Just as they were about to leave, however, a man in a long overcoat came in. He seemed to bring in a great deal of rain with him. Despite the drenched umbrella he closed once he was in the door, his hair dripped down his collar.
“Chief Winchester?” he said.
“Yes,” James replied.
“I’m Greg McComb,” he said, introducing himself. “I just came from my sister’s funeral. We spoke on the phone.”
“Of course,” James put in. “This is Emma Gray. We both knew Jilly, and we’re both very sorry for your loss. And I have the personal effects she had on her when she died.” He retrieved the box from his office and handed it to Greg.
“I don’t need to leave them for evidence or something?” Greg asked slowly.
“No,” James replied. “There’s no evidence of foul play or even wrongful death, so I don’t need them, but thank you. If anything does happen to come up, however, I’ll be sure to call you. And again, I’m very sorry.”
Greg nodded, as if he didn’t quite know how to reply, then he looked down into the small box he held. Perhaps he’d simply heard those words so many times he no longer had an answer. His eyes were red and he looked tired. James knew he had to be thinking the same thing James had thought the day before, when he realized how easy it was to pack up a life into a small box.
“I just wanted to thank you in person for calling me and for everything you did for her,” Greg said.
“I’m sorry it couldn’t have been more.”
Greg looked up and met James’s gaze again. “I just wanted to let you know that I’d be staying at the motel here on the island until the rain is over and the ferry is running again, in case you needed to contact me.”
“Thank you.”
“I talked to Doctor Jenkins,” Greg went on, obviously needing to explain things. “He said her heart simply gave out. Can that happen?”
“If Doc said so, I suppose it can,” James replied, knowing full well this man had needed some reason for his sister’s death, and Doc had given him one.
“He said we could ship her to the mainland for more testing, but I knew she’d be more at peace if I left her alone,” Greg said. “Besides, after Amanda got sick and was dying, she went to the mainland and they weren’t able to help her. After that, Jilly didn’t trust the doctors there, so I think it would be wrong of me to send her there.”
Perhaps talking about this brought him comfort or closure, Emma thought. James must have thought the same thing, too, because he didn’t try to stop him from talking.
“Anyway, I just wanted to thank you.” Greg nodded once more, then turned toward the door.
“Mr. McComb?” Emma asked.
He turned back to her. “Ms. Gray, is it?”
“Yes, call me Emma.”
“Emma,” he said, as if testing the sound of her name on his lips. “What can I do for you?”
“Jilly was afraid of the cemetery. She talked to me about it as the anniversary of Amanda’s death drew closer,” Emma explained. “Can you tell me why she was afraid of the cemetery?”
Again, he looked down, as if he didn’t have the strength to look at them. “It’s my fault,” he said, his voice low and filled with shame.
“Would you like to sit down, Mr. McComb?” James asked.
“I’m—I’m all wet.”
“It’s all right. It’s only rain, and it will dry. Have a seat.” James indicated the chair next to Susan’s desk.
Greg sat down heavily. Emma couldn’t help wondering when the man had last sat down and relaxed.
“Would you like a cup of coffee or something?” James offered.
“No, thank you.” He gave them a small grin. “I feel like everyone continuously tries to feed me.”
“Tell us about Jilly’s fear,” James coaxed when Greg’s gaze became distant, inward.
