"Well, either way. I'm just happy to have anyone there who has a pulse."
"Will there be a lot of vampires there?"
"Yes, and no. My wedding is not a research opportunity, get it? Throw rice and drink. No, you're too young to drink. Throw more rice. Have a Shirley Temple. Go crazy."
"So it's going to be a wedding wedding?"
"Sure."
He chewed on that one for a few seconds. "I've never heard of that before."
"Well, don't you start. Sinclair gives me enough grief."
He perked up. "Really? He doesn't like all the bells and whistles?"
"Oh, you know. He says because we're consorts there's no need for bouquet, maid of honor, best man toast, all that."
"Really?" I could see his dimples again. Odd, the things that depressed the boy and brought him back up. "You, uh, you need any help?"
"You mean planning? Or in general? Because the answer to both is, I dunno. September's a long way off."
"Well…" He looked around the foyer and then glanced down the stairs. "I don't have to be back right away…"
"Do you have a place to stay?"
"Not really. I was going to stop by the church, see if Father Markus could put me up for a few nights…"
"Is that supposed to be a hint? Because it sucks. Why don't you just shove me off the landing? It'd be more subtle."
He laughed. "Yeah, it was pretty lame. Can I crash here?"
"Of course you can. We've got more rooms than the Hilton." In my mind, I could already picture Sinclair's reaction. I probably wasn't going to get laid tonight, at the very least.
Well, tough shit. The kid had had a rotten enough day; I wasn't going to turn him out onto the street on top of all that.
"That's great. I'd—I'd really like to stay here." He glanced around the ancient staircase. "It looks interesting. Like something out of an old book."
"Yeah, interesting. Hope you like dust. But listen, we've got a feral killer vampire living in the basement, so don't go down there. Oh, and if you drink all the milk, you have to replace it."
"What?"
"I know, but see, we all like milk in our tea, and when we're out it's really—"
"Did you say feral killer vampire?"
"Right, right. But he's okay. Just stay out of the basement. I don't want you up to any of your old tricks."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah. Good to see you."
"Good to see you, too." He smiled at me like he meant what he was saying.
Damn dimples.
Chapter 9
I tiptoed down the hall and quietly rapped on the door to Sinclair's closet room. It would have been his bedroom, except he didn't sleep in there; he slept with me. But all his clothes and such were in here. And I'm sure that meant something, but I wasn't going to worry about it now.
"Eric?" I whispered, knowing full well he could hear me. But I wanted to keep our impending chat as private as I could.
"Yes?" he whispered back.
"Can I come in?"
"Why?"
I spun around. He was in the hallway, grinning and carrying a foot-thick freshly wrapped pile of clean dry cleaning by the hangers. Wooden hangers. Wherever he went, it cost a friggin' fortune. "You know I hate, hate, hate when you sneak up on me. You know that, right?"
"It's possible you might have mentioned it once before." He leaned past me and opened the door and then courteously stood aside so I could go in. "What nasty business have you been involved in since we parted ways four hours ago? I can't imagine what else would bring you to my room. Have you finally given in to your primal urge to kill Antonia?"
"I wish."
"Perhaps you kidnapped Baby Jon for his own good, and now you're here to tell me I'm a new father."
"I really wish." I paused. Best to just get it over with. "I invited Jon of the Bees to move in with us."
He was taking each dark suit out of its plastic cocoon and carefully examining it before hanging it on some kind of weird suit tree, and in the middle of the ritual he laughed. "What a coincidence. I invited the new pope for breakfast."
"No, really."
He glanced at me and frowned. It was a mild frown, but pretty much all the sun and joy were sucked out of the room when his smile went. "Elizabeth."
"I know, I know."
"Elizabeth. You didn't."
"I really kind of did."
His eyebrows had rushed together to become one overpowering, disapproving unibrow. "Well, I am sure, since the invitation came so easily and thoughtlessly tripping off your dulcet tongue, you can un-invite him just as easily."
"It's only for a little while. Just till he gets his shit together."
