by SK Ryder
“In any event, I cannot help you,” he went on, impatient. “There is nothing I can tell you about any of this. Now I must go.” He left her standing there on the porch and went to dress for a long night in South Florida’s urban jungles.
On his way out, she met him in the living room with a sheaf of papers in her hand. “You’re lying to me.”
He gave her his most intimidating look, but the foolish girl would have none of it. She had been around him too long, had seen too much of his former self, the self he had resurrected for her and now maintained by the slimmest of margins.
“Dominic, please let me help you. This is eating you alive. No one should have to live like this.”
“Write what you will, but leave my family out of it. They have nothing to do with what is happening here, and there is nothing I can tell you.”
“If that’s true, then why are you here? Why are you here when you should be with your mother and sister who need you more than ever right now?”
“Stop,” he snarled. She was going for his proverbial jugular, and it wouldn’t take much more before he returned the favor.
She was adamant. “No. I won’t. Not until you explain why—if I’m so wrong about everything—you let your family believe this.” With a snap of her wrist, she held up one of her papers, a printout that included his picture. His obituary.
He recoiled even as he admonished himself. He should have seen this coming the moment she mentioned St. Barth.
Her voice lost its strident edge. “If you aren’t hiding from something really bad, why does everyone you care about believe you’re dead?”
Because I am. Because I should be. He had intended to be dead, truly dead, by now and went through great pains to create the trail culminating in the obituary she held, the closure his mother and sister so desperately needed.
Dominic took a single step forward and leaned his face into hers, capturing and holding her huge, blue gaze. He held nothing back, driving the command into her obstinate mind with a virtual sledgehammer of will, her supposed resistance to him be damned. “You will never speak of my family again. You will write nothing about them or me. Not ever.”
She flinched, and a small tremor raced through her body.
Fear.
He spun away. The beast slithered in his chest. What had he done?
“I’m only trying to help.” Her voice wobbled near tears.
Dominic tasted the memory of her blood, felt the razor edges of his teeth against his lips, and his vision colored with the Technicolor hues of the hunt. All that was human in him drained away and in seconds would be gone completely.
As the hunger surged, he opened the door and flung himself into the night with one overriding thought. You will help me, mon coeur. When you know what to do.
Chapter 19
Missing Ingredients
Jackson paused to admire the Samurai daisho set in their intricate scabbards hung on the wall. They were long and curved, the top katana blade slightly longer than its matched wakizashi partner. The hilts were wrapped in black fabric, twisted at intervals to reveal ivory carvings of dragons with tiny ruby eyes. Snarling dragons also curled around the brass plates of the hand guards on each, and their smaller brothers, rendered in gold paint, spiraled along the polished black sheaths themselves.
Jackson’s latex-covered fingers itched to touch them, claim them. These blades would look spectacular over the fireplace in the mansion’s living room. A worthy trophy of his first kill.
“Don’t. Touch. Anything.”
Jackson shot an irritated look over his shoulder. “What kind of an idiot do you take me for?” Though he had touched the blades the first time he saw them. Before he knew who owned them. Not something he was about to admit to his uncle.
“Sorry, kid,” Garrett said and continued slowly sweeping the small HD camcorder around the room, recording every detail of the vampire’s lair—as cluttered as it was Spartan—for analysis. “Just making sure. We can’t afford to have him catch our scent here. They’re like rats that way. If they smell humans on a trap they won’t go near it.”
Jackson looked at the disheveled twin bed. That the vampire spent his days here was obvious. Just not today when Cassidy was safely out of the way. Had he sheltered here yesterday when they came to collect his unconscious body and found her all but guarding the premises? Or had he, like Garrett warned, already caught Jackson’s scent in here and would never return? Did he even suspect what Jackson knew and plotted? That fear is what had kept them from pushing his way in here past Cassidy yesterday. Such an act would not have guaranteed a capture but raised or confirmed plenty of suspicions.
“Fuck,” Jackson muttered.
“Patience is mandatory in this business,” Garrett said and powered off the camcorder. “Okay, we’re done. Let’s go.”
Jackson took one last, longing look at the swords and picked up the rolled body bag sitting by his blue-covered feet. They wouldn’t be carrying away any vampires in it today. “Better luck tomorrow.” Maybe.
“Longer than that.” Garrett closed the front door behind them, securing the lock he had picked earlier with impressive skill. “Every time we come back here and don’t find him, we’re reinforcing our scent in the air of this place. We don’t want to risk driving him away.”
Jackson’s jaw clenched in frustration. “So what? We just wait? How long?”
“At least until I get back from Chile.” A jet already waited on standby. The Chile lead had popped up last night, strong and without warning, too good to ignore. And, apparently, too good to allow Jackson along for the kill. Though Garrett’s official excuse was that with Warren tied up in critical business negotiations all week, someone had to be available to coordinate things in case the Grid coughed up another hit. Never mind that the Grid did quite well reporting all the facts to them on their smartphones.
