numerous reported sightings in the years since. And her murder? Never solved.”

There was a knock at the motel room door. Jack looked up, irritated at the interruption. Then he sensed who was on the other side. Topaz.

Jumping to his feet, he popped the DVD out of his portable player, returned it to its case—a case that bore Mirabella’s image, and the title DEATH OF A GODDESS: The Mirabella Du-Frane Story—and closed the lid. “Just a minute.” He quickly stuffed the documentary into his backpack, zipped it closed and tossed it into the closet. “Come in, Topaz,” he said as he opened the door to greet her.

She stepped inside, and for just an instant, Jack’s gaze was stuck fast on her face. The resemblance was subtle, but it was there in the delicate bone structure, the cheekbones, the jawline, even the eyebrows. Her skin wasn’t as dark, and her ethnicity wasn’t as obvious as it had been in her mother. But she was every bit as stunning.

No. More so.

“What are you staring at?”

“I was just thinking it’s a shame your insides don’t match your outsides.”

“Oh, I’m the one who’s not what I pretend to be? As I recall, you’re the one who professed your undying devotion right up until you vanished with a half million of my hard-earned dollars.”

“Inheriting is not earning.”

“It was in my case.” She narrowed her eyes. “And how do you know I inherited it, anyway?”

He averted his eyes. Topaz was under the impression that none of her vampiric friends knew who she had been in life. And maybe none of them did—other than him. But he knew. Now.

“Lucky guess,” he muttered.

“Yeah, well. I don’t suppose the other half of my money appeared to you in your sleep, did it?”

“I gave you back the half I had. I told you, Gregor has the rest. I’ll get it from him somehow, as soon as we track him down. I promise.”

“Sadly, I know just how much your promises are worth, Jack.” She shrugged. “And I’m pretty sure we’ve reached a dead end when it comes to tracking your former boss down.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he got away. Reaper’s calling a meeting in an hour. I’m pretty sure he’s going to disband the gang—send us all our separate ways. At least until he can get a line on Gregor again.”

He let his gaze move down her body as she spoke, barely listening to her words and instead tracing her curves with his eyes. Tight jeans, tiny silk blouse, her breasts straining against the fabric. Even while he stared at them, her nipples stiffened, as if they could feel his gaze like a physical touch. He got up and walked toward her.

She tensed, her brown eyes wary, watchful, but she wouldn’t back away. No, she was too proud for that.

Jack traced her cheek with a fingertip. “I kept some of my promises—when I promised to make you scream, to play your body like no one ever had or ever would. I didn’t break any of those vows, Topaz.”

Her eyes fell closed, and her breath slipped from her lips in a slow, soft sigh.

He bent his head until his lips were only a breath away from hers, and he whispered, “If you stick around a little while, I’ll keep them all over again.”

He felt her body respond. Felt it tugging at his, felt her yearning, her desire. Even heard it in the breathy quality of her wavering reply, saw it in the way her lips trembled as she gave it, while his eyes fell closed and he swayed closer, about to kiss her.

“I could do that. Or you could just eat shit and die,” she whispered.

He frowned and opened his eyes.

Hers were coated in a sheet of solid ice—one that concealed a riot of emotions, he was certain.

“I hate you, Jack.”

“You want me,” he said, straightening away from her.

“One doesn’t negate the other.”

“Okay. Fine. I’ll be ready for Reaper’s meeting.”

He backed away a few more inches, mostly to give himself relief. Yes, she was just a mark, albeit the only one he’d ever regretted. But he wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman. And he was determined to get her out of his system once and for all.

“Why are you here, Topaz?”

“To give you this.” She fished a slip of paper from her jeans pocket and handed it to him. “And to say goodbye.”

He opened it, glimpsing an address, then quickly refocused on her. “You’re going somewhere?”

“I’m going there.” She nodded at the paper in his hand.

“And you couldn’t leave without coming to say goodbye, letting me know where you would be, in case—”

“In case you manage to keep a promise for the first time in your life and get me back the rest of my money. I wanted you to know where to send it. And you’d better, Jack. Because if you haven’t repaid me by the time I finish my business in California, I’m gonna track you down, and I’m gonna hurt you. And not in the good way.”

She turned on her heel, reached for the doorknob.

Jack gripped her shoulder and spun her back around to face him. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to me, because you still have feelings for me.” His arm slid around her waist, hand cupping her ass, and he jerked her against him. “Admit it.”

“Oh, I have feelings for you, all right,” she snapped. “Contempt. Disgust. Fury.”

“Lust. Passion. Desire.”

“Desire to do murder, at least,” she agreed.

He ground his hips against her, and she closed her eyes, unable to suppress the shiver that passed through her. “Back off, Jack.”

He released her, staring into her face in search of confirmation that she still felt the things he did—the physical things that made sense, not the other ones. Before he could find it, she was out the door, slamming it behind her.

Sighing, Jack pushed a hand through his hair in utter frustration. But then reason returned, and he lunged toward the door and peered through the peephole.

Topaz was standing on the other side, her hands pressed to her bowed head. She looked as if she wanted to scream.

He just wasn’t sure whether it was with anger or desire. Hell.

Jack wondered why she was really leaving. To get away from him, he would wager. But why go all the way to Califor—

He turned slowly, gazing at the closet door, but seeing, in his mind’s eye, snippets of the film he’d just been watching, hearing echoes of the narra-tor’s voice. He gazed down at the piece of paper she’d given him.

Avalon Mansion.

Santa Luna, California.

Good God, she was going to the very place where her mother had been killed. She was going to try to solve Hollywood’s most compelling mystery.

It could be dangerous.

Maybe he should tag along. If only he could think of a plausible excuse. Reaching for his backpack, he unzipped it and reached inside. The bag full of money he’d claimed he didn’t have was still there, still intact. He might need to give it back to her sooner or later, he supposed, as a way of convincing her of his sincerity and good intentions. The very reasons he’d given her back the first half. It hadn’t worked entirely, but it had seemed to knock a chink or two in that brick wall she’d erected around her heart to keep him out.

He might need to return the rest to win her trust.

He probably shouldn’t waste his time. But then again, he had to stick closely to one of the members of the gang, because he had bigger fish to fry this time around, and having access to Reaper would be crucial. Sticking like glue to the big guy would be too obvious, though. And since the gang was splitting up, for the moment, he was going to have to pick one member to latch onto. Why not Topaz?

And so what if he had to give her back the rest of her money? He was pretty sure there was a lot more than 500 K to be made this time.

He fingered the manila envelope that rested inside the bag with the cash and the DVD. It was stamped with the words CLASSIFIED: PROP-ERTY OF THE U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. He’d found it in his former boss’s safe, along with Gregor’s half of Topaz’s money.

Maybe—just maybe, if he played his cards right—Jack could make whatever there was to be made of what he’d found in that envelope and keep half of what he’d conned from Topaz.

That notion made his collar feel a little tight, his stomach a little queasy. He cleared his throat and shook off the unaccustomed sensations. Guilt was nothing but wasted energy.

He pulled out the DVD and told himself he really ought to slip it back into Topaz’s belongings before she discovered it was missing. If she found out that he had been snooping through her stuff, she would really be unhappy to see him when he showed up on her oceanfront doorstep.

After she left Jack’s room, Topaz held her head in her hands and waited for the hunger that had suffused her veins to ease, for the trembling that had possessed her body to stop. She wanted him. God, she wanted him so badly it was like an addiction.

She knew he was no good. And yet she wanted him. No good for her, and no good, period. And yet she ached for him. He was a con man. And yet she hungered for his kiss. If she fell back into those strong arms again, knowing what she knew about him, then she was the most pathetic, selfdestructive, stupid woman on the planet. And she was determined to be none of those things.

“You okay?”

She lifted her head and met Roxy’s eyes. Roxy. The wild, irreverent, redheaded mortal whose age was fathomless. The belladonna antigen in her blood, the hallmark of the only humans with the potential to become vampires, made it unlikely she would live nearly as long as she already had, but she showed no signs of slowing down. Roxy. The most trusted mortal Topaz could imagine. One of the sexiest, most beautiful women of any age she’d ever seen. And easily the wisest.

“You still love that asshole, don’t you?” Roxy asked, coming to a stop very close to her in the hallway.

“That would make me a complete idiot, and I’m not an idiot, Roxy.”

“No, you’re not. But we can’t always help how we feel.”

“I can. I’m the least likely person in the world to fall for a con in the first place, much less twice by the same person. No way.”

“Well, good. Don’t let him con you again.” Roxy shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy him, though.” She glanced toward Jack’s closed door. “Hell, if I didn’t know you were into him, I might give him a tumble myself. ’Course, that would spoil him for all other women, but you know, some things can’t be helped.” She winked at Topaz.

Topaz smiled, grateful for Roxy’s always uplifting influence. “Is everyone else in the van already?”

“Vixen and Seth are—probably making out in the back, if I know those two. Raphael’s on his way. The devil only knows about Briar. I haven’t told Ilyana about the meeting yet. On my way to do that right now, actually.”

“Let’s tell her together.”

Roxy nodded, and the two of them strolled down the hall of the Super 8 Motel, toward the room the newcomer, Ilyana, had taken. They’d found the mortal—one of the Chosen, like Roxy, though far younger—locked in a cage in Gregor’s suite during their latest encounter with the rogue vampire. They’d rescued her, but she was afraid of them, and no wonder, if that monster had been her only experience with the undead. She’d told them almost nothing. Not why he’d held her captive, nor for how long. Topaz could only imagine what she might have suffered while in Gregor’s care, though she bore no illusions that it had been less than horrific.

Roxy tapped on the door. “Ilyana, it’s Roxy.”

The door opened and the mortal, with her pixieshort platinum-blond hair and striking blue eyes, stared out at the two of them. Her eyes were warm and welcoming on Roxy’s, but when they fell upon Topaz, they cooled considerably. “What do you want?” she asked.

“Group meeting,” Roxy told her. “We’re gathering in the van.”

Ilyana searched Roxy’s face, her gaze occasionally darting past it to Topaz’s, but never lingering there. She was still wary. “Are we giving up the search for Gregor?” she asked at length.

“Taking a break, maybe. Giving up? No way. Raphael is way too stubborn for that,” Roxy said.

Nodding, Ilyana turned. “I’ll gather my things. Give me a few minutes.”

“That’s fine.” Roxy pulled the door closed, and linked arms with Topaz. “You know, he’s got it just as badly as you do.”

