by Rose Wulf
Releasing a long-suffering sigh, Veronica easily launched into the story behind her evening; and as she was talking it occurred to her to mention what had happened that afternoon, but she hesitated. Did she really want to involve her friends in whatever that was? Did it even really matter at this point? She had decided to be hopeful that Seth was right and she wouldn’t be bothered by Gregory Richards, Wilson, or the other guy whose name she didn’t know, but there was still a part of her that worried. And there were arguments for both telling someone about it and for not telling someone about it.
On the one hand, if she told someone about it and nothing ever happened, then she made one of her friends worry for nothing. Of course, if something did happen then someone else had an idea of what was going on already and could be there to help if it came to that—or would at least know to go to the police if she went missing. But that all led to the flip side of the thought. Telling a friend about everything would be involving them, and involving them could—potentially—put them in danger. She would hate herself if she put someone else in danger unnecessarily.
“Well, that sucks,” Mandy declared as she set Veronica’s piping-hot drink on the shelf.
Veronica blinked, staring at her friend for a long second. Had she told her without even realizing it? No, she’s too calm to have just heard a story like that.
“V?” Mandy called, recognizing the look of distraction in her friend’s face. “Everything okay? Is there something else you wanted to talk about?”
Shaking her head, Veronica grabbed the cup and quickly replied, “Oh, no, no, sorry I was just a bit distracted for a minute. Nothing to worry about.”
Mandy narrowed her light brown eyes on her and said pointedly, “Uh-huh. Well, when you change your mind, let me know.”
That was one of the things she loved about Mandy. Mandy wasn’t the type to let her friends get away with anything. If she noticed that something was bothering someone she demanded to know what it was—though she always stopped short of being rude—and once she knew what it was she either offered a shoulder or a solution. Sometimes both. But that was also one of the things that occasionally made Veronica wish she was talking to someone else, because sometimes she didn’t like talking about the things that were bothering her. And Mandy was good at being observant.
Offering Mandy an apologetic smile, Veronica said, “Really, don’t worry about it.”
Mandy held her hands in the air, saying, “I’ll play along. But you should call Ali if you haven’t yet.”
“I’m going to,” Veronica replied honestly. “But, actually, to do that I really need to get going. We should really get together some time now that you’re feeling better, though. Text me?”
“Will do,” Mandy assured her with a grin.
They exchanged goodbyes and Veronica took her mocha in hand as she stepped out into the fresh, still warm, night air. She made her way to her car casually and paused, one hand wrapped around her keys, to inhale a deep breath of her drink. Her eyes fluttered as she focused on the smell, and she nearly missed the blurred movement in her peripheral vision.
As soon as she registered it her eyes snapped open and her head spun to the side, searching for the movement that she knew she’d seen. And, at first, she still only saw nothing. But then she realized that there was a man walking away, his back to the coffee shop and his hands tucked into his jeans pockets. He was wearing a t-shirt and dark baseball cap, and between the bad lighting and his distance it was hard for Veronica to tell if he was familiar to her or not. Had he been there before?
An uneasy feeling settling in her gut, Veronica swallowed heavily and hurried to unlock the car and duck inside. Either she was becoming certifiably paranoid or something really was going on. And could it really be a coincidence that these weird things would start happening right after what she’d overheard? She wasn’t sure, but she did know it was time to go home and lock the door behind her.
****
After a long, frustrating night, Seth had only learned one thing: Robert’s mystery informant wasn’t the only vampire who’d suddenly gone missing. Despite searching all night, Seth had been unable to find Richards or either Wilson brother. Now he needed to meet with Robert again, to check in and see if anything had happened on his end, but first he needed his daily coffee. And maybe he’d get to check in on Veronica while he was there, too.
It didn’t take long for his eyes to land on the smiling face of the woman in question. She was behind the register this time, which was actually good—it meant he’d have an excuse to speak to her for a moment.
When it was his turn to place his order Veronica looked up, eyes slightly wide for an instant, and then offered him a new smile. “Good morning,” she said easily. “Usual?”
His lips twitched a bit at her question and he inclined his head. “Please. And good morning. How was your evening?”
Her resulting hesitation was brief—nearly impossible to spot by most—before she lifted her attention from the register and replied, “Largely uneventful.”
Seth deliberately arched one dark eyebrow above the rim of his sunglasses as he repeated, “Largely?”
She took his money, counted out the change, and handed it back as she quietly explained, “I had a couple of…small paranoia attacks. Nothing to speak of.”
He inclined his head again, pretending to buy her words at face-value, and dropped the change in the donation jar. “That’s good.” She nodded, wishing him a good day, and he stepped away to wait for his coffee as he thought over her words. He wished there were some way to know what she meant by ‘small paranoia attacks.’ But without pulling her aside he wasn’t likely to ever get an answer—unless, perhaps, he ran into her again after she got off work. That idea was tempting.
By the time his coffee was ready he had decided that that was the best way to go, which left only the need to figure out how to go about it. Should he try following her from work to see if she went somewhere where he could believably pop up? No. That would be too much like stalking, and he was not a stalker. So he opted for the straightforward option and, as he settled in the driver’s seat of his car, he pulled his phone from his pocket. A quick text asking her to let him know when they could talk and he was done.
