by Lynsay Sands
“Well, yeah, some old dude was in here paying for his gas and getting junk food. A real asswipe,” he added with a sneer. “He saw your Anders guy get out and start pumping, and says to me, “You better lock up the till and door, boy. That nigger’s probably here to rob you.” Jason snorted. “Racist old prick. I checked the security tape after he’d left and, sure enough, he was the thief. Pocketed at least three chocolate bars when I turned my back to get the lottery tickets he wanted.”
Drina stilled. “Security tape?”
“Yeah.” He waved toward a corner of the store. “My boss put them in last year. Said it would keep the insurance down.”
Drina peered at what looked like a rounded mirror in the corner and considered the direction it was pointing.
“That Anders guy asked about them too, but there aren’t any outside, and it doesn’t show the pumps. There’s only the one inside, so he didn’t bother with it. But you can check out the security tape if you want.”
Drina hesitated, but then decided she might as well. They hadn’t been able to find Stephanie by driving around. Perhaps there was something on the tape that might be useful. “Yes. Please.”
“Come around,” he invited, waving toward the end of the counter.
Drina walked around the long counter and came up behind it as Jason knelt to start typing on a keyboard under the counter next to where he stood. There was a very small computer screen next to it.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as he typed, tapped at a mouse, and typed again.
“I’m pulling up the program and punching in the time I want so it will start replay there,” he explained, and muttered, “A late-night Two and a Half Men rerun was on so it was between eleven and eleven thirty.”
“A late-night Two and a Half Men rerun?” she echoed with confusion.
“A comedy show on television. I watch it instead of the news,” he explained, gesturing to a small television on his other side. “It passes time while I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs.”
“Oh.” She nodded, and then glanced to the door as Harper entered.
Apparently, he was done pumping gas.
“What’s going on?” he asked, as the door closed behind him.
“Security video,” she answered, and he came around the counter to join them.
“There,” Jason said with satisfaction, and an image popped up on the computer screen of the store.
Drina noted the miniature Jason slumped in the corner watching his little television. Her gaze started to shift to the background, but Jason fiddled with the mouse a bit, and the image sped up. When a beer-bellied older man entered the store on the screen, he hit a button, and the image played at normal time again.
“That’s the asswipe,” Jason announced.
“Asswipe?” Harper echoed with amusement.
“Racist shoplifter,” Drina explained, but her attention had shifted to the background. It was true you couldn’t see the pumps, but she could see the parking lot in front of them and the exit sign.
“See, I told you he lifted three bars.”
Drina glanced to the man shoving something in his pocket while Jason worked at the lottery machine, but then her attention shifted back to the background as the nose of a vehicle appeared halfway up the left edge of the screen. The SUV, she was sure, and was proven right when Jason said, “That’s the Anders guy’s truck, and now the asswipe’s making his crack about locking up the till and store.”
Drina nodded but continued to watch without comment.
“Then he just stood there in the store for a bit like he was afraid to go out, like your Anders guy would rob him or something,” Jason commented with disgust. “There, Anders must be heading in to pay ’cause that’s when the guy scooted out.”
They watched the old man leave the store. Three seconds later, Anders entered and waited as Jason punched buttons and jiggled things on the cash register.
“I had trouble ringing him up. This is a new system, and it’s kind of glitchy,” Jason muttered, sounding both annoyed and embarrassed.
“Stop!” Drina barked suddenly, and Jason started, and then scrambled to grab the mouse and pause the image for her.
“What?” he asked, glancing at the screen uncertainly. “He’s just signing the slip.”
“Back it up, but just a little,” Drina said. He hit his mouse, it started to rewind, and Drina said, “Stop,” again.
Jason’s hand was on the mouse, and he paused it at once, but frowned. “I don’t see anything.”
Harper had apparently seen what she had. He leaned past Drina and pointed to the car on the street. It had just pulled out of the gas-station exit. “She’s in the backseat.”
Jason leaned closer and squinted. “I see a smudge that could be a head, but-”
“It’s her,” Drina assured him. She’d been watching the car when it had driven into view, headed for the exit. The backseat had been empty as it cruised to a stop at the street. Then it had turned onto the road, and a head had popped into view. It had to be Stephanie. “She hitched a ride.”
