by Lynsay Sands
Ten
“She’s not here,” Wyatt said quietly behind her as Elspeth walked into the empty guest room. “Neither are her clothes or her luggage.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see that he was standing by the door, his gaze moving around the room, including the empty closet visible through the open bifold doors.
“She must have finished packing and headed down to the basement apartment while we were in the kitchen,” Elspeth said thoughtfully.
“Doesn’t seem like her. I’d have expected her to at least make us carry her luggage down,” Wyatt commented, moving up beside her.
“At least,” Elspeth agreed.
“She went down after your sisters joined us in the kitchen, or they would have mentioned she’d left,” he pointed out.
Elspeth merely nodded, and then gasped in surprise when he scooped her up in his arms. Grabbing for his shoulders, she protested, “I can walk.”
“It’ll be faster if I carry you, and I need to be sure she didn’t leave the door unlocked,” he explained as he hurried out of the room and up the hall.
“Of course she didn’t,” Elspeth said calmly. “She’s the one who’s overprotective and . . .”
Her words died as they reached the front entry hall and saw that the door was unlocked.
“She came out and overheard the conversation in the kitchen and now knows you know,” Wyatt said with certainty.
“What makes you say that?” she asked curiously, reaching out for the wall to balance herself when he set her on her feet and moved over to lock the door.
“It’s the only reason she’d leave and not think to lock the door when she knows someone is trying to kill you,” he reasoned.
“Maybe. Or maybe she was just using the attack as an excuse to regain control of me and doesn’t really think I’m in much danger,” she murmured, and when he glanced to her in question, she pointed out, “Well, whoever pushed me in front of that car couldn’t have been an immortal. Any immortal would know that wouldn’t kill me, so it had to have been a mortal, which means they aren’t much of a threat.”
“You don’t consider mere mortals a threat?” he asked, his gaze narrowing as he walked back to her.
Elspeth got the distinct impression he felt insulted by the idea that she might not think him dangerous, so said honestly, “You would be. You know how to kill us. Most mortals don’t though. Most don’t even know we exist.”
Appearing somewhat mollified, he nodded and scooped her up to carry her into the kitchen.
“Ellie!”
“Elspeth!”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I’m fine,” Elspeth said quickly as Sam, Alex, and the twins rushed forward to crowd around Wyatt as he carried her to a chair.
“Do you have any bandages here?” Wyatt asked as he straightened.
“Bandages are a waste of money,” Alex assured him as she retrieved a bag of blood from the refrigerator. “It will close quickly. It’s already stopped bleeding.”
“Thank you,” Elspeth murmured as she took the bag and slapped it to her mouth.
“Mother didn’t do this, did she?” Julianna asked with a frown.
“No,” Wyatt answered for her. “Elspeth stabbed herself.”
“What?” Alex asked with amazement. “Why would you do that?”
Elspeth rolled her eyes above the bag at her mouth and again it was Wyatt who answered.
“She was able to resist Martine’s control the other night because she was in pain, so she thought if she stabbed herself . . .”
“Martine couldn’t control her,” Sam finished for him on a sigh, and then raised one eyebrow. “So? Did it work?”
“She wasn’t there,” Wyatt said quietly. “The room was empty and she and her belongings were gone.”
“Really?” Julianna asked with surprise. “She hadn’t come out before we came into the kitchen.”
“Yeah, and she isn’t likely to leave without us,” Victoria said dryly. “She usually doesn’t let us out of her sight for more than a couple minutes.”
Elspeth shifted her gaze to Wyatt and gave him a meaningful look.
“You’re thinking she overheard the conversation we were having and knows we know about her controlling you and getting between you and Wyatt,” Alex said quietly.
“It makes sense,” Victoria commented. “Something made her leave.”
They were all silent until the bag emptied, but as Elspeth pulled it from her teeth, Julianna asked, “You don’t think Dad knows what she did, do you?”
“No way,” Victoria said at once. “But I do wonder what she told him about what was going on when Elspeth was missing.”
