Jefferson’s gaze darted between the two of us, and I caught a calculating look in his eye that wasn’t at all familiar.
“All right,” he said, nodding and looking much too agreeable. “Just so you’re aware of your mother’s concerns and the possible stress that she’s under—” Surely he wouldn’t dare, but I tried to catch his eye, just in case he would. He ignored me and continued, “I’ve refused to answer her questions about a burgeoning drug problem she’s concerned you might have.”
My hand flew up to pat my perfectly coiffed hair, and I knew the small gasp I heard was my own.
Talented tongue and magical hands notwithstanding, I might just have to kill that man.
Chapter Four
The kitchen and a vase for the flowers called. Mostly because I couldn’t face my daughter. What if I were wrong and this terrible pall had been created for nothing?
Worse—what if I were right?
And for this shadow to be cast so blatantly over a holiday meal—I was going to kill Jefferson. I had never known him to be so insensitive, so inappropriate. I shoved the drawer that had contained the florist scissors with too much force, and it closed with a sharp thud.
That man. Months we’d spent together. He knew how important my daughter was to me. He knew she and I hadn’t been close lately. I could throttle him.
I started to split the stems, but my hand was shaking, so I dropped the scissors.
And where was the handsome devil? He should be here apologizing, begging my forgiveness for his terrible lapse in judgment.
Rummaging through the shelves, I found the perfect vase, and then made myself spend the next several minutes tweaking the flowers until they were just so—plenty of time for him to come and check on me. Plenty of time for him to formulate a heartfelt apology.
But when I’d placed one particular white rose in its fourth and least attractive position, I realized the terrible man wasn’t going to apologize. And I was going to have to face my daughter at some point.
So I tidied up the mess, found the perfect place for that innocent white rose, and picked up the arrangement.
Time to face the music.
When I returned to the formal living room, I found the three of them gathered tightly together, looking for all the world as if they were plotting something nefarious.
A truly terrible thought occurred. It was drugs, and they were all in it together. Jefferson’s income was a mystery—a lady did not inquire when the information was not offered—and he was my daughter’s roommate. He claimed he enjoyed the company, but the house was really very small for someone with his income.
And this Alex Valois, he and Jefferson knew each other long before Mallory had come into the picture.
Mallory’s reluctance to discuss her new work, her roommate who could afford his own home but continued to share hers, a gentleman friend who also had mysterious employment…
That was it. Alex, Jefferson, and Mallory were manufacturing and selling drugs. And Mallory must have gotten hooked, hence all the weight loss.
My daughter and drugs. My eyes burned.
“Mom?” Mallory saw that I’d returned and left her little band of drug-manufacturing thugs. “Don’t get upset. It’s not at all what you’re thinking.”
I willed the tears away. This was Christmas. Christmas Eve dinner was not a place for tears and confrontations. For which Jefferson should be thankful. I targeted him with the look of impending doom.
“We’re not discussing this now. Right now, we’re having Christmas dinner.”
The table was set, the food already prepared except for a few final touches—if one could call it food. Maybe drug dealers and druggies had strange food cravings? Or bizarre dietary needs?
I decided to forgo the preprandial niceties. Aperitifs might be de rigueur, but that involved making small talk…with a bunch of drug dealers. Much better to have a table of food between me and them.
“Please, have a seat in the dining room. Mallory will show you the way. I’ll just be a moment in the kitchen.” I didn’t consider myself a particularly cowardly woman, but one was allowed a graceful retreat when entertaining possible criminals. Or so I assumed. I’d only ever hosted the one, and Alan Smith-Sanderson had been suspected of a white-collar crime—fraud, perhaps?—at the time. Not at all the same thing.
Once in the kitchen, I took a few deep breaths, patted my hair into place, and served up the soup course. The first soup course. Who ever heard of multiple courses of soup? It really wasn’t done. But a good hostess does not question the needs of her guests, she simply accommodates them.