Greg glanced at James, and he looked as if he might cry. Then he glanced back down, and his voice was hoarse as he said, “It was a long time ago. I must have about twelve or thirteen. So Jilly was probably nine or ten, and Amanda was eleven. Some friends and I dressed up in raggedy clothes and pretended to be ghouls who broke out of the graves, and we chased Mandy and Jilly through the cemetery that was close to our house. They were walking home from some school activity. Hell, I don’t even remember what it was. Mandy was very athletic, always on a soccer team or a volleyball team, and Jilly was always trying to follow in her footsteps. I remember it was cool weather,” he explained. “And still getting dark relatively early.” He let out a small chuckle. “They both screamed all the way home. Mandy got over it pretty quickly when she found out it was me and my friends, and she just laughed about it. But poor Jilly was nearly hysterical. God, I thought our father was going to skin me alive. That poor girl couldn’t walk home from school for a long time after that. And when she did, she walked way out of her way to avoid the cemetery. She didn’t sleep well for weeks. I must have said I was sorry a thousand times, and I really was. I didn’t know it would scare her like that. When I came here last year for Amanda’s funeral, I remember she held my hand so tight I thought she’d break it, and I don’t think it was because of her grief over Mandy—even though she was grief-stricken, of course. I think she was terrified of the cemetery.”
He looked up, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I really was sorry I did that to her.”
“I know,” Emma said soothingly. “I just wondered about it, that’s all.”
Greg nodded and stood. He shook their hands and a few moments later, he disappeared out into the rain. When the door closed behind him, the wind pelted the rain against it as the storm grew in strength. It sounded as if someone had shot a hundred tiny pellets against the glass.
After he was gone, there was only the sound of the growing storm outside, and Emma said slowly, “It’s my fault she’s dead.”
“What? Why would you say something like that?” James asked as he moved to Emma’s side and took her into his arms. She was cold in his embrace, and she molded to him as if she were lifeless.
“This is my fault,” she said again.
“No it isn’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “You didn’t make her fear so real that it scared her to death.”
“No, but it was my fault that she went to the cemetery. She had things she wanted to tell her sister, especially since it was near the anniversary of her death, but she was so afraid to go there.” Suddenly tears filled her eyes and slid down her cheeks. “She came to the clinic because she didn’t feel well, and Doc couldn’t find a thing wrong with her. He even did some blood work and ran a series of other tests, but everything came back normal. I talked to her while she was there. I knew that the anniversary of her sister’s death was coming up, and I thought that maybe that was why she wasn’t feeling well. She told me how she missed Amanda and how she had so many things to tell her. I convinced her to go to the cemetery. I told her to jot down on a piece of paper everything she wanted to tell her sister and just stay a minute and read them off. Then a few days later, she could go back again and stay five minutes longer and keep increasing her time until she wasn’t afraid anymore.”
Emma looked up at him, her eyes so filled with tears, they were glassy. “Why did I tell her that? Why didn’t I send her to a church or to the beach or, hell, even to the diner? She didn’t have to go to the cemetery. If she hadn’t gone there, he wouldn’t have been able to kill her that way.”
“He would have just chosen some other way to hurt her,” James pointed out before he realized it probably didn’t matter what he said. Emma was so upset she wasn’t listening. She leaned against his chest and cried silently. Yet, her body shook with her silent sobs. And each one tore at James’s heart.
“Look at me.” He leaned her back and forced her to look at him. “This is not your fault. Don’t you see? He’d chosen Jilly for his victim long before he killed her. That was why she wasn’t feeling well. He was preying on her emotions long before she went to the cemetery. He us
ed her loss and her anxiety over her fear of the cemetery and her need to go there, making her weak, making her sick. She jotted down the list of things she wanted to tell her sister. It was in her pocket, and she mentioned him on that list. She called him the man of her dreams.”
“It’s more like he was the man of her nightmares. Too bad she never mentioned his name,” Emma said.
“Glenda told her mother the name of the guy she was seeing and where he lived, and you see were that got us,” James reminded her.
“I know.”
James hated like hell to ask the next question, but they were running out of time, and he had no choice.
Chapter Thirteen
Evilness Grows Closer
He concentrated on Emma Gray.
His time to have her again was nearly at hand.
When one is a vampire, living eternally, one would think that a few years would make no difference. And yet, these past five years had nearly been agony for him, each day dragging by as he watched her, hungered for her and knew her to be untouchable.
