The man stirred, and his eyes fluttered, but they failed to focus. Nevertheless, he answered, in a whisper so faint only Dallas could have heard it. “Conner Flynne.”
Conner Flynne. Dallas tasted the name on his tongue, but found no association for it. “What does this Flynne look like?”
“Mid-twenties, tall, thin, dark hair. Strange eyes,” breathed Macklin.
“Strange how?”
“Disturbing. Dark, opaque . . . restless.”
“Did this Flynne leave an address or phone number for you to contact him?”
“No, just an e-mail address.”
“Tell me.”
“ . . . don’t remember . . . ”
Dallas got up and went to where Macklin’s things had been stored. He picked up the man’s trousers, went through the pockets, and found a business card that listed the name Conner Flynne, an e-mail address, and nothing else. Dallas slipped the card into his trouser pocket and returned to the sleeping man. “Tell me everything Flynne said to you about me.”
“He said he was an old friend of yours but that you had trouble with an ex-wife and with the law, and that was why you had so many aliases.”
A half-smile lifted a corner of Dallas’ mouth. “Really.”
“I didn’t believe him . . . ”
“Why not?”
“Most of my clients lie to me when they want to find someone.”
The lip that had turned up now curled downward. In this case the truth truly would shock you more than a lie would, my friend. “You didn’t e-mail Flynne that you’d found me?”
“No . . . ”
Dallas could feel that Macklin was tiring. Like a fish caught on the hook of Dallas’ vampiric probe, the man had expended a good deal of energy in trying to free himself. Dallas would get little more. He released the P.I.’s mind.
Dallas heard a step down the hall, and his nostrils flared with the unmistakable stink of the Undead that only another vampire could recognize. Dallas rose and was at the doorway in an instant. At the far end of the corridor a young man with dark hair and eyes appeared to glide forward without the effort of taking individual steps. When the man saw Dallas, he snarled.
Dallas was not intimidated. On the contrary, the juvenile display told Dallas that the being not only had been transformed at a relatively early age, but that he was a novice vampire, only twenty or thirty years old by Dallas’ guess. No vampire of even the tender age of one hundred snarled. By Macklin’s description, this was the mysterious Conner Flynne. It was no one Dallas knew or remembered meeting. Most likely the novice was under the tutelage of an older vampire.
The creature, realizing its mistake, turned to flee, but Dallas was quicker, shifting his speed easily into the high gear of vampiric celerity, flying down the hall with a maximum of speed and a minimum of motion. Dallas, catching Flynne in the parking lot, gripped him by the throat and, in spite of Flynne being three inches taller, lifted him off the ground. Flynne’s dark eyes widened, and his lips stretched wide across his face, baring long, extended eyeteeth. Vampires seldom grew such long fangs upon transformation. Most likely Flynne had had a dentist install extended artificial eyeteeth over his real ones, another juvenile affectation. Some young vampires, caught up in their own image more than in their survival, went all out to “play the part.” They were usually quick to experience the True Death.
Dallas’ disdain of the creature grew, and he couldn’t resist jerking Flynne’s body as if he were shaking dirt from a rug. Flynne’s snarl-grimace only widened.
“You can’t kill me, Aldgate.” Flynne’s voice was little more than a strangled growl, but Dallas didn’t miss the message.
“I wouldn’t waste my energy trying to kill a misbegotten monstrosity like you.”
Dallas eased his vice-grip on Flynne’s neck, not enough to allow the young vampire to escape, but enough that Flynne’s voice could croak out words.
This time Flynne’s answer was more understandable. “Ah, because I have what you want, don’t I?”
“You have absolutely nothing I could possibly want. However, you do possess information that will be mine.”
“You’ll get nothing from me.” Flynne paused before continuing, a glittering of light reflecting off his opaque eyes. “I’ll kill the man Macklin. He was supposed to be working for me! You can’t protect him all day and all night.”
“I care naught for him, or any human, but you know what, Flynne? I care even less about you.” Dallas was willing to bet that a vampire as adolescent as Flynne would have limited skill fighting another of his kind, especially one with the benefit of two additional centuries of experience.
