by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
Halfway to the motel, another question occurred to her. “How did you know I needed rescuing from Nola this morning? Lucky guess? I thought you’d sleep till sunset.”
“You woke me.”
“Huh?”
He glanced at her, his eyebrows arched as if her question puzzled him. “I shared your pain when she drank from you, of course.”
“I thought I imagined that, feeling you in my head for a second. How could you? Wasn’t it too far?”
“What makes you think that?”
“What you and Jodie said last night.” Linnet frowned, trying to recall the conversation. “You implied Nola wouldn’t be able to sense her from more than a mile or two away.”
“That was different. The bond she had with the girl was superficial, imposed for control. Nola wouldn’t tolerate the kind of depth that would allow an ephemeral to plunge below the surface of her mind. She would have noticed the breaking of the link over any distance, but otherwise, the range was necessarily limited.”
“You’re claiming we have some deep, intimate, whole different kind of bond?” She wished she had the power to sharpen those words to barbs that would make him bleed.
“Do you deny it?”
“Damn right I do. If we did, you couldn’t shut me out at will. If we have this mystic union, then I don’t believe you could stand to hurt me the way you did back at Nola’s.”
He shook his head, glowering through the windshield. “If you don’t believe I care, how do you explain the fact that I saved you from her?”
“For all I know, that was just a byproduct of taking revenge on her, which you said you planned to do all along. Nola gave me a good idea of what you people think about us. To her, we’re no more than useful animals. From what you said about Anthony and his weakness for ephemerals, you’ve always felt pretty much the same way. Right?” She heard her own voice turning shrill and fought to clamp down on the rising hysterics.
“That was before—”
“Before you met me? I’m the big exception? Why should I buy that?”
He sighed. “If you refuse to open your mind to me, I can’t convince you otherwise.”
A few minutes later they arrived at the motel. Snatching up an armful of clothes, Linnet slammed into the bathroom. A hot shower eased the bruises but couldn’t wash away her inner turmoil. When she emerged, Max was reclining on one of the beds, his hands laced behind his head. By the lamp shining over the other bed, she saw that the scratches on his chest and arms had almost vanished. The smears of dust and dried blood were gone. He must have cleaned up at the sink in the alcove outside the bathroom door. His eyes, roaming over her, glowed with what looked like hunger.
She caught herself blushing. “I almost forgot. You must need blood, after all that.”
With a quiet laugh, he said, “Not from you, when you can hardly stand the sight of me. Besides, you need to recover from Nola’s theft.” He swung his legs to the side of the bed and gestured toward a chair. “Don’t worry, I fed on a squirrel after I hid the car. Please, sit down. We have to talk.”
“Classic scary words.” She sat, keeping her back rigidly straight. “What’s to talk about? Mission accomplished. I’m going home.”
“Before we discuss that, I have some things for you.” He crossed the room to the dresser and came back with a couple of items. One was Linnet’s cell phone. “I broke into Nola’s house after she left and retrieved it.”
“Thanks. What about all the vampire-hunting supplies?”
“I wiped them down for fingerprints and left them in the attic. Nothing to identify you there, even in the unlikely event they’re ever found. And when I took the car keys out of your handbag, I also took this.” He gave her the tape recorder.
“Yeah, I figured that.” She popped it open. “Hey, the tape’s still here.”
He said with a humorless smile, “Did you think I’d destroyed it?”
“Well, that was my first thought, yes.”
“I know how important this record is to you, even though you can’t share it with anyone. At least, I hope you don’t plan to share it.”
“Who with?” she said with a shrug. “You’ve already rubbed my nose in the fact that the police couldn’t arrest Nola, even if they didn’t think it was a weird hoax. And forcing my sister and mother to listen to this stuff is the last thing I’d do.”
“Then what will you do with the tape?”
“Keep it, I guess, for my own satisfaction. To prove to myself, when these couple of days fade into a blur, that I didn’t imagine it all. Even if I can’t tell anybody else what really happened to Dee, at least I’ll know.”
“Good, I felt sure you’d be sensible.” He leaned back, arms folded. “But what is this about the memory becoming a blur? You talk as if you never expect to see me again.”
“Why should I? All I want is to get back to normal.” She barred the door of her mind against any possible invasion. She didn’t want him to feel the anguish behind that lie.
“What is normal? Surely you don’t expect your life to return to its former equilibrium?”
“I can sure give it a try.”
“I don’t want to return to what my life was before you. I want to revisit that union we shared—and deepen it.”
She sensed no attempted mind-touch this time. So why did she feel an urge to throw that door open on her own? She suppressed the feeling and said as coolly as she could manage, “Don’t waste energy trying to convince me you care.”
“Don’t you understand how much trust I showed by giving you this tape?”
“The way I see it, I’m entitled. After all, I’m the one who risked my life to make the recording in the first place.”
“You bloody exasperating female!” He flung his arms wide and sprang to his feet. “Very well, what do you want to do?”
“Go to San Francisco right now and catch a plane back East. I don’t care how many connections I have to make. I want out!”
“If you insist.” He took out a credit card and picked up the phone.
