I was waiting for my coffee to finish percolating when the vision swept over me.
A crowd of people, cheering. Red, white, and blue bunting hanging everywhere. A stage where a tall dark-haired man stood at a podium.
That was all. Only a flash, but it was enough to tell me that the man who’d stood at that podium was my brother Jackson.
And? I asked myself as I got out a coffee mug with shaking fingers. That could have been just a memory, not a vision at all. He’s in the Senate…I guarantee he’s stood at a few podiums.
Unfortunately, I knew it was a vision, even coming less than forty-eight hours since the last one I’d suffered. A memory wouldn’t have had that particular hazy, luminous quality to it, as if I was viewing the scene through a camera lens draped with cheesecloth. I hadn’t quite made out the sign affixed to the podium, but I knew the outline was wrong for the logo Jackson had used when he ran for his senate seat four years earlier.
Which meant I must have seen him as he would be in the near future. Making a bid for the White House.
It wasn’t unexpected. In fact, it was the very opposite of unexpected. I poured some of the fresh-brewed coffee for myself and sat down at the little table for two by the window, looking outside but not really seeing much. As visions went, this one didn’t have anything terribly startling or frightening in it, especially when compared to the vision I’d had of Lucius Montfort’s house.
Why, then, did my hands shake so much?
I wrapped them around my coffee mug, hoping its warmth would help to steady my fingers. And maybe their chill would help to cool down the coffee so I could drink it that much more quickly. Because no matter how innocuous that image had seemed, something about it had chilled me to my very core.
Only because you hate the idea of him running, I told myself. You hate it because of how it might disrupt your life. That’s what’s got you so scared. There isn’t anything supernatural going on here, and you know it.
That all sounded very sensible. Whether it was true or not remained to be seen.
I blew on the coffee and sipped at it cautiously. The caffeine began to run through my veins, and I could feel myself start to relax. Yes, I knew caffeine was supposed to be a stimulant, but right then it was having the opposite effect.
Midway through the cup, I felt recovered enough to slide a couple of pieces of sourdough bread into the toaster oven. I’d just closed the door to the oven when my cell phone rang.
I wished I could ignore it. My gaze slid over to the clock on the stove. Nine forty-seven. All right, not exactly o’dark thirty, but also not an hour when I really wanted someone calling me, either. Especially not after just experiencing a vision. A minor one, true, but even the short visions knocked me out of myself, made me off balance.
But if it was Silas, then I’d feel awful if I let the call roll over to voicemail.
So I dug the phone out of my purse, which still sat where I’d dropped it on the kitchen counter the night before, and checked the display.
My mother’s number.
The temptation to drop the phone back into my purse was so overwhelming, I found myself reaching for the bag before I even realized what I was doing. Then I stopped and told myself to be a big girl and answer. Normally, my mother would never ignore the ten/ten rule — no calls after ten at night or before ten in the morning unless it’s an emergency — and so I reasoned that she must have a very good reason for contacting me now.
I should have known better.
“Did you really walk right out of Vanessa’s reception?”
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “How are you?”
She ignored the comment, as I figured she would. “She said she turned around, and you’d just vanished.”
I put the phone on speaker so I could retrieve my toast from the oven before it burned to a crisp. “I didn’t vanish. I was tired and my feet were hurting, so I had a friend pick me up and bring me home.”
Her tone sharpened. “A friend?”
Funny how Vanessa hadn’t asked a single question about how I’d gotten to her studio in West Hollywood, even though she knew good and well that I tried to avoid driving whenever possible. I’d been ready with an explanation for Silas, even though I hadn’t needed it at the time.
“Yes, a friend. His name is Sam. He had business to handle out in that area, so he said he’d give me a lift.”
“I’ve never heard you mention him before. How do you know him?”
“He’s a friend of Candace’s. That’s how we met. Anyway,” I hurried on, hoping to head my mother off at the pass before she asked any more questions about “Sam” and how he was suddenly a part of my life, “when he texted me to say he was out in the parking lot waiting for me, Vanessa was in the middle of a discussion with two people who looked like investors. I didn’t want to interrupt her.”
“Yes, well, she was worried sick until her van driver let her know that he’d seen you drive off with a dark-haired man in a black pickup truck. I suppose that was this Sam person?”
Funny how she could make the mere mention of his name sound disdainful. Probably it was the part about the pickup truck that had set her off. People in her circle didn’t drive pickup trucks. They had Mercedes and Land Rovers and BMWs and the occasional Audi or Maserati or restored classic car. Never a Rolls, though. They were considered far too ostentatious. “Yes, that was Sam. Anyway, I’m sorry if I worried Vanessa, but you know, I think she would have been even more ticked off if I’d interrupted her while she was talking business.”
And how like her, I thought, to go tattling to Mom instead of giving me crap about it to my face. But that was Vanessa all over again. I thought that, deep down, she’d felt betrayed when I was born, had thought up until that point she’d get to be the precious only daughter. I was probably a nasty surprise. No matter how successful she was — and no matter how much of a screw-up I turned out to be — she couldn’t get past the belief, however erroneous, that they’d had another child after her because she hadn’t quite filled the bill.