“Who’s got what?” Topaz asked, pretending she didn’t know exactly what Roxy was trying to say.

“He—” Roxy pointed toward Jack’s room “—has got it—” she pumped her fists at her sides and thrust her hips a couple of times “—for you.” She poked Topaz in the chest with a forefinger. “Just as badly as you—” poke “—have it—” thrust “—for him.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. Enough with the pantomime already. It’s creepy.”

Roxy frowned. “Men usually find it more sexy than creepy, but I suppose being a straight girl—”

“And you’re wrong. He doesn’t feel a damn thing for me.”

“Not even…” Roxy pumped her hips again, more subtly this time, though.

“Well, sure, that. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

“Exactly.”

“But that’s physical. He’d jump my bones if I’d let him. He’d also just as soon take my money and run again as look at me.”

“Then why do you suppose he’s here?” Roxy stared into Topaz’s eyes for a long moment, almost as if she expected an answer to what she had to know was an impossible question. “He already took the money,” she went on. “So why hasn’t he run?”

“He only came back to me when it looked like our gang was going to kick his gang’s ass.”

“He could have gone anywhere to get away from Gregor and the rogues, Topaz. He didn’t have to join up with us. I think you should keep that in mind.”

“Probably figured I had a few bucks left in the bank he hadn’t scammed yet. Or maybe he’s planning to run a con on one of you.”

Roxy lifted her brows and looked over her shoulder toward his room. “Hot damn, it would be worth it. I wonder how much is in my IRA by now?”

“Fuck you, Roxy.”

Roxy grinned from ear to ear. “I don’t swing that way, Topaz. Though I compliment you on your taste in women.”

Topaz felt her frown dissolve as she elbowed Roxy lightly in the rib cage, and the two of them laughed together as they made their way across the dark motel parking lot toward a canary-yellow conversion van named Shirley.

Jack waited until everyone else had headed out to the van to slip out of his room and down the hall to Topaz’s. He picked the locks with the power of his mind, hand on the knob, ear to the door, willing the tumblers to, well, tumble. When they did, he opened the door and walked inside.

Her things were packed and her cases stacked. A half dozen of them, at least. Designer luggage, all of it matching, made by Coach. He thought they only made handbags and shoes. And those cost a fortune. What must an entire set of Coach luggage have set her back?

Damn, he must have left too much of her money behind if she could still afford to blow it like this.

Sighing, he gazed at the rumpled blankets, and his throat closed up. She hadn’t made her bed—left that for the maid, along with a hefty tip on the nightstand to thank her for her trouble. The covers were untidy and thrown back to reveal the faint outline of her body on the mattress, the imprint of her head on the pillow.

Damn.

Before he could stop himself, Jack was crawling onto that bed, pressing his face to the place where she’d rested, inhaling her scent, and wishing it were her flesh he was lying on and not just her bed.

Intoxicating, the essence of Topaz that lingered there.

He sat up, put his hands in his hair and tousled it vigorously. “Snap out of it, Jack.”

It was easier said than done, but he did manage to roll over and get off her bed and onto his feet. He reminded himself of his reason for being there, and the fact that the others were probably waiting for him in the van and might send someone looking for him at any moment. Okay, then. He slid the DVD into one of her bags and exited the room, making sure the door locked behind him.

He stiffened his spine, hoped his yearning didn’t show on his face, and then thought, so what if it did? He wanted her, that was all. It was physical. Sexual. Lustual, if that was a word. And if it wasn’t, it should be, because it described to a T what he felt for the luscious, lovely Topaz-formerly-known-as-Tanya DuFrane, daughter of a movie star.

A dead movie star.

He headed along the hall to the exit, crossed the parking lot and joined the others in the van, climbing in through the already open side door and giving the interior a quick visual sweep. The back row of seats held Vixen and Seth, sitting so close together you could have fit a lumberjack on either side of them, but instead only Ilyana sat there. In the front seat, Reaper sat on the passenger side, Roxy behind the wheel, just like always. The middle row was host to Briar, who sat there with the same brooding, inwardly focused expression she’d been wearing since they pried Gregor’s shock collar off her neck. Prior to that she’d been wild, fighting them every step of the way, hissing and scratching at every opportunity like a feral cat. She’d been dangerous, untrustworthy and probably bad right to her soul. And frankly, he had preferred that to this…this shell.

He supposed she would snap out of it sooner or later. And he would lay odds they would all be wishing her back to this state of silent brooding once she did.

Beside Briar sat the object of his desire. Topaz. He met her eyes briefly, just to remind her that she felt it, too—this longing, this hunger—that she felt it and he knew it, and she knew he knew it. No use tiptoeing around the facts.

Finally he lowered himself onto the seat between the two women.

“About time,” Topaz muttered.

Briar said nothing. She’d had very little to say since they’d rescued her from Gregor, who’d been torturing her the same way she’d personally helped him to torture Vixen. Reversal of fortune, big-time. It tended to mix a girl up, he bet.

Her eyes were haunted.

He couldn’t help but chuck her under the chin just a little. “Don’t look so glum, wildcat. Gregor had us both fooled.”

She lifted her black eyes to his, but they never locked on. “He never fooled you,” she said. Her voice was dull. A monotone that echoed from lack of emotion, the way an empty room echoed from lack of furniture. “You knew what he was the whole time. You were just playing him.”

He shrugged. “Well, I’ve been around longer than you have. You live and learn, you know.” Then, uncomfortable with the turmoil swirling just beneath the surface of her eyes, he shifted his focus to Reaper. “What’s up? We throwing in the towel?”

“Only temporarily. Until I get a handle on where Gregor has headed, there’s no point in us all staying together.”

“Nor any particular point,” Seth cut in, leaning forward in the rear seat, “in us splitting up.” He looked around the van. “Is there?”

Just as the others were muttering in agreement, Reaper said, “There is, actually. I, um…I believe I’m being followed.”

Jack gasped louder than any of them. Hell. Probably overkill. Topaz cut him a narrow-eyed look, but he pretended not to notice. “By whom?” he demanded.

“I don’t know for sure, but they seem awfully familiar to me.”

“You think they’re spooks?” Seth asked.

“No one says ‘spooks’ anymore, kid.” Reaper swallowed hard, then nodded. “But yeah. I think they’re Agency. They can be dangerous, and there’s no point in all of us being at risk.”

Roxy smacked the steering wheel. “Right. You’ll just send us on our merry way while you take the heat alone,” she snapped. “And if you get your ass killed, then no great loss.”

He glanced her way, and his eyes softened. “Rox, I’m not gonna get my ass killed. I’ll drop out of sight for a while. Lay low until the heat’s off. And it’ll be a hell of a lot easier for me to do that without a half dozen soldiers, no matter how loyal, marching along behind me. Don’t you think?”

She sighed—probably, Jack thought, in frustration that she couldn’t argue with his logic.

“So you’re not going to continue tracking Gregor?” The question came from Ilyana, who sat close behind Jack.

“Oh, I’m going to. Just quietly and discreetly. I might lie low for a few days before I put forth too much effort, though, just to try to shake these agents off my tail.”

Everyone looked at him, Ilyana, waiting, as if she didn’t think he was finished. He hesitated, then went on. “Look, Gregor admitted he was working for the CIA. His rogue activities had a purpose. He and his gang have been murdering and feeding on the innocent with the full knowledge, approval and support of the Agency, all just to lure me in. Everyone knew I was the one the vampires would send to shut him down, to take him out.”

“Because you were an assassin when you worked for them,” Ilyana said, her voice soft. “Before you became a vampire.”

“Yes. And because they’re aware I’ve continued in that role, when necessary, ever since,” Reaper told her. “Gregor was supposed to capture me and hand me over to my former employers. But he got greedy, decided to try to drain me and take my power instead, then kill me.”

Jack nodded. “I picked up on that much before I switched teams,” he said. “Gregor developed a real lust for killing, for taking whatever he wants without remorse or repercussions. And he’s been gathering money along the way. You feed on the wealthy, you tend to make a profit in the process. He’s been raking it in, pillaging, really. And I think he’s drunk on his power. All he wants is more.”

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Reaper quoted softly.

“What do you think the CIA intends to do with you, if they ever do get you back?” Jack asked him. “What the hell do they want with you now that you’re a vamp?”

“I was the best assassin they ever trained, Jack. Imagine how much better I’d be now that I’m a vampire. And they’ve already mucked up my mind to the point that they can control me by dropping a single word. You’ve seen the results of that.”

“They probably think of you as a valuable secret weapon,” Roxy whispered.

Jack lowered his head, unable to look any of them in the eye for a moment.

“They’ll stop at nothing to get me back,” Reaper said. “And that includes kidnapping or even torturing any one of you. I can’t have that on my conscience. I’d have to turn myself in if that happened. So do me a favor and take off, so I won’t have to.”

That, too, was impossible to argue with, Jack realized. Reaper was good.

“I’m willing to go off on my own,” Ilyana said softly. “But I intend to continue the search for Gregor. If you like, I can contact you when I find him.”

Every eye in the van focused on her. She had only just joined them and had no reason to be so invested in their mission.

“Is it vengeance you seek?” Vixen asked.

Ilyana shot her a look.

Vixen seemed to shrink a bit more deeply into her long copper hair and began playing with the ends, as she tended to do when nervous. “I mean, he held and tortured me, too. But…honestly, for your own sake, it’s better if you can look ahead, rather than behind you.”

“I don’t want vengeance,” Ilyana said softly.

“Then why—”

“He has something of mine. That’s as much as I’m going to say. I won’t rest until I get it back. So if any of you want me to call you once I find him—and I will find him—then give me a means of reaching you before I leave.”

Topaz dipped into her pocket, scribbled a number on a scrap of paper and handed it to her. Roxy did the same.

“I intend to stick with you, Reaper,” Seth said from the backseat.

“Not this time.” Reaper quickly looked over at Roxy. “Or you, either. Come on, guys, cut me some slack here. Just for a little while. Scatter and wait. I’ll call you back when things cool off. It won’t be long.”

They all sighed. Topaz finally spoke. “I actually have some personal business to attend to. I’ll be in California. Jack has my contact info.”

“Can you get me a copy, hon, before you go?” Roxy asked. “I’ll make sure everyone else gets it, too.”

Topaz slanted him a look, and he returned a sheepish shrug. “They don’t trust me any more than you do, I guess.”

“Can’t say I blame them.”