“That explains why we haven’t been able to find her walking the streets,” Harper muttered. “We should call Teddy and give him a description of the car and the license-plate number. He can pass it to everyone.”
“Good thinking,” Jason said, grabbing his mouse again. “I’ll make the image bigger and see if we can read it.”
“No need, I’ve got it,” Drina assured him. “Can I use the phone again?”
“Well, yeah, sure, but-” He fell silent as she turned sideways to pick up the phone on the counter behind them. Then he bent to squint at the screen again. Shaking his head, he glanced to Harper, and said, “There’s noway she can see the license plate, let alone read it.”
“She has very good eyes,” Harper said solemnly, as Drina punched in Teddy’s number.
“Man, that’s not good eyes, that’s whacked, superscary sci-fi eyes,” Jason assured him, and then frowned, and said, “You look familiar. Are you-” He stopped suddenly and slapped himself in the forehead. “You’re that vamp guy who rents a room next door to my buddy Owen’s place.”
Drina saw Harper wince and bit back a smile, but then Jason turned to her, his eyes widening farther.
“Oh, whoa, that means you’re probably one of the vamp chicks staying there. Aren’t you?”
“Owen is the son of Elvi’s neighbor,” Harper explained to her, then in answer to the question said, “Yes.”
“Damn,” Jason muttered, not even sparing Harper a glance. He then added mournfully, “I shoulda known. You’re too hot to be human.”
Drina just shook her head and turned her back to him. She was human, and she definitely was not too hot to be anything. In fact, she didn’t consider herself hot at all. She was really rather average. But she was immortal, and for some reason mortals tended to find them attractive. Beth had a theory about it. Since she drew a lot more attention from mortal men now that she was immortal, Beth suspected it was another little trick of the nanos, making their bodies create and release extrastrong pheromones to attract prey.
Drina had no idea if it was true or not and didn’t much care.
Teddy’s voice sounded in her ear, and Drina forced her mind to the task at hand. She quickly relayed what they’d found, giving him a description of the car and the license-plate number. He made her repeat all the information, promised to pass it on to the others, and then quickly ended the call. She suspected he was eager to get moving on it. This was the first lead they’d had after hours of frustrating, resultless searching.
“Thank you, Jason,” Drina said sincerely as she turned back from the phone. “We appreciate your help.”
“No problem,” he said, but she couldn’t help noticing that he was looking at her differently. Earlier, he’d been friendly and open. She’d been able to tell that he was attracted to her, but he’d been more natural. Now, however, he was looking at her like she was some exotic creature who had unexpectedly flown into his wo
rkplace. . a sexually attractive exotic creature. Drina added the last thought as she noted the way his eyes had dilated and kept dropping downward over her body.
“Right,” Harper said dryly, taking Drina’s arm and urging her back around the counter. “We’d best go help look for the car.”
There were two islands with two pumps each, and Harper had parked on the outside of the second island, farthest from the store itself. They had just passed the first island and were approaching the second when Jason suddenly yelled at them from the store door, “Hey, you forgot to pay!”
They both stopped at once, and Drina was chuckling at Harper’s irritated mutter as they turned back, when Jason yelled, “Look out!”
Drina instinctively started to glance around, but Harper was already pushing her to the side. Staggering, she grabbed at the gas pump to keep her feet and glanced back to see Harper throwing himself forward and to the ground, his hand outstretched as if he were a baseball player trying to catch a ground ball. The only thing missing was the baseball glove. . and the ball, she thought as she saw the flaming bottle land in his open palm.
Harper immediately closed his eyes and briefly lowered his forehead to the cold pavement as if in thanks, then lifted his head and pulled the burning bit of cloth out of the top. He crushed it between his palm and the ground to put it out, then started to rise, holding the bottle like it was a venomous snake.
“Are you all right?” Drina asked, hurrying to his side, her eyes scanning the direction the bottle had come from. There was nothing to see, however. Whoever had thrown it was gone.
Harper nodded as he straightened beside her. “Sorry I pushed you.”
“Don’t apologize,” she said at once. “I didn’t even see it.”
“I spotted it as soon as Jason yelled. It was like a recurring nightmare,” he said dryly.
Drina squeezed his arm sympathetically, and then glanced around as Jason rushed to them.
