Twice Bitten

by Lynsay Sands

  "But Wyatt," Elspeth said weakly, surprised to find herself weaving a bit and wobbly on her feet.

  "Chain, Alex! Give me the chain," Julius barked and Elspeth tried to look back, but her muscles didn't seem to want to obey her and her head only turned halfway.

  "The men will help Wyatt," Rachel said soothingly. "He'll be fine now, honey. Now you need looking after."

  "Oh," Elspeth breathed, and lost consciousness.

  Sixteen

  "So, no one in the house bought or brought in the doughnuts?" Mortimer asked, pacing across the kitchen.

  It was a rhetorical question, but Elspeth shook her head anyway as she rubbed her sore wrist. The wound had mostly healed in the twenty-four hours since she'd turned Wyatt. At least her shattered wrist looked normal once more on the outside. It was down to a scar that was fading fast. But there was obviously a lot of healing still going on inside, because it ached something fierce. Sighing, she glanced back to watch Mortimer take another circuit around the kitchen table and the people seated at it.

  Marguerite, Julius, Lissianna, Greg, Caro, Sam, Alex, and the twins were all seated there, some with food, some with drink, some with both, but all looking exhausted and grim. Rachel was upstairs watching over Wyatt, and Etienne was keeping her company, but the rest had all made their way to the kitchen when Mortimer was finally able to get away from the Enforcer House and come to look into the situation here. It spoke to just how busy he was that it had taken him so long to get here.

  Meredith was the only other person in the house who was not in the kitchen. Rachel had given her a sedative to get her to sleep, and then had put her on an IV drip of both fluids and another sedative to keep her asleep and out of the way while Wyatt suffered through the turn. It had been necessary. There was just no way to explain his pain-filled shrieks and his having to be chained down. Elspeth wasn't sure what they would say to her when they finally allowed her to wake up, though. How were they going to explain why she'd slept so long? Or how Wyatt had survived cyanide poisoning? She had no idea, but that was a worry for later. Right now they were trying to figure out how the poisoned doughnuts had got in the house.

  "And they weren't here during the confrontation with Martine," Mortimer muttered now, and Elspeth murmured an agreement. The doughnuts hadn't been there the first time she'd entered the kitchen, or at least, no one recalled the box being there while they'd all faced off against her mother. But then, they'd all been distracted at the time and no one had been looking for anything out of place in the kitchen.

  "So, someone had to bring it in and put it on the counter in the time between the confrontation and when Meredith got up and came down to the kitchen," Mortimer continued grimly.

  After questioning everyone, and reading Meredith's mind, they'd concluded that she was the first to notice the doughnuts. She'd spotted them as she'd entered the kitchen that morning and had opened the box to peer at the contents, but finding twelve seemingly untouched doughnuts, she hadn't wanted to take one before checking that it was all right with her host.

  Thank God, Elspeth thought, or Julianna would have entered the room a few minutes later to find the old woman dead on the kitchen floor.

  "So someone on the outside, presumably the same someone who pushed Elspeth into traffic and threw the firebombs into the house, bought a box of doughnuts, injected them with cyanide, and put them in the kitchen, intending to hopefully kill Elspeth," Mortimer concluded.

  "But it wouldn't have killed her," Alex pointed out. "It wouldn't have killed any of the immortals in the house. Only Wyatt and Meredith were truly under threat from this attempt."

  "But a mortal wouldn't know that," Sam said quietly.

  "So, we're back to it being a mortal behind the attempts," Mortimer said thoughtfully.

  "A mortal who doesn't care how many people he takes out to get at Elspeth," Julius said his voice grim.

  "But who is it?" Mortimer muttered, his brow furrowing. "Who would want Elspeth dead? And how did they get the doughnuts in the house when the kitchen door was locked?" Turning to peer at the counter where the box of tainted doughnuts still sat, Mortimer scowled and peered at the door next to it. "You're sure the door was locked, and the dog door as well?"

  "Yes, Mortimer, I locked it myself after letting Julius out last night," Julius said patiently, reaching down to pet the big dog lying on the floor between him and Marguerite. "And the dog flap locks automatically. It only opens to Julius's collar."

  "Right," Mortimer muttered, but scowled at the door.