“Hmm,” Elspeth murmured. She wondered about that herself.
“You don’t think she’s the one behind the attacks, do you?” Alex asked suddenly, and when everyone turned to peer at her blankly, she said, “Well, the attacks started the night your mother got here, and they’re pretty weak attempts. I mean, neither attack would have killed you. And it was the perfect excuse for her to track you and even get guards put on you so that if you escape her, she can track you through us. All she has to do now is call Mortimer to find out where you are. Right?”
Elspeth stared at her silently. The suggestion wasn’t actually that crazy. If her mother would get between her and her life mate to maintain her control over her, who was to say she wouldn’t feign attacks on her to regain that control? Except—“The stabbing was a mortal with a mental illness, and the tip that came in about him was two or three days old when I went to check him out. Mother and the girls weren’t here two days earlier.”
“Then maybe that wasn’t part of it,” Sam suggested. “Maybe it just gave her the idea and she arranged the second attempt to give her ammunition to convince you to return to England, where you’d be safer.”
“Oh come on,” Victoria said with a frown. “I know Mother is . . .” She shrugged helplessly, and then said, “But having you attacked and hurt that badly? I don’t think so. There are just lines you don’t cross.”
“And getting between me and my life mate isn’t crossing those lines?” Elspeth asked dryly, and then added, “I’m not sure she has any limits. Mother tried to make me bite Wyatt for blood at Meredith’s when we had dinner there. She controlled him to get him on the porch, and then tried to make me bite him.”
“What?” Julianna asked, obviously shocked.
Elspeth nodded, but then said, “Still, I don’t think she was behind my being pushed into traffic. G.G. said it was a man.”
“She could have controlled someone and made them push you,” Sam pointed out.
Elspeth shook her head. “She wasn’t there. She was back at the house with Meredith and the girls.”
“With Meredith,” Julianna corrected her, and then explained, “She sent Victoria and me upstairs with our chicken after you and Wyatt left, and she stayed downstairs with Meredith alone for a while.”
Elspeth stiffened. “How long?”
Julianna and Victoria looked at each other and then Victoria shrugged and said, “An hour. Maybe more.”
“That’s long enough for her to have got downtown and back,” Wyatt pointed out quietly. He took the empty bag she held, walked over to throw it out in the garbage next to the refrigerator, and then retrieved another bag of blood before returning.
“But we were inside The Night Club for a good fifteen or twenty minutes, maybe even half an hour, and I was in there alone for five or ten minutes before that,” she pointed out as he walked back. “It would have taken her at least an hour and a half to get there, make someone push me, and get back. I don’t think it was her.”
“Okay.” Wyatt nodded and held out the bag to her.
“Thank you,” Elspeth murmured, taking the blood bag.
“You’re welcome,” Wyatt assured her and then said, “If it’s not your mother then we need a pen and some paper. Do you have any?”
“In that drawer next to the sink
,” Elspeth told him, gesturing with the blood bag. “Why?”
“Because,” he said, opening the drawer and retrieving the items. “You can write down the names of every mortal you know in Toronto while you feed on the blood.”
“There’s no need for a pen and pad, then,” Elspeth assured him with amusement as he set both before her. “It’s a short list.”
“How short?” he asked.
Elspeth picked up the pen, quickly wrote two names and handed it to him.
“Wyatt, G.G., and Meredith,” he read and then lowered the pad to stare at her. “That’s it?”
“I’ve only been here six weeks,” she pointed out defensively. “And most of that time I’ve either been unpacking, working, or visiting with your grandmother. It’s not like I’ve been joining social clubs or visiting the bar scene or anything. Not that I would anyway.”
“Why do you want to know what mortals she knows?” Sam asked curiously.
“Because if it’s not Martine, then it’s a mortal. As Elspeth pointed out to me earlier, an immortal would know pushing her into traffic wouldn’t kill her.”