Jackson tossed the roll into the back of his uncle’s black Cadillac SUV and slammed the hatch down. He got in, peeled off the latex gloves and disposable shoe-covers, and stuffed them into the center console compartment together with Garrett’s.
Garrett cursed under his breath as he navigated the behemoth vehicle down the bumpy, narrow lane winding back out to A1A. The encroaching vegetation screeched along the SUV’s polished sides like nails down a chalkboard, and Jackson couldn’t suppress a smile. There was a reason he suggested taking his little Audi for this mission, and next time they certainly would if for no other reason than that Garrett’s living room on wheels would be in the shop getting a fresh coat of paint.
Once they were back on the paved road, Garrett picked up on his nephew’s sullen silence. “Promise me you’re not going to do anything stupid while I’m gone.”
“How can I?” Jackson snorted. “I’ll be too busy being useless.”
Garrett gave him a thoughtful look and came to a decision. “Well, maybe not. If you’re up for it, there is a bit of field research we need to do.”
By late Tuesday afternoon, Cassidy had seen her life flash before her eyes at least six times—once traveling south on I-95, twice navigating downtown Miami, and three more times driving home. The worst near-miss, hands down, was when a semi almost blew her off the road as she merged her tiny VW into traffic. That she was bright yellow and impossible to miss even in the sodden gray swirl of a downpour seemed irrelevant. The rest of the drive home was a white-knuckled, two-hour race to the Orchard Beach exit.
But she had her in-person interviews, her pictures, and her seen-it-done-it tale of Garcilla Health Systems in action.
Dave swore he knew nothing of the Spanish language requirements for her original piece, and he refused to remember that trifling issue as he sent her off on this ASAP follow-up assignment when she walked through the door this morning. No matter. As it turned out, plenty of Garcilla employees spoke
English—when they wanted to.
She stuck her head into the editor’s office. “I’m back. And amazingly I lived to tell about it. How about a piece on the homicidal drivers of Miami-Dade County?”
Dave gave her a grudging half-smile. “Am I getting a follow-up on Garcilla today, Chandler?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’ve got two more just like it when you’re ready. One of them I need by tomorrow.”
Cassidy swallowed and pasted on her most enthusiastic face, praying that ‘just like it’ didn’t mean risking her life in I-95 traffic again. “Great.”
She got to work writing up her report on Garcilla, this one focusing on a patient care angle rather than a business one. Across the room from her, she could feel Jim Lawley seething. He was close enough to Dave’s office to have overheard that more big assignments were coming her way. He had been a good deal less restrained last week when she delivered the original assignment on time and against serious odds. For half an hour he paced in Dave’s office, gesticulating and raving, his complexion changing from ruddy to puce in his outrage over being passed up in favor of the rookie. Everyone watched the spectacle through the office’s interior window and cast frequent glances in Cassidy’s direction. When Jim calmed, Dave clasped his shoulder and spoke earnestly until the other man nodded, mollified.
Mollified but not silenced. He had no shortage of commentary regarding the quality of the coffee—or absence thereof—ragged on her about a typo she missed on a major account’s ad and sniped about dead people not getting enough respect around here. The chaos surrounding the storm bought her a reprieve on Monday when he was out collecting harrowing tales of toppled trees, missing shingles, and localized flooding. But today he was present and in a mood. Late afternoon found him lounging at her cubicle’s half wall.
“You’re looking hassled, Chandler. I’m worried about you. Sure you don’t want to pack it in for the day? Or maybe for good? This business can be rough.”
Engrossed in gathering a list of interview questions for her next assignment, Cassidy didn’t even look up from her screen. “I’m not going anywhere. Get used to me.”
“Is that so?” He leaned in and lowered his voice. Not that it mattered; the office’s open layout assured they had the attention of everyone in it. “Listen, girl, this isn’t some silly game for me. This is my bread and butter, and I’m not letting some wannabe rookie with a rich boyfriend run roughshod all over it. You got that?”
“Ah.” She pretended to give this serious thought. “So you don’t think you’re enough of a big, bad professional reporter man to handle a little competition from a mere wannabe rookie girl?”
Jim went purple. “I’m going to bury you, Chandler.”
Though the vehemence surprised her, after two weeks of living with the high-strung Dominic, Jim’s antics almost made her laugh. “Really? Maybe you should shut up and start writing then.”
“Hear, hear,” a low baritone chimed in.
Jim glanced around to meet the openly disapproving looks of several colleagues. “Bury you,” he growled again and stalked away.
“He’s all bark and very little bite, kiddo,” Larry’s sage, disembodied voice advised from the next cubicle. “You hang in there. You’re doing great.”
But ignoring Jim’s bluster was easier said than done, even with Dave’s support, halfhearted though it felt. Over the next two hours, the exchange nagged at her. Pack it in for good. Quit. No job meant soon having no home. Then what? Jackson would want her to come back to him, though she doubted he’d stand up for long—if at all—to the Striker patriarchs who would be happy to see her leave town with a minimum of fuss. If she quit, it would save Dave the trouble of having to fire her and please Warren Striker, his primary investor.
