by J. R. Rain
But to sons who were already wealthy?
That didn’t ring true.
I made a note to follow up on the disbursement of the inheritance, who got what and how much. But I suspected this was a dead end. Then again, what did I know? As for me, the most I could leave my own kids was a mortgage in which I was almost upside down. That and a minivan and, maybe, a few thousand dollars in petty cash.
I need to get my shit together, I thought.
I went back to what I knew of George Thurman’s death. As I did so, I got up from the leather couch and moved over to the front door, where I stood in the doorway and looked out across the manicured grounds. There were four bungalows, and untold numbers of guest rooms in the mansion. Enough, surely, for twenty or thirty people to stay comfortably.
There was the pool behind the main house. There was a fence around the pool, which was a good idea with all the grandkids. There was also a balcony directly above the pool, a balcony that led off to one of the rooms.
Had he been pushed? Had he fallen in?
According to the autopsy, there had been no alcohol in the old man’s system, nor any drugs. George hadn’t had a heart attack, either, nor a stroke. In fact, there had been no evidence of foul play of any type. His death had been ruled an accidental drowning.
George Thurman had been 79 at the time of his death. Too old to remember how to swim? Hell, how does one accidentally drown, anyway?
I didn’t know as I gazed out over the sun-drenched backyard, as the shadows of evening encroached.
Time to get to work.
Chapter Thirteen
Allison was still asleep.
I could smell the barbeque cooking. The smoking meat triggered a primal hunger in me, a hunger that I couldn’t feed. I hadn’t brought any of my own nourishment with me. Allison had volunteered for the job. Fresh blood. Her blood. Smelling the meat now triggered a hunger in me.
A hunger for her.
Jesus.
I found myself pacing inside the small bungalow. The floorboard creaked beneath me. I always paced at this time of the day, medallion or no medallion. When the sun was about to set, that thing which was inside me awakened.
Awakened to the night.
I paused at the open window. The sky beyond was purplish—and filling up with low-hanging clouds. So much for the sunny skies. This was, after all, the Pacific Northwest.
And just like that, the first drops appeared against the big window, splattering, collecting, sliding.
I continued pacing.
As I paced, both a sadness and an excitement filled me. Excitement for the coming night. Sadness for what I was. After all, just when I would think I was feeling normal, or feeling human, this would happen: the day would merge into night. And, when that happened, I would feel anything but normal. Anyone but myself.
I felt on edge, anxious, angry.
This would be when I would snap at Tammy and Anthony—and even more often at Danny—more than enough times for them to know to stay away from Mommy at this time of day. Of course, back in the day, my kids didn’t know the reason why.
Now they did. Now they knew everything.
They knew Mommy was a freak. They also knew that they were pretty freaky themselves.
Not my fault, I thought, as I shook my hands and continued pacing. I didn’t ask for this. I was only out jogging. Jogging as I had done many times before. Hundreds of times before.
Had the bastard been watching me seven years ago? Or had I simply crossed paths with him unexpectedly? An unfortunate crossing of paths?
I didn’t know...and perhaps would never know, unless...
Unless I talked to the vampire hunter who’d killed my own attacker. The vampire hunter named Rand.
Then again, wasn’t there another who knew the answers? My guardian angel had been neither a guardian nor an angel.
Ishmael had, apparently, orchestrated my attack. How, I didn’t know, but I was going to find out. What strings had he pulled? In the least, what did the son-of-a-bitch know?
I shook my hands again.
Good God, when was the fucking sun going to set?
Soon, I knew. Soon. I could feel it out there, beyond the forest of evergreens. Its rounded upper half was still above the distant horizon. I couldn’t see it but I could feel it. Every ray. Every particle of light. Every fucking photon.
Screw Fang. He didn’t have to push me so hard. I might have come around. I might have fallen in love with him, too. Screw Detective Hanner, too. Whatever her game was, I didn’t know, but I did know one thing.