“Oh!” Alex said with surprise, and then grinned and congratulated her, “Good one, Elspeth. None of the Enforcers picked up on that. Not even Mortimer.”
“If you’re looking for a mortal who might want to kill her, you might consider Violet and Oscar,” Victoria suggested solemnly.
Elspeth’s eyes widened in surprise. “You read their minds and got that they want to kill me?”
“No,” Victoria wrinkled her nose. “I would never willingly put myself in his perverted mind. But while Violet seems all-right-ish, Oscar’s creepy and I wouldn’t put it past him to push you into traffic if you rebuffed one of his pervy advances.”
“What about that woman who was originally in the downstairs apartment?” Julianna asked. “You got her arrested. Maybe she got out on bail and wants revenge.”
Elspeth shook her head. “Madeleine-Nina wasn’t going to be let out on bail. They said she had already proven herself a flight risk,” she assured them. “As for Oscar and Violet, I’d only ever met them a couple times in passing before the night we had dinner together. Besides, Wyatt sent them both home in a taxi before we left for The Night Club, and I’m quite sure G.G. would have mentioned if the pusher was a geriatric who shuffled off like Oscar would.”
“He said they ran off,” Wyatt announced.
“Oh,” Victoria said with disappointment.
“But you didn’t list Oscar and Violet, or even Madeleine when you listed the mortals you know,” Julianna pointed out. “Maybe there are other mortals you’re not thinking of.”
“Julianna’s right.” Wyatt sat down at the table next to her, drew the pad in front of him, and then picked up the pen. “So maybe we should go through this logically.”
“What does that mean?” Alex asked.
“Go through it day by day,” Wyatt explained, and then asked Elspeth, “You flew here, right?”
She nodded.
“Did you take a taxi from the airport to here?” he asked.
Elspeth shook her head. “I rented a car. I knew I’d need a vehicle to get around until I bought myself one.”
“So you talked to someone at the car rental agency,” Sam said in an ah-ha! voice.
“I did,” Elspeth admitted and Wyatt scribbled car rental agent on the pad. “But it was a woman, and G.G. said a guy pushed me into traffic.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt agreed, and then gestured to the blood bag she still held. “Get busy with that and we’ll ask yes and no questions until you’re done.”
Elspeth grimaced, but popped the bag to her fangs.
“Okay, the car rental person is out,” Wyatt said, crossing out the entry. “So you drove the rental here, met my grandmother, got your keys, and came up to your apartment?”
Elspeth nodded.
“And then what did you do?” Wyatt asked, turning the pen in his hands.
“She went food shopping,” Alex answered for her, obviously reading her thoughts now. “Write down grocery cashier, Wyatt.”
“Okay,” Wyatt wrote, and then raised his head and asked, “What happened next?”
“She went to bed,” Alex answered for her.
“So the next day, did you do anything before going to the Enforcer House?” Wyatt asked.
Elspeth pulled the now empty bag away with relief. “Yes, I did. I went furniture shopping and met a very nice salesman. But other than cashiers and salesmen, the only other mortals I have encountered since coming here were the moving men and the wife of the mentally ill patient who stabbed me. But she’s female, and no doubt still in the hospital from her husband’s stabbing her, so it can’t be her.” She crumpled the empty bag in her hand, walked to the garbage, and tossed it in, adding, “This is a waste of time. I hardly think I managed to piss off a cashier, salesman, or even the moving men to the point that they’d start stalking me, trail me downtown, and push me into traffic.”
“Probably not, but that only leaves your mother controlling someone and making them do it,” Wyatt pointed out, and then frowned when she headed for the door rather than the table. “Where are you going?”
“To change my clothes before the bloodstained side of my pants dries and glues itself to my skin,” she muttered, pushing though the swinging kitchen door.
“Elspeth, wait!” Julianna cried.
Pausing halfway through the door, she swung back wearily and raised her eyebrows at her sister. “What?”
