I picked up one of the phones in the sitting room, dialed 0 and spoke to a woman with a thick Texas accent.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, trotting out my Sunday School manners. “Do you have any aspirin? Or something for a headache?”
“There should be a selection of over the counter medications in your bathroom, Miss Montgomery.”
Well, hell, they thought of everything, didn’t they?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see any,” I said, which was more or less the truth. I hadn’t looked, either.
She promised to send someone to my room with something. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be Mike.
A few minutes later a pleasant looking middle aged woman dressed in dark blue pants and a white blouse with blue tie appeared at the door. I wondered if she was wearing the Arthur’s Folly official uniform.
I thanked her and took the tray, but instead of closing the door when she left I stood and watched her. As I suspected she pressed her hand against a wood rosette on the chair rail in the hall. The door swung inward and she stepped into the well-lit corridor.
Five minutes later I followed her, my keys tucked into the pocket of my jeans. At least I’d had the sense to bring my own car. I wouldn’t have to “borrow” one of Dan’s.
The tunnel was wide, well-lit, and smelling of Italian food which meant it connected to the kitchen. I heard the sound of laughter and voices raised in conversation and slid to the side of the tunnel.
When it branched to the left, I took it, descending a flight of steps. To my surprise the last door I chose - the third of three - opened up to the central foyer, not far from the grand staircase.
Relieved no one was standing there pointing an accusing finger at me, I slipped through the foyer, glancing behind me as I did. Mike was nowhere in sight. Maybe everyone thought I was nursing a headache. Not far from the truth. Now, however, was not the time to give in to either pain or fatigue.
Arthur’s Folly was so large by the time I made it around the castle, I felt as if I’d walked a marathon, one requiring that I duck beneath windows and behind bushes when I thought someone was coming. In the dark I tripped over several sprinkler heads and more than a few holes in the ground. Either snakes or gophers occupied Travis land.
The side door to the garage wasn’t locked, but when I opened it, the door screeched loudly. I hesitated, waiting. No one came out of the shadows to accuse me of trespassing.
Maybe the staff had gone for the day. Or maybe it was dinner time. Either way I was able to make my way to my car and drive it around to one of the bays.
I found a manual lift, opened it and drove my car outside. Although I felt like Mike or one of the other staff would appear at any moment, I couldn’t leave the door open. I closed the bay door, slipped into my car, and hoped getting out of the front gate would be as easy. To my relief I didn’t have to punch a code, only sit in front of the gate a few seconds before it swung open.
Thirty minutes later, I sat outside my destination, waiting for Kenisha. Only one light was lit, the one in her bedroom. Was she entertaining?
I wanted to think Hera had killed Opie, believing it was me, but she’d never seen my sweater before that night. No one at the restaurant had. Normally, I kept it in my car, a present I’d received on Christmas because I was always forgetting to wear a coat and borrowing something of hers.
She didn’t like to loan her clothes.
My mother didn’t like to share anything.
When the passenger door opened, I glanced at Kenisha as she sat and stared at me.
“You sure about this?”
I nodded.
“Why the hell do you think she’s involved?”
“Because she gave me the damn sweater,” I said, matching my level of swearing to Kenisha’s. Hey, I wanted to feel part of the in-crowd.
“You’d turn in your own mother?”
I held back my sigh. “Yes,” I said. “She won’t stop. Because she failed once doesn’t mean she’ll stop trying.”
Kenisha studied me. I turned away, looking through the windshield.
“I love my mother,” she finally said. “She’s been my rock through this whole thing. I guess some people don’t have that.”
“I guess they don’t.”
I wanted to tell her about Nonnie, how my grandmother had always been my refuge and my island, but I didn’t. Nonnie was as far away from me as my mother had always been emotionally.
“She doesn’t have a truck,” I said. “But I bet she knows a guy who does, just like I’ll bet she borrowed it.”
She’d probably watched my house for days after the trial waiting for the opportunity.
I wish I felt something. I wish I could feel anything other than a cold calmness. I felt detached as if I were someone else or this situation didn’t have anything to do with me. Talk about being in denial.
I glanced at Kenisha and frowned. The streetlight illuminated the look on her face.
“Save your pity,” I said, although some far off part of me, a little girl with a lost Teddy bear, wanted someone to comfort her.
“What about Hera?” I asked.
“Lawyered up. She’s the friend of a powerful man. She’ll probably get probation.” The disgust in her voice matched what I was feeling.
Oh, goody, so I still had her to worry about.
A few moments passed in silence.
“You ready?” she finally asked.
I nodded. No, I wasn’t, but there wasn’t anything else to do.
I got out of the car, locked it, staring at my mother’s house draped in night. The brick ranch was nothing special, one of a hundred other houses looking the same in this middle class subdivision. Somehow, I thought it should be glowing orange or red.
The bushes in the front still covered three quarters of the windows. When I suggested that a burglar could enter the house and not be seen, she ignored me, refusing to have them trimmed.