She wasn’t going to win. Not if she came up against me.
And by stealing Fang from me—my very best friend—well, she made it personal. Very, very personal.
I accidentally elbowed the corner of the kitchen. Plaster exploded and the whole house shook.
Easy, I thought. Calm down.
I thought of Danny and Kingsley. Two cheaters. Two bastards, and I nearly drove my hand through the front door as I passed by it.
That’s not calming down, I thought.
I thought of my kids and took a deep breath. I thought of Detective Sherbet and smiled. I thought of Allison snoring in the room next to me, and almost laughed.
I was calming down. Good. Willing myself to calm down. Yes, good. But there was another reason for why I was finally relaxing. Oh, yes, another reason, indeed.
The sun was slip, slip, slippin’ away.
I paused by the big window and breathed in deeply, filling my worthless lungs to capacity with useless air. And by the time I had filled them completely, the anger and hostility had disappeared.
I felt like a new woman. Or a new vampire.
The sun, after all, had set.
And I was alive again.
Truly alive.
I turned around and saw Allison watching me from the shadows of her doorway, her hair mussed. “Feeling better?” she asked.
“Very,” I said.
“Hungry?”
“Very, very hungry,” I said.
Chapter Fourteen
Dinner was served in the dining room.
And what a dining room it was. It had a vaulted ceiling complete with a hand-painted mural of a mountain that I suspected was the nearby Mount Rainier. Very Sistine Chapel-like, and it, no doubt, would have taken a skilled artisan months to complete. The dining table itself looked like it was out of a movie set. So long that it seemed comical, it was vaguely boat-shaped, as in, it tapered off near the end, wider in the middle. It had a beautiful golden floral inlay, with intricately carved pedestals holding the whole damn thing steady.
Italian, I figured, and worth more money than I would make in a month. Two months.
Steaming filet mignon and crusted chicken breasts and barbequed ribs filled many platters placed along the center of the table. All of which smelled heavenly. All of which were off-limits to me. Yes, I accepted a small serving of salad, claiming I was a vegetarian. Allison snickered at that, and I gave her a small elbow in the ribs.
Well, maybe, not that small. She oophed and nearly toppled over.
My bad, I thought.
Meanie, she thought back.
But she had played it off well, turning the explosion of air into a hacking cough that earned a few scowls from those around the table. When she was done hacking into her napkin, she glared at me. I shrugged and smiled sweetly.
I counted seventeen people in all. Thirteen adults and four kids. The kids ranged from tweens to toddlers. Tara sat on the other side of me. I recognized the man at the head of the table: George Thurman Junior. Or, as he preferred, Junior, according to Tara who’d gotten Allison and I caught up, just before dinner. Patricia Thurman, Junior’s beautiful wife—too beautiful and too perfect, if you asked me—sat to his right and didn’t stop looking at me.
There was an older couple sitting together across from me. They both smiled warmly at me. There was a devilishly handsome young man who hadn’t stopped staring at Allison. To her credi
t, remarkably, she’d ignored him completely. I knew she was still grieving for her one-time boyfriend, the boxer, Caesar Marquez, and wasn’t in the market for men. There were two men sitting together, rather closely. I caught them smiling warmly at each other. Next to Tara was a young man who looked oddly familiar. No, not familiar. I mean, yes, I’d seen his picture before, but there was something about him...
Then I figured it out. His smile. It was the same kind of big, expressive smile that I had seen on Tara, my client. Lips curled up. Almost clown-like.
His name was Edwin Thurman, and he was Junior’s only son, the black sheep of the family with a history of drugs, public arrests and jail time.
I scanned the entire lot. Yes, a psychic scan of sorts. I couldn’t read everyone’s mind, thank God. Yes, it turned out that I could actually influence thoughts. But I could also get impressions from people. I noted, in particular, that my inner alarm was ringing mildly. There was a potential threat here, somewhere at the table.