With one hand, Dallas grabbed a fistful of Flynne’s long, slicked-back hair, and with his other hand pinched a nerve under Flynne’s jawbone. It was a compliance hold that always worked on humans and usually worked equally well on novice vampires like this one. It would have considerably less effectiveness on a seasoned vampire.
Dallas fixed his hypnotic stare on Flynne, who still tried his best to muster a defiant gaze of his own. Flynne writhed in the physical and mental grasp that held him, but all that escaped was a line of spittle from his still open mouth.
“Who holds your leash, whelp? Who instructed you to hire Macklin to find me?”
In spite of being rendered incapacitated by Dallas’ hold, Flynne’s ability to resist was greater than Dallas had anticipated. Someone has taught this pup well, he thought.
One side of Flynne’s upper lip curled inward, fully revealing one of his man-made “fangs.” Dallas sharpened the focus of his terrible gaze on Flynne’s eyes, and presented a mirror in which every perdition Flynne could imagine would be reflected.
“Tell me! Who do you work for?” Dallas’ voice was as low as mercury signaling a frost.
Flynne managed a croak of a laugh. “It’s no good, Aldgate. I’m no puny mortal to be frightened by the other side. I’ve already been damned, and I’ve already been to Hell and back.”
“Hell is a playground, Flynne. If you think it’s a dirty, deceitful, dangerous place, you’ll never survive Midexistence. Go on, then. Slink back to your master and tell him you found me. I look forward to the challenge of a real vampire.”
Dallas released Flynne, flinging him the distance of two car lengths. Flynne was off the ground and out of sight in an eyeblink.
Dallas removed a starched white handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his hands, feeling as if he had just touched something particularly nasty. Flynne was as much a fool as most humans, mired in the muck of his creation, unable to move forward.
He sighed. The evening had not gone well. First his meeting with Macklin had been interrupted in an annoying fashion. Then the woman Martell distracted him in an even more disturbing manner. Conner Flynne had been a very unpleasant surprise. And still he had not yet fed.
His hunger gnawed at his concentration. He couldn’t think about Flynne and his puppet master now. Dallas’ thoughts returned to Macklin. The private eye’s life was now forfeit. Flynne would kill him for sure and feast well in the process. There would be nothing Dallas could do to stop it. He had neither the ability nor the desire to be a twenty-four-hour-a-day guardian angel.
Dallas made his decision quickly. Macklin would die, but Dallas was going to make sure Flynne was not the one who would get satisfaction from the killing. Dallas reentered the hospital and approached the same nurse he had spoken to before.
He fixed his gaze on hers, and the whispered notes of his bass voice vibrated across the counter. “You have not seen me. I was never at the hospital tonight.”
“I . . . have not seen you.” The nurse said nothing more as Dallas passed her station and proceeded back down the hallway toward Macklin’s room. No, Flynne would get nothing from the private eye except disappointment in seeing his prey stole
n from him.
Dallas would not go home hungry. For the first time all evening he allowed himself a smile.
Three
TIA SAT IN HER hotel room and flipped through the stack of photos quickly, looking for the hit and run shots. She could examine the rest later at her leisure. She stopped her shuffle. There they were. And they were great. The lighting was excellent, the detail sharp, and the composition good. Best of all was the compelling subject matter. She had managed an unobstructed view of the victim in two of her three shots, the paramedics leaning over his twisted body. Tia wasted no time. Her fingers danced over the phone’s keypad as if it were a musical instrument.
Her good luck continued. The Daily Democrat was interested. Their set price for non-staff photographers was forty dollars. It was low, but Tia wouldn’t haggle over the price.
Nearly an hour later, after a trip to the newspaper office and a shorter trip down the hotel’s hall to the ice machine, Tia was back in her room, relaxing for the first time all day. She poured herself a glass of ice water, settled back in the room’s one comfortable chair, and carefully scrutinized the rest of the shots she had taken. The photographs of the antebellum mansions were breathtaking. Longwood, Rosalie, Stanton Hall, Dunleith . . . who could take a bad shot of such magnificent structures? Regal, elaborate, and with numbers of columns to rival ancient Athens, the photos had practically taken themselves without any effort or expertise on her part.
