by Jenna Black
At around eight there was a knock on my door. I answered cautiously, hoping it would be Maggie, because so far she was the only one of the Liberi I could actually say I liked. Instead, it turned out to be Blake, probably my least favorite of Anderson’s Liberi. Jamaal was hostility personified, but at least I understood where he was coming from. Blake just seemed slimy.
I probably made a face, but if so, Blake ignored it, holding up a manila envelope.
“Anderson sent me to give you this,” he said. “I believe the subtext was ‘kiss and make up.’”
This time I was sure I made a face. “I’d rather kiss a copperhead.” I grabbed the envelope from his hand.
He laughed and held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t worry. It was only a figure of speech.”
He didn’t seem particularly perturbed that I’d shot him yesterday, but I didn’t believe he’d gotten over it that easily.
“How’s your boo-boo?” I asked. I don’t know if I was trying to rile him, or trying to remind him I wasn’t someone he wanted to mess with.
He touched his chest, presumably where the bullet had hit him. “Still a little sore, but not too bad. I’m touched by your concern.”
He said it with a self-deprecating smile, as if there were no hard feelings, but I still didn’t believe it. I’d seen too much malice in him to think he’d let me off the hook that easily. Even so, I couldn’t help feeling guilty about what I’d done, and I couldn’t force myself to be as indifferent as I wanted to be.
“I really am sorry about that,” I found myself saying, though it made me feel like a wuss.
Blake waved off my apology. “As Anderson pointed out, I had it coming. If I’d left my attitude in the car, I probably could have persuaded you to come with me without the strong-arm tactics.”
I was momentarily at a loss for words. This was not the reaction I’d expected from him.
“Alexis brings out the worst in me,” Blake continued. “When I saw him sitting there with you, I started to wonder if Jamaal was right and you were a plant.”
It wasn’t quite an apology, but it was close. “And now you’ve changed your mind about me?”
“I don’t know what to make of you,” he said with refreshing honesty. “But if there’s a chance you’re telling the truth and can find Emma, then I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Sounds like you’re as anxious to get her back as Anderson is.” I belatedly realized that sounded accusatory, like I thought he and Emma were lovers, when all I’d really meant to do was fish for information.
He hesitated a beat, but didn’t respond to my unintentional implication. “Anderson hasn’t come close to getting over her yet. And the longer she’s been gone, the more saintly she’s become in his memory.”
“Meaning she wasn’t that saintly in real life?”
“Let’s just say she was a bit high-maintenance. And it had been a long, long time since she and Anderson were happy together. By the end, they weren’t even sharing a bed anymore. But you know what they say—absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
He pointed at the manila envelope, which I hadn’t bothered to open yet. “There’s a full dossier on Emma’s current identity in there. There’s also an outline of Anderson’s security plan for your sister. He’s hired a private security firm we’ve worked with in the past, and the rest of us are going to help out as time permits. She’ll be as safe as we can possibly make her, and she’ll never even know her guardian angels are there.”
“Angels, huh?” I asked with a lift of my brow. That wasn’t a term I’d associate with any of the Liberi I’d met.
Blake just laughed.
Over the next couple of days, I spent countless hours chained to my computer, looking for something that might help. I figured that since my non-supernatural abilities to find people had stemmed largely from my computer skills, maybe my supernatural ones would as well.
I had Anderson compile a list of all the known Olympians and all the Descendants who worked for them. The list was long and intimidating, but I started doing methodical searches on each person. It was true that Konstantin could have buried Emma anywhere, including out in some national park miles from civilization, but instinct told me he’d want to have easier access to her. Which meant wherever she was, it was most likely on property owned by Konstantin or one of his many toadies.
When you watch TV shows featuring private investigators, the job always looks like it’s exciting and full of action. The reality is somewhat different. Scouring databases looking for properties that belong to one of about thirty people—many of whom had multiple names as they changed identities over the years—was the antithesis of exciting.
The list of properties grew depressingly long, and though in theory I was making progress, it felt more like I was running in place. Even if I identified the right property, how would I find Emma once I got there? If I was a supernatural tracker, the power was taking its own sweet time to manifest.
On Saturday afternoon, I decided to take a break and get out of the mansion for a while.
Actually, it wasn’t so much my decision, as Steph’s. Her charity auction was on Wednesday night, and she called to remind me. Then she asked me what I would wear, and when I didn’t answer fast enough, she declared we were going shopping.
I could have fought her on it. Although Steph has a steel backbone, I have a pretty good streak of stubbornness in me, too. But one thing I’d learned over years of working as a P.I. was that it really was possible to work too hard. The brain needs to take a break every once in a while, or you start missing things that are right in front of your face. So I let myself be persuaded.
Steph’s favorite store is the Saks out in Chevy Chase, but I didn’t make enough money from my P.I. business to buy so much as a single shoe there. Trust me, if I was ever going to be persuaded to tap into my trust fund, it wouldn’t be for the sake of designer clothes. In deference to my budget concerns, we hit the shops and boutiques of Georgetown instead.
I enjoy shopping as much as the next girl, and I’d been on countless excursions with Steph over the years, but there was nothing like watching my beautiful sister trying on clothes to make me feel like an ugly duckling.