"Oh, so twenty years, then?" he snapped. He tried to stomp toward me, but dry cleaning bags were everywhere and he was momentarily snared. I chewed on the insides of my cheeks and stared at him with wide eyes as he stumbled toward me. Don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh.
His black eyes narrowed, and he stomped an errant bag, which deflated with a sad whoooooooooffff. "Are you smiling, girl?"
"No, Eric." Girl? That was a new one. "Listen, I could hardly turn him out into the street."
"Why not, exactly?"
"Eric! Come on. Look, I'll make it up to you."
"Too damned right you will," he muttered, and grabbed me by the elbows.
"You're just going to fuck me, right? You're not going to make me run a lint brush over all your suits or anything horrible like that, right?"
"Be quiet." He pulled me in for a savage kiss and then tossed me on the bed and landed on me like a cat. In a flash, one hand was up my skirt, divesting me of my tights, and the other was pulling at his own pants. And while he was busy with all that, his tongue was busy in my mouth. I tried to help, to move, but he was controlling everything, and so I lay there and, as they say to do, thought of England. Except I was really thinking about his big dick and drooling at what he was going to do to me with it.
He pushed inside me and I wasn't ready, but I didn't give a ripe damn. We both grunted as we tried to force friction where there wasn't much. He had stopped kissing me and had buried his face in my throat, and my legs were wrapped around his waist. His shirt was still buttoned, and we both had our socks on.
He finally slid all the way home and I was able to pump back at him, and we found a sort of rhythm. It was better, much better, way better—it was fantastic. I loved the way his hands felt on my body, strong and frantic, and the way his voice sounded in my head:
Never let anyone else never never you're mine mine mine mine MINE MINE.
Pretty much just frantic. Then he stiffened against me, and even though I was miles away from coming, I didn't mind. I knew he'd spend the next hour making it up to me.
He collapsed over me with a groan, and I laughed; my shirt was still on, too. But with scattered clothes and all the plastic bags, the room looked like Filene's Basement on the day of a really good sale.
"Don't laugh at me, you horrible woman," he said without heat.
"Sorry, Eric. That was a real good lesson you taught me. Consider me chastened. Also, the Minnesota Vikings are moving in tomorrow."
He groaned again. "You're trying to kill me. You should feel deep shame."
"Ha!" I looped my legs around his waist and tickled him behind his ear, in a spot I knew was sensitive. "Ready to go again?"
"Kill me," he mumbled, slowly unbuttoning his shirt, but he couldn't hide the gleam in his eyes, or the sudden, ah, surge of interest. "The state of Minnesota frowns on premeditated murder, you know."
"The state of Minnesota would frown on pretty much everything that goes on in this house." I pulled off my strawberry socks and threw them in the air. "Let's ride, partner!"
"They probably don't think much of suicide, either," he snarked, but then he was kissing me again, and I pretty much lost the rest.
"What are you supposed to do again?" Jessica whispered.
"I told you, like, three times. Jeez, tune me
out much?"
"There's a lot of trivia in your life I have to sift through."
"What am I, the six o'clock news?"
"Exactly!" she said, refusing to take offense. "Sometimes it's hard to remember what's important and what's not so much."
"Very nice! Here… one-ten, one-eleven, one-twelve." We paused outside the closed door, which, like all nursing home doors, tried to look homey with cards and such, and was anything but. No matter what you did to them, they looked, felt, and smelled like hospitals.
I rapped gently and, when there was no response, pushed on the door. It wheezed open on pneumatic hinges, and I could see an old lady sitting on the edge of the far bed.
She smiled when she saw us, her gums looking just like Baby Jon's.
"Uh, hi," I said, creeping in like a thief, Jessica right behind me. "I'm Betsy. This is Jessica."
She cupped a hand over one ear. She looked like just about every old person in Minnesota I'd ever seen, which was to say white-haired, blue-eyed, skinny, and wrinkly. She was wearing those old-lady panty hose that rolled to the knees and a faded yellow housecoat, buttoned to her neck.