No one had ever defied him as she had, just as no one had ever smelled so sweet, so enticing, to him as she did, as she still did. He knew of no one as strong as she was. Her strength, the unbreakable will she possessed, amazed him. As a vampire, her strength would be unbeatable. Together, they would make a team unlike any other.
She was meant to be his.
He felt that just as he felt his heart quicken at the idea.
Yet, just as she had refused to look at him that night so long ago, even when he saw her on the street or anywhere else, for that matter, she never looked into his eyes, never looked directly at him. All it would take is one look, and he would know her mind. He would know what she wanted, what she longed to touch, and he would let her see it in him. Just as he’d let Glenda see someone tall, dark and handsome, just as he’d let Jillian see that football jock she’d had a crush on in high school, and how he was now allowing Lily to see her former teacher. He felt a quiver of anticipation at what lay ahead for Lily.
Pretty, pretty Lily. She was strong, but not as strong-willed as Emma, for she allowed her desire for her former teacher to rule her. Yet, he found himself enjoying her conquest more than any of his previous victims. Perhaps it was simply because he had wasted no time moving on to her. He hadn’t allowed the emotions of his last victim to dwindle before pursuing Lily, as he always had in the past.
What he did know was that with each of his toys, his abilities were progressing, not as quickly as he wished, but there was progress. Right then, knowing Lily craved him, needed him, wanted him, made him feel stronger than ever.
And he felt more human than ever.
Soon he wouldn’t need the fire or the water or the wind or the earth. If only his thirst for blood was not so strong. It was that need that kept his other abilities from reaching their full potential. Still, it would not be much longer before he would feel as a human man feels. His heart pounded at the anticipation of experiencing what human men experienced. It had been so long since he had truly touched a woman with his fingers and felt her softness. It had been generations, almost a century and a half, since he had physically been inside the softness of a woman. Even now, he remembered that wonderful sensation and his breath quickened. The lower part of his body had died that night, when the woman he’d thought to be so sensual, so exquisite, had bitten his neck and made him what he now was. She had been his first kill. He had been nothing more than the stable boy, a man in charge of the care of horses—horses owned by a nobleman. She had come into the stable as he brushed down one of the nobleman’s favorite stallions, and he had felt lost the moment he looked at her. He remembered well the feeling of ecstasy when her lips touched his. He remembered her body as she revealed it to him, all lush and willing and hot. She let him sink into her body, and he’d felt the pure pleasure that the other servants talked about. The next thing he knew, he woke up to the sound of her laughter, and she told him that he belonged to her forever. He thirsted for blood as he’d never thirsted for anything else in his life. And he was angry that he no longer felt the pleasure he’d experienced. He picked up the nearby pitchfork and killed her merely for ruining his moment of ecstasy.
Then, when the nobleman’s son entered the stable a few moments later, he’d given in to his need and drank some of the boy’s blood, understanding immediately what he now was and what life had to offer him.
And he’d never been able to move beyond that thirst, never been able to experience pleasure—until now.
He had to admit that the mind games, as he liked to call them, weren’t bad. He did receive pleasure from them, not the lush pleasure he’d experienced with that seductress in the stable, but pleasure nonetheless. What he’d shared with Jillian and Glenda hadn’t really been pleasure, but both had given him a great deal of satisfaction. After all, the images of making love with them that he’d sent to them had been a means to an end. He gave them the security of need and love and pleasure. In the end, he took their fear, and it invigorated him.
Glenda, especially, was an eager participant, wanting to learn all she could from him. Lily was equally as inexperienced. She was more hesitant than Glenda had been, but by this evening, he hoped to have her right where he wanted her, and then he’d feast on her fear.
He thought about how easy it was to make them see the man of their dreams. He chuckled out loud, wondering how angry they might have been had he let them see how he really looked. He had several times considered trying it, just to experience their anger. Anger would have been a wonderful surfeit of emotion, and it would last longer than fear or guilt or even love and desire. At the same time, it was the most negative human emotion, and he wasn’t certain it would move his talents forward. It might impede his ability, keep him from reaching the maturity he needed to feel the emotions of a human man. So he didn’t allow any of his victims to see him in his true state. He simply met with them again and again, showing them the pleasure of making love as they had never before known it, making each victim need him as much as she needed oxygen to breathe. And as they gave their love and gave in to their needs, he took all they had from them.