“Well,” my mother said. From the way she hesitated, I could tell she probably thought it was better that I had been discreet, even though she didn’t want to admit such a thing. “You could have texted her at least.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was tired and just wanted to get home.”
“Luckily, she did make some very good contacts last night, from the sound of it, so at least that’s some good that came of the evening.”
“I’m glad.” And I was. Vanessa possessed the unique ability to irritate the living crap out of me, but I didn’t begrudge her the success she enjoyed. She was very talented, and driven. Probably put in a harder day’s work than my father ever had, although I knew I didn’t dare point out such a thing to my mother. “And I’ll make sure I get the dress and shoes I borrowed back to her as soon as I can.”
My mother let out an annoyed little huff of a breath. “As if that matters. In fact, she said she had intended to give them as a gift, since they fit so well, but she never got the chance to let you know that.”
Ah, my mother’s innate gift for heaping coals of fire at exactly the right moment. I had been feeling guilty about the clothes, but it wasn’t as if I’d had much of an opportunity to change back into my own things. No, I’d only wanted to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Just as I really, really wanted to get off the phone right now. “Um…thanks for the call, but I was in the middle of getting breakfast together, and if I don’t eat it soon, it’s going to get cold. I’ll call you back later.”
I could almost see my mother stiffen, even though of course she was at the house in San Marino, some five miles from where I stood. “Don’t worry about that. Your father and I are going up to Santa Barbara for a weekend at the ranch, and we’re going to be busy.”
The “ranch” was a cozy little hundred-acre spread about fifteen minutes outside Santa Barbara. My father bought it not too long after Vanessa was born and spent
a year improving the house and its outbuildings. Some of the happiest times from my childhood had been spent there, mostly because I’d been able to ride and hike and run around without anyone paying too much attention to me. I hadn’t been back for several years, though, because I liked suffering my visions in the privacy of my own home, and not someplace where my parents could witness the whole thing.
Now, though, instead of feeling wistful about not being able to get away, I could only be relieved that my parents would be safely out of town for the weekend. My mother would be otherwise occupied, instead of attempting to find out more about this “Sam” person I’d just concocted. And that would give me time to figure out how I really did want to handle the whole Silas situation. If he was going to be my constant companion whenever I left the house, I’d be forced to come up with something. Sooner or later, I’d have to go visit my parents. They expected me for dinner at least once a month…probably to make sure I was still alive. Phone calls weren’t quite enough to keep my mother reassured.
And probably sooner rather than later I’d have to introduce Silas to Brian and Lewis. If I put that off for too long, Brian would definitely start to wonder why I was trying to keep my new “boyfriend” away from them. But sufficient to the day the evil thereof….
“Well, have a wonderful time in Santa Barbara,” I told my mother. To my surprise, I actually meant it. Just because my own life had been thrown into utter chaos didn’t mean other people shouldn’t be able to get out and enjoy themselves.
“Do you have any plans this weekend?”
Of course I didn’t. I never did. A huge outing for me was going to the movies…and sitting in the back row, so if I did zone out, there wouldn’t be as many witnesses to the event. “Not really. I’m due to get a new editing project soon, so I’ll probably start on that.”
Was that a sigh I heard coming from my phone’s speaker? “Serena, you really don’t have to make such a martyr of yourself. If you’d only go back to that psychiatrist — ”
Oh, yeah, and let myself get drugged out of my mind on a nice combination of antidepressants and anti-psychotics. No, thanks. I’d tried medication several years ago because I was desperate, but it hadn’t done anything to stop my visions, only made me feel as if I was walking through a fog all the time. If I had to suffer their interference, then I damn well was going to feel like myself when I was doing it.
“Um, my food is getting really cold,” I broke in. “Enjoy Santa Barbara, and tell Dad I send my love.”
Then I pushed down on the screen to end the call. For a few seconds, I stood there, tense, wondering if my mother was going to call back. But the phone remained silent.
I didn’t let out a sigh of relief. Instead, I picked up my now-cold toast and tried to spread some butter on it. The resulting mess didn’t look very appetizing, but I ate it anyway. What else was I supposed to do?
* * *
The promised manuscript I was supposed to edit didn’t make an appearance, however. After noon had come and gone, I emailed the client. He got back to me right away, full of apologies — but also delivering the bad news that the book wasn’t ready, that he was way behind, and that it would be at least a week before he thought he’d be able to send it to me, since he had to squeeze writing in around his day job.
I told him it was no problem, and to let me know the following week if there were going to be any more delays. And then I sat there, staring down at my laptop, and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with myself now that I had this huge hole in my schedule.
The movies? Maybe, but that would require calling Silas to drive me. Then he’d probably want to sit next to me, just to be safe. While part of me welcomed that notion, I knew it was also fraught with problems. Probably going to see a movie wasn’t the best idea. The weather was nice. I could go out on my balcony, take a book, put my feet up and try to unwind.