"Hmm?" she asked.
"I said…" I inched closer. The door sighed shut behind us. Thank goodness. A scrap of privacy. "I'm Betsy, and this is Jessica."
"Hmm?"
Oh, great. I leaned over until we were kissing distance. She smelled strongly of apple juice. It brought back awful memories of my candy-striper days. And God knew what I smelled like. Probably the Angel of Death. "Annie sent me!" I bawled. "She said to tell you—!"
She leaned closer. Now we were a fraction of an inch away from actually kissing. "Hmm?"
"Annie said to tell you there never was a map!" I screamed, ignoring Jessica's giggles. Great! Maybe some of the nurses on the first floor hadn't heard the first part of this extremely private conversation. "But there was an account, and here's all the info you need to get into it!" I handed her a folded piece of paper.
"No se…" She shook her head. "No se, no se."
"Oh, for fuck's sake." I resisted the urge to kick the bed through the window. "Annie never mentioned this."
Jessica was actually lying on the other bed, holding her stomach, in hysterics. "Louder, louder! No se!"
"Will you get off your ass and help me, please?"
"I took French. You know that."
"Thanks for a big fat goose egg of nothing. You are, without a doubt, the worst sidekick in the history of duos. Now what?"
Luckily, the old lady—gad, I had to remember she was a person, she had a name (Emma Pearson)—she wasn't "the old lady." Anyway, while I was bitching at Jessica, Emma had unfolded the piece of paper I'd handed her, and her face broke into a huge toothless smile. She said something excitedly in Spanish—I'd only had a year of it in high school and all I remembered was donde está el baño?—and clutched my hand.
"Oh, gracias," she said. "Muchas nuchas gracias. I am thanking you so much. Thank you."
"Uh… de nada. Oh, I almost forgot… Annie is very, very sorry she stole the money, and she hopes you have a lot of fun with it. She's… uh, lo siento. Annie es muy muy lo siento para … uh . . .para stealing? El dinero?"
Emma nodded, still smiling. I prayed she had the faintest idea what I was talking about. If she didn't, Annie'd be paying me another little visit.
Then we just looked at each other. To break the newly awkward silence, I asked, "Dónde está el baño?"
She gave complicated directions, which was okay because I didn't have to go anyway, and we left after much waving and shouted good-byes.
"She didn't appear to get a word of that," Jessica observed, pulling her checkbook out of her purse, groping for a pen, and scribbling something. "But she seemed to know about the account."
"Maybe she reads more English than she speaks. Or maybe she understands the words First National Bank and her own name."
"Maybe." She ripped off the check—I saw it was for $50,000—and casually dropped it into the suggestion box on our way back to the car. "This place really needs new wallpaper. Who picked mucous green?"
"You're asking me? This place is like my worst nightmare. Look at all these poor guys. Shuffling around and just pretty much waiting to die."
"There were some people in the game room," Jess said defensively. "They looked like they were having fun putting the big puzzle together."
"Please."
"Okay, it sucks. You happy now? I wouldn't want to end up here, I admit it."
"A problem you'll never have, honeybunch."
"Well, that's true. And neither will you."
I cheered up a little. No, one thing that was most definitely not in my future was spending my last days scuffing along in Wal-Mart slippers and eating applesauce.
"You remember that time you volunteered at Burnsville Manor in high school, and you only lasted a day because that old guy punched you in the knee when you tried to make him finish his—"
"Let's stop talking for a while," I suggested, and the cow had the giggles all the way back to the mansion.
Chapter 10
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she gasped, ten minutes later. I couldn't believe she was still hee-hawing about ancient history. "It's just, you went there with such high moral intentions, and you didn't even last a single shift. And you limped for a week!"
"Rich people should never criticize the working class," I snapped.
"Hey, I work fifty hours a week at The Foot." Dammit, she was right. It had always been something of a mystery to me why she bothered. She pretended like the nonprofit was a tax shelter and she needed the break every April 15, but we all knew it was a lie. Bottom line was, she liked going there, liked seeing her dad's money teach welfare moms how to program computers and get good jobs.