“Here,” Roxy said, reaching past Reaper to open the glove compartment. “Why don’t we all just jot down some info? A cell phone, a friend, an address, an e-mail, anything. As long as we each have one means of communication that we can commit to checking often and not changing.” As she spoke, she pulled out a small notepad and a couple of pens, and passed them around the van.

“If you know how to reach me, they’ll still have reason to come after you,” Reaper said.

Jack shook his head. “They’d have no way of knowing we had your number. They could just as easily assume we do, even if we don’t.”

Reaper hesitated, then sighed and nodded. “You’re right. Okay, then.”

Everyone jotted and passed, until they all had copies of each other’s info. Then, finally, Seth said, “Can I take the Mustang?”

“Yep,” Reaper said. “And Roxy will keep Shirley. She and I can drop the rest of you wherever you want. But let’s get on it. I want us scattered to the winds before dawn. Okay?”

“Not exactly,” Jack said. And he shifted his gaze from Reaper to Briar, who sat beside him in silence. “I think Briar should stay with someone.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said softly.

“I know you can. No one said you couldn’t. But, uh…well, you can’t be trusted on your own, can you? Like the rest of us, you know the word that can be used to turn our friend Reaper here into a whirling dervish of death. Unlike the rest of us, we can’t just have you running around all alone.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “I could kill you as easily as looking at you.”

Jack actually felt his lips pull at the corners, though he didn’t exactly smile. “There you are,” he whispered. “Where have you been, Briar?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, quickly covering the flash of anger with her new expression of bland disinterest. “You can assign me any babysitter you like. I’ll stay until I want to leave. And when I want to leave, nothing’s going to stop me.”

“She stays with me,” Reaper said.

Briar’s studied expression showed a hint, a very brief hint, of panic.




2


The adobe-style mansion sprawled beneath the stars, with countless arches and a clay-red pottery roof, bright red doors and bright green trim. The front walkway was made of flagstones that had been in place so long they appeared to be part of the ground. The drive was paved and curved inward toward the house, then away from it, forming a giant, gentle S as it looped toward a massive garage that could easily house six vehicles. The apartment above the garage was larger than many people’s houses.

Topaz stood beside the taxi, her back to the cab, her eyes on the house. The lawns rolled, the grass far from lush but rather spotty, with bare spots and red rock peering through. Cacti of every type filled the spaces in between, some of them flowering, some small and compact, while others stood with their arms raised above their heads like the stereotypical “reach for the sky” cacti in countless Western films.

Sand crept up to the very edges of the lawn, invading every time a breeze came up. Beyond the villa, ocean waves filled the night with their song, a chorus of harmonic whispers, growing louder, more insistent, but never becoming shouts. Not even when the waves broke and tumbled over the sand, then retreated in the closest sound there could be to silence. Shuuuuushhhhhhh. And then there was the fragrance those waves left in their wake—freshly laundered sunshine, brine and the sea.

Her mother had died here, Topaz thought. Right here, while that massive ocean looked on, never missing a step in its endless soft shoe.

For a moment Topaz stood there, staring at Avalon’s front door, and then suddenly she was swept back in time, her imagination fed by the DVD she’d finally viewed. Why now, after all these years? Why? Why was she suddenly so driven to know everything about her mother when she’d deliberately avoided any of the stories and tales, the gossip and legends, the conspiracy theories and police reports, up until now?

But it didn’t really matter why. It was here. She was here. And she had to know everything.

In her mind’s eye, it all played out again, this time with even more detail, supplied by some inner knowing, perhaps, or maybe she was making it all up.

The stunning superstar, Mirabella, smiling, waving, laughing as she stepped out the door—that door, right there. It was red and wooden and arched at the top. She walked toward the road, moving so gracefully that she seemed to float over the flagstone walkway. She’d been wearing heels. Four-inch-high chunky heels with platforms underneath the front—very seventies. Strappy on top, open toes. Her toenails had been done, too—a minty green shade that matched one of the colors in that long dress, along with the color of her fingernails, her designer bag and her eyeshadow. Thick black liner, pale, pale shadow. Frosted lipstick. Big hair.

And yet she was gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. Her beauty had been so real, so deep, so natural, that it suffused every hint of mod she’d tried to use to enhance it. Most women would look back at that period and wonder what they’d been thinking. Mirabella might have, too, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She was just as beautiful in a dress the same pattern as the Scooby-Doo Mystery Van as she would have been completely naked. Her eyes were too powerful to be disguised by heavy makeup. She was Mirabella, no last name needed, at the time or now. Everyone knew who she was.

The black limo pulled up closer, and the driver got out to open the door. A throng of paparazzi snapped shots from a distance, but they were kept from getting too close by the discreet bodyguards, posted at intervals a few yards away from the starlet.

And then the shots rang out. Three of them.

The beautiful actress’s flawless smile froze on her lips even as it fled from her eyes. Topaz could see this part so clearly. She’d memorized the expressions as they had crossed her mother’s face, one behind the other. She wasn’t sure if she was glad someone had been filming or not. Part of her thought she might have been able to visualize every nuance even without the film.

Trembling, Mirabella looked down to where her hands had flown to her body, then drew her palms away slowly to see the blood that coated them. Shivering, Topaz found her own hands echoing the same motions, her own eyes looking downward, her own mind slightly surprised that there was no blood on her hands.

Mirabella’s gaze lifted, her eyes calling out for help in stunned silence. Pleading for help from someone, anyone. And then her knees just folded, and she sank to the ground like a flower that had been cut. Her thick black lashes lowered like velvet curtains on the world’s most vibrant stage. Her eyes fell closed, and she took her final bow.

Topaz stood there, staring down at the flagstone walkway, straining her senses. Was this the very spot, then? It was close. As close as she could make out from the footage that had been taken that night.

She sank to her knees, pressing her palms to the cool stone, as if by some fluke she would still be able to feel some trace of her mother’s energy. Her life force. Even her blood. Was that it there, discoloring the stones? Or was that nothing but a pattern in the rock?

The sound of a motor jerked her attention back to the present, and she rose, blinking away hot tears and turning just in time to see the taxi rolling out of sight, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake. Her suitcases were stacked, none-too-neatly, on the curb.

She’d handed the guy two twenties for a twenty-five-dollar fare. She guessed he thought the rest was his tip. And it would have been deserved, if he’d carried the cases to the door for her. Bastard.

Anger was good. She could be furious over fifteen bucks and no service, and distract herself from the real feelings trying to overwhelm her. Feelings of grief and sadness, a sense of loss, for the mother she’d never known and never really mourned. Was it long-overdue pain? Or was she indulging in self-pity? Or maybe just diving headlong into anything, no matter how painful, that would remove her attention from Jack Heart?

Didn’t matter. She was here; she was doing this.

Squaring her shoulders, Topaz marched up the walkway to the front door and reached out to ring the bell. But in the wire flower basket beside the door, an envelope caught her eye—probably because it had her name on it—stopping her hand in midair.

She tugged the envelope out of the basket and opened it, and a key spilled out into her palm. There was a note besides, scrawled on Avalon Mansion stationery, with the address and phone number at the top.

Topaz,

The place is all yours. Since you’ve paid for every room, there will be no other guests, and as you requested, my husband and I have moved into the garage apartment and will give you all the privacy you require. Unless you call to request it, we’ll stay out of your way for the duration of your seven-day stay.

Feel free to call if you need anything.

Enjoy your vacation.

Kimber Argent, Owner

Santa Luna

Topaz sighed. “Great. I thought they’d at least be here to say hi and schlep the freaking bags up to my room.”

“Could be you were a bit too convincing when you told them you wanted to be left alone, hmm?”

She whirled, stunned. No one crept up on a vampire. Well, not usually. She’d been distracted. And now she was…gaping like an air-starved goldfish. She clapped her jaw shut.

“You did tell them you wanted to be left alone, didn’t you, Topaz?” Jack asked from the sidewalk.

She tried to answer, then settled for nodding instead, as she fought to suck in some air, clear her throat, control the stupid, stupid, stupid impulse to run back down that walkway to him and throw her arms around his neck.

“Surprised to see me?”

“Surprised. Dismayed. Irritated.” Good, good. She was speaking. Real words. And not welcoming ones, even. Great.

“And a little bit glad?” He was standing right beside the massive pile of luggage. Before she could answer, he scooped up half of it and strode up the walkway. “If nothing more, at least be glad there’s someone to carry your bags.”

She didn’t move. Just stood there, with the key in one hand, the note and envelope in the other. There was a car behind him on the curb, one she’d been too absorbed in her own thoughts to hear pulling up. A Porsche Carrera, naturally. Only the best for Jack. She wondered a little bitterly who he’d scammed it from. Another rich female, too in love with him to listen to her own common sense? “Why are you here?”

“Because I, apparently, know you better than your hosts do. Enough to know that your ‘I want to be left alone’ bullshit was just that. Bullshit.” He grunted and shifted the bags a little. “Unlock the door, will you? These are heavy, even for a vampire. What did you pack, anyway? A metric ton of your native soil?”

“So amusing.” Frowning, she inserted the key, turned it and swung the door open. Jack stepped inside, setting the bags on the floor.

She walked in behind him and looked around the place. Had it been this way when her mother was here? Or had the decor changed? She imagined it had. Now it was nice, but modern. Prints by Mexican artists lined the walls, colorful and vibrant scenes of the ocean, of palm trees and sunsets. Brightly striped throw rugs and runners with tassels at the ends covered the hardwood floors. Horsehair vases with Navajo patterns, and Kokopelli dancing and playing the pipes, stood everywhere she looked. Jewel-toned walls surrounded her; bright green, burgundy, yellow.

Jack cleared his throat, probably because she wasn’t paying him a lick of attention.

She glanced at him, then at the bags. “They’re going to have to go upstairs sooner or later,” she said.

“I realize that. I just assumed you hadn’t picked out a room yet. Have you?”

“No.”

“Well, once you do, I’ll take the bags the rest of the way.” He turned to head outside for the ones he’d left at the curb.

“You won’t be here that long,” she muttered.

He didn’t give any indication as to whether he heard her. He just marched on, grabbed the remaining bags and brought them inside. Then he stacked them by the door, closed it and stood there staring at her. “Well?”

“You’re not staying here.”

He shrugged. “I have a place.”

The way he said it, with a “you’re not the boss of me” tone, convinced her that he had absolutely nowhere else to go, even though his words claimed otherwise.

“That’s bull. You didn’t have time to make other arrangements.”