She dumped Jodie’s things in a dresser drawer. By the time he hung up from booking a flight, Linnet had finished packing her own belongings.
“Incidentally, how will you explain this expedition to your family?” he asked. “Someone must have noticed you weren’t home for the past few days.”
“I talked to my mother once, while you were out of the room. I claimed you and I were going over Anthony and Deanna’s joint financial arrangements and so on. She won’t question that story, because talking about Anthony is way down on her list of fun things to do.”
“Wise of you, since that aspect does need to be dealt with.” He opened his checkbook. “What is your sister’s full name?”
She was so taken aback that she answered him automatically. When he handed her a four-figure check made out to Robin, Linnet said, “Wait a minute, she won’t take this.”
“Yes, she will, when you explain that it comprises her daughter’s share of their bank balance.”
“Come on, Dee never had this much money at once in her life.”
“Nevertheless, it is half of her joint account with Anthony, so you won’t be lying. It isn’t as if I need it, and you do require something concrete to show for our supposed consultation, don’t you?”
She grudgingly nodded. “Okay, I’ll take care of it.”
“As for the apartment, I’ve already removed the few things of Anthony’s I wanted. Dispose of the rest of the contents any way you see fit. The rent is paid through the fifteenth of next month.”
Stuffing the check into her purse, she said, “You think of everything, don’t you?”
He arched one eyebrow. “Is that a reason to resent me?”
She flushed. “Sorry, I guess that was uncalled for.”
“In my existence, any small lapse might expose me to danger. I’ve learned to think of everything.” He unzipped his carry-on bag and took out an envelope. He unfolded the papers inside, extracted o
ne sheet and handed it to her. “Here’s another item you should have. A note your niece enclosed in Anthony’s last letter to me.”
She read silently.
Dear Max, It feels funny to call you by your first name when I’ve never met you. But we’re going to be in-laws, so I guess it’s okay. Anthony says you don’t approve of us being together. My parents wouldn’t, either. I hope we can change your mind—and theirs, too—because we really love each other. I’m looking forward to meeting you in person and proving it. Someday I’ll be able to go home and introduce Anthony to my folks. Mom probably thinks I hate her, but I don’t. I miss her and Dad, even if I haven’t talked to them in a long time. I just want Anthony and me to be together, and for his family and mine to accept us.
It was signed, Your new sister, Deanna.
Tears burned Linnet’s eyes. She dabbed them with a tissue, angry at herself for showing weakness just when she was trying to break away from Max. Tucking the note into her purse, too, she muttered a reluctant word of thanks.
Max caught her hand. She felt her pulse quicken under his fingertips. “Please, Linnet, don’t shut me out.”
“Must be hard for you to plead with an inferior being.”
His eyebrows drew together in a scowl. A surge of impatience crashed like a wave against her mind and instantly receded. “If that’s how you see it, you must realize it proves my desire for you. Just as you desire me.”
“Desire isn’t a good enough reason to turn my life upside down.” Her racing heart and unsteady breath mocked the words.
Curling one hand around the nape of her neck, Max drew her close. “Are you sure?” His fingers wove through her hair to massage her scalp in languid circles. “I know you share my hunger.”
“I can’t ever be sure with you,” she breathed. “What does it matter how you make me feel? How do I know you didn’t plant those feelings in the first place?” She flattened her hand against his chest to push him away. A mistake, for now her palm touched the silken hair. Before her brain realized what her body was doing, she stroked down to his waist, back upward, then down again. He arched his back with a sigh. Capturing her hand, he moved it from his chest to his shoulder and pulled her tightly to him. “You see?” he murmured, his breath on her hair sending warmth through her veins. “We belong together.”
Heat crept over her arms and breasts, down her body to the sensitive places that remembered his touch and kiss. Light-headed, she hugged him and rubbed against him like a cat.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. “I want you.”
The verb cut through the warm mist in her head. Not “love,” or even “care.” Even if he was sincere now, eventually their unequal power would distort their union. After what she’d seen of Nola’s relationship with her “pets,” Linnet knew that in the long run she would become the same thing to Max.
She removed her arms from his waist and lashed out with a mental slap. Letting go of her, he stepped back. Linnet, don’t do this to me. His pain jabbed her like a needle.
With a shove she ejected him from her mind and threw up a mental barrier. She visualized a stone wall without a door, as high and blank as the wall he’d raised against her earlier. “Stay out!” Hearing the snakelike hiss in her own voice, she breathed hard until she managed to settle her outrage and speak normally. “Try seducing me again, mentally or any other way, and I’ll take a taxi to the airport. I don’t care how much it costs.”
Sighing, he turned away, his shoulders slumped. “Don’t do that. I’ll drive you, and I won’t interfere with you again.” After picking up the keys, he faced her again. “You know I could force my way into your mind. That shield wouldn’t hold against my full strength, especially when part of you wants to surrender.”
With a defiant lift of her chin, she grasped the necklace. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“I won’t do it, though. Using force would only reinforce your belief that I see you as inferior. Let’s go.”