Next were the pictures she’d taken of Bishop’s Inn. Tia examined them one by one, and with the scrutiny of each, felt her brows pull closer together and her lips compress more and more. They were good photos, every one of them. Why did she feel disappointed? Had she really expected to see some sort of ghostly aura, or a face in a window that didn’t belong? She took a sip of cold water, then laughed. She hadn’t really believed any of the stories she had heard, but even so, they had almost had her.
But they were just that—stories. Something had happened to someone once upon a time, and it had been exaggerated and embellished over time. Woven into the history, folklore and family chronicles of the area, the stories sounded not only plausible, but downright true as fact. Too easily believable, especially when fascinating characters like Mr. Dallas Allgate stepped right out of her fantasies and into life’s everyday drama.
Her memory slipped his image effortlessly before her mind’s eye, and she saw the details of his appearance as clearly as if she were gazing at one of her photos. She saw the rich, warm shades of brown in the long waves of hair and the green eyes that reminded her of an early morning lake reflecting dancing beads of sunlight. Darkness, yet light. Stillness, yet life.
She shuddered as the fan in her room kicked in and blew a wave of cold air at her. She squeezed her eyes shut, but his image burned bright in her mind. The straight nose, slightly wider than classical perfection, the long smile line creasing one side of his face and framing the too-perfect mouth that never smiled . . .
How can I persuade him to let me do a shoot on him? Money wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t be able to offer him much in the way of cash, and she had the feeling somehow that money wasn’t the button to push with him anyway. She shook her head. She had nothing to bargain with. Besides, she didn’t know the man, so she didn’t know what would appeal to him. No, she would have to rely simply on her powers of persuasion. She returned to her photos of Bishop’s Inn.
This time, not looking for ghostly images, her eyes saw other details. She noticed the red patio umbrellas, the splashes of color against the weathered brick of the building vying for dominance with the bright pink cones of the crape myrtles standing guard on either side of the front door. She saw how the low light of the deep afternoon sun turned the faded wooden fencing into stripes of amber and cinnamon. If only that black car hadn’t been parked in front of the fence to spoil her view of the gate leading to the patio. It looked like the gate had been patterned to duplicate the bishop’s miter design of the front door.
Tia put her glass down on the table with a slosh. She stared again at the photo, but not at the trees or patio. A black car. She brought the photo closer to her face and squinted. There was a license plate on the rear of the car, but the numbers were too small to read. She looked again at the car. A shadow darkened the car’s interior. A man sitting behind the wheel? She quickly picked up the rest of her Bishop’s Inn photos. In three of her six shots, she could see portions of the black car. One showed the entire length of the car, but not the rear plate. A man was indeed visible sitting behind the wheel, but he hadn’t been facing her. The fact that she couldn’t see his features or even the color of his shirt did nothing to diminish the tingle of excitement she felt building. The car looked like an eighties Oldsmobile, probably a model Ninety-Eight. It matched the description of the hit and run vehicle perfectly. The police. Her hand started to reach for the slim hotel phone directory, but her fingers did no more than brush the textured vinyl binder.
Contacting the police was the automatic response, but the image of Dallas Allgate froze her hand. The man had seemed to have a definite concern for the victim, and somehow she had gotten the impression that the interest had been more than that of a Good Samaritan. Had the victim been a friend of Allgate’s? If so, Allgate might be curious about who had tried to kill his friend. The photos in her hands could very well be the bait she needed to land an interview with the mysterious owner of Bishop’s Inn.
She needed more, though. She needed the license number on the black car. Undaunted, the thrill that coursed through her was the same feeling she used to have as a recruit fresh out of the Police Academy. Was it really eight years ago? She didn’t want to think about what had changed her.
