by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
“Please, let’s not talk about that.” Next thing, her mother would probably veer into a harangue about the law being soft on criminals, which Linnet didn’t want to hear, either. “How’s Robin doing?”
“How do you think? She can barely drag herself out of bed in the morning. But having the crime solved seems to help a little. At least the newspapers aren’t pestering us for comments anymore.” She put her glass down and leaned forward to pat Linnet’s knee. “Listen, hon, I know what happened wasn’t your fault. Deanna was a grown woman, even if Robin had trouble seeing her that way. And now that the cops have the murderer locked up, Robin’s starting to realize it wasn’t your fault. But you have to give her time.”
“How much time?” Linnet could barely suppress a sigh. The memory of many a “don’t you take that tone with me, young lady” rebuke from childhood was all that kept her face blank. “I don’t want to fight with her. That reminds me, I brought you something to give her.” She took Max’s check out of her purse. “It’s from Anthony’s brother, half of Dee and Anthony’s joint bank account.”
“What? Your sister doesn’t want that man’s money!”
“It’s not Max’s money, it’s Deanna’s. Robin has a right to it.”
“Max, huh? You must have gotten to know him pretty well, with nicknames and all.”
“It was just business, Mom. I’ll never see him again.” She tried to ignore the pang in her chest at the thought.
“Good. He may be a fine man, but after what happened to Deanna when she ran off with his brother…”
“Mom, that’s not fair. Anthony was trying to protect her.”
“I guess this Max person told you all about it. What did you two do together besides divide up bank accounts?” The edge in her voice reminded Linnet of being quizzed after dates in high school.
“Nothing much. We discussed what to do about the stuff in the apartment. He already moved out Anthony’s things.”
“And that took two or three days? What don’t you want to tell me?”
Linnet fought the urge to squirm under her mother’s narrow-eyed stare. Stop that. I’m thirty-four, not sixteen. I don’t owe her a blow-by-blow script. “Nothing. Too dull to bother with.”
The front door opened, saving her from further interrogation. She glanced up and almost choked on an ice cube when Robin walked in. Though her short platinum hair was as tidily waved as ever, she wore jeans and a loose blouse. Apparently she hadn’t started back to work yet.
“Mom!” Linnet yelped. She set down her glass with a thump and stood up.
Robin stopped short in the foyer and stared at her. “Mom didn’t tell me…” Her voice trailed off.
Linnet glared at their mother. “You set us up.”
Her mother shrugged. “You expected me to wait till next Christmas for you two to get together on your own?”
Linnet fumbled for her purse. “I’ll go.” Her stomach churned at Robin’s cold frown.
“You sit right down.” Her mother pointed at Robin. “And you come over here and say hello to your sister. She’s got something to give you.”
Both sisters sat down, their mother shifting to a chair to make room on the couch. Robin murmured a barely audible “hi.”
“It’s no big deal,” said Linnet. “Just a check for Dee’s half of her and Anthony’s bank account.”
Automatically accepting it, Robin said, “Who the heck is Maxwell Tremayne?”
“Anthony’s brother.”
“I know my daughter never had this much money.” She tossed the check on the table. “What’s he trying to do, buy us off?”
An unexpected spasm of anger choked Linnet. Swallowing it, she said, “Where do you get that from? You’ve never even met him. I promise, he’s as devastated over this whole thing as we are.”
“Then why didn’t he stay around long enough to face me? Where is he?”
“Back home in Colorado, I guess.” At least, he would be after disposing of the problem with Nola’s house. “And the reason he didn’t want to meet the rest of the family is probably because he thought it would just upset you more.” Why was she bothering to explain Max’s behavior? She was supposed to be forgetting him.
“Good guess. If Dee had come home instead of moving in with a guy from that crowd of perverts—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Feeling the heat on her face and hearing the shrillness in her voice, Linnet forced a lid onto her anger. “Anthony wasn’t like the others. He was trying to save her life. Don’t forget, he died trying.”