Before loading them on the serving tray, I peeked in on the individual servings of vegan fondue that were baking in the oven, and turned the temperature down.
Vegan fondue—who would have thought? But Jefferson had given me the name of the cheese to use, a neighbor had provided the recipe, and the test batch had been surprisingly edible.
It was time to return to my guests and serve the soup. I was going to put a good face on this if it killed me. I stopped to catch my breath as panic hit. For all I knew, this could be the last Christmas I had with Mallory on the outside. My little girl could be incarcerated this time next year.
That thought could not enter my head or I’d ruin Christmas dinner by crying.
As I returned with the serving tray of soup, I heard Alex say, “You should tell her. You only have a certain amount of time left before—” He stopped abruptly when he saw me enter.
Alex immediately stood, took the tray from me, and placed it on the side table. What drug dealer was ever so polite? Though I didn’t have much of a pool for comparison. I gestured for him to have a seat and served the soup. And as I sat down, I said, “Apple and squash soup. I hope you enjoy it.”
There were murmurs of appreciation all around the table, which I accepted with a smile. But Alex’s comment wouldn’t fade away. It kept tapping away in my mind. Mallory only had so much time…limited time…weight loss…a special diet.
And then I realized, and the world fell out from under my feet. “Oh my God. It’s not drugs. You’re dying.”
I couldn’t breathe. I was fifty-nine and losing everything. My little girl was dying.
Chapter Five
“Mother! I’m not dying.” Mallory turned to Alex and said, “I told you this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come.”
Now that caught my attention. My eyes narrowed. “Not come to Christmas dinner? When you might not”—my breath caught on a sob—“when you might not be here next Christmas?”
She was breaking my heart all over again. And just when I’d seen a spark of connection—oh, I wanted to cry. This was the worst Christmas ever, worse even than the year we hosted Edward’s corporate Christmas party and the neighbors had erected a giant glowing snow globe in the yard. My mother must be turning over in her grave in shame.
“Mom.” Mallory knelt next to my chair. She took my hand—the one that wasn’t clutching my linen napkin and dabbing at the tears slowly leaking from my eyes. “Mom, listen to me. I’m not dying. I’m not sick.” She sighed. “Not exactly. Well, sort of.”
I hiccuped. I knew it. She was sick. Why else all the liquids? And vegan cheese? My nose wrinkled involuntarily. No one ate vegan cheese because they wanted to. Did they? Although the trial run of the fondue had been quite tasty…
“I might have kept things from you in the past, but I don’t lie, not about the important things. I never have.” She squeezed my fingers. “You remember what I said when you talked to me about Dad? You were worried that your marital problems were having some kind of horrible effect on my life, so you sat me down to talk about what was about to happen.” A look of amusement crossed her face. “Even though I was well into my thirties.”
A watery chuckle escaped my lips, taking me by surprise. Even with the threat of a serious illness in my daughter’s future, I still found that conversation surprising and funny. That had been the first hint at my daughter’s deeply
buried and little-used sense of humor.
I dabbed at the corners of my eyes again. “You gave me a top-ten list of reasons to leave your father.” I peeked up at her. “You know, I still have that list.” I smirked as I recalled numbers three and seven, relating specifically to physical attributes of Lawrence and his latest floozy—Candy.
“See. I was brutally honest then, and I’m being honest with you now. I’m not dying. Not today, and”—she shared a glance with Jefferson—“probably not for a very long time. Are we good? Can I go eat the rest of that fabulous soup you made, preferably before it’s cold?”
I sniffed. “It’s quite tasty chilled, actually, though with the weather what it is, warm is so much better.” I sat up straighter. “Of course. Please, go eat your soup, honey.”
But I wasn’t comforted. Well, perhaps I was a bit, but only a little bit. If death wasn’t immediately in the offing, then maybe it was drugs and incarceration that I had to worry about. Or some terrible, lingering illness. Maybe she wasn’t going to die immediately, but would waste away over a course of years?