“How do you know what I had time to do?”

“Because I only just arrived myself.”

“Yeah, but you took longer getting here.”

“I had to go home first. Pack some things.” She tried not to sound too defensive.

“I flew in immediately. I’ve been in town two nights already. And I’ve had time to do plenty.”

She hated it when he contradicted her and managed to be right about it. “Why did you follow me?”

“Technically, I didn’t. I got here first. Besides, I didn’t have to follow you. I knew where you were going. You told me, remember?”

She lifted her brows, clearly surprised. “Not so you could follow me.”

“Oh sure. Tell me there wasn’t some part of you secretly hoping I’d show up, and sweep you into my arms and kiss you until you gave it up to me. Come on, Topaz, you know it crossed your mind.” He put his hands on her shoulders and stared intently at her mouth, then jerked her just a little bit closer as he lowered his head.

She could almost taste him and, God, right then she wanted to, more than she wanted to wake up again at sundown. But she had her pride. She ducked his kiss and turned away from him, so he wouldn’t see the naked hunger in her eyes. “If it did cross my mind, Jack, it was always preceded by the image of you handing me the rest of my money and telling me how sorry you were for taking it, and for using me and for hurting me.” She shrugged. “One ain’t gonna happen without the other, bud.”

He lowered his head. She felt the motion rather than saw it.

“So have you got my money?” She felt a little stronger now. Strong enough to turn and face him again.

Without lifting it, he shook his head.

“I didn’t think so. So I guess that means goodbye.”

“No problem. I told you, I’ve got a place.”

“And you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

Sighing, he reached into his long coat, which he didn’t need, as the night was warm and vampires didn’t feel the cold the way mortals did, anyway. They noticed it, but it wasn’t uncomfortable for them. Jack’s coat, long and dark, was more fashion accessory than necessity. And he looked hot in it, damn him. He pulled a manila envelope from somewhere within that sexy coat and tossed it onto a marble stand just inside the door. “I know why you’re here, Topaz.”

She jerked her head up, her gaze darting from that envelope to his eyes. “How?”

“Hell, woman, get it through your head that I know you better than anyone ever has. You look enough like her that I’m surprised it’s not obvious to everyone. Or maybe I’m the only man who can see the real you. Tanya.”

His words hurt. Probably because they were lies—beautiful lies, lies she’d wished some man would make true one day. But none ever had, nor ever would. Particularly not him. “Don’t ever call me that.”

“It’s who you are, deep down.”

“It’s not. It hasn’t been for a long time now.”

He sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter how I know. I know, that’s all. So I made a call to an…acquaintance of mine who’s connected. I got some inside info for you. And I don’t like what it implies.”

“I don’t care what you like,” she lied. She was burning with curiosity. She wanted to open that envelope and pore over its contents right this second. She wanted to thank him. She wanted to kiss him.

“Digging into your mother’s murder could be dangerous.”

She frowned hard, but before she could decide which of the dozens of questions to fire at him first, he was out the door. “Lock up tight, baby,” he called. “It’ll be dawn soon.”

She watched him go, having no idea where the hell he was going—which should be the least of her worries, she knew. He walked to the road and got into his hot-looking black car, started the engine. Then he turned on the headlights and roared away.

Only then did she manage to close the door. She turned the locks not because he had told her to, but because it made sense. Then, her hands trembling, she took the envelope, opened the clasp and pulled out the paper-clipped sheets it contained.

The cover page read: PROFILES OF PERSONS OF INTEREST IN THE MURDER OF MIRABELLA DUFRANE.

“What the hell? They had suspects? I never knew of any suspects.” Topaz moved through the giant, sprawling foyer through a wide archway into the living room, which had a fireplace and soft sand-colored furnishings, white carpet, and wide, wide windows that were bare and uncovered and looked out at the vista beyond. Rolling dunes and the mighty Pacific. The scene was so breathtaking that she paused for just a moment to take it in.

Then practicality intervened, and she glanced upward. Bamboo blinds, and window shades beneath them. Thank God, she thought. Those windows would let in way too much sunlight by day.

Okay. She sank onto the soft sofa—into it, to be more accurate—and laid the sheets out on the glass-topped bamboo coffee table. And then she began to read.

Jack parked the Carrera in front of a meter on a suburban street about a mile from where he planned to spend the night. He locked up the car, hoping no one would bother it, and put the maximum amount of change into the meter. It would get him through most of the day. And if he got a ticket toward sundown, so be it. It wasn’t like he would ever pay the thing.

He took his bedroll from the passenger seat and, slinging it over his shoulder, began the walk to his temporary abode. It wasn’t much, a family crypt in a cemetery beyond the suburbs, surrounded by rolling fields and with no one around to observe anything amiss. The crypt belonged to the family Carlisle, and it was roomy and spacious, and any corpses inside had long since turned to dust. They didn’t keep it locked. Hell, who did these days?

There was utterly no reason why a vampire should sleep in a crypt. He liked the poetic cliché of it, though. It spoke to his whimsical nature. Besides, no one would bother him there—and if they did, he could scare the bejesus out of them without much effort, which would be good for a laugh, if nothing else. The crypt was completely impervious to sunlight, the main necessity.

Besides, it was the closest safe place to where Topaz would be sleeping today. And he didn’t want to get far from her. Nor did he want to sit around analyzing just why that was, thank you very much. Suffice it to say, he was pretty sure she was about to tread on some dangerous ground, maybe ruffle a few feathers, stir up some long dormant evil and put herself at risk. That should be reason enough to want to stay close.

It wasn’t. But it should be.

Of course, he had his other reason. She would be checking in with Reaper periodically, which he couldn’t very well do himself. Not without raising suspicion, at least. He was too new to the white-hats, not really one of them yet. Any concern he showed would be suspect.

She could do it, though. And he could keep tabs on the big guy through her. That, too, should be reason enough to stay close to her.

And it, too, wasn’t.

He sighed, set his backpack on the big stone bier and closed the heavy slab of rock that passed for a door, plunging himself into utter darkness. That didn’t bother him. He could see just fine in the dark. Still, a little touch here and there to make the place homey wouldn’t hurt.

Jack liked his creature comforts. And he’d done some shopping along the way to be sure he would have all he needed.

He hadn’t spent a nickel of Topaz’s money, though. He told himself he needed it, in case he had to return it to her. He paid no attention to the unfamiliar guilt that made him feel slightly ill whenever he thought of spending it.

He unzipped the backpack and took out a bat-tery-powered lamp made to look like a gas-pow-ered one. It was clever. He’d taken a liking to it right away. It provided the rustic ambiance of camping without the fuss. Then he took out his portable DVD player and flipped it open. He’d rigged it with a timer, and the lamp had its own. Both would shut off within a few minutes of sunrise.

No point wasting the juice while he was dead to the world.

He undid his bedroll, yanked on the cord and watched his air mattress inflate itself atop the bier. Quickly he made his bed with blankets and a pillow. All the comforts of home. Everything but a teddy bear.

He pulled out a pint of O-negative, sealed in a plastic bag. He would have preferred it warm, but this would do as a bedtime snack.

Finally he lay down in his bed and turned on a movie. Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Leslie Nielsen really bore no resemblance to Vlad. Jack had met the infamous vampire once, face-to-face. Moody bastard, and none too friendly. And while Nielsen looked nothing like him, neither did most of the actors who’d portrayed Dracula over the years. Bottom line? Nielsen made him laugh, so Jack was perfectly willing to overlook such minor issues.




3


Topaz pored over the dossiers on the three men who the police had considered “persons of interest” in her mother’s murder. None of them had ever been charged, so she knew going in that she wouldn’t find much evidence. But she also thought she would just know. If she saw the face, or read the details of the life of the man who had murdered her mother, she was sure she would know who he was.

And yet, the photos she saw—the politician, the actor and the businessman who’d raised her—said nothing to her. None of them whispered “guilty.”

She couldn’t even get an inkling for which one of them might have fathered her.

She ran out of time long before she’d had her fill of reading up on the men and their connections to her mother. Dawn was coming, and she was forced to turn in, to save the rest of her reading for nightfall.

She gathered up the pages into a folder and carried them with her up the stairs, where she checked out each bedroom before choosing one that faced west to the ocean and the sunset. It was perfectly dark in there, with the sun getting ready to rise on the opposite side of the house. There were perfect vertical blinds in the windows, and thick drapes as well. She drew them all nice and tight. Then, relishing her vampiric strength, she shoved the bed easily into a corner of the room where there was no chance of any light that might filter through, touching her.

She tucked the files underneath her pillow, then made a final round downstairs to be sure the entire villa was locked up tight, before finally curling up beneath the covers. She felt the sun rise. As it lifted, her eyelids sank.

Dead to the world, she thought. It’s more than just an expression.

Briar sat on the carpeted floor of the vacant, unfinished home in Virginia. She and Reaper had headed north from Savannah, driving all night, until they came to this place. She didn’t know who owned it. She didn’t know if Reaper knew them and had permission to be there, or whether it had just seemed a likely place to rest for the day. She didn’t know if they would be discovered and murdered while they slept, and she didn’t particularly care.

“You’ve barely said a word all night,” Reaper said as he tossed her a bag of blood, taken from a cooler in the car he’d rented. She didn’t know where he’d gotten the blood or how long he’d had it or how much remained. She didn’t care about those things, either.

“I have nothing to say.”

“I could think of a pile of things.” He chugged his own liquid meal, tossed the plastic bag and sank down onto the floor beside her. “You could thank me for saving you from Gregor. You could tell me I was right about him all along. You could explain how he managed to break your spirit in such a short period of time.”

“I don’t need to thank you for saving me, since I would have saved myself, sooner or later. I never had any doubt as to what Gregor was. I only thought he would show more loyalty to me, being that I’m just like him.”

“You’re nothing like him.”

“You don’t know me.”

He drew a breath, seeming to consider those words, then finally nodded, conceding the point.

“And as for the condition of my spirit—assuming vampires even have such a thing—that’s my business.”

“I suppose that’s true. I just thought it would take more than a day or two of torture to turn you into…this.” He waved a hand her way.

“Into what?”

He shrugged. “A docile, quiet, brooding woman. A victim. Yes, that’s it—you’re acting like a victim.”

“I am brooding,” she admitted. “But you’re wrong about the rest.”

“Am I?”

She nodded, leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes. “There are things I need to work through in my own mind. I prefer to do it in silence, and in private. Just because I’m not clawing your eyes out at the moment, Reaper, don’t assume I’m docile. It could be a dangerous mistake.”