“Are you married?” I asked, following Kenisha up the walk.
She stopped so suddenly I almost ran into her.
“Don’t you be getting all up into my business, Montgomery.”
“There’s this guy you need to meet,” I said.
“I mean it.”
I nodded which meant I wasn’t going to discuss it further. But I was going to work on pairing her with Mike. A little romance might take the edge off both of them.
We hesitated at the entrance to the small courtyard leading to the front door.
“So you think she killed Opie thinking it was you?”
I nodded.
My hand reached up and almost rang the bell before I hesitated. Twice my finger almost touched the button.
With a sigh of disgust, Kenisha reached past me and did what I couldn’t do, summon my mother to judgment.
CHAPTER FORTY
There’s more than one way to kill a vampire
Three minutes later, the door opened slowly. Even at this late hour Demi was perfectly coiffed, her makeup accentuating her lovely eyes. Her lips curved in a smile until she saw me.
Kenisha flashed her badge, her voice low timbered and respectful - more respectful of my mother than she’d ever been of me.
“May we come in, ma’am? We need to discuss something important.”
My mother nodded and stepped back, the pink robe with its black trim swirling in the draft.
My mother’s house, the way I always thought of my childhood home, was built in the seventies. She insisted on a formal dining room and a formal living room, rooms I was forbidden to occupy. Even as an adult, I felt odd eating in the dining room and perched on the edge of the sofa in the living room, ready to take flight.
For years now my mother had been on a Japanese kick, even to having a zen garden installed in the backyard. Yet instead of an air of simplicity in the furnishings there was too much of everything. Too much color. Too many chairs. Too many small tables. Too many things on top of all the tables, like a statuette of an aged Asian fishe
rman holding an iron pole with a ceramic fish dangling from the end of it or the porcelain empress with an oriental fan.
Even as a grown up I’d been afraid I was going to knock something over and earn one of those tight lipped smiles of hers.
Now? Now it didn’t matter.
I smelled paint and the faint, thick odor of cigarettes. Did her newest boyfriend smoke? Had she talked him into painting the interior of the house?
Men never seemed to be afraid of my mother.
Maybe if I hadn’t been there she would have kept up a brave front to Kenisha. Although I didn’t see how that would be possible because Kenisha, even in plainclothes, was a little scary.
My fellow vampire was tall but not heavy, just square. Her shoulders were broad, not needing any padding. Tonight she was wearing black trousers and a dark blue jacket over a blue shirt. There were bulges in places I suspected were weapons.
Yep, she definitely needed to meet Mike.
“We’d like to talk to you about something that happened two weeks ago, Mrs. Montgomery,” Kenisha said, standing at my side.
“It’s not Montgomery,” my mother said. “My name is Dougherty.”
Before that, it was Amberton and Before that, Montgomery. My mother’s full name made her sound like a Spanish grandee.
I plopped down on the end of the sofa, a place I remembered well from my childhood. Even back then I’d tried to hide, making a small ball of myself.
My mother didn’t say anything but her eyes bored through me. She was the queen of the fulminating look.
“Someone tried to kill me, Mom,” I said. “They missed, but they killed someone else.”
“What a pity,” she said, her tone dry enough Kenisha frowned. She didn’t like my mother’s attitude either.
“I knew you’d be upset,” I said. The calm I’d felt earlier was still with me, enabling me to smile at her. “Were you disappointed not to be a witch like Nonnie?”
Kenisha looked at me, then back at my mother. I knew I would hear about that little bit of information I’d forgotten to impart.
For the first time, Demi broke the stare, looking beyond me to the hallway. When she glanced back, she wasn’t as poised as she’d been. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her. I wondered if she were trembling.
“Anyone can learn to be a witch,” she said. “I didn’t care.”
I thought she did, but it didn’t matter now.
“I think my mother was glad. One less witch in the family. Too bad she didn’t feel the same about you.”
The bitterness surprised me, but then it shouldn’t have. My mother had been bitter about most things in my childhood.
“She made me keep you,” she said, sitting in a chair opposite the sofa. She sat back, her hands on the arms, fingers spread out. “I would have given you up but she wanted you where she could see you. Did you know that, Marcie?”
Her smile was cloying, the kind of smile you give out when you loathe the recipient. At least she couldn’t hurt me with information I’d already figured out.
“It was because of you Paul died. Your grandmother had him killed, you know.” She glanced at Kenisha. “Why aren’t you investigating that?”
“Why?” I asked before Kenisha could.
“Because Paul knew you were a genetic mutation, a freak. He was going to make us money by turning you over to the vampires.”
I wondered how he’d figured that out – unless she’d told him about my father.
I was amazed I was still so calm.
“Did you try to run over your daughter, Mrs. Montgomery?”
Demi took a deep breath, released it, then smiled at Kenisha. “Yes,” she said. “I did. I’m only sorry I missed.”
The teary sheen in her eyes wasn’t for me. Instead, she mourned her failure and perhaps her future. In jail she wouldn’t be so pretty.