On the drive to San Francisco over dark highways, she tried vainly to sleep. All she managed was a half doze that made her head feel clogged. The flash of lights appearing and vanishing as they sped past made her eyes ache. She had to make a pretense of resting, though, to resist the impulse to get into another circular conversation with Max.
When the car pulled up to the curb at the terminal, he stopped her as she reached for the door latch. Taking her hand, he kissed her palm, the flicker of his tongue sending sparks along her nerves. “You insisted so strongly that my brother loved your niece. If you believe that, why can’t you accept that I care for you?”
She snatched her hand away. Even if he couldn’t control her mind with hypnosis, his every touch threatened to ensnare her. “Don’t you see the difference? When Anthony helped Dee escape from Nola, he risked his life for her. Not just on a second’s impulse, the way you did when Jodie shot at us, but deliberately. When I saw them together, it was obvious they meant everything to each other. But you…you’ve stayed in control all along. You can read my emotions, even with that shield keeping you out of the deeper levels, but you can shut me out of yours at will.”
“I offered to open my mind to you. I begged for that, remember?”
“Too late. How can I ever be sure if you’re really baring your soul or just showing me the parts you want to display? We made love, or so I thought, and I’ve never even seen you naked.”
His eyes gleamed in the shifting light and shadows. “We shared passion, didn’t we? Is nakedness required?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know.” He folded his arms. “Travel safely, Linnet.”
She scrambled out of the car, slammed the door and stalked into the airport without looking around. All the way, though, she felt his eyes on her back.
Chapter 15
As soon as she got home, Linnet buried the ankh and the mini cassette recorder under a pile of old letters in a shoe box on her closet shelf. She’d played only enough of the tape to reassure herself that Max hadn’t tricked her by erasing it. Otherwise, she had no desire to relive those conversations, and hiding the tape from herself would remove the temptation. Just the few phrases she’d heard had made her chest ache as if a giant boulder were crushing it. On the other hand, she couldn’t discard or destroy the recording after all the risk it had cost.
Any hope that hiding the evidence would bestow instant forgetfulness of her time with Max proved futile. She crawled into bed long after midnight, East Coast time, and slept past noon, ravaged by dreams. Ghastly visions of Max’s tigerish fangs ripping into the she-vampire, searing dreams of his lips on her own throat.
Waking in the afternoon racked with headache and thirst, Linnet muzzily realized that her nightmare of the death struggle hadn’t been accurate. Max and Nola hadn’t used their teeth, only their claws. Because drinking blood signified intimacy, she decided.
Why am I thinking about this at all? After chasing the sleep fog with a shower and coffee, she found that the dreams had already splintered into fragmented images. Within a few days, she hoped, the actual experience would feel like a dream. She could return to a normal life.
First, though, she had to smooth things over with her family. If nothing else, the past few days had hammered the uncertainty of life into her head. She phoned to ask if her mother would be home for the rest of the afternoon. “I’ve got something for Robin. Maybe you could give it to her.”
“Why don’t you give—”
“We’ll talk about it when I get there, Mom. Bye.” Linnet hung up before her mother could interject another word.
An hour later she parked in front of her mother’s row house in a gentrified section of Baltimore. Finding an open space in the same block instead of having to walk from the next street over struck her as a good omen.
Her mother opened the door before Linnet got halfway up the walk. On this hot, humid day, her mother wore Bermuda shorts with a T-shirt and had her shoulder-length, graying blond hair pulled back in
a ponytail. They hugged, her bony shoulders feeling brittle under Linnet’s hands, and she drew Linnet into the crisp coolness of the air-conditioned living room. “Sit down, hon, and I’ll get you a glass of tea.”
Wearily, Linnet sank onto the comfortably dented couch cushions and waited. When her mother brought in two glasses of iced tea, Linnet automatically placed hers on one of the cork coasters stacked on the coffee table. In the context of this routine action, the past few days began to feel like her imagination. Now if only she could avoid talking about them.
No such luck. “Linnet, where on earth have you been? I tried to call you again yesterday.”
After a sip of the tea, artificially sweetened and garnished with lemon and mint the way she’d always liked it, she said, “I told you, Anthony’s brother and I had some things to work out. I didn’t think you or Robin would want to be bothered with the details.”
With a “hmph” sound, her mother said, “That brother who didn’t even show up at Deanna’s funeral?”
“He couldn’t help that. He didn’t find out until too late.”
“And he didn’t want to meet her parents?”
Linnet tried to visualize bringing Max to Robin’s house for a cozy visit. Her mind boggled. “Come on, Mom, Robin and Tim wouldn’t want that, either, considering what happened.”
“You’re right, but he could have asked. So does he know about that crazy boy who confessed to the murders?”
Linnet nodded.
“I just don’t understand that—why anybody would—” Her voice broke. After wiping her eyes with a napkin, she went on in a steadier tone. “Does the brother have any idea why that lunatic killed them?”
Shaking her head, Linnet said, “When we heard, Max was as shocked as I was.” She had no intention of trying to explain Fred’s motive to her family.
“Now the boy claims he’s sorry, of course. And some jury will let him off with an insanity plea.”