I know I’m not ugly. But I’m no Steph, either. Usually, I do a pretty good job of shoving my jealousy into a back corner of my mind, where I can ignore it. But the stress of recent events, and my relentless worries about the future, made it impossible to keep the green monster completely under control. Especially when Steph came out of her dressing room wearing a stunning, fire-engine red cocktail dress that clung perfectly to her curves without looking even remotely slutty. I swear, if you’d teleported her to the red carpet before the Oscars, she wouldn’t have looked out of place.
I had on a simple black number at the time, and I couldn’t help comparing our reflections in the mirror. Steph, tall and blond and sophisticated, wearing a dress that would draw every eye in the room. Me, short and average-looking, in a dress meant to blend in with the inevitable sea of little black dresses. And then, of course, there was the glyph that only I could see. The glyph that meant I had to give up even the semblance of a normal life that I had built.
We went out for coffee afterward. I kept trying to spot Anderson’s private security team, but I hadn’t caught sight of anyone following us. Maybe they felt Steph was safe enough with me. Or maybe they really were just really good at being inconspicuous. I knew the typical tricks of covert surveillance, but even knowing what to look for, I couldn’t spot anyone.
“So,” Steph said when we sat down in a cozy corner with our coffees, “what’s going on with your stalker-client? I’m guessing since you’re still not at home and you’re in a crappy mood that he’s still giving you trouble.”
I grimaced and took a sip of my coffee, burning my tongue. I thought I’d been hiding my state of mind better than that. Probably if it had been anyone but Steph, they would have been fooled.
“Yeah,
” I admitted, because there was no reason not to. “The situation’s still complicated.” I gave her a half smile. “And I still can’t talk about it.”
“You ever consider that talking about it might help?”
My half smile turned to a full one, though I doubted Steph would miss the strain behind it. “No, I never considered that possibility.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whoever said ‘no man is an island’ obviously never met you.”
I bit back the urge to go defensive, but it was hard. If she’d been through what I’d been through as a kid, she’d understand why I didn’t make a habit of blabbing out my problems. You learn to talk about your problems when you have a sympathetic ear available. I hadn’t had any truly awful foster parents. No one molested me or beat me, at least not beyond the occasional spanking. But until I’d moved in with the Glasses at age eleven, there’d been no real warmth, either. My fault, entirely. I was one hell of an angry little girl. But by the time I had something like a warm, supportive family environment, I had already settled into the habit of keeping to myself.
Steph reached over and put a hand on my arm, the touch light and brief. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that to hurt. I was just teasing.”
I did my best to shake off the gloom. “I know. I’m just grumpy and not very good company today.”
“Think it might cheer you up if I told you about this new guy I’m seeing?”
I’m sure my eyes lit up at the idea. For all my unworthy jealousy of Steph, I really, truly loved her. I wanted to see her happy, and though so far she hadn’t shown the greatest taste in men, I was always hoping she’d meet Mr. Right.
“Ooh yes, do tell!” I urged.
There was a twinkle in her eye as she smiled at me. She was proud of herself for chasing away the little black thundercloud that had been hovering over my head.
“It’s all very preliminary,” she warned. “Maybe saying I’m ‘seeing’ him is a bit of an exaggeration. I only met him a couple of days ago, and we’ve been on exactly one date.”
“I have a feeling I’ve just been conned,” I muttered, but I couldn’t go back to being as surly as I’d been. I’d much rather talk about Steph’s love life than keep evading her questions about my “stalker.”
“Where and how did you meet? Details, please.”
“You know that little bakery around the corner from my house?”
I nodded. It was the kind of place I didn’t dare set foot in for fear of surrendering to I-want-one-of-everything syndrome.
“Well, I’ve gotten into the habit of going over there every morning. I take my laptop and do a lot of my correspondence. It’s got a nice atmosphere, and it smells heavenly.”
And unlike me, Steph could smell the various pies, cakes, breads, and assorted goodies and resist gorging herself. Just one more reason to hate her.
“Well, Blake came in to pick up a cake he’d ordered, and we got to talking, and …” Steph frowned as she watched my face go white. “What’s wrong?”
“Please tell me his name isn’t Blake Porter.”
“You know him?” she asked, looking both confused and worried. “Oh, God, is he someone you’re interested in?”
“Blake?” I cried with a comical squeak. “Hell no!” The blood that had drained from my face when Steph said Blake’s name came back in a rush, my cheeks heating with rage I did my best to tamp down. “I am going to kill him,” I muttered under my breath, though of course I wasn’t physically capable of killing him. But shooting him a couple more times might turn out to be therapeutic. No wonder he’d taken to playing friendly with me lately—he must have found it really amusing to hold out an olive branch while secretly stabbing me in the back.
“What’s going on?” Steph asked, shaking her head. “This isn’t the stalker guy, is it? Please tell me my taste in men isn’t that bad.”
For a split second, I was tempted to lie, tempted to tell Steph that yes, indeed, Blake was the wannabe client who was making my life miserable and who had indirectly threatened her. I resisted the temptation, but it wasn’t due to any goodwill toward Blake. I just didn’t want Steph to let her guard down because she thought she knew who the bad guy was.