She ran the place with an ever-shifting staff, and me. I did the books when she was between office managers. I didn't much mind the work, but I didn't live and breathe it the way Jess did.
"She seemed like a nice lady."
"Jess! She didn't say five words to us the whole time. She could be a drooling psychopath for all we know."
"Do you think some of the ghosts are bad guys? And ask you to help other bad guys?"
"Great. Because I didn't have enough awful things to contemplate." Horrible thought! One I immediately shoved out of my head.
"Sorry. It was just an idea. Do you think there are any old psychopaths?"
"Sure. They're not all killers, you know. It's a psych problem, like schizophrenia. It's not just the property of thirty-somethings. The ones who don't get caught prob'ly get old like any of us."
"I read somewhere that there aren't nearly as many psychopaths—sociopaths?—out there as the media want us to think. Something like one tenth of one percent of the population is a deviant sociopath."
"Well, good. Like the vampires aren't bad enough. They all seem like psychos to me."
"Tough one to argue," she admitted.
"You're right, though! It seems like every book, movie, and made-for-TV miniseries is about a brave young woman—always a shrink or an FBI agent—tracking down a serial killer who has mysteriously targeted her. Or her family. Or her dog. And she, along with the brave hero, must alone face the threat of the drooling nutjob—"
"Taking Lives wasn't so bad."
"Oh my God!" I shrieked, nearly driving into a stop sign. "Worst movie ever! I almost gave up on Angelina Jolie after that one."
"Too cerebral?"
"Oh, yeah, real cerebral. Jolie has sex with a guy who may or may not be the villain." Hmm, that didn't sound like anybody I knew, right? Argh. I shoved that thought into the tiny corner of my brain where I kept all bad thoughts: Prada going out of business, Sinclair coming to his senses and leaving me, me leaving him, the Ant moving in. "Jess, I love you, but—"
"Here we go."
"—you keep your taste in movies up your ass. I'm sorry, but it's true."
"Says the woman who bought Blade IV on DVD."
"That was r
esearch!"
"Oh, research my big black ass. You've got a thing for Wesley Snipes."
"First of all, what ass? And second, do not." I had pulled into our driveway, and we were just sitting in my Stratus, arguing, when I noticed that in addition to Jon's truck, there was a navy blue Ford Escort in my driveway.
Cop.
Detective Nick Berry, to be exact. I didn't have to see all the Milky Way bars on the passenger side floor to know, either. He'd had the same car ever since I'd known him.
"What's he doing here?" Jess asked.
I brought my head down so fast on the steering wheel, the car honked. "What now?" I groaned.
"Hmm, someone else who's desperately in love with you stopping by unannounced," Jessica said with annoying cheer. "Must be Tuesday."
"This is a serious problem."
"Oh, will you spare me please? 'I'm Betsy and I'm an eternally beautiful and young queen with the coolest guy in the universe boning me every night, and whenever he gets tired, other guys are lining up to take his place. Waaaaaah!' "
I gave her The Look.
"Sometimes," she admitted, "it's hard to empathize with your problems. Like they weren't trampling over me to get to you when you were alive."
"That's not true!" I said, shocked.
"What's more irritating—being invisible, or you not having a clue about your effect on men?"
"Jess, stop it. The last word I'd pick to describe you is invisible. You've dated senators, for God's sake."
She dismissed the Democrat with the great hair with a wave of her newly manicured hand. "Fortune hunter."
"Well, that one guy, no kidding. Okay, maybe there were three or four. But I'm just saying, having these guys popping up is a serious problem. And remember—half the time it isn't even me, it's my weird vampire mojo that's bringing them in. Like they say, just because they don't seem like problems doesn't mean they really aren't. Problems, I mean. For example, I'd like to have your tax troubles—"
"No, you wouldn't."
"Okay, I wouldn't. But I'm just saying. There are things going on in your life that I wish were going on in mine. Like lunch. Chewing. Sunrises."
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