“Have you met someone who said this?”
Miranda considered leaving sleeping dogs alone. All she had to do was tell a lie.
“Yes,” she found herself admitting.
“Who?”
“A man calling himself Peter.”
“Peter? Tall, blonde, very handsome?”
“Yes.”
“And he was in Fairfield?”
Miranda wondered how he knew.
“Yes.”
Stroker snapped back into his chair as if attached to elastic. His expression turned grim as he finally took his eyes off of Miranda and stared off into space at an imaginary ghost.
“It is Peter Adduné. It’s he I am after. He is a murderer several times over. Blood is always let where he goes,” Stroker leaned on the elbows he placed on the table. His face softened, but only slightly. The hardened part of Stroker remained as a tenderness was offered to Miranda.
“I knew he would find you. If I figured out the scheme, so would this creature. I am so sorry to say this, but you are my bait. Where you are, he will be. I need to make it so that this predator is no more.”
Peter? A vampire? While there was an air about Peter that set him apart from the crowd, the suggestion was ridiculous. It was more an imperious mannerism that bespoke royalty. He wasn’t common and would never blend into a crowd. She appraised the man sitting across from her. He had been so lucid about the theft. It was hard to imagine that there were two such radically different sides contained within one body, but that was the case. On one hand, Stroker was exceedingly intelligent and rational. On the other, he was a peasant whose mind was filled with lurid half-tales of a forgotten superstition. She didn’t understand. She ran her hand through her loosely, curled hair. It fell becomingly around her face in a torrent of ringlets. She offered him an out.
“But couldn’t there be another explanation?”
“Well,” Stroker started. It was good to see him thinking. Maybe by asking him for other possibilities, it was forcing his intellectual side to kick in. “… I did not see what you did, Mademoiselle. I can’t say for sure it is he. These creatures use living human accomplices. There is someone else that matches the description you gave. A man that Peter uses. He is also blonde and offers a vague resemblance. I have seen neither personally. It is why I struggle as I rely on other’s descriptions. The last I heard this other man was in Europe.”
“What is his name?”
“He often calls himself Peter, and that is the problem. He poses as his master and his name is whatever suits him. You see, he is human and wants to become a vampire. Vampires sometimes use humans in this way. If they meet someone that is willing to give up their soul for a miserable waking eternity, they offer this person the recourse to prove their worthiness. They have them run errands and perform tasks too dangerous or inconvenient for them to accomplish – like being out in the daytime.”
“But I thought you said .. “
“I said they could walk in the daytime, but they do not like direct sunlight. They are weak in it. They can be bested and beaten. They feel vulnerable and human. They do not relish that feeling.”
Miranda realized she was not going to inject logic into that part of Stroker’s mind, filled as it was with myth and legend. It was useless. She’d gotten what she needed. All that was required was for her to humor him – and then leave.
“Oh, I see.”
“Now this man Peter uses has yet to prove himself. You see, from what I have learned, it was he that tracked down the caretaker that allowed the robbery to happen. The caretaker was another human that Peter used. He had a predilection towards too much alcohol and was passed out during the time your father ransacked the property. This new man was assigned to tear him limb from limb to prove his worth which he did. His next challenge was to find the stolen property and devise a plan of revenge to be unleashed on your father and your family.”
“What?”
Stroker’s hand patted hers in a soothing manner.
“I am sorry to alarm you, but I mean to. I do not want you to dismiss what I have to say as you’ve dismissed my vampire tales …”
Stroker’s statement startled her. She’d thought she’d successfully covered her true feelings, but he knew. He knew that inside she was mocking the entire idea.
“I wasn’t doing that …”
“Please. No redundant excuses. I am used to much ridicule and suffer from intellectuals who commend themselves as being too smart and too cosmopolitan to believe such nonsense, but it is not nonsense. You are in grave danger … no, I mean were in grave danger. For I am here and I can assure you that I will not let anything happen to you. Peter Adduné will get what is coming to him; I will deliver it to him – personally. I would like to say that I am doing it for you, but it is for my father and my mother. He is responsible and I swear that he will not get away with their murders.”
A waiter at Miranda’s side cleared his throat, jarring Miranda into reality. The other diners had long since finished and gone home. The restaurant was deserted except for Stroker and herself at the corner table. She’d wasted enough time and seized the opportunity to escape more of Stroker’s fanciful suppositions. She pulled her hand back and reached for her purse.
“I am sorry. We’re quite finished. Please bring me the bill.”
Miranda took out her compact and gave herself a quick onceover. She heard Stroker speak over the clatter of dishes.
“You should not be paying for anything, Mademoiselle. It was I who invited you to dinner.”