I hated when that happened.
Dinner was served. There was no wait staff, which I found slightly curious. A big house like this with no staff? Who cleaned and cooked and manicured the lawns?
So, we served ourselves, like commoners. Of course, I just picked at my salad and scattered it around and pretended to eat, all while I spat it back in my napkin. I drank the wine, which at least gave me some semblance of humanity.
The dinner was mostly subdued. No one asked any questions of Allison or me. No one really looked our way. No one, except for Junior’s beautiful wife. The kids talked quietly among themselves, often laughing.
The many couples talked quietly, too. I scattered the salad sufficiently and Allison, bless her heart, reached over and picked at my salad as well. The end result was that I appeared to have eaten my light dinner, or at least some of it. I appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be one of the living.
As I pushed my salad away, feigning fullness, the young man sitting next to Allison looked at it, then at my nearly finished goblet of wine.
And smiled at me.
Knowingly.
Chapter Fifteen
We retired to the great room.
Yes, retired. That’s how Junior Thurman phrased it. I’m fairly certain I’d never retired to any room, let alone a great room. But, if sitting in comfy chairs and holding my wine and trying to pretend to be normal was retiring, then there was a first for everything.
As we sat, I sent a thought over to Allison for her to shield her own thoughts. She asked why and I told her to just do it, that I would explain later. She shrugged, and I sensed her mind closing to me, exactly the way I had taught her to do it.
Good girl, I thought, although she wouldn’t be able to hear me.
The great room was, well, great. It had a soaring ceiling crisscrossed with thick beams. It had arches and a brick fireplace and oversized furniture. The room was something to behold. And, apparently, to retire in.
Outside, through the stacked windows framed with heavy curtains, the tall evergreens were now swaying violently, although I doubted the others could see them in the darkness. A storm was moving in. A big one, too.
“It’s getting blustery out there,” said Edwin, the young man who might have been handsome if not for the perpetual smile on his face. He could see the trees as well?
“Blustery?” said Allison next to me. She’d had two glasses of wine. She was also smaller than me and hadn’t eaten much at dinner. I suspected the wine had gone straight to her head.
Junior Thurman, who’d been texting on his too-big cell phone, set it aside and looked up at her. He was holding a glass of sherry. I was fairly certain I’d never before seen anyone drink a glass of sherry in my life.
Another first, I thought.
“It’s a word we like to use up here,” he said jovially enough. He had a strong, resonant voice that seemed to fill the great room. His wife nodded. She had quit looking at me. Now she was staring down into her own glass of wine, legs tucked under her.
Junior went on: “Blustery is just our way saying that we’re getting some nasty weather out there, nasty even for the Northwest.”
“We just call it a shit-storm where I’m from,” said Allison, and immediately looked like she regretted it.
The kids who’d been playing cards nearby looked up. Junior frowned a little. Edwin, I saw, grinned even bigger.
“And where are you from, Allison?” Junior asked pleasantly.
“Texas.”
“Ah,” said Junior without elaborating, as if that answered everything. He turned his attention back to me. “Samantha, from where do you know my dear niece?”
“I’ve known Tari since we were in college,” I said, reciting the script. Tara was “Tari” to friends and family.
Junior nodded. He held the glass of sherry loosely in his hands. The rich vermillion color caught some of the ambient light. From here, the liquid looked like blood. My stomach growled. My sick, ghoulish stomach.
He said, “Did you two have many classes together?”
“One or two,” I said, “until I dropped out.”
“And why would you do a thing like that?” asked Patricia, Junior’s wife.
“I got pregnant,” I lied.
“Twins,” said Allison, jumping in.
Junior nodded, as if that made perfect sense. I nearly frowned at Allison. We hadn’t discussed me having twins. She’d drunkenly embellished the story. Tara was looking concerned, too.
“Twins,” said Mrs. Thurman. “How delightful. What are their names?”
“Tammy and Anthony.”