She finished her soup and asked if she might help herself to seconds.
My eyes narrowed as I agreed she might. Perhaps not wasting away, but something was wrong with my daughter.
As I tried to get my breath—my daughter was not dying—I peered at the mysterious Alex. So Alex had told Mallory to fess up to her mother. Handsome, excellent taste in wine, met minimally acceptable standards for appearance and attire, not flat broke (the wine had been quite expensive), and encouraged open lines of communication with her mother. Oh, Mallory needed to keep this one…so long as he wasn’t the head of some drug cartel.
When she returned with a second bowl for both herself and Alex, I found I’d only finished half of my own. Nothing to do with the soup, which was quite tasty. There might be something to this vegan diet, if one did the appropriate research and knew the right people to ask. Suzanne from two doors down had given me this and another recipe that had vied for a place on the menu. I hadn’t even known Suzanne was a vegan, but apparently she’d joined the ranks not long after one of her teenage children had started refusing to eat anything that came from an animal.
I set down my spoon. I just couldn’t finish the soup—tasty or not. Not when I didn’t know what in the world was happening with my daughter. I excused myself to check on the vegan fondue, and returned a few minutes later with the tiny pots of faux cheese. I hoped it was filling enough to warrant its place on the menu as the entrée. We only had a light consommé and dessert drinks to follow.
After serving the individual pots, Alex and I used the tiny toasts and various vegetables arranged at intervals across the table to dip into the fondue. Jefferson and Mallory ate it much like a soup. Could my poor little girl not eat any solids at all? I’d thought that a mild exaggeration when she told me.
What little appetite I had left fled as I tried to parse the puzzle of my daughter’s illness. What could possible cause such odd symptoms?
I glanced up to find Jefferson sending Mallory critical looks interspersed with intense interest in his fondue.
Finally, Mallory caught his eye and, with her lips pinched, shook her head.
Jefferson set aside his fondue and pushed his chair back a few inches. Looking between me and Mallory, his face took on a grim cast, and my heart did an erratic little hop-skip in my chest.
Jefferson closed his eyes, muttered something to do with Odin, then said, “Oh, please put everyone here out of their misery, Mallory, and just tell the poor woman.”
And my daughter growled. Right there at the dinner table, like a heathen with no manners.
I frowned at her. “Mallory—”
“Mom, I’m a vampire.”
I blinked at her and shook my head. “Pardon me?”
My daughter, who until this moment had only shown signs of anxiety and mild obsessive-compulsive order, said once more, “I’m a vampire.”
My sweet little girl wasn’t dying.
She was bonkers.
Chapter Six
“Bourbon milk punch for dessert, anyone?” To heck with the consommé. I needed liquor. I looked around the table, waiting for replies.
Jefferson and Alex both nodded, so I turned to Mallory with my hostess mask firmly in place. “It’s made with almond milk, darling. Would you like some?”
She was pinching her lips together, something I recognized from her childhood. She used to do that when she had a secret. This could not be good. Not if there was still more to tell.
How did one have one’s child committed? Maybe Alex would know. He worked in that field, didn’t he? Although—I peeked at Alex and Wembley from under my lashes as I pretended to fold my napkin. They both looked much too sanguine, given Mallory’s revelation. Were they involved somehow with her delusion?
“Wembley’s a vampire, too!” Mallory blurted, then blushed a fiery red and mouthed, “I’m sorry,” to Wembley.
Group delusion? Prank? They were all on drugs right now?
I set my napkin to the side of my barely touched fondue. “I’ll just go fetch those drinks, why don’t I?”
For the life of me, I couldn’t meet a single eye in the room. I slipped out of my seat and made a hasty retreat to the kitchen.
I loved my kitchen. It was a place where I was in control. It was modern and tidy. The fixtures gleamed. Everything had its proper place.
Where was the proper place for a daughter who thought she was a vampire?