He sighed, and she felt his eyes on her for a long moment. She’d never raised her voice, nor infused it with any particular inflection. She’d spoken to him matter-of-factly, in the same monotone that she’d been using for days now, when she spoke at all.

She heard him sigh as he settled down beside her to rest. And then, just before she fell asleep, he whispered, “I’d give a lot to have you trying to claw my eyes out. Better than this damn zombie you’ve become.”

“Fuck you, Reaper.”

“That would be even better.” She heard him flip open his cell phone, heard the tones as he dialed a number. Then she heard the recorded voice of Topaz’s voice-mail message.

Reaper muttered, “She must not be near her phone,” and sighed. “Topaz, it’s Reaper. Just checking in. Briar and I have headed north. We’re just past Virginia Beach at the moment. I think we lost whoever was on our tails in Savannah. You can reach me at this number. I’ll keep it turned on and monitor the voice mail. I hope you’re all right. Call if you need me.”

Briar breathed slowly, deeply, her body growing heavy with the lethargy brought on by the approaching dawn. “Pretty fond of the princess, aren’t you?”

“Jealous?” he asked.

She made a choking sound, then rolled away from him and went to sleep.

When Jack arrived just after sundown, as she could have predicted he would, Topaz was sitting on the plush sofa with the file folders spread out around her, the DVD of her mother’s life flashing across the television screen in front of her, and her own notebook open beside her.

He didn’t bother knocking. Nor did he need to; she’d felt his approach long before he picked the locks with his mind and walked in as if he owned the place.

“Miss me?” he asked.

“Like a toothache.” She didn’t bother looking up to speak to him. “You know, you’re very good at that, Jack.”

He crossed the room toward her. “You’re going to have to be more specific, hon. I’m good at so many things.”

“Unlocking doors without a key.”

He shrugged. “Psychokinesis. Any vampire can move things by mental manipulation.”

“Yes, but I’ve seen very few who could open a lock in less than two seconds. It normally takes a bit more concentration.”

He plunked himself onto the far end of the sofa, carelessly enough to appear casual but managing not to disturb a single sheet of her research in the process. “That should show you that I have a very strong will and am a very powerful vampire.”

“What it shows me is that you’re a crook through and through. That your strongest skill is breaking and entering really says it all, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, Topaz, that is far from my strongest skill. As you well remember.”

She just barely bit her lip in time to keep from smiling. And even then, she couldn’t keep the delicious tingle of awareness from slithering up her spine. She remembered very well. Too well.

“So have you learned anything new?”

She sighed, raising her head to look him in the eye. Big mistake. When their eyes met, it was always a mistake. How a man could be so phony, so unable to feel true emotions, and yet look at her like that—well, it defied explanation. “I really don’t want your help with this, Jack.”

“Yes, you do. And I’m not leaving. This is the perfect way to kill time until Reaper’s ready to reconstitute the gang and make another try at Gregor. At which time I’ll get all your money back to you—if you let me stick around now.”

“Oh, now there are conditions? I thought you promised to give me back my money either way, Jack. What happened to that?”

“You’re right. How about if I add interest?”

“Twenty-five percent of the total, every month until you give it back.”

“Are you a vampire or a loan shark?”

This time she let herself smile.

Jack sighed. “Ten percent of the half I still owe you, for every month until I give it back.”

“Twenty.”

He reached out a hand, stroked her hair where it had fallen forward over one cheek, tucking it back behind her ear, and whispered, “Fifteen,” as if he were whispering words of love. Sensation sizzled through her, and she knew he knew it, even as she pulled back from his touch.

“I’ll take the ten if you’ll promise to keep your hands off me for the duration.”

“I’ll give you the twenty-five if you won’t make me promise that.”

They stared at each other for a long electric moment.

“I’ll compromise,” he said at last. “Fifteen percent and I won’t touch you until you ask me to.”

“Like that’s gonna hap—”

“I’m not finished.”

She clamped her lips and waited.

“I won’t touch you until you ask me to. But you have to feel free to touch me any time you want. In any way you want to. Fully secure in the knowledge that I won’t touch you back unless you want me to.”

She frowned as she let the images of what he was suggesting burn through her mind. Then she said, “You don’t have the willpower.”

“Try me.”

She thought about leaning closer, maybe trailing her lips over his neck, just to prove her point. Because she had no doubt that he would wrap his arms around her, flip her onto her back on the sofa and mount her within about five seconds.

Or maybe it wasn’t his reactions she didn’t trust. Maybe it was her own.

“Chicken,” he whispered. “Ten percent, then. Take it or leave it.”

“And if I leave it?”

“I’ll stay and help you anyway, return your money with no interest at all—as soon as I can lay my hands on it, that is—and touch you whenever the urge strikes me—knowing damn well you want it as much as I do.”

She drew a breath and sighed. “Fifteen percent, your conditions.” She held out a hand for a shake. “Deal?”

“Deal.” He held his hand out, too, but he didn’t take hers. He just waited. She finally closed her hand around his to seal the bargain, and when she took her hand away, she skimmed her fingertips over his palm and thought she felt him shiver.

Sighing, Jack managed to keep his control. But he was wondering, even before the touch of her hand on his had faded, what he’d gone and promised. The impossible, probably. Was he testing her—or himself?

Time for a new subject. “So you’ve read up on the men in your mother’s life?”

“Yeah.” She gathered her papers, shuffling through to the photos, and laid them out one by one. “The police seem to have focused on the men she was rumored to have been sleeping with in the year prior to her death.”

“Including your father?” he asked.

She lowered her eyes, shielding them. “I don’t know which of them is my father. There were a couple whose blood types made it possible, but there was no DNA testing back then, so the courts awarded me to the one they felt was most likely to provide a stable home.” She picked out a five-by-seven black-and-white photo of the man who’d raised her, taken back in his younger days. “Thomas Martin, businessman.”

“What kind of business?”

“Mostly government contracts. He owns several manufacturing plants. They make weapons.”

Jack looked up quickly. “He’s an arms dealer?”

“Yeah. And according to the cops, there were rumors he wasn’t too fussy about who bought his products. But no one could ever find proof he sold weapons to unapproved nations.”

“Unless maybe your mom stumbled onto some.”

“Yeah. That would give him a motive.”

“He raised you?”

She nodded. “He and his series of wives. He got older. When his women did, too, he just traded them in for newer models. And I do mean models.”

“Was he good to you?”

She glanced at him briefly, and he saw a flash of something—pain?—in her eyes, but she averted them so quickly that he couldn’t be sure. He guessed the answer was no. Which made him wonder just how “not good” the man’s treatment of her had been. Had he just been cold and uncaring, or something more? The notion sent a darkness through him.

She laid out the next photo. “Frederick Ramirez, state senator.”

“Corrupt?” Jack asked.

“He accepted exorbitant campaign contributions from a reputed mob boss—Tony Bonacelli.” She pulled another photo from a folder. “Interestingly enough, he was also sleeping with my moth er. Or at least that was the gossip.”

“Was the mob boss a suspect, too?” Jack asked.

“He was cleared early on. Airtight alibi.”

“He could have had someone else do it for him.”

“There was no evidence of it, though. If he did, he covered his tracks very well. Or maybe he had the cops on his payroll. Who knows?”

Jack whistled softly under his breath, then glanced at the one remaining photo in her hand. “And our final contestant?”

“Wayne Clark Duncan.” She laid the photo down. The man was stunningly attractive, the shot unmistakably professional, even without the autograph scrawled in the corner. “Actor,” she said.

“I could have guessed.” He frowned. “But not one I’ve heard of.”

“No, neither have I. And while he was questioned, there’s nothing in the police reports about a possible motive. He’s probably the least likely to have killed her.”

“Those are the ones to watch out for,” Jack said, and sighed. “So what’s your plan? You want to talk to each of these guys, see what they have to say?”

“Yeah, later. First, though, I want to talk to Rebecca Murphy. She was my mother’s agent and lawyer. I think she might know more than anyone—if she’s even still alive.”

He nodded. “Good place to start. You have any idea where we can find her?”

“As luck would have it, she’s in the book. Or at least, someone with the same name is. I was just about to call when you arrived.” She reached for her cell phone, flipped it open and frowned. “Damn. I had it on vibrate. Got a voice mail, just a sec.” She hit a button. “It’s from Reaper.”

“Put it on speaker,” Jack said. “I want to know how things are going, too.”

With a nod, she hit another button, and Reaper’s message played.

Topaz saved the message. “I’m glad they’re okay. And especially glad they lost whoever was following them. That was creepy.”

“Anything having to do with the CIA is likely to be creepy,” he said with a smile. “At least, it seems that way to me.”

Jack nodded at the phone. “Why don’t you call this Rebecca person now?”

She nodded and placed the call.

Rebecca Murphy agreed to see them that evening and gave them directions to her home, a small brick structure in an upscale suburb of Beverly Hills. It was a half-hour drive, and a surprisingly pleasant one. The Porsche was fabulous, and Jack drove it the same way he did everything else. Perfectly.

Rebecca answered her door wearing a kaftan with huge pink flowers all over it, a pair of furtrimmed high-heeled slippers, and diamonds dripping from her wrist, throat and earlobes. Her snowy hair was cut close to her head on the sides and in the back, while the top was longer, giving her the look of some exotic bird. Topaz suspected she weighed in at about ninety pounds, if that. The kaftan was too big, so she thought maybe the weight loss was recent. The woman had an aura of physical frailty, perhaps even illness, about her, but it was nearly overpowered by the sense of mental power and emotional stability that exuded from her like perfume.

“Thank you for seeing us, Ms. Murphy. I realize it’s after hours.”

The woman waved a hand, glancing at Topaz, then, her attention arrested, staring at her.

“This is my friend Jack. I’m—”

“Tanya,” the woman whispered. “My God, you’re Tanya, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Everyone thinks you’re dead…or worse.”

Topaz lifted her eyebrows. “What’s worse than dead?”

“Oh, child, there are plenty of things.” Rebecca took Topaz by the arm, leading her into her house, a one-story brick ranch with brown shutters and trim to offset its stark look. “I can’t believe you’re here. After all this time.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Murphy, but—”

“Rebecca. And don’t even try to tell me you’re not her. I’d recognize you anywhere. You look exactly as you did before you vanished, ten years ago. God, you look so much like your mother.” She shook her head as if to snap herself out of her reverie, and led them through her small, neat home, all the way to the rear. Topaz glimpsed a huge brown overstuffed sofa and chair, thick green carpeting, an aquarium and a ton of plants, and then they were being hustled through sliding glass doors onto a redwood deck in the back.