  "It could have been Mother," Julianna said unhappily, and when Elspeth glanced at her with shock, she shrugged and said, "She's probably pretty upset at you. Maybe she wanted to kill Wyatt and Meredith so you'd go back to England willingly."

  Elspeth frowned at the suggestion and shook her head. She couldn't believe their mother would go that far. "No, but it's kind of weird that the doughnuts were all Boston cream. I would have expected a variety of doughnuts in the box."

  "She's right," Sam said sitting forward with surprise. "No one ever buys one variety for a large group of people. In fact, doughnut shops don't usually keep enough of each type on hand to make a dozen. At least, not when I've stopped in. They'll have six of one, a couple of another, sometimes none of some varieties."

  Alex nodded solemnly. "Either they got very lucky, or they ordered ahead of time to get a dozen of the Boston creams."

  "Why?" Elspeth asked, troubled.

  "Probably because it was easier to hide the cyanide," Rachel put in. "Injecting it into the custard inside the doughnut made it less likely to be noticed than if it had been put in a dry doughnut like a chocolate dip."

  "Yes, but they could have used jelly-filled or something like that," Elspeth pointed out.

  "Which suggests they picked the Boston cream on purpose," Mortimer said with a frown.

  "Because they knew those are the only doughnuts you like," Sam said quietly, and when Elspeth glanced at her with surprise, she shrugged. "You mentioned it in Walmart the other day when we were replacing your purse and stuff. They had jelly-filled doughnuts on sale by the checkout. You saw them and grimaced with disgust, saying you hated jelly-filled, that you really didn't care for any variety of doughnut except Boston cream, but if there were any of those around, look out, you'd gobble them up."

  "Yes, you did," Alex recalled with surprise. "In fact, I was just thinking of picking up a pack of the jellies when you said that, so I didn't bother."

  "Why?" Elspeth asked with surprise. "Just because I don't like them doesn't mean you guys couldn't have enjoyed them."

  "So anyone could have overheard you say you only like Boston cream doughnuts," Mortimer said, getting them back on topic.

  Elspeth turned to him, her eyes widening. "Yes, I suppose anyone near us could have heard."

  "Do you recall anyone nearby that you might have known or recognized?" he asked at once.

  Elspeth frowned, and glanced to the others in question. When they all stared back blankly, she shook her head and said, "It was Walmart, Mortimer. Walmart is always busy. There were a lot of people around, but I don't remember anyone being there that I know. I don't know many mortals. I've only been here a little over six weeks now, and most of that time has been spent getting my apartment settled, working at the Enforcer House, or visiting with Meredith."

  "Well, it wasn't Meredith," Alex said solemnly.

  "Of course it wasn't Meredith," Elspeth said on a laugh, and then a frown claimed her lips. "You read Meredith to see if it was her? I thought you were just checking her memory to find out when she noticed the doughnuts."

  "We did both," Sam said solemnly, and when Elspeth scowled, offended on her friend's behalf, she added, "We had to, honey. We had to be sure."

  "Not that we thought it was her," Alex put in quickly. "I mean, she couldn't have got out to get the doughnuts without a car, could she? We were just eliminating her from the suspect list like they do when they take everyone's fingerprints."
<
br />   "I still say it is Mother," Julianna said mulishly. "She's trying to scare us back to England."

  Elspeth smiled at her sister sympathetically, understanding her reasoning, but shook her head. "If it was just the car and this poisoning, I might agree with you, Juli. But firebombing the house could have killed us . . . and her as well. She was also in the house when it was set on fire," Elspeth pointed out.

  "Was she?" Victoria asked with a frown.

  Elspeth raised her eyebrows. "Is there a reason you think she wasn't?"

  "When the Molotov cocktail came through the living room window, Sam and Alex pushed us out the door and told us to make sure Meredith and Mother were out and they'd go get you and Wyatt," Julianna told them.

  Nodding, Victoria said, "We went down to Meredith's first. We broke down her door to go in, but her living room was on fire. We couldn't get through it to her bedroom, so we ran around the house and went in through her bedroom window on the side of the house."

  "Then we ran around the front of the house, intending to break down the door to the basement apartment to get Mother, but we didn't have to," Julianna announced, picking up the thread of the story. "By the time we got around front, she was standing on the front lawn with her suitcase."

  "She said she hadn't bothered to unpack, and that she'd grabbed it on the way out," Victoria added solemnly.