“I don’t care about him!” Robin slammed a fist into the couch. “All I care about is my daughter, and he let her get killed.”
“Like I did? Come on, that’s what you’ve been hinting at ever since it happened.”
Their mother held up a hand like a traffic cop. “Girls, don’t—”
Linnet shook her head. “Let her say it, Mom. That’s what she’s been thinking. Like I didn’t love Dee enough or something.”
Staring down at her fists clenched in her lap, Robin nibbled on her lower lip. “I never thought that.”
“Did it occur to you that maybe the reason I’ve spent the past couple of days with Max is because he’s the only person I could talk to who didn’t blame me? He felt the same way you did, only the other way around. He thought Anthony threw his life away because of Deanna. When we talked about it, we both realized they really loved each other.”
The harsh lines on Robin’s face softened. “Listen to you defending that Max guy. You must have really spent some intense time together.”
“That’s what I said,” their mother put in.
Linnet felt herself blush. “And I told you, I never expect to see the man again.”
“Then why are you blushing?” Robin said.
“Am not,” Linnet mumbled, sipping her tea to avoid their eyes. “I’m just trying to be fair to him. He feels guilty about what happened. He’s worried that he neglected his brother, just the way I feel about—” She gulped, afraid she would start crying. “He gave me something for you.” She rummaged in her purse and pulled out Deanna’s letter to Max.
Robin stared at it blankly for a few seconds, then began to read. Gradually her cool mask melted, and silent tears trickled down her cheeks. When she tried to speak, her voice shook, and she swallowed visibly a couple of times before she could get the words out. “Dee wrote this to Anthony’s brother instead of me because she thought I wouldn’t listen?”
Struggling against sadness and anger, Linnet heard a harsh edge in her own voice. “Okay, if I’d taken better care of her, paid more attention, tried harder to get her to talk to you, she might’ve still moved in with Anthony, but maybe we wouldn’t have lost her. I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t help, but how many times do I have to say it?”
“Oh, Linn, you didn’t neglect her!” Trembling, Robin clasped Linnet’s hand. “I know you loved her as much as I did. I didn’t mean all those things I said.”
“You don’t have to apologize, not when I thought the very same about myself.”
“Well, you’re wrong, and so was I.” She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “After the murderer turned himself in, I talked things over with Reverend Hale. He recommended a counselor, and I’m going to see her, but meanwhile, he helped me understand some stuff. I accused you because I felt guilty myself.”
“You? What for?”
“For giving up on my daughter, practically throwing her out of the house because I couldn’t handle her. Like I should have expected you to keep her out of trouble when I couldn’t. And then she got mixed up with a gang of crazy people and got herself killed.” She buried her face in her hands.
Linnet put her hands on Robin’s shoulders, stunned into silence for an instant. “That wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “She could’ve met those people no matter where she was living.”
“Cut it out, both of you.” Their mother rapped on the table like a judge calling them to order. “It
wasn’t anybody’s fault except that insane young man’s. Stop beating yourselves up.”
Robin gave Linnet a quick, stiff hug. “I thought you dropped off the face of the earth because you were mad about the way I treated you at the funeral.”
“I’m not mad,” Linnet sighed. She hugged Robin back, feeling her sister’s tears dampening her shirt. “We’re a mess, aren’t we?” she said with a shaky giggle.
“So what about Anthony’s brother?”
“Oh, go on!” Linnet waved at her like shooing a fly.
“No, seriously. Maybe if I’d made an effort to meet Anthony and get to know him, instead of thinking he was as bad as the rest of that screwed-up bunch, things might’ve turned out different. Did his brother tell you much about him?”
Linnet took a long drink of tea and gathered her thoughts to concoct an edited version of her conversations with Max.
Submerged in a warm tide, she luxuriated in the lapping of the waves on her breasts and thighs. A sting at her throat convulsed her like an electric shock, and ripples radiated over every inch of her skin. Max’s face floated into her view. She reached for him. His lips brushed hers. She melted….