“Sit. Can I get you a cold drink? A snack?”

“No, thank you, we’re fine,” Topaz told her.

At Topaz’s “we,” Rebecca looked at Jack as if she had forgotten he was even there. Then she shook her head again. “I’m sorry, young man. I’ve already forgotten your name.”

“Jack,” he said, not adding a last name. She narrowed her eyes a little, but didn’t ask. And then Jack pulled out a chair for her, and she forgot her suspicions as she smiled and took it, apparently pleased by the show of good manners.

He could charm the spots off a leopard, Topaz thought. Especially if the leopard was female.

“It’s good to see you, Tanya. I kept tabs on you as much as I could until you disappeared—hard to believe it was ten years ago. No one knew what happened to you, but most of the speculation was that you died.”

Topaz licked her lips. Admitting who she was had not been a part of her plan. But clearly this woman wasn’t going to be talked out of believing it now.

Rebecca studied her, then tilted her head to one side. “You want to keep it that way, don’t you?”

Topaz met her eyes. “For reasons I can’t go into, yes. I would prefer to stay dead as far as the rest of the world is concerned.”

“Well, I still have my law license. Give me a dollar.”

“Excuse me?”

“Give me a dollar.”

Frowning, Topaz set her tiny Coach handbag onto the glass-topped patio table and fished out a dollar bill. She handed it to the older woman.

“There,” Rebecca said, folding it, and tucking it down the front of the kaftan. “You’ve just retained me. Anything we discuss now is privileged and completely confidential.”

Smiling, Topaz said, “I get it now.”

“So tell me why it is you’ve come to see me.”

“You can probably guess,” Topaz said. “I want to know who killed my mother.”

The other woman sat back, blinking in stunned surprise. Then, her jaw firming, she nodded. “Well, I suppose that makes sense.” She sat in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, and studied Topaz. “Why now? Why after all these years?”

Topaz lowered her head, darting a glance Jack’s way as she did. He was sitting in silence, just observing, listening. Probably looking for any weakness he could use later to con her, she thought with a rush of anger.

“I just need to know, that’s all. I’ve never…I’ve never understood who she was, or how she felt about me. I want to know everything about her. But especially who took her life.”

The older woman nodded slowly, her gaze turning inward. “Your mother was the most beautiful woman I have ever known,” she said softly. “She wasn’t a great actress. But she had this energy, this spirit, that just emanated from her and drew people to her. Everyone who met her fell in love with her. Everyone.”

“Well, maybe not quite everyone,” Topaz said softly. “Someone killed her, after all.”

Rebecca didn’t let the comment sidetrack her. “She was a free spirit. Couldn’t be tied to one man. She fell in love at the drop of a hat. I think it was the excitement of new love that thrilled her most. Once it got old—well, men pretty much fell into a predictable pattern with Mirabella. Once they had her, they wanted to own her. I mean, you couldn’t blame them. Anyone could see how attractive she was, how many men wanted her. So whichever one she was with tended to feel threatened by that, and inevitably, he’d start trying to control her, manage her, you know? She couldn’t tolerate that.”

Topaz nodded. “Having a baby must have been the last thing she wanted. I mean, nothing is more controlling than—”

“Having a baby was the best thing that ever happened to her.”

Topaz looked up slowly, trying hard to read the other woman’s face, and then her thoughts, in search of a lie.

“She finally had someone in her life who loved her, without giving two hoots what she looked like or how well her career was going.”

“Or how much money she had,” Topaz murmured.

“She adored you, Tanya. She so wanted to make everything perfect for you. And she tried, she did. But her life was snuffed out before she had the chance.” Rebecca dabbed at her eyes. “I really loved Mirabella, you know. She was my friend.”

Topaz believed the woman. There was nothing in her mind to contradict what she was saying aloud. But there was something.

“Do you know who killed her?”

“No.”

“But…?” Topaz prompted, fully aware that there was something else, something Rebecca wasn’t saying.

“There…was a lot going on in your mother’s life before she died. Let me dig into my files, so I can get my facts straight. My memory isn’t what it used to be. I’ll phone you in a day or two, and we can meet again. If you’re going to be in town that long?”

“I am,” Topaz said.

“Good.” Rebecca nodded. “Good.”

It was, Topaz sensed, the end of the conversation. She would get no more information from Rebecca tonight. She got to her feet, and Jack rose with her. “Thank you,” she said simply.

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” Jack added. He reached out to take Topaz’s arm, then stopped himself, she noted, just before making contact. He really was trying to live up to his end of their bargain. It was slightly amazing to her. He was actually trying to keep his word.

They walked around the house, through the backyard and out to the front, where Jack had parked the Porsche. Topaz didn’t say a thing until they got in. And then she said disbelievingly, “I can’t believe she knew who I was just by looking at me.”

He started the engine but didn’t put the car in gear. Instead, he turned in his seat to look at her. “Well, her eyesight clearly hasn’t gone the way of her memory.”

“But I don’t look anything like Mirabella.”

He laughed. Just a soft sound, very short and more surprised than amused.

“What?”

“You look a lot like her, Topaz. You have the same bone structure, the same high cheekbones and delicate, angular jaw. The same little nose, the same full, sexy lips. Same milk-chocolate-brown eyes and thick lashes. Her skin tone was a little darker, her hair, too, but beyond that…”

“That’s ridiculous. My mother was called the most beautiful woman alive.”

“Yeah,” Jack said with a firm nod, then put the car into gear and began to drive. “Exactly.”

She shot him a look, but his face was unreadable. He focused on the road, not looking at her, intent on his driving, as if it were some challenging task that took every bit of his concentration.

“What are you trying to pull, Jack?” she asked softly.

He frowned, sending her a quick glance. “What do you mean?”

“Do you think flattering me is going to get you back into my good graces? Or my wallet?”

“I’d settle for back into your bed, but—”

“You never said shit like that when we were dating.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want you to get a swollen head. And maybe I was thinking like those men of your mother’s. If you knew how beautiful you were, why wouldn’t you go out and find someone a hell of a lot better than me? I sure didn’t want to encourage that.”

“No. At least not until you got what you were after.”

He sighed, his head falling forward briefly. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought she’d hurt him, just a little.

But that was impossible, of course.

You couldn’t hurt someone unless they cared, and she knew all too well that Jack didn’t. He never had.

That thought hurt a little too much, so she distracted herself by picking up her phone, glancing at the time and dialing Reaper’s cell.

He picked up on the first ring. “Topaz?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” she said. “How is it going? Are you still in Virginia Beach?”

“No, we’re already moving on. Still heading north. I’ll let you know where we decide to hole up next when we get there. How are things with you?”

“Fine. Everything’s fine. The others?”

“Roxy and Ilyana are at Roxy’s place.”

“Really? Interesting. You think Ilyana will open up to her at all?”

“If anyone can get her talking, it’ll be Roxy.”

“She has secrets, that one,” Topaz said. “How about Seth and Vixen?”

“They haven’t checked in yet,” Reaper told her. “Have you, um…Have you heard from Jack?”

She hesitated and glanced Jack’s way. She got the immediate impression that he was listening closely to her conversation. He wouldn’t have any trouble hearing Reaper’s end, given all vampires’ heightened senses. “Actually, he’s here with me.”

“Tell him I said hi,” Jack said.

She didn’t. Reaper could hear the greeting for himself. He sighed, and said, “Be careful, Topaz.”

“Believe me, I am.”




4


“Oh, hell.”

Jack rejoined Topaz at the checkout counter of the 7-Eleven, having ditched her just long enough to place a call of his own. She was handing the cashier a wad of bills to pay for her shampoo, conditioner and the dozen other beauty supplies she’d insisted she couldn’t get along without for one more night, things she hadn’t packed because it was “so much easier to just buy them here.”

At Jack’s muttered curse, Topaz shot him a quick look over her shoulder. “Anything wrong?” she asked.

He didn’t speak out loud, because he didn’t think the checker had made the connection just yet and he certainly didn’t want to encourage her to. Take a look at the tabloid in the rack—upper left slot, he told Topaz mentally.

Frowning, she glanced at the rack of magazines and newspapers standing beside the cashier. Jack had no doubt that the banner headline and side-by-side photos of Topaz, back in her mortal days, and her mother, caught her eye just as quickly as they had caught his. When her eyes widened, he knew for sure.

DAUGHTER OF LEGENDARY ACTRESS RETURNS FROM THE GRAVE TO AVENGE HER MOTHER’S MURDER

She blinked in shock and quickly grabbed the issue, folded it over the sensationalistic front-page headline and dropped it onto the counter. “This, too,” she said. He thought her voice seemed to quiver. Not so much that a mortal would detect it. Maybe not even another vampire. But he was more attuned to her than most—than anyone alive, he imagined. And that realization bore some further thought, but not right then.

The cashier nodded and snapped her chewing gum. Looking bored, she continued ringing up purchases and stuffing them into a bag.

Topaz gripped the plastic bag by its handles and hurried out of the store. Following, Jack hit the key ring button to unlock the car before she got to it, and by the time he slid behind the wheel she was in the passenger seat with the newspaper unfolded on her lap.

“Listen to this,” she told him as he started the car. “‘Tanya DuFrane, daughter of the legendary actress Mirabella DuFrane, vanished a decade ago. It was rumored at the time that she had been very ill, and most of Hollywood assumed she simply wanted to die in privacy. However, a reliable source claims that Ms. DuFrane is alive and well, and has returned to L.A. determined to learn the truth about her mother’s death.’” She looked up at Jack. “It goes on, sensationalistic blatherings about how Mirabella was shot and—” She lowered her gaze to the paper, scanning it again. “A half-dozen crackpot theories as to who did it and what became of her body. The fact that an eyewitness has seen me, and that I appear to be in ‘the pink of health.’The pink of health. Do I look pink to you?” As she asked the question, she ran her fingertip over the pale skin of her forearm.

“Does it say where you’re staying?”

“No, but it’s implied.” She ran a finger down the column of text. “Here. ‘The younger Ms. Du-Frane appears to be retracing her mother’s steps on the final night of her life.’” She clenched her jaw and muttered “Idiots” through her teeth.

“Do you think Rebecca Murphy…?”