He smiled. Soon, it would be Emma Gray’s turn. He looked forward to the challenge. Perhaps he should just show up with flowers at her front door. Would she look into his eyes then? Would Doc Jenkins stand in his way? He knew Emma and Doc were nothing more than roommates, or perhaps more like a father and a daughter, but Doc had destroyed several of his creations—his newly transformed vampires. That made Doc an enemy. Meeting Emma on Doc’s property wouldn’t be the best idea, and his plans would go smoother if Doc wasn’t around. But stealing Emma right out from beneath Doc’s nose tempted him, and it was that temptation that insisted he be cautious. Doc knew and understood what he was. Doc wanted to kill him for making his wife a vampire. Doc would be ready to face him.
Which is why he would leave Doc alone. Doc was so unafraid that he would not be an easy kill.
His thoughts moved back to Emma. Soon he would go back to Lily, but he wanted—needed—to see Emma before he did so. He needed to see the prize he would gain after his transition was complete and he could function like a normal man. But before he could see her, he had to find her.
He lit several candles. Then he opened the window and allowed the wind and the rain to blow in. He inhaled deeply, savoring the rich smell of earth in the empty flowerbed beneath the window. As he scoped the small island town, he searched for Emma, needing to feel her closeness. The rain hindered his efforts, but didn’t stop him. Using the psychic ability he had just acquired from his trysts with Glenda and Jillian and now Lily, he sent his thoughts out of his body. Like a bird soaring through the pounding rain, he moved from house to house, building to building looking and listening as he searched for the woman he planned to make his. She wasn’t at home. He didn’t sense her at the clinic, either.
He saw Lily, beginning her shift early at the diner to avoid driving through the worsening s
torm, and he gave pause to drink in her emotions. Her heart was light, and she was very happy despite the weather and the fact that she didn’t want to leave Mr. Warner alone in her apartment. She wanted to be with him every minute, every hour, of every day. Her emotions were right where he needed them to be.
He sent more mental messages to her, and he smiled at the idea that they were like little Sticky Note reminders saying, I’m here. I miss you. I can’t wait until you come home.
He felt the surge of anticipation those thoughts gave her. Her hand trembled as she carried two plates to waiting patrons, and she nearly dropped a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy.
With a smile, he soared on through the village, feeling the energy of the storm as it built, feeling the rain touch him and cool him, but not wet his skin. When he finally found Emma at the police station and in the arms of Chief James Winchester, his shock was staggering, his anger almost uncontrollable.
For a brief moment, he considered sweeping into the police station and killing Winchester. He could be quick and vicious. He could take Emma, force her to look at him, and then make her love him so they could spend eternity together.
The more he thought about it, the more the plan appealed to him. As long as Emma looked at him, it would work perfectly. But what if she wouldn’t look at him? He had not been able to force her to do so before. He knew her strong will; it was what he desired most in her. If he charged into the police station and killed James Winchester, it might take him years, even centuries, to make her love him.
And there was something about Winchester, something he couldn’t put his finger on, something he felt when he was close to the police chief. He felt it when he was close to that other cop, Deke Price. Both men emitted strength he didn’t understand. It was that strength that kept him from soaring and trying to kill Winchester. He thought Winchester might see him coming, might know how to fight him. There were, after all, hunters who trained in killing his kind. And five years ago, a hunter had been on the island and had killed several of his newly turned family members. But his time with Emma in the mill had left him weak and he’d barely escaped the hunter, too. He’d often thought Winchester and Price had killed others like him, that they were perhaps hunters. But he wasn’t certain, so he tried to avoid them.
No Fear Page 18