Her eyes opened in the darkness of her bedroom. She threw off the sheet and sat up, shivering as the air-conditioning blew on her sweat-dampened arms. Why couldn’t she forget Max in sleep as easily as she did while awake? By day, the experiences she’d had with him seemed as far-fetched as some weird movie she’d watched in the dim past. Except for the transformations she’d seen with her own eyes, she could almost believe she had simply run afoul of deranged cultists who played at being vampires. At night, though…
She turned on the overhead light, blinking until her eyes adjusted. After dragging a chair to the closet, she lifted down the shoe box full of high-school love notes and old birthday cards. She ignored the recorded minicassette but dug out the ankh necklace. After putting the box away, she sat on the bed with the chain looped around her fingers.
Thanks to Anthony’s posthypnotic suggestion, the necklace was supposed to provide a mental anchor and protect her from vampiric influence. Maybe it would drive away the dreams and give her back her normal life. She squeezed the ankh in her fist until it gouged her palm.
Who am I kidding? If anything, the talisman would only keep the memory alive. She shoved it into a drawer under a pile of scarves and crawled into bed, tears scorching her cheeks.
Almost three weeks after leaving Monterey, Max couldn’t clear his mind of his last conversation with Valpa. He had phoned the elder to report what had happened to Nola. Valpa accepted her “undead” condition as a valid compromise between slaughtering her and letting her escape unpunished. Max wouldn’t be hauled before the council for judgment and ostracism.
Not that such a concern had significantly preyed on his mind. What haunted his days’ sleep was his final glimpse of Linnet marching away from him into the airport. Her strength added to her appeal for him, but why did that strength have to include the power to reject him? He oscillated between outrage that an ephemeral would dare frustrate his will, and thirst for the taste of her and the touch of her mind. He soared through the night for hours, howling like a lost wolf, whenever he felt safe from human eyes and ears.
Valpa’s indulgent chuckle echoed in his brain. The elder vampire enjoyed the irony of Max’s fascination with an ordinary, short-lived woman, after the way he’d scorned his brother for a similar infatuation. Max had itched to reach through the phone and strangle the old man. To Valpa’s question about his feelings, he’d indignantly retorted, “Of course I’m not in love with her. That’s a human delusion.”
“A weakness, I believe you’ve always said.”
“Exactly. A weakness that got my brother killed. I’m not likely to fall victim to it.”
“Of course not.” That blasted amusement had tinged Valpa’s answer. “If you did happen to fall, though, I’m not the one you should ask for help.”
“I don’t need help!”
“Certainly not,” Valpa had agreed in a tone suitable for humoring a lunatic. “If you do, however, I suggest you speak to Roger Darvell. Not only has he made a success of such a relationship himself, he is trained to give counsel to others.”
“Voodoo! I might as well hire a phrenologist to read the shape of my skull.”
“Quite so. Nevertheless, if your problem arises from a human relationship, you might want to seek advice from someone accustomed to dealing with human problems.”
At that point Max had hung up. Yet Valpa’s words lodged in his brain with inconvenient persistence. Well into July, he still dreamed of Linnet every day, though a healthy vampire should hardly dream at all. He couldn’t delude himself that her thoughts were invading his over thousands of miles. The obsession came from within. The anonymous women he fed on slaked his thirst for a few hours, but the hunger always seared his throat anew the following night.
Finally he called Roger Darvell in Maryland and left a message on the psychiatrist’s voice mail, then paced a circuit of his house in a froth of impatience until the other man called back.
He bit off the first words that sprang to his lips, a rant about the time he’d had to wait for the return call. Instead, he thanked Darvell for informing him of Anthony’s death.
“It was the least I could do. What became of that infernal woman? If I’d known she was engaging in that kind of behavior so near my home…”
“It’s a moot point now.” Max gave a brief account of how he and Linnet had dealt with Nola.
“Have you seen your young friend since then?”