“There hasn’t been time,” Topaz said. “We only left her ten minutes ago.” She shook her head. “No, it couldn’t have been her.”

“So who else have you spoken with while you’ve been here? Who else even knew you were coming?”

She shrugged. “You knew.”

“Oh, come on, Topaz, be realistic.”

“These rags pay a lot for this kind of garbage. And it wouldn’t be the first time you betrayed me for money.”

“It wasn’t me.” He was wounded, actually, that she could even entertain the thought. He wished he could look her in the eyes or delve into her mind to determine whether she believed him. He tried, but she was blocking—not deliberately, he thought. It was anger and mistrust keeping his mind from probing the depths of hers. Digging any deeper would take more concentration than he could muster up while simultaneously driving and trying to think of convincing arguments.

“I gave you information to help you. Why would I do that if I were going to turn around and throw roadblocks in your way?”

“Oh, come on. You convince me you’re on my side to find out more facts to sell, then stab me in the back.”

“Topaz, I knew where you were staying, and I knew why you had come out here before I ever arrived on that villa’s doorstep. I could have sold that information to the tabloids without ever setting foot in California.”

She lowered her head. “Maybe that’s not all you’re after.”

He sighed, frustrated as hell.

“If you want to convince me, Jack, just tell me why you’re really here.”

He was quiet for a long moment, so long that he could feel her speculation, practically hear those wheels turning in her mind. She thought he was taking his time so he could make up a good lie, he realized. Say something, you idiot, he told himself.

“I have never felt remorse before. Not in all my years of conning women. Never once. But I felt it with you. I thought it would go away, but it’s been getting worse instead of better. And there’s more. I—I’ve missed you.”

She was staring at him, probing. He wished he could let down his guard, let her dig around inside his thoughts and see that he meant what he said—but there were too many things she couldn’t know.

“And besides all that, I kept getting the feeling that this mission of yours could be dangerous.”

“So you want me to believe you’re selfless?”

“Hell, no! I thought by coming out here, helping you do this thing that means so much to you, I might somehow atone for my sins and these feelings of regret would go away.” He thumped a palm on the steering wheel. “I don’t like feeling this way, Topaz. It’s affecting my work.”

“Your work?”

“Yes, my work. How am I supposed to move on to the next mark if I have to worry that I’ve somehow developed a conscience?”

She drew a breath, then blew it out slowly. “I suppose that’s at least…plausible.”

“Just assume it’s the truth for now, and let’s move on, okay? Who—besides me—knew you were coming here?”

She pursed her lips. “Besides you? The only people I’ve spoken with are the owners of the villa I rented. But I didn’t tell them who I was.”

“Could they have recognized you, like Rebecca did?”

“I haven’t seen them face-to-face.”

“All right. It’s a simple thing to find out, really.”

“Is it?”

He shot her a smirk. “Hello! We’re vampires.”

“So?”

“So who wrote the story? Is there a byline?”

She looked at the piece again, then nodded. “Les Marlboro.”

“Sounds like an anti-smoking ad. All right, so we find out where this Marlboro man lives, and we pay him a little visit. He’ll tell us who his source is.”

She shot him a look—a worried look. “I don’t think we need to go that far.”

“You’re kidding me. You’re okay with letting someone spy on you and report your activities to the press?”

“I just think there might be a less…violent way of finding out.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we torture him,” he said. “Much.”

“We can find another way.”

He shrugged and turned into the driveway of the villa. “All right, if you insist.” He glanced at the entry door, which stood slightly open. “You’ve had company.”

She followed his gaze. “Son of a…”

Topaz got out of the car, slammed the door and strode up the walk. She shoved the front door wide and stepped inside, then stood there, sensing for a presence with her mind even while her eyes took in the mess around her.

Jack was beside her a heartbeat later. Careful now. They might still be here.

“No one’s here,” she replied aloud and waved an arm. “Look at this mess. Whoever it was, they went through everything.”

“Was there anything for them to find?”

“The file you gave me. My own notes. The DVD.” As she spoke, she moved through the place, checking the drawer where those things had been stored. “Odd.”

“What?”

“They left the DVD.”

He shrugged. “If they have an interest in your mother—or you, for that matter—they probably already have a copy.”

“I’m going to check upstairs.”

“I’ll take a look around outside, though I don’t feel anyone close.”

She agreed, and headed up the stairs to the bedroom she’d been using. Her things had been tossed, every drawer opened, including the one in the bedside stand that had held the one thing she never wanted anyone else to see. Her journal and the little pen she kept with it were still there. That journal held her innermost thoughts. Her secrets. Her vulnerabilities. Every emotion she’d experienced about Jack. The intruder hadn’t taken it, but he might have looked at it. And she knew Jack hadn’t done it, because he’d been with her.

She felt violated. Red-hot fury came on the heels of that emotion, and she liked that a lot better.

“Topaz? Anything missing up here?”

She closed the drawer slowly and turned to face him. “I’ve changed my mind. Let’s pay this Les Marlboro a visit tonight.”

It wasn’t difficult to locate the man. He wasn’t listed in the phone book, but the paper’s offices were in L.A., which was only a half-hour drive away, and breaking and entering came easily to vampires. Especially, Topaz knew, to Jack. Within ten minutes of entering the building, they had located Les Marlboro’s cubicle and, after rifling the desk, his home address.

Which brought them to his door. He lived south of L.A., so it was on the way back to Santa Luna. His house was a pepperbox in the ’burbs, but the name on the mailbox was Adams, not Marlboro. She imagined writers with the scruples of this one probably had to use pseudonyms for their own protection. God, she thought, I hope he doesn’t have kids.

All the lights were off. Either everyone was asleep or no one was home. Jack reached for the doorknob.

Topaz put a hand on his arm. “Wait.”

He tensed. His bicep bulged underneath her palm, and she experienced a brief but powerful rush of desire. She’d always loved biceps. They were the sexiest part of a man, in her opinion. And his were sexier than most. Touching them had always turned her on.

She shook off the heat of wanting him and nodded at the little metallic tag affixed to the siding near the door: These Premises Protected by Sentinel Alarms.

“Yeah. Look how old that sign is,” he whispered. “When people first get these systems, they use them religiously. Then they get complacent and stop setting them. Even people who do use them tend to set them when they’re on vacation and leave them unarmed while they’re home. Trust me, no alarm is going to sound.”

“And what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m never wrong.” He said it with a look and a smile that did as much for her insides as his flexing bicep had. “But if I am, we can be out of here in short order. No harm done.”

She nodded, knowing he was right. With their preternatural speed, they could move so fast that they would appear only as a blur to mortal eyes. In the darkness of night, even that much might not be visible. “All right, go ahead.”

He put his hand on the doorknob, focused his attention on it. An instant later, she heard the lock free itself. Then he ran his palm up the surface of the door, past the dead bolt, and shook his head. “He didn’t even throw the bolt.”

Topaz made a “tsk tsk” sound, then stiffened in anticipation as Jack turned the knob and opened the door.

No alarm sounded. She glanced at the panel that was mounted to the wall just inside the door, and it read, The Adamses’ System Is Secure. A green light glowed from its face.

“Not as secure as if you’d armed the darn thing, but still, secure,” Jack whispered.

She frowned and studied him. “You’re enjoying this.”

“It’s what I do. I’m good at it.”

He sounded as if he were proud of the fact. Rolling her eyes, she continued through the house, which was small enough that it didn’t take long. Les Marlboro/Adams apparently lived alone, so that was a plus. No children to traumatize, no mate to contend with.

They stepped into the lone bedroom and stood there, looking at the sleeping man. He wasn’t badlooking, Topaz thought. Not attractive, but not repulsive, either. Must be his personality that kept him living alone.

Or maybe he’s just a confirmed bachelor. Jack spoke to her silently, as the man lay sleeping.

There’s no such thing.

Excuse me, but you’re looking at one.

She shook her head. When you fall in love, Jack, you’re not even going to know what hit you, much less be content with living alone any longer.

Ha!

She shrugged and gazed again at the man in the bed. Mid-thirties, brown hair, starting to show a little gray and some thinning in the center. He had a bit of a belly, too, expanding the blankets that covered him. Mortality sucked. She glanced at Jack. So what’s the plan?

He grinned at her, then walked over to the bed and crouched low. Bending close to the man’s ear, he said, “Wake up, pal. We’ve got some talking to do.”

The man’s eyes flew open wide, and he immediately sat up in the bed.

Jack slammed a palm into his chest, pushing him flat again. “You aren’t to speak until I ask you to. I could kill you very easily, and way faster than you could get to the telephone.”

“Wh-what do you want? You want money? Jesus, take it, just don’t—”

Jack gazed hard at the man, and Topaz knew he was exerting the power of his mind. The man’s jaw clamped shut and his eyes went wider. Jack was preventing him from speaking as effectively as if he’d clapped a hand over his mouth.

“I said not to speak until I ask you to.” Then Jack smiled. “Oh, yes. That’s right. We’re not your garden-variety burglars. We’re not even human. Now, there are two ways this can go. You can tell us what we want to know, and we’ll leave here and you’ll never see us again. Or you can be stubborn and make us torture it out of you. Either way, we’ll get what we came for. Is that understood?”

Les strained to move his mouth.

Jack smiled. “Oh. Sorry. Go ahead, you can answer now.”

Les opened his mouth experimentally, then rubbed his jaw with one hand.

“Do you understand your options?” Jack asked.

“Yeah. I got it.”

“Good. This lovely lady has a few questions for you. You will answer them. And you will tell no one of this visit. Unless you want it repeated in a far less pleasant manner.”

Frowning, Les looked at Topaz. Then he looked again, his eyes straining.

“Who was your source for the Tanya DuFrane story that ran today?”

His eyes widened. “Holy shit. You—you’re her, aren’t you?”

“That is not the answer to my question, Mr.…Adams, is it?”

“You haven’t aged,” he muttered. “That photo I ran of you was ten years old. I couldn’t find any more recent ones—”

“There aren’t any more recent ones.”

“But you haven’t changed…except—”

“I’m paler, I know. I am not, Mr. Adams, pink. Now, will you tell me what I need to know?”

He shook his head. “No. I…I can’t.”

Sighing, she looked at Jack. “Make him tell me, Jack.”

Nodding, Jack said, “I was getting hungry anyway.” Then he bared his fangs and jerked the man out of bed by the collar of his pajamas. Jack held him a foot above the floor.

The man’s scream was pathetic and loud.