“I insist,” Miranda stated emphatically as she replaced her compact and retrieved her wallet. She fingered a credit card as she signed the bill. She placed it on the tray and gave it to the waiter.
“Well, then please at least do not forget about me. Call anytime, day or night. I am at your disposal for it is you that will give me my greatest moment. Through you, I will finally kill Peter Adduné.”
She’d had enough. She stood up hoping to end this conversation once and for all. Stroker was on his feet in a flash. He was almost the same height as Peter.
“Yes, I have your card. If I need anything, I will call.”
Stroker bowed from the waist He lingered and gave the impression of someone that was reluctant to go.
“Was there something else you wanted?”
“No, well, yes. Please at least don’t throw my card away just yet. I know it is tempting and that you feel justified in discarding what you think is insanity, but I ask you this question. Did you not feel it was just as irrational to believe your father was a thief?”
He’d gotten it out. Miranda had wanted so badly for logic to kick into Stroker’s thoughts, and it had. He was so right about what he said, but she hadn’t expected logic to be used against her.
She watched Stroker stride across the restaurant in long, relentless strides – his footsteps beating out his frustration over her inability to believe. The waiter smiled and handed back Miranda’s card to her. The mundane nature of the exchange validated Miranda’s world view that vampires only existed in the troubled minds of little boys whose parents were killed before their time. They played no part in Miranda’s life – and certainly not in her plans for the evening. She hoped those plans included one incredibly, very sexy man named Peter. He certainly had an apology coming his way and possibly something even more personal – if only he played his cards just right.
CHAPTER 31
By the time Miranda got back to Tiffany’s apartment, she felt drained – both physically and mentally. She’d decided to walk from the restaurant to help sort through her thoughts. While she accepted the sin of her father without apology or excuses, the other matter was troubling. She’d managed to shake off the brunt of what Stroker told her about the Addunés and their alleged identity, but she couldn’t summarily dislodge it completely from her frontal cortex. Perhaps it was the dreams, or perhaps the need to embellish upon fantasy. Then again, it could be a little like original sin. Once com
mitted, it can never be gotten rid of entirely. This analogy added to the shockwaves of uncertainty running through her. She was uncomfortable even considering that something out there was larger than she was. Miranda liked to be in charge. In fact, she relished it. It made dealing with the idea of vampires existing disquieting. It wasn’t something she was prepared to deal with, but she didn’t really have a choice. Her mind was in hyperdrive trying to vanquish the loose ends so they didn’t get caught around her feet and drag her down.
She went through it one more time – trying her best to rationalize what Stroker had told her about myths and legends. She wanted to dismiss it out of existence, but it was easier said than done. Things weren’t lining up in a row that could be toppled over. If Stroker were only guilty of the crime of spreading rumor and innuendo, it would be one thing, but there was Reginald to consider. She knew the imagination was capable of conjuring many non-realities into being and wished it were the case here. But if she believed that, then that would leave the unlikely happenstance of four separate, unconnected individuals spouting off about the identical absurd subject. How could that be possible? There was Figgs and Herb Pinckus. She didn’t know them and that made rejection of what they had to say on this particular subject, relatively easy. Stroker was someone new in Miranda’s life, so she could lump him with the first two. That left Reginald – she couldn’t say the same of him and therein laid the crux of the problem.
Reggie was a godfather, surrogate father, brother, and mentor. He had been someone her father had befriended and trusted. He had relied on him and Reginald had been consistent. How could all that have vanished overnight? It couldn’t, but then neither could vampires be real. Reginald was that lynchpin that held it all together. She would have much preferred to tag the others insane and gone about her business. It didn’t help that their stories matched and backed one another up. Wait! There was another – Sy Feldman. He saw the coffin that Pinckus shipped to Fairfield. She wished he hadn’t, but he did. Then there was the theft to contend with. As Stroker pointed out, she had been ready to deny that out of existence and yet it was true. And it had been Reginald that had borne the brunt of being in the untenable position of bearer of bad news.
Miranda reached the crossroads in logic. She stood at the stoplight wondering which way she should turn. Should she veer in making the turn into a world of dark supernatural nightmares? Or continue straight ahead in her logical, orderly existence where the only thing real was her family, her friends, and the potential for unmitigated, unlimited happiness?
Miranda knew full well which path she wanted to travel, but that didn’t make it true. She needed to talk to someone else – pick their brain since she felt she’d parsed the subject to death. Reginald was eliminated. He was part of this problem. So was her mother. She could never open up this can of worms with her. Chase? No, Chase would never do. Chase had never fully reconciled his feelings towards their dad. Then there was his drinking. Yes, eventually Miranda would tell him, but in her own good time and after there was a conclusion to this melodrama, and not before. Oddly enough, her father’s brief fall from grace might be the broom that swept Chase’s mind clear of the cobwebs of inadequacy. Chase would have found that flaw in his father that he had searched for all his life. In a way, it might humanize him in a way that reason wouldn’t. It would also be an object lesson in how to handle a mistake that turns into an abject failure. Their father had done it by getting up after his fall. If only Chase could assimilate it properly, it quite possibly could set him free.