“They’re not, you know, identical,” said Allison, slurring her words slightly.
Mrs. Thurman regarded Allison curiously. “I gathered that.” She turned back to me. “And you’ve kept in touch with our Tari all this time?”
“On and off,” I said, lying easily. It was, after all, what investigators did. We often lied to get our information.
“We reconnected through Facebook,” blurted Allison.
“Oh, so you’re friends on Facebook?” asked Edwin. He continued smiling. He seemed to be getting a kick out of all of this.
I saw where this was going, and saw where Allison had screwed up. I said, “I don’t think so, not yet. We just emailed.”
Edwin leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and looked directly at me. His face was angular, his cheekbones high. His lips were a little too full, even for me. He said, “Maybe we can be friends on Facebook.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Depends how friendly you are.”
He laughed and sat back.
“I just love Facebook,” said Allison. “Just last week a friend of mine sent me this cat video...I swear to God that little booger was clapping. Clapping! A kitten! Can you believe it?”
Apparently, no one could. Or they were too dumbfounded to speak. Junior shifted his considerable gaze from me to her. The president of Thurman Hotels was also, apparently, the leader of the family, too. “And how do you know our Tari?”
“Oh, I’m just here for the ride,” said Allison, sitting back and kicking her Uggs comfortably. She snapped her gum. “I’m with Sammie here. Where she goes, I go.”
“Cute,” said Patricia.
Time to change the subject. “This is a beautiful home,” I said.
The older couple sitting near the roaring fireplace sat forward. Elaine Thurman, sister of the deceased. She smiled brightly. Her aura, I saw, was bluish and yellow, which told me she was a woman very much at peace with herself. Her aura also had a black thread woven through it. Grieving, obviously. This was, after all, the one-year anniversary of her brother’s drowning. She said, “The home has been in my family for generations. We’ve all been coming out to Skull Island for over seventy-five years.”
“Why is it called Skull Island?” asked Allison.
Edwin leaned forward again. “There’s a Native American burial ground on the other side of the island. It’s supposedly cursed.�
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“Skull Island and curses,” said Allison, elbowing him. “Where’s Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, too?”
Which had been, of course, my exact thought.
“Well, the curses are just legends,” said Calvin Thurman, or Cal, one of the uncles. He was, I suspected, dying of a cancer. I knew this because of the dark spot of his kidney, a dark spot that was, literally, like a black hole, sucking in the color of his surrounding aura. Indeed, he leaned away from it, taking pressure off it.
He doesn’t even know, I thought.
He held my gaze closely, and something seemed to pass between us. His eyes, I was certain, were trying to communicate something to me. He said, “Although there have been a few cases of unfortunate deaths.”
“We don’t talk about those,” snapped Junior. “Not to strangers.”
“Nonsense,” said Cal, apparently not intimidated at all by his nephew, president of the company or not. He looked again at me. “It’s in all the papers. Anyone can find that.”
He continued looking at me. I looked at him. His eyes, I was certain, were pleading with me.
“Tell me about the deaths,” I said uncomfortably. I had, of course, come across three such deaths in my own research of Skull Island. Were there some that I had missed?
But Junior’s glowering stare finally cowered old Cal. He sighed deeply and winked at me. “Catch me later after I’ve had a few of these”—and he held up his Scotch—“and I’ll tell you all.”
He laughed. I laughed. No one else laughed.
Instead, Junior Thurman announced that tomorrow we would hold a memorial for his late father, George Thurman, whose death I had, unknown to the family, been hired to investigate. Junior went on: His late father had passed at this time last year, and he wanted to have a ceremony at the chapel located in the mausoleum.
Next, the conversation quickly turned to business. Tara turned and talked to me about my kids. All the while, I was aware of glances from various family members. Of course, some weren’t glancing. Some were openly staring. Like Edwin Thurman. Edwin with his perpetual grin. Patricia, not so much.