  "But maybe she didn't unpack because she planned to set the house on fire," Julianna growled, her eyes narrowed. "She probably wanted to scare us home. She certainly didn't plan on leaving alone when she sent for the plane."

  Elspeth frowned at the suggestion. Was her mother really that desperate to keep control of them? Would she really risk their lives that way? The fire could have killed one or all of her daughters.

  Mortimer sighed, drawing Elspeth's gaze as he shook his head. "If it was your mother, then there won't be any more attempts. I watched her get on the plane and leave."

  "I thought you weren't supposed to let the plane take off unless we were standing in front of you?" Victoria commented.

  "Unless I could see you, was the point," Mortimer said with a shrug. "I didn't want to delay Martine leaving, so I called Alex when Martine got to the house right behind Sam."

  "I had just found the chain when he called," Alex said dryly. "I put the phone on Facetime, told him what was happening, and rushed back upstairs to show him the three of you."

  "Julianna and Elspeth were at the bed. You," he said to Victoria, "were just getting up off the floor."

  Victoria grimaced. "Trying to hold down Wyatt's legs alone was like riding a bucking bronco."

  Nodding, Mortimer ran a hand around the back of his neck. "It may have been Martine, but it may not have been. We can't know for sure with the little we have to go on. Marguerite, I suggest you throw out any food, beverages, and blood you have in the house. The Council will pay to replace it all."

  "The blood should be fine," Julius said with a frown. "We had a special refrigerator installed several months back. It won't open to any but an immortal hand."

  "Really?" Mortimer asked with interest.

  "Yes." Julius stood and moved to a section of cupboard that looked like all the rest, and opened the door to reveal the shelves stacked with blood inside. "It's something Bastien's people have come up with. Added security to ensure mortals don't stumble onto an immortal's blood supply. It somehow recognizes nanos in the hand of the person opening it and will only open if those nanos are present. We're beta-testing it for him. It works well too. Marguerite's had a different service in once a week to help her housekeeper, Maria, with the cleaning, and we've asked them to clean the cupboards and then watched them try to open the door and fail. It works rather well."

  "Hmm." Mortimer nodded as Julius closed the door. "I still think you should throw out the blood and have fresh sent over. We don't know for sure that the person behind all these issues is mortal. The blood could be poisoned too." He allowed a moment for that to sink in and then headed for the door. "I need to get back to the house. Keep me apprised of the situation here, and--" he turned to Lissianna, Sam, and Alex "--do not let Elspeth out of your sight until this is resolved, and tell Rachel the same thing."

  The three women nodded, but then so did everyone else at the table, Elspeth noted, and suspected she'd picked up extra bodyguards here. Sighing, she stood and asked, "Aunt Marguerite, where do you keep your garbage bags?"

  "In the end cupboard, dear. Why?" she asked with surprise.

  "Because I'm going to start getting rid of the food," she said as she opened the cupboard she'd directed her to and found the bags.

  "Oh, sweetheart, you don't have to--"

  "Someone has to," Elspeth interrupted quietly as she pulled out a bag and shook it out. "And this is all because of me. Besides," she added wryly as she moved to the food refrigerator, "you'll be too busy shopping to do it yourself."

  "Shopping?" she said blankly.

  "You'll need to buy everything from milk to . . . well, just everything," she pointed out quietly, unsure what all the woman had in the refrigerator and cupboards yet.

  "Oh," Marguerite said, nonplussed, and then she watched Elspeth begin to take salad dressings off the door shelves and drop them in the garbage bag. "Surely we don't have to get rid of the dressings and such. Do we?"

  "Better safe than sorry, love," Julius said quietly. "We don't know what may have been tampered with. Mortimer said all food and drink," he pointed out. "That means everything, from the spices on the spice rack to the canned pop in the garage."

  Marguerite's eyes went wide as she recognized the magnitude of the shopping trip she was going to have to take. Sounding a little dismayed, she admitted, "I don't even know what to buy. There is so much . . ."

  "I'll go with you, Mom," Caro said softly.

  Elspeth glanced around to see Caro, her cousin Christian's wife, reach out to squeeze her mother-in-law's hand reassuringly. She also noted the yearning on Lissianna's face and knew she wanted to offer to go too, but held back because she was supposed to help guard her. She was glad when Julius said, "I suggest Lissianna and Caro go with Marguerite to replace everything, and the rest of us will help with the removal of all the food, and keep an eye on Elspeth."