Jack gripped Les’s chin and tipped his head back, moving closer to his throat.

“Don’t! Don’t. I’ll tell you! It was Argent.”

Topaz blinked in shock. “Kimber Argent? The woman who owns Avalon?”

“No. Her husband, Albert. He recognized you as soon as he saw you.”

“We never met face-to-face,” she said.

“He’s right next door in the apartment. Besides, he has cameras all over that place. He feeds me stories all the time. Makes more money for me than any other source. Hell, that villa of his is bugged till hell won’t have it. There’s video surveillance, too, but Argent says it’s malfunctioning or something. Celebrities stay there all the time, and I get a ton of gossip on them from him.”

Topaz muttered, “I should have guessed. So who broke in there tonight? Was it you, looking for more dirt?”

“Someone broke in?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“Yes, someone broke in. Was it you?” she repeated, growing impatient.

“No!” He swung his gaze from her to Jack and back again, afraid, she thought, that they didn’t believe him. “I wouldn’t need to break in, Argent would let me in if I asked him. But I haven’t asked. And I won’t.” He was clearly terrified. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were—whatever the hell you are. I’ll fix it. I’ll print a retraction, say it was all a mistake.”

“I’m afraid the damage has been done, Mr. Adams,” Jack said. He dropped the man back onto the bed. “You’ll sleep now. You’ll remember this as a bad dream, nothing more. And you won’t run any more stories about Tanya DuFrane, no matter how tempting those stories might be.”

“I won’t. I promise. I—”

“Sleep.” Jack said the word firmly, with a piercing gaze, and the man sank back onto his pillows. His eyes fell closed. “It was a bad dream,” Jack whispered, leaning closer. “It was nothing but a nightmare. We were never here.”

Topaz touched his arm. “You could have used that same technique to get him to talk in the first place, you know.”

“Of course I know. But scaring the hell out of him was much more fun. Besides, he had it coming. Bottom-feeding slug.”

She didn’t entirely disagree with him, she thought as they walked out of the man’s house.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked as Jack drove through the rapidly fading night. “This isn’t the way back to Avalon Mansion.”

“It’s almost dawn. Surely you don’t want to spend the day there.”

“That was the plan.”

He sent her a look of disbelief. “We’re completely defenseless when we sleep. You have no idea who broke in there, and they could come back.”

“What for? They already searched the place and took what they wanted.”

Jack drew a breath. “Unless what they wanted was you.”

“Don’t be melodramatic.”

“I’m not. Topaz, consider what you’re doing here. You’re trying to unmask a killer, a person who has spent the past thirty-six years believing he got away with murder. You don’t think that tabloid story made him nervous? You don’t think he’s still capable of killing to protect himself?”

She didn’t answer, only lowered her head.

“You know I’m right,” Jack insisted.

“Maybe.” She sighed. “So where are you taking me, then?”

“My place. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do. We’ll have time tomorrow night to make alternate arrangements. Right after I have a conversation with Mr. Argent.”

“All right.”

She didn’t think he required her consent at this point, but she gave it. It was odd how it felt almost as if he were trying to protect her. It would be easy to believe that—too easy. So she refused. There had to be something in this for Jack. In the end, there always was.

At least she knew for sure now that he hadn’t been the one selling information on her to the tabloids.

Jack pulled the car into an empty parking area off the side of the road. They got out, and he locked it up, pocketed the keys and said, “This way.”

“Oh, Lord. We’re not sleeping in the woods, are we? You didn’t find a cave or a hollow tree or something equally putrid, did you?”

He looked at her briefly and kept on walking, up a hill, across a tree-dotted field, into the woods and then out of them again. The sky was beginning to fade to a lighter shade of gray. Sunrise wasn’t far off.

Then she saw the cemetery and stopped in her tracks. He kept right on walking through, right up to the biggest crypt in the entire place. It was huge, ornate, made of gray stone, and came complete with a gargoyle guarding its roof.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Do I?” He opened the heavy door and looked back at her. “It’s quite cozy inside. Come on now, you don’t have time to be fussy.”

“I’m not being fussy, but for God’s sake, Jack, could you have come up with anything more clichéd?”

“Nope. I tried, but this was the best I could do. Come on. We don’t have all day. Or all night.”

Shaking her head in disgust, she walked inside. He closed the door behind her, but it didn’t matter; she could see perfectly well in the darkness. There were blankets and pillows spread over a bier, a lantern on the floor, and his backpack leaning in one corner alongside a cooler with the Red Cross’s logo on the front.

“Sustenance?” she asked, nodding at it.

“Help yourself. Unless…well, if you want you could, um…” He tipped his head back a bit and ran his forefinger over his jugular. “Eat me.”

“In your dreams, Jack.”

“Sometimes, yes.”

She punched him in the shoulder and moved toward the cooler to take what she needed from inside. “Any bodies in here?” she asked.

“Nothing recent. I think the newest has been here fifty years.”

“That’s a relief, at least. No decomposing corpses to sleep with.” She finished the blood and returned the empty plastic bag to the cooler, to be disposed of later. Then she stretched her arms over her head as the lethargy began to creep in. She reached for a blanket, tugged it from the bier.

Jack gripped the corner and pulled it from her hands. “It’s safe to sleep with me, Topaz. We’ll both be dead to the world in a few minutes. There’s no time for me to seduce you, even if I was planning to break our deal—which I’m not, by the way.”

“So sue me for not trusting you.”

“You’re not fooling either of us. It’s yourself you don’t trust.”

“Oh, please, you’re not all that hard to resist.” She let go of the blanket, and then, to prove her point, she peeled off her clothes, stripping down to her bra and matching panties, and climbed into the makeshift bed. It was surprisingly soft, and she realized he’d equipped it with an air mattress. “Nice touch.”

Smiling to himself, Jack peeled off his clothes, as well, and got in beside her, wearing only his boxer-briefs. He pulled the covers over them both, but he was careful not to touch her. There was a mere inch of space between them, and he rolled onto his side, facing her, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.

“You can kiss me good-night if you want to,” he said.

“Why on earth would I want to?”

He shrugged. “To thank me for my help. To show some gratitude that I’m trying to keep you safe. To—”

“To shut you up?” She rolled onto her side, facing him, and pressed her lips to his. It was a peck. It was brief, and firm, but when she pulled back, she could still feel those lips under hers. He had the softest lips. He always had. Her heart softened a little, and she leaned in again. This time she pressed her mouth gently against his, pulling back when he parted his lips and began moving them in that way he had that always drove her wild.

She could still taste him.

“Sleep well, Topaz,” he whispered.

“No choice about that.” Thank God, she thought. Because if there were, she knew she wouldn’t sleep at all. Not with him this close. Not with every night they’d ever spent wrapped around each other replaying in her mind.

She felt the sun’s energy rising, and with a rush of gratitude, she let her eyes fall closed.




5


When her eyes fluttered open at sunset, Topaz stretched and rolled onto her side. Someone was there—a familiar someone—and, still half-asleep, she nuzzled his lips with her own. His hands buried themselves in her hair, and his mouth captured hers. A mouth she knew, one she relished, one she loved kissing. And so she did. Her lips parted, her arms wound around him, and the kiss heated and grew until they were trying to devour each other.

And then, suddenly, she pulled free and lay there gasping, panting, hungering—and wide awake.

“Don’t stop,” Jack murmured. “Baby, don’t stop. Not now.” He reached for her.

She held up a hand, palm facing his chest. “You promised you wouldn’t touch me, Jack.”

“And I haven’t.”

“What do you call trying to swallow my tongue just now, then?”

“You started it.”

“I did not.”

“You kissed me first, Topaz.” He got off the bier and pushed both hands through his hair, heaving a sigh. “Hell, woman, I’m only human.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You know what I meant.”

Reluctantly, she nodded, unable to meet his eyes, knowing he would see the naked hunger glowing from her own.

“Topaz, come on. We both want to. You know it’s the truth.”

“Forget it.”

“You can’t deny what just happened. It’s freaking explosive, what’s between us.”

“So’s dynamite. Doesn’t mean I’m going to put a stick down my pants and light the fuse.” She shook her head hard, trying to drive her insistence into her own mind as much as his. “You broke my heart, Jack. I’d be stupid to give you a chance to do it again.”

“So keep your heart out of it. You hate my guts now. It shouldn’t be too hard. Let’s just have sex.”

She shot him a look, then got up. Without another word, she located her clothes and put them on.

“Fine,” he said. “Deny it. Delay it. But it’s gonna happen. Sooner or later, it’s bound to happen, Topaz, and I think you know that every bit as well as I do and want it just as badly as I do. It’s inevitable.”

“Not if you leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

She finished dressing, then snatched his clothes up and handed them to him. “Get dressed, will you?”

“Can’t resist me without my clothes on, right?”

“I want to get back to the mansion. Take a shower, get some fresh clothes, do my hair and makeup.”

“And what do you have planned for after midnight?”

“Very funny. I want to start talking to the men who were in that file. The ones the police thought looked good for my mother’s murder.”

“And your landlord?”

“I haven’t decided what to do about him yet. If we tip him off that we know about the bugs in the house, he’s liable to throw us out, or, worse, let us stay and find some other method of eavesdropping.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Let’s just find the bugs and watch what we say until we do.”

Jack nodded. “Actually, I have a few errands to run while you’re primping. I’ll see if I can find us a sweeping device, so we don’t miss any.”

Topaz frowned at him. “Where would you find something like that in the middle of the night?”

He averted his eyes to begin dressing. Or maybe that was just the excuse he wanted to use. “I have no idea.”

She had a feeling it was a lie.

What he wanted from her, Jack decided, was forgiveness. Okay, sex would be good, too, but forgiveness was tops. He’d been racking his brain to figure out what had drawn him here to her, made him feel as compelled to help her find her mother’s murderer as he would have been to protect one of the Chosen. It wasn’t love, certainly. He didn’t believe in love. Love was a con man’s most powerful tool, but it wasn’t real. His reason for being here wasn’t physical attraction, either—or at least it wasn’t only that. It was something more, and it had been bugging him that he didn’t know what.

Now, as he stood in a nearly empty parking garage, waiting for his contact to show up, he thought he’d figured it out. What he was feeling was guilt, plain and simple. And no wonder it had taken him so long to identify it. It wasn’t something he’d ever felt before. But he felt it over her. If he’d known that all her life she’d been plagued by people who claimed to love her while coveting her money, he would never have chosen her as a mark.





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