Her fingers stilled above the keyboard. Is that what was happening here? Is that what Dave told Jim? Would they force her hand by overwhelming her with impossible deadlines until she failed and . . . packed it in?
The realization settled on her like a great weight crushing her into her chair. Jim Lawley’s threats were the least of her worries. How long could she keep up this pace?
As long as I need to, she promised herself. Screw them.
Determined to nail down the assignment due tomorrow and get a running start on the next one before calling it a day, she worked late. By the time she got home, she was more than ready to lay her troubles on her roommate and pick his freakishly brilliant brain for solutions.
Assuming he would accept her apology for digging into his past. This morning she had noticed the downstairs bedroom door still open, the room deserted. Clearly he was upset enough to stay out all day, and he was still out when she arrived home now. The cottage lay deserted, swathed in deep night, the shed in back unlocked, the motorcycle gone.
Cassidy nursed a pang of disappointment as she tossed last night’s leftovers into the microwave. What the hell was wrong with him? Didn’t he recognize honestly offered help? The way he had helped her? The way she rather needed him to help her now? Just to talk, of course. Nothing else.
She rubbed her temple as though that might erase the memory of that breathless dream haunting her every time she stopped long enough to think. The dream the night of the storm. It was the storm raging outside, it had to be. All that raw power surging in the air must have caused her to imagine him in her bed—naked, no less—his mouth so tender . . . his body so hard against hers. Well, most of it anyway. Even in her dreams Dominic Marchant had no real interest in her.
But that embrace on the beach before Jackson arrived and everything went sideways, that had felt like . . . interest. She caressed her lower lip, thinking. No kiss had ever transported her like that, clear into an alternate reality more vivid than any dream. And Dominic had been there with her . . .
Cassidy’s brow folded, remembering more, remembering his eyes, the pupils enormous and black as inkwells. Like they were last night when he told her to never again speak of his family. That had certainly been real. Not to mention surreal.
Her arms went around her to subdue a shiver. What else was real? What did it mean?
The microwave and her cell phone went off in tandem, rattling her distracted mind. She struggled to sort out the binging and chirping before reaching for her phone. She didn’t realize how desperately she wanted it to be Dominic until she saw the screen and knew it wasn’t.
At least it wasn’t Jackson either.
“Hi, sweetie. How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better, Sam.”
“Hang in there. It’ll all come out right in the end.”
“I don’t know. Things are pretty wrong all over the place right now.”
“You’re not kidding. Baby brother hasn’t been right since you left.”
Cassidy scoffed. “I don’t think he’s been right since we walked into that house, to be honest.”
“I know. He used to be different before Justin died, too. I saw some of that old Jackson when he was around you, though. And please don’t take that as an attempt to talk you into coming back,” Samantha added quickly.
Cassidy didn’t. Samantha was nothing if not the doting sister. Also a realist.
“I’ve seen what marriage to a Striker heir is like, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But I saw how good you were for my brother. Now, well, it’s like he’s just letting Warren and Garrett rope him into their world. He’s always off somewhere on business, always distracted.”
“I think his father and uncle have way more influence over him than I ever had,” Cassidy said, snuffing out the twinge of guilt her almost sister-in-law’s words raised. She was sure there were sides of Jackson his sister could never imagine. “I doubt there’s anything I could have done to stop them taking over his life.”
“You’re probably right.” Heavy sigh. “Once tho
se two weave their spells, there is no escape. I used to think of them as sorcerers.”
“Sorcerers? Seriously? Now who’s being weird?”
Samantha laughed, a clear, delicate sound. “It’s what my imagination came up with when I was twelve and got to look through a door I wasn’t supposed to. Warren’s library up on the third floor? The one with the electronic lock? Well, it’s a vault for the rare books he collects. I saw a whole wall of these big old volumes that look like they’d contain spells for world domination. So I decided they were wizards.” Her tone turned mysterious. “Come to think of it, I’ve never found a shred of evidence to the contrary.”
In spite of herself, Cassidy laughed. She laughed harder when she visualized Jackson’s father and uncle in sorcerer outfits, complete with flowing robes and pointed hats, casting spells over smoking cauldrons. Tension washed off her in a torrent. Magic indeed. “Thank you, Sam. I needed that.”
Samantha still giggled. “I think you could also use a mini vacation. Are you up for a road trip this weekend?”
“Where to?”
“A yoga conference. A friend of mine had a family emergency and won’t be able to go. It’s non-refundable. It would be a shame for the fee to go to waste.”
“I don’t know,” Cassidy hedged. Samantha and her friends took the practice of tying themselves into knots and minding their breath to extremes. Cassidy was okay with taking the occasional class, but a whole weekend of knot tying and ventilating would be pushing it.
“Oh, c’mon. What else are you going to do this weekend? And besides, it’s Key West. You can’t live in Florida and not go there.”
“Wait. Key West?” Cassidy straightened, her reporter instincts kicking into high gear. Jim had exhausted all his leads on the epidemic of murders happening in the Keys, but he had yet to get in his car and drive his butt down there. His loss. “What time do we leave?”