Max felt like cursing Darvell for homing in on that point. Had the mere speaking of her name given him away so blatantly? On the other hand, the doctor’s perceptiveness saved Max from bringing up the topic himself. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to discuss with you. Valpa suggested it.”
“Oh?”
“Valpa has the idiotic notion that I may have fallen in love with the woman.”
“Why is it so idiotic?” Darvell’s even tone contrasted with the tension Max knew his own voice projected. “Your brother fell in love with a human female, after all.”
“He was much younger, and he had a sentimental fondness for ephemerals. I don’t have those weaknesses.”
“Then you don’t think you love her?”
“What the devil is love? It’s a word humans use to disguise lust or dependency.”
“Do you feel dependent on this woman?” The question hinted at an unspoken “aha.”
“I bonded with her, more or less accidentally. It happened in a moment of passion. Once our minds became open to each other, I delved deeper than I intended.”
“And you want to repeat that experience, of course. What about her?”
“She rejected me. She doesn’t trust me and thinks our attraction is purely physical desire.”
“Do you think otherwise?”
“I don’t know, confound it!” The memory of her warm flesh, the glow of her aura and the tang of her blood rushed over him. “All I know is that I want her back.”
“Do you think you’re addicted to her?”
“Possibly. I’ve never experienced that before, so how can I be sure? I can’t stop craving her.”
“Have you fed on others since you separated?”
“Of course.” No vampire could go more than four or five days without human blood and keep his sanity, much less three weeks.
“Successfully? You’ve been able to keep it down?”
“Yes. It’s not completely satisfying, but it enables me to function.”
“Then you aren’t physically addicted. You may have to face the possibility that you do love her.”
For a second Max considered hanging up with a growl of contempt for the notion. He had asked for advice, though, hadn’t he? And Darvell did have experience he lacked. “I don’t know what the word means.”
“Would you risk your life for her?”
“I’ve already done tha
t.” Max couldn’t help smiling at the convoluted arguments Linnet had produced when he’d pointed out that fact. “She doesn’t think it counts. She’s afraid everything I did was purely opportunistic and selfish. She may be right.”
“You’re bonded with her. What did you feel when your thoughts merged with hers?”
“Ecstasy. Incredible…” He heard the hunger in his own voice and forced himself to a calmer tone. “I want to repeat that experience. Over and over, indefinitely.” Even though it also meant exposing himself to her the way he had in those few unguarded seconds.
“Do you want to be with her for the rest of her life?”
“Her…?”
“Not yours.” Darvell’s tone hardened. “Understand, you’d be committing yourself to almost certain loss. She will die, and you’ll survive. Do you consider the union worth the prospect of eventually losing it?”
“Damn it, I don’t know!” He paused to tame his rapid breathing and heartbeat. “Darvell, how do you stand it? Knowing that?”
“Honestly? I try not to think about it. I consider it worth the price, though. We both do.”
Striding out the back door, Max stood on his patio, gazing up at the stars in the cloudless mountain sky and wishing he could absorb their remote peace. “I hoped the bond would wear off by now.”
“It doesn’t. It weakens over time, goes dormant eventually, but it can always be revived with the proper stimulus.”
“Then what do you suggest I do?”
“That depends on whether you want to be cured of the obsession or to make her completely yours.”
“I want her.” The memory of her intoxicating passion made his throat feel parched with thirst. The cilia in his palms bristled with longing to stroke her skin and feel the throb of her pulse.
“Make very sure of that before you start. Once you begin feeding on her regularly, you will become addicted. Very quickly, in fact. There’ll be no backing out of the relationship.”
“I can live with that.” Could physical dependency torment him any worse than the emotional craving that gnawed at him?
“You must also exercise strict control over your appetite. If you overindulge, you’ll undermine her health, possibly even endanger her life. And you have to give her fair warning—full disclosure. The potential health risks, the effects of the bond, everything. Love can’t flourish with deceit.”