Now it was time to go see if Robert had anything useful for him.
He didn’t, of course. All Robert had was an upset, frustrated wife who didn’t understand why they had had to cancel their plans or why they had actually stationed a guard outside their door. There was no word on the disappearance of his friend, and no one Robert had talked to had seen or heard from the trio of traitors. Seth wasn’t sure he agreed with the way Robert was handling his end, but that wasn’t for him to decide. What mattered was that Richards and the Wilsons seemed to have vanished into thin air.
This is getting ridiculous, Seth grunted to himself as he drove past the complex one more time. From his (admittedly poor) angle, nothing seemed to have changed. Robert had assured him that he’d contacted the manager and instructed her to call him if she spotted any of them, but Seth didn’t hold a lot of hope that that would pan out. If there was one thing he could say about the men he was chasing, it was that they were good at laying low. Were it not for Veronica they would likely have gotten away with their planned robbery the night before.
And that was what concerned him. Veronica was the reason that their plans had fallen through. A large majority of vampires had little to no respect for humans as a species anyway, and Seth doubted that those three were any different. She had painted a large, neon target on her throat and she didn’t even know it. He needed to find and stop them before they exacted whatever bloody revenge they had in store for her.
The ringing of his phone pulled him from his thoughts, and Seth tapped the small device in his ear, answering with a slightly-clipped, “Hunter.”
There was a beat of hesitation before the caller spoke. “Seth? It’s Veronica…you said something about wanting to talk?”
Tak
ing a deep breath, Seth flexed his fingers around his steering wheel and replied, “I did. Do you have a few minutes to meet somewhere?”
“Yeah,” Veronica said easily, the uncertainty that had laced her voice all but gone now. “I just got out of work, so I can pretty much meet whenever.”
Seth glanced at the dashboard clock, realizing it was only just past eleven, and said, “Why don’t we talk over lunch? You can choose the place, I’m not too picky.”
There was a smile in her voice, and he could just see the twinkle reflecting in her eyes as she said, “Okay…how about twelve-thirty at Pete’s Pasta? I’ve been in the mood to go there lately, anyway.”
“I’ll be there,” Seth replied as his lips lifted in the faintest of grins. Was it even possible for smiles to be contagious over the phone?
“Great,” Veronica began, “I’ll see you at twelve-thirty, then.”
They disconnected a beat later, and as Seth’s hand returned to the steering wheel he decided to spend as much of the hour that he had left continuing the search. By noon they would likely be holed up for the day, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
****
“She called him?” Gregory Richards hissed, a level of incredulity in his voice. “You’re sure?”
Tobias Wilson shrugged, offering, “Well, unless she happens to know another Seth. You want me to swipe her phone and check her contacts?”
Richards released an exasperated, drawn out breath as he thought over the offer. “That might not be such a bad idea…but probably we shouldn’t try that before her little lunch date.”
“So,” Tobias began carefully, “not yet?”
“No, not yet,” Richards snapped, shooting a glare at his companion. He cast his gaze around the room, then, and asked, “Where’s your idiot brother, anyway?”
It was Tobias’s turn to sigh as he shrugged once again and replied, “Feeding, I think.”
“And tell me again why you insisted on dragging your dumbass older brother in on this?”
“Because he’s loyal to me, even if he’s stupid,” Tobias explained casually. “Besides, if he somehow found out about this and we didn’t cut him in then he’d go blabbing to Robert for sure.”
Arching a brow now, Richards challenged, “I thought he was loyal to you?”
“To a point,” Tobias clarified.
Richards threw his arms into the air, nearly punching the low ceiling of the darkened room around them, and growled aloud before saying, “Yeah, well, if we hadn’t had to give him the damned update then none of this would have happened! It’s as much his fault as that human bitch’s!”
“He doesn’t know how much money we stand to get if it works out,” Tobias said, “just slice his portion.”
The hesitation in the air was tangible before Richards finally replied, “That’s not a half-bad idea…you’d go along with it?”
“With getting a little more cash?” Tobias began, smirk slowly curving his lips. “Who wouldn’t?”
Richards nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Of course, we have to get the fucking money first.”
Tobias sighed and slumped against the nearest wall. “True.” He was silent for a beat before he lifted his eyes back to Richards and asked, “Do you wonder about Hunter? I mean, he comes out of nowhere and now he’s sticking his nose into our business…seems odd.”
Richards scoffed, waving a hand dismissively toward his companion. “Ignore him, he’s just fresh meat looking to make his place in the Family. Maybe he thinks standing up to us or ‘cracking this case’ will get him in better with Robert. It doesn’t matter.”
Tobias frowned thoughtfully, gaze falling back to the floor, but said nothing.
“What matters,” Richards continued after a brief moment, fists curling tightly at his sides, “is that damned human bimbo. I’m gonna make sure she knows exactly who she’s screwing around with—and then I’m gonna drain her dry.”