“No, he’s not the guy,” I said through gritted teeth. “But he’s bad news anyway. He’s messed up in this whole business.”
“You’ve got to give me more to go on than that.”
“I can’t,” I told her for the millionth time. She was getting sick of hearing it, and I was getting sick of saying it.
“Fine,” Steph retorted, thumping her coffee cup back down on the table. “If you’re not going to tell me why you think he’s bad news, then there’s no reason for me not to see him again.”
“Please just trust me on this.”
She folded her arms. “I’ve had enough, Nikki. I like Blake a lot, and it’s going to take more than your cryptic warnings to make me give up on him before we even have a chance.”
I wanted to kick the table in frustration. I almost wished Steph really were my biological sister. Then I’d have a good reason to tell her everything I’d learned about Descendants and the Liberi. But that was selfish of me. If I could go back to the days when I’d been blissfully ignorant, I’d have done so in an instant, immortality be damned. I wasn’t going to shatter Steph’s perfect world, even if I thought there was any chance she’d believe me.
“He’s not what he seems, Steph,” I said, knowing I was still being too vague to convince her of anything. “Just like Alexis called me on your phone to get to me, Blake is trying to seduce you to get even with me for … something I did.” I was slipping a bit—I’d almost said “for shooting him,” which would have left me majorly screwed.
Steph pushed back her chair with a loud scrape. “You know, Nikki, the world doesn’t actually revolve around you, no matter what you might think.”
I gaped at her, shocked into silence by her accusation. I didn’t think the world revolved around me. What the hell was she talking about?
“You don’t get to order me around and expect me to do whatever you say just because. I’m an adult, and capable of making my own decisions. You won’t tell me what you think is wrong with Blake? Then I’ll just have to find out for myself.”
“Steph, it’s not—”
“Stop it, okay? I don’t know what kind of power trip you’re on with all these mysterious secrets and threats, but I’m not playing that game anymore. I’m sick to death of being treated like some ditzy blond who can’t handle the truth. You have two choices: tell me the truth, or butt out.”
There was nothing I could say that was going to fix this. I couldn’t explain what Blake was, what he could do, or why he might want to do it. And if I couldn’t explain, Steph was going to ignore any warning I tried to give her.
“I’m just trying to look out for you, Steph,” I told her, though her closed-off expression said she didn’t want to hear anything I had to say just then.
Steph shook her head and picked up her shopping bags. “I know you think I’ve led this easy, charmed life and I need someone stronger and more worldly, like you, to take care of me. I’m sorry you had such a sucky childhood before you became part of our family, but just because I haven’t been through that kind of hell doesn’t make me the weakling you’ve always thought. I don’t need your protection, and I don’t want it, either.”
With one last angry look, Steph headed for the door, leaving me sitting at the table feeling utterly wretched.
FIFTEEN
I drove back to the mansion in something of a daze. I had never seen Steph so angry before. And the things she’d said…
I knew I was carrying around a load of baggage everywhere I went. How could I not have baggage after everything I’d been through as a kid? But I’d never realized how it had affected Steph. I could freely admit to myself that I was jealous of her at times, but I thought I kept those unworthy emotions well hidden. It had never occurred to me that she might have any ill feelings toward me.
Steph had been the ideal older sister from the moment I’d moved into the Glasses’ house. I was a sullen handful of bad behavior during that first year, when I was sure the Glasses would be as temporary as any of my other foster families. Not that we hadn’t ever fought—she was ideal, but she wasn’t perfect, and a saint couldn’t have put up with all the crap I pulled when I first moved in. But she’d never seemed to harbor any real resentment.
Had her words today meant I’d been seeing her through rose-colored glasses this whole time? Deep inside, did she hate me for having usurped a portion of her parents’ love? Surely she didn’t really think I was self-centered. Did she? I mean, I was self-sufficient, but that wasn’t the same thing. I was almost sure of it.
I brooded and wallowed right up until I reached the gates of the mansion. Then, as I waited for the gates to open, I swallowed my hurt feelings and summoned up my righteous indignation. I might not have been able to convince Steph that Blake was bad news, but I could sure as hell make him rue the day he decided to mess with my sister.
I entered the house like a guided missile.
I climbed the stairs two at a time, practically sprinting to my room to get my gun. I hadn’t liked leaving it behind, but I’d worried what Steph would say if she saw it. A physical sensation of relief flowed though me when my hand closed around the butt of the gun, and I cocked it with vicious glee.
I pounded down the stairs to the second floor, angrier than I’d ever been in my life. Angrier even than I’d been when Alexis threatened Steph. It was one thing to have the bad guy make threats; it was another when the supposed good guys did it.
When Maggie had taken me on the tour of the house, we’d only gone through the public rooms, so I didn’t know which of the rooms in the west wing belonged to Blake. Come to think of it, I had no way of knowing if he was even home. That didn’t stop me from marching up to the second door on the left and pounding on it. Don’t ask me why I chose that particular door—it just kinda happened that way.