  "Great!" Lissianna popped to her feet at once, and rushed over to kiss Julius on the cheek. "Thank you, Papa." Then she turned to give Greg a kiss too. "I'll see you when I get back."

  "I'll look forward to it," he assured her, slipping his arms around her waist and kissing her on the forehead before releasing her.

  Elspeth watched the three women leave, and then glanced to Greg and asked, "Where is Lucy? I haven't seen her since we got here."

  "Oh." He looked surprised and then said, "Lissianna was going to tell you . . ." He glanced toward the door, as if considering calling his wife back to explain, but then shrugged, and said, "Elvi was kind enough to drive up and pick her up the night you all came to stay here after the fire. She took her back to Port Henry with her. Elvi and Mabel are going to keep an eye on Lucy until this is all over. It just seemed safer," he explained solemnly.

  Elspeth frowned. "I'm sorry. I--"

  "Don't be sorry. I could have taken her home and kept her away from here," he pointed out.

  "But then you'd just worry about Lissianna and the danger she might be in while guarding me," Elspeth said quietly and when he nodded, asked, "Why didn't you just ask Lissianna not to accept the job of watching me when Mortimer asked her?"

  Greg snorted at the suggestion. "Yeah, right. She'd have told me to go to hell. She'd have said you were family, she loves you, and you need her. Besides," he added, grabbing a fresh garbage bag and shaking it out as he joined her at the refrigerator, "you are family, we love you, and you need us."

  Elspeth swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and gave up her almost full bag to take the empty one when he instigated the switch. "Thank you."

  Greg shook his head as he tied the full bag closed. "You helped Lissianna and me when
we met, Ellie. Didn't you know we'd be there for you too?"

  The words made her smile as she recalled her first meeting with this man. He'd been tied to Lissianna's bed. Turning back to the fridge, she simply said, "Thanks for making Wyatt stop gnawing on my arm."

  "My pleasure." He set the full bag by the back door, then returned to help retrieve items from the refrigerator, and commented, "I'm sorry about your mother. She seemed a bit overbearing when I met her all those years ago, but I didn't realize she was controlling you as she was."

  Elspeth smiled wryly. "Neither did I, really."

  Greg nodded, but asked, "Does your father know what she's been doing to you and your sisters all these years?"

  "I don't think so," she said quietly. "At least, I don't think he knew just how far she'd gone. He must have known about some of it, though, don't you think?" she added with a frown, wondering now what he did know.

  "Perhaps not," Greg said gently and when she glanced to him dubiously, he shrugged. "Life mates are very interdependent. They need each other, and when a person is dependent on another, they tend to blind themselves to the other's faults or misdeeds. They almost have to in order to ensure the continuation of the relationship. It's why spouses are often blindsided by a spouse being unfaithful, despite there having been all sorts of evidence and clues ahead of time. They can't see it, or they might have to do something about it. It's called Betrayal Blindness in some circles."

  "And you think my father had this Betrayal Blindness?" she asked.

  "I don't think it. I'm pretty sure he must," Greg said solemnly, and then pointed out, "If your father had allowed himself to see what your mother was doing to you girls, he might have had to do something about it and risk their relationship. For an immortal, even the thought of losing a life mate is unbearable." Greg shook his head. "Aloysius wouldn't have been able to accept what she was doing, no matter the evidence before him, and so he was no doubt blind to it to ensure the survival of their relationship."

  Wyatt started to shift sleepily, and then stilled when he felt a heavy weight on his chest. Opening his eyes, he blinked down at the head nestled there and then smiled when he recognized Elspeth. She was curled up against him, one leg and one arm thrown over him, her head nestled just below his shoulder, but curled down so that he couldn't tell if she was awake or asleep. Turning his head, he glanced around the room, his eyebrows rising when he saw that all four of their guards were there; Sam, Alex, Lissianna, and Rachel, and all four women were asleep, he noted with amusement. Two curled up in the overstuffed chairs that were in the room when they'd brought him here, and two curled up in new overstuffed chairs that had been brought in at some point while he was asleep. The room was pretty crowded at the moment.