And she didn’t. Truly excited now, her mind shifted to a higher gear, as it had so many times on the job. She remembered seeing a self-serve booth in the pharmacy that made enlargements of photos using a scanner. She was familiar with the process, having done it using her own equipment numerous times. Two minutes later, Tia’s glass of water sat abandoned on the table in its ring of condensation while the door to her hotel room clicked shut behind her.
THE NEXT MORNING Tia extended her room reservation, her car reservation, and canceled her flight out of Jackson. One thing was to be said for boring. It was easy on the pocketbook. Adventure wasn’t. Tia grimaced as she thought about the additional hotel expense she’d have to eat. The photo she sold last night to the paper wouldn’t come close to paying for the extra night’s charge. If she was going to need more time in Natchez, she’d have to move to a cheaper inn. She didn’t even want to think about the rental car or how much she’d now have to pay for her rescheduled flight home.
Tia’s next phone call was to Milwaukee.
A sleepy voice answered. “’Lo?”
“Val? Hi, it’s Tia. Did I wake you?”
“Ummm. I guess you’ve forgotten what it’s like to work early shift.” A yawn served as an exclamation point to her friend’s answer.
“I haven’t forgotten, but I don’t miss it. Listen, Val, I need a really big favor.”
“Oh, sure, first you wake me up and then you want a favor!”
Tia smiled. She well knew Val’s weakness. “I’ll buy you dinner when I get home.”
A sleepy sigh of surrender quickly followed. “Where are you?”
“Natchez.”
“Where?”
“Mississippi.”
“I hate you,” said Val.
“No, you don’t. It’s ninety-seven degrees here, and it’s not even noon yet.”
“I still hate you. What do you need?”
“Do you work tonight?” Val was an office assistant in the Identification Bureau where Tia used to work.
“Yeah, which is why I’d like to get some sleep sometime soon. What’s up?”
“Okay, dinner and drinks. Can you run a plate for me when you get in? It’s import
ant.”
“Oh, Christ, Tia, you’re not still playing cop, are you? Hold on, let me get a pen.”
Tia didn’t bother answering the rhetorical question. “Ready? It’s a Mississippi plate.” Tia gave her the numbers. “I’ll call you at work around five, okay?”
“Dinner. Don’t forget. And not someplace cheap.”
“Me, cheap? Thanks, Val.”
Tia’s next call was to Bishop’s Inn.
A woman’s voice answered. “This is Bishop’s Inn. How can I help you?”
Tia assumed her cop voice. Polite, but no-nonsense. “Dallas Allgate, please.”
“I’m sorry, he’s not here right now.”
“Can you tell me when you expect him?”
The drawl was unhurried, seemingly not intimidated by Tia’s voice. “He’s never here until late supper hours, eight o’clock or so, but he isn’t here every night.”
“Will he be in tonight?”
The drawl slowed to a crawl. “Ah, I’m not sure, but you can try calling back this evenin’.”
Great. Tia checked the Natchez phone directory. There was no listing for Allgate. She called directory assistance. Nothing for Allgate in Natchez. On a hunch Tia tried Vidalia, a small town across the river, but there was no listing there, either. The man certainly did go out of his way to keep his privacy. Well, she wasn’t out of options or perseverance yet, and she wasn’t out of tricks.
She showered and went down to the hotel’s lobby. The first order of business was finding a copy of the Daily Democrat. She not only wanted to see her photo, but to read the story. Maybe there would be some information on Dallas Allgate she could use to her advantage.
The paper was easy to find. Her photo was even easier to find. It was on page one, below a large headline. “HIT AND RUN VICTIM DIES”
Tia hadn’t expected this. From what she could discern at the scene last night, the man was going to be all right. She sat down in the lobby and read the complete article, no longer just interested in Mr. Allgate, but in the victim and the incident itself. The paper stated that the victim was one Marty Macklin, a licensed private investigator from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, who had apparently been in Natchez on business. Police were still looking for a large black vehicle with a single male occupant, but had little to go on. Macklin died early this morning at the hospital of injuries sustained in the accident. The article mentioned that the accident took place in front of the well-known Bishop’s Inn, but there was no mention at all of Allgate.
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