****
Veronica couldn’t help but feel a little excited and a little self-conscious as she stepped into the restaurant at twelve-thirty. She knew that they weren’t really meeting for a good reason, but that didn’t stop her from smiling. And it certainly didn’t stop the butterflies in her stomach from taking flight as soon as the first whiff of marinara sauce and baked cheese wafted over her. Now, do I find a table or wait in the lobby?
The thought had barely crossed her mind when she turned her head and found her gaze focused on a dark figure sitting in a corner booth. But this dark figure was the good kind of dark because he was the man she was looking for, and despite his seemingly-permanent sunglasses she knew he was looking right at her. She took a deep breath and started toward the booth, trying again to remind herself of what they would actually be talking about. They weren’t about to have a pleasant, lighthearted conversation and it would do her good to remember that.
He slid smoothly out of the booth and stood as she approached the table, and her heart tripped. The man had honest-to-goodness manners! Some jaded part of her had just assumed that any man who qualified as ‘sexy’ (and there was no doubt that he owned the category) was pretty much allergic to good manners.
“Thank you for meeting me,” Seth said, his deep, rich voice sliding effortlessly from his lips to her ears and washing over her.
She offered him a warm smile and assured him, “It’s not a problem,” as she slid into the indicated side of the booth seat. “Thank you,” she added.
Once she was seated Seth reclaimed his seat, and then he did the most unexpected thing. He reached up and slid his sunglasses off of his face, calmly folding them and setting them to the side of the table.
Veronica was breathless as she watched, telling herself not to stare despite knowing that that was exactly what she was doing. Not only had she not expected him to do that, but she couldn’t have predicted the eyes beneath those all-concealing lenses if she’d tried. And she had tried.
Seth Hunter’s eyes were a fierce, striking black. Or what she would have labeled black if black irises were even possible. And she supposed the darkness of his eyes could, arguably, be creepy or unsettling, but she felt none of those things. It was as if his eyes were piercing straight to her soul, and they held her captive without effort. They were the perfect eyes for the man sitting before her.
The waitress bounced over to their table, casually asking if they knew what they wanted to drink and simultaneously tearing Veronica’s attention away from Seth’s newly-exposed eyes. In the time it took her to gather herself, Seth ordered a cup of coffee and placed his meal order as well. Fortunately, when the waitress turned some of her attention to Veronica, she was ready and easily ordered an iced tea to accompany her spaghetti and meatballs. It was a large meal to order for lunch, but she didn’t care; she loved their spaghetti.
Once the waitress was gone Seth turned his attention back to Veronica and asked, “Do you mind if I ask you about that ‘small paranoia attack’ you mentioned earlier?”
That was what she’d needed. It was almost disturbing how quickly that simple question managed to put her priorities—and her focus—back in order. And she wouldn’t allow herself to be disappointed about it, either. Instead, she nodded and explained the two instances from the night before. “And if it weren’t for that second one,” she added, “I wouldn’t even have given it another thought. But there was something about that man walking away…I swear he wasn’t there when I walked out to my car.”
Seth was nodding slowly, clearly mulling something over in his mind. It was a moment before he offered, “It is always possible that your mind was playing tricks on you last night. After what you overheard your subconscious was likely dwelling on it even while you thought you were focusing on other things.”
“I get that,” Veronica replied with a slight nod. “But there’s still a voice in the back of my head telling me that I know better.” She paused, studying him, and realized that she had nearly missed a cue in his body language. “And you agree, don’t you? You
don’t think it was just a case of hyper-active paranoia either.”
His dark, serious eyes locked on to hers again and he shook his head. “Honestly, no. I don’t think you were being overly paranoid.” There was another beat of hesitation before he added, “I went looking for them last night, and none of them were home. They didn’t attempt the burglary, but then again, Robert didn’t go out. I thought that would make finding them a little easier, but whatever they were doing…they were out somewhere.”
Veronica collapsed into the back of the vinyl booth cover. She wasn’t surprised to hear that, but she hadn’t really wanted to hear it, either. It was a long minute before she found enough of her voice to say, “So then one or more of them could have been following me.”
“Unfortunately,” Seth declared with a scowl. His pause was shorter this time before he said, “I realize we don’t know each other very well, but if you even think you see one of them again I want you to call me immediately.”
A frown dipping her lips, Veronica asked, “But why? If I think they’re following me then shouldn’t I call the police?”
There was something off about the set of his jaw before he answered, “You could do that, too, of course.”
She got the distinct impression that he didn’t particularly want her involving the police, which made no sense. Weren’t people supposed to call the police when they thought their life was being threatened? Unless…. Eyes widening, Veronica asked, “Do you think they have some sort of connection to the police?”
Seth met her gaze again and evenly replied, “I don’t know them well enough to say for sure, but from what I know about them I’d have to say no.”
Well now I’m even more confused. He clearly didn’t want to involve police, but apparently he didn’t have a good reason for that preference? Or did he just not have a good reason that he could tell her about? And, more importantly, why did that possibility only make her want to assure him that he could trust her?
“Seth,” Veronica began, leaning slightly forward on the table, “if you’ve got a reason for wanting to leave the police out of things, just say so. I trust you.” And she did, as crazy as it sounded. She trusted him implicitly.