And didn’t vampires drink blood? Maybe those were last-century vampires. Maybe the vampires of today were juicers, hence Mallory’s liquid diet preferences.
I retrieved a tea towel and my lavender water. After liberally spritzing the towel, I sat down at the kitchen table, leaned back, and covered my entire face with the scented towel. I just needed a moment of lavender-imbued silence to contemplate the situation.
I wasn’t hiding. A good hostess would never hide from her guests.
Several slow and measured breaths later, I removed the towel. I was hiding, and it was lovely. But I couldn’t hide forever, I had guests.
I needed to approach this problem in a calm and logical fashion.
Set up an evaluation for Mallory with…who was that man that Suzanne’s other daughter, not the vegan one, started to see when she had her breakdown? Dr. Dinmeyer? Or was it Dinmann? Whoever, Suzanne swore by the man. I’d get his information from her after Christmas. But what to do today? Now?
And with relief, I realized I knew exactly what to do. I’d told my guests I was fetching drinks, and that was exactly what I would do.
For the moment, I needed to prepare those drinks. I could work on the problem as I prepped. I snuck a sip, then another. Maybe things would look better after I just finished off this one drink.
When a strategy didn’t present itself after I’d finished my second milk punch, I decided that additional information was required. I needed to find out if my daughter was dangerous. How far from reality had she stepped, and what were these delusions pushing her to do?
Maybe it was all quite harmless, like a personality quirk. Great-Auntie Lula had always been a bit eccentric, and while there had been whispers, she certainly had never been committed…so far as I knew.
Or maybe it was a lifestyle choice. This was the twenty-first century, and embracing different lifestyles was what one did. Vampirism didn’t seem to quite fit that category, but I hardly kept up with all the latest trends.
Drinks prepared and my third milk punch long gone, I headed back to the dining room with my investigative hat on and the drinks tray in my hands. As I passed the lavender-scented tea towel on my way out, I gave it a final wistful glance.
I’d wanted to know what was happening with my daughter. And now that I knew, I was glad. Not that she’d lost her grip with reality, of course, but glad that the problem was out in the open. We could start to deal with it.
Or not.
Because the dining room was empty
when I returned. Empty. As in, no guests present. They weren’t all just crackers, they were heathens.
Should I look for the wayward bunch of vampires? Except Alex hadn’t been slapped with the label. Mallory had only indicated Jefferson in her group delusion. Alex had gone along with it, but…
Oh, I was tired. I was too old to keep up with the trends kids followed these days. That was my last hope, that this was some kind of trend. Otherwise, I didn’t see any other way. Mallory would have to be committed.
And then they trooped back in the room, the whole lot of them—and an extra one.
“Hello?” I rose to my feet in dismay. This small family event had just completely spiraled out of control. Strangers were appearing uninvited at the dinner table.
The tiny blond woman was wearing an appalling Christmas sweater and a very put-upon expression. “I’m sorry to intrude, but these idiots seem to have created an unpleasant situation”—she turned to glare at the threesome—“and thought I might be able to help.”
My eyebrows climbed. “Are you a vampire as well?”
She hesitated then said firmly, “No.”
A whoosh of relief swept through me. Small favors. Now if she’d just explain what she was doing in my home—
A hopeful look crossed her face when she saw the drinks. “Is that milk punch?”
“Yes, with bourbon,” I replied with my best hostess smile. Even uninvited strangers should be made to feel welcome—at least, that seemed best until I sorted out who she was and what exactly she was doing in my home. “It’s the vegan variety. Would you like a glass?” When she seemed unsure, I prompted her to have a seat. “Please. Mallory will fetch you a glass.”
Mallory didn’t hesitate. It was like she grew wings, she was gone so quickly.
Before seating herself, the woman said, “My name is Star, ah, Stephanie Kawolski, and it’s kind of you to have me. Especially so unexpectedly.” She shot Wembley and Alex a nasty look.
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