Although it was tough trying to relax when you knew that there was a nest of vampires only a few miles away from where you lived.
On an impulse, I went to the Google home page on my laptop and typed in “Lucius Montfort.” I really wasn’t expecting anything — after all, hadn’t Silas said that all vampires like to keep a low profile, that Lucius had gone to a good deal of trouble to make sure he remained anonymous?
But there it was, on an online fashion site whose name I didn’t recognize. No big surprise there; I wasn’t the one who followed fashion. That was my sister’s gig.
Vanessa Quinn expands her “Serene” line into new markets, thanks to backing from the Montfort Group.
Yes, she’d named the clothing line after me. In a sort of backhanded way, but still. She argued that it was a great name and one that was easy to remember, but I’d always disliked it. However, I hadn’t bothered to protest; I knew I would lose that battle.
As for this “Montfort Group”…my body went tense as I tried to determine what the ever-loving hell that was all about.
I supposed it could be some kind of a hideous coincidence, but “Montfort” really wasn’t too common a name. Besides, I did see Lucius’ full name mentioned in the text of the article, which went on to explain how Vanessa had just gotten financial backing to move from designing only clothes to shoes and accessories as well, which had always been a dream of hers. She wasn’t haute couture; her fashions went into high-end boutiques here in Los Angeles, and also in New York and Chicago and Palm Beach. So expanding into the sorts of areas that might get her products sold in more mass-market stores would only help to make her more of a household name, like Betsey Johnson or Vera Wang.
And all because the Montfort Group had been “impressed” with her fall collection, and stepped in to provide the necessary financial support for such a move. Yes, she could have gone to my father for money, but Vanessa was stubbornly proud about such things. She didn’t want to be seen as being successful because of her family’s wealth. After my parents had paid for her college education, as far as I knew, she hadn’t accepted another dime from them.
Which I supposed put her on higher moral ground than me, although she didn’t have the deficit of having to come back from traumatic brain injury.
But because of her independent streak, she was always looking for new financing. Now it seemed as if she’d found it. I had to wonder how Lucius had managed his end run. As far as I recalled, he’d walked into the reception midway through the event, so it wasn’t as if he’d been schmoozing her the whole night. The only thing I could think of was that he’d come back after Silas and I left.
For what purpose, though? What did he hope to accomplish by insinuating himself with a member of my family? Maybe he thought I’d be more malleable if the success of my sister’s business partially rested on his shoulders. That was the sort of oily trick I could imagine him pulling. The problem was, I really didn’t know what to do about it.
Well, except one thing. I picked up the phone and called Silas.
Chapter Nine
He said he’d be over right away, and I had to make the embarrassing confession that I had only just gotten up and hadn’t showered yet or anything. That revelation made him back off somewhat, although he still said he would come over at ten, which didn’t leave me a heck of a lot of time. Luckily, the hairstylist’s work from the fashion show the night before had survived mostly intact, so all I needed to do was take a quick shower and get dressed, rather than start from the ground up by washing my hair.
When Silas arrived, he looked grim-faced, which I could completely understand. As I was showering, I kept trying to visualize how exactly Lucius had approached my sister. Had he been serious? Focused? Flirtatious? My sister was single, but she was no nun. Although she very rarely introduced any of them to the family, I knew she had a series of men come in and out of her life, getting companionship from them when she needed it, then kicking them to the curb when she needed to buckle down and focus on her next collection. Frankly, I couldn’t quite understand her approach to relationships, but it seemed
to work for her. In a way, I envied Vanessa’s attitude, the way she could keep herself from getting too attached to anyone. I was just the opposite; when I fell, I fell hard. Which had its own drawbacks.
So I could see how Lucius might have turned on the charm when he went to talk to her. The very idea of his existence horrified me, but Vanessa would have no means of knowing he was no ordinary man. Objectively, I had to admit that he was very good-looking, in an unorthodox way. That quality would have worked for him rather than against him, since Vanessa’s taste tended toward the unusual, to men with shaved heads or who had interesting tattoos or who were exotic mixes like Irish and Maori, or whatever. Maybe her choice in companions was her way of rebelling against our decidedly white-bread upbringing. If she’d been serious about any of these men, it was possible that our parents might have had more to say on the subject, but because these companions were in and out of her life so quickly, my mother and father kept quiet on the subject. Bringing attention to it would have caused more harm than good, especially when it came to saving face amongst their circle of friends.
I had to admit that I had a hard time imagining Lucius being flirtatious, but just because I hadn’t personally witnessed such a thing didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Trying to visualize such out-of-character behavior made me wonder about vampires and relationships, or actually, just sex. Were they even capable of performing that physical act? Movies and TV and books didn’t help much on the subject, since vampires had been portrayed as everything from the body-morphing bloodthirsty monsters of From Dusk Till Dawn to the sparkly obsessed boyfriend from Twilight. Which was the truth? None of it? All of it? Somewhere in the middle?
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