Miranda stood empty-handed after this final elimination of a possible sounding board. There was no one. No one except the one person that Miranda felt she could trust with this kind of explosive information. A person with excellent analytical skills, a level head, and someone even more stubborn and determined than she was – Tiffany.
She strode off the elevator feeling conflicted and constricted. She needed to purge herself of unneeded accoutrements. She used her own keys to open Tiffany’s front door. No use having Tiffany wait on her needlessly. She entered the posh pad, kicking off her shoes. They hit the tile with a mild clatter. She peeled off the borrowed suit jacket and let it drop onto a velvety chair. She walked barefooted further into the apartment looking for her friend.
“Tiff,” she called out.
“In here, chickie!”
Miranda rounded the corner that led to the spacious kitchen. Her friend was seated at the glass-topped table – bent over a cup of steaming hot tea. She had pencil in hand playing yet another game of Sudoku.
“Hey, chickie!” Tiffany bubbled looking up and giving Miranda a winning smile. The somber look on Miranda’s face told Tiffany everything she needed to know. The reciprocal, weak smile only reinforced that it must have been a hellish evening for her friend. She opted for approaching the subject tactfully. She tapped her wristwatch playfully.
“Must have been some conversation! I was wondering what happened to you.”
“Yes, well, I’ve had gynecological exams that have been more pleasant.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Miranda dropped her bag to the floor and then reached down and gave her friend a long, sisterly hug
“My friend, I will love you forever,” she uttered as she kissed the top of Tiffany’s head smoothing out any damage done.
“Me, too, chickie. Me, too.”
Miranda relinquished her hold on Tiffany. She sat in the chair adjacent to her.
“Want some tea? The water’s still hot.”
“It would be lovely.”
Miranda rubbed her thumb and forefinger into her brow using her hand as a visor. Tiffany took down an oversized ceramic mug and dropped in a tea bag of Miranda’s favorite blend. The end of an Earl Gray teabag hung expectantly on the outside waiting for water to bring its contents to life. Miranda felt much the same way. She knew that it was family business that she was about to reveal, but as far as she as concerned, Tiffany was family. Maybe not by blood, but by her actions. Miranda liked to think of it as being a member by choice and that was the best kind.
Still a part of Miranda desired to hold back and exclude Tiffany from ever knowing. She knew it was because it involved her father. There was a side of Miranda that jealously guarded him and this was the side reluctant to discuss the matter because it showed him in a bad light. Miranda didn’t ever expect to be in a position to say anything that might harm his reputation, but then if she were being honest, he’d done that to himself. It was her dad that had been the one foolish enough to go on that stupid vampire hunting expedition. Miranda now saw those words for what they were. She knew why he’d used them. It was because they carried her father’s humor in it. It was so clear to her it was a private joke that only her father and his hired guns were in on. She wondered how her father had learned that the castle was deserted. Had the brothers contacted him or the reverse? The other possibility was that he really only intended to go on an antique hunting tour and had run across that opportunity. Her father never let one go by.
At this point Miranda, could build cases for all scenarios. She wasn’t sure who had initiated the idea. She knew her father had dealings with the Sokolovs before this larcenous one. She could well imagine the humor welling up inside her father when he repeated those words to Reginald, knowing inside that he was going to make a sweep of what was thought to be a deserted castle. And the town gossip that the castle was rumored to be inhabited by vampires was understandable. Wasn’t every abandoned house in the world thought by its neighbors to be haunted? Miranda wondered what it was about unoccupied houses that made fear rise to the surface in such an imaginative way. She couldn’t come to any quick conclusions about that, but she did see the rumor adding to her father’s certainty that the castle was abandoned. He had an even more pronounced attitude and certainty in the here and now than she did. He would have laughed off any reference to ghosts, werewolves, or vampires. It would have made it easier for him to savage the resid
ence with impunity and careless disregard of the law.
Tiffany sat down the steaming cup of tea in front of Miranda. Miranda’s misgivings were gone. She was so ready to talk – even about her father. She’d even show Tiffany the fake appraisal she transported around in her purse. It would validate the claim that her father was a thief and that he tried to cover his tracks rather than put things right. Miranda loved him so much that she forgave him his one mistake. After all, how many had he forgiven in her? And his family? He loved them all unconditionally and setting this one sin right was the least she could do to repay him for all the love and the support he had showered on her during his lifetime.
Adduné (The Vampire's Game) Page 45