Motherly love, it was such a special bond.
I stood, looking down at her. Maybe I would feel something in a little while but right now I was numb.
Her words explained so much. How I never felt like I belonged anywhere as a child. How I’d wanted to be loved but felt nothing I ever did would be good enough.
My childhood self had been instinctively right. The little girl with the teddy bear smiled back at me and nodded in approval before disappearing. I wondered if she’d gone for good or only until the next revelation.
Kenisha nodded, moved toward her, announcing she was being arrested.
I wouldn’t attend her trial. I wasn’t going to visit her in jail. I wasn’t going to help her defense. I was going to do as she had all those times, simply walk away.
“Have a nice life, Demi,” I said.
I left my mother’s house and got into my rental car. Before I went back to my knight’s castle I had one more thing to do.
I called my grandmother. She picked up after the second ring, probably because she didn’t recognize the phone number or maybe to curtail me sending her a mental message. Texting didn’t work with my grandmother. She only consented to text when she was in the mood. If she wasn’t, she blithely ignored anything on her phone by turning it off.
“You’ve been with your mother,” she said by way of greeting.
How much was she able to pick up about me? Did she know about last night?
“Yes,” I said and told her what had happened. I’d turned in her only child to the cops and in a few moments my mother was going to be transported downtown.
Silence was her only response.
“At least in jail she can’t meet any vampires,” my grandmother said.
Evidently, Fang-Anon wasn’t working.
I explained my problem, wondering if she could do what I needed. Would she refuse because of what I’d just done?
“I’ll have to ask Juliana,” she finally said.
“When?”
“As soon as I hang up.”
“Can she get it by tomorrow?” I asked.
“Marcie, I haven’t spoken to her yet.”
“The sooner done, Nonnie, the sooner I’m safe.” Or safer. I wasn’t going to be foolish enough to think Maddock was the only vampire with an interest in what I could do.
“Are you planning on using this to harm another, Marcie?”
Silence created a vacuum between us. Gone was the woman to whom I could turn in a crisis. No more weeping on Nonnie’s shoulder after my miscarriages. Had she been grateful for them? Had she somehow precipitated them?
Nothing was normal, if normal was defined as what I’d known all my life. But everything had been so topsy turvy and so different since waking up in the VRC I’d never gotten the chance to mourn either my old life or the person I’d been.
Now, in the sudden silence, it all came crashing down on me. Grief swamped me. In seconds tears wet my face.
“Yes,” I said, anger mixing with the sadness. “I’m going to use it on a Master vampire. Niccolo Maddock, Prince Almonte, Duke of something or other.”
Just when I was prepared for a lecture on the sanctity of life and my values as a once-human, my grandmother spoke again.
“You can’t come here. I’ll call you.”
I hadn’t expected an invitation, but her words cut another hole in the bond between us.
“Let me know when it’s ready.”
She agreed. Before she hung up, though, I asked another favor, one as important.
“I could go and get something,” I explained. “But I have a feeling whatever you give me would be more effective.”
“Oh, Marcie,” she said.
For the first time I heard the echo of the Nonnie I’d known. The sweet smile, the fulsome hug, the focused interest on anything I wanted to talk about - surely it hadn’t been all because of what I was. Some of it must have been love.
Each successive bit of knowledge I gained was plastering over something I’d once thought true like an endless wall of urban posters.
After hanging up I wiped both hands over my face. I dropped
my head back. Inside was a carved out hollow. There in the dark cave I grieved. Not for the person I was but for the person I would never be again.
As I headed back toward the castle nausea bubbled up from the base of my stomach. But I hadn’t eaten recently. That was it. I was just hungry. I wasn’t grieving for the child I’d been or the woman - vampire - I was now.
Denial can be a safe and welcoming place sometimes.
My mother had been entertaining as I suspected. The guy was a new catch, ten years younger and with no idea my mother was older. Nor could he explain why his truck, parked in the garage to keep nosy neighbors from knowing her business, had traces of blood on the undercarriage.
I thanked Kenisha for letting me know and hung up, tucking my phone into my jeans.
Dan was as angry as I’d imagined, making no secret of it when I pressed the button in front of the gate. For a second I thought he wouldn’t let me in, but he buzzed me through.
I parked in front of the house and walked up to the massive double doors. At another time the two brass chicken heads would have made me laugh. Now they barely summoned a smile.
As the door opened he stood there looking at me.
“You okay?”
Everything was relative. I’d cried all the way back to the castle. I didn’t cry well. I always looked like a rabbit afterward with red eyes and nose. Plus I was tired and hungry.
I nodded anyway.
“Could Mike move my car?” I asked. Even though the rental car was new, it looked out of place in the castle’s portico. A carriage belonged here or a Mercedes at the very least.
“I fired Mike,” he said, moving aside so I could enter one of the massive double doors.
“What do you mean you fired him?”
“His job was to protect you. He didn’t do it. He’s fired.”
The Fertile Vampire Page 23