Much to her surprise, the twin hesitated, looking anxious, and then swallowed and begged, “Please, can we stay here? We’ll sleep in the guest room, or on the air mattress in the dining room to be out of the way, and I promise we’ll behave. No attitude, no drinking or eating anything without asking first. Just please don’t make us go down there with her.”
“Please,” Victoria added.
Elspeth didn’t even hesitate. She simply nodded, then let the door swing closed and continued on her way. She hadn’t even taken two steps before the door swung open again and she was suddenly in a sister sandwich, Julianna and Victoria forcing her to a halt as they each hugged her from either side.
“Thank you,” Julianna whispered, squeezing her tightly. “I’m sorry for being such a brat since we got here. Mother just makes me so crazy.”
“Me too,” Victoria said.
“She makes us all crazy,” Elspeth murmured, hugging them back. “Now, go grab your suitcases and take them into the guest bedroom.”
“Thank you,” Julianna and Victoria repeated, each kissing a cheek and giving her another squeeze before releasing her and slipping away.
Elspeth turned to watch them slip back into the kitchen, and stiffened slightly when she saw Wyatt standing silent and still next to the door.
“I’ll see you to your room,” Wyatt murmured, moving up beside her now and taking her arm as he had while escorting her through the different stores.
“It’s not that big an apartment,” Elspeth said with weary amusement. “I’m sure I can get there on my own.”
“I’ll walk you to your room,” he repeated firmly, but this time added, “You’ll wait just inside the door while I check to be sure the windows and doors are closed and locked and that there’s no one inside.”
The words were said in a tone of voice she could only describe as businesslike. He wasn’t being chivalrous or polite. He was being the professional bodyguard, she realized, and merely nodded.
Elspeth expected to have to wait in the doorway. Instead, he ushered her into the room, closed the door, and urged her up against the wall next to the hinges.
“Stay right here,” he instructed, his gaze shifting around the room. “If there’s trouble in the room, leave and run back to the kitchen with the others. If the door starts to open unexpectedly, stay here behind the door and out of sight until you know if it’s friend or foe. If it’s a foe, let them come after me and then slip out and return to the kitchen while they’re
distracted, but make sure they’re far enough away not to be able to grab you before you move. Understand?”
Elspeth stared at him wide-eyed, but nodded.
Apparently satisfied, he turned away and moved directly to the French doors. She’d left them unlocked when she’d left earlier, and he opened one to peer outside, then quickly closed and locked it.
“I expected you to make me wait in the hall,” she admitted as he closed the blackout curtains.
“I can’t watch you in the hall if I’m in here,” he pointed out, moving to her closet next.
“Yes, but I should have been safe in the hall,” she pointed out as he opened her closet door and poked around briefly before shutting it.
Much to her surprise, Wyatt shook his head. He didn’t explain, however, but moved to the bathroom and pushed the door open to look around. He disappeared inside, and she heard the screech of the metal hooks of the shower curtain being opened before he called out, “Someone could have broken in through the guest bedroom window and be in there right now. They could have snuck up and snatched or attacked you without my knowing it if I’d left you in the hall while I searched your room.”
Elspeth gaped at the empty bathroom door, shocked at the thought that someone could break into her home and attack her as he was suggesting. She’d thought of her apartment as her safe haven since moving here, but it was quickly proving less than safe. First her mother and sisters showed up and gained entrance, and now he was suggesting whoever had pushed her into traffic could break in?
“All clear.”
Elspeth glanced up at that announcement to see Wyatt coming out of the bathroom. Letting her breath out, she nodded and moved to her closet to gather a clean pair of black jeans and a red shirt. Carrying them with her, she stopped at her dresser to collect a bra and panties and then headed for the bathroom.
“Leave the door cracked open so I can hear if you have any trouble,” Wyatt ordered as he stepped aside for her to enter the bathroom.
Pausing, Elspeth turned to him with surprise. “What?”
“The lock on the window in there is iffy,” he explained gently. “I promise I won’t look, but leave the door open just a crack so I can hear if you have a problem.”