“Man oh man, that was-Man!” he yelled, reaching them, his eyes round holes of shock and awe as he eyed Harper. “Man, you-That was-It was like, woooooo.” He flew his hand threw the air in an arc as if emulating the bottle’s trajectory. “And you were like waaaaah.” Mouth open, he mimicked Harper diving for the bottle, and then shook his head, and said, “Man, you kick ass. That was freaking amazing!”
Drina bit her lip and glanced from the young mortal to Harper to see him looking slightly embarrassed by the kid’s adoration. Clearing her throat to get Jason’s attention, she asked, “Did you see who threw it?”
Jason shook his head, “No, sorry, no. I just saw this firebird flying at the two of you and shouted and-” His gaze shifted back to Harper. “Wow, man. You could play for the Jays. We’d kick ass every game.”
“Yes, well, here, maybe you could dispose of this.” Harper handed him the bottle of fluid, and when Jason nodded and took it, he reached for his wallet and pulled out three twenties. As he handed them over, he said, “Sorry about forgetting to pay.”
“Oh, no problem,” Jason said at once. “I knew it wasn’t on purpose. We just got distracted with the security video. But, hey, this is too much,” he added, keeping two of the bills and offering the other back. “You only got forty bucks worth.”
“Keep it,” Harper said, urging Drina toward the car. “And thank you again.”
“Yeah, thanks! Hey, you two have a good night. And stay safe, huh?” Jason called as he turned back toward the store, and then Drina heard him mutter, “Man, that was something else. Wow.”
“You have a fan,” she said, as they got in the car.
Harper grimaced as he started the engine, but said, “He’s a good kid. A total geek, but he has the good sense to recognize a goddess when he sees her.”
“A goddess?” Drina asked on a laugh.
Harper nodded and shifted into drive to head out of the gas station. “He was sure your name must be Aphrodite or Venus.”
“Right,” she snorted.
“But he kept your clothes on in his head,” Harper announced, and added wryly, “Which raised him in my estimation. Like I said, a good kid.”
“And he saved us from a great deal of pain,” Drina added, her voice becoming more subdued.
“Pain?” he asked dryly. “Try saved our lives and his own too. If that bottle had landed, the whole damned place probably would have exploded. Those were gas pumps.”
Drina nodded and reached over to squeeze his legs. “He helped, but you did the saving. Nice catch,” she added quietly.
“That was desperation,” Harper said on a sigh as he pulled out onto the road. “I didn’t really notice the bottle, but I saw the flaming, fluttering cloth coming at us like a bird on fire and. .” He shook his head. “It was the last thing I saw in the porch before it became an inferno. That time I didn’t know what it was and wasn’t quick enough to stop it. This time I was.”
Like a recurring nightmare, she recalled his words and squeezed his leg again. But then frowned and glanced out the window, before announcing, “We have a problem. Two, actually.”
“Only two?” Harper asked dryly.
Drina smiled faintly, but said, “Stephanie wasn’t there. The attack was on us. It may not be Leonius.”
“Except that you’re about Stephanie’s height, wearing her coat, and your hair is tucked under a hat so you could easily have been mistaken for her,” he pointed out.
Drina glanced down at the bomber she wore and frowned as she realized he was right. That made her mouth tighten, and she said, “Which means we have a different set of problems.”
“That he doesn’t seem to be that concerned about keeping her alive for breeding since the explosion could have killed her,” Harper guessed.
Drina nodded.
“What’s the other?” he asked.
“Stephanie must have controlled the driver of the car.”
Harper took his foot off the gas, allowing the car to slow as he sought out her eyes. “You think so?”
“What would you do if someone suddenly popped up in the backseat of the car?” she asked quietly.
Harper’s head went back a bit as realization struck him. “The car didn’t slow, stop, or jerk to the side. It just continued smoothly up the road.” He frowned. “I didn’t know she could control mortals already.”
“Neither did I,” Drina said on a sigh. “And she shouldn’t be able to.”
“No,” he agreed, taking one hand from the steering wheel to cover hers on his leg. He was silent, considering this, and then said, “She could make him take her wherever she wanted.”
“Yes,” Drina agreed.
He thought for a minute, and then asked, “Where does her family live?”
“Windsor.” Marguerite had told her a bit about Stephanie in New York-what she’d been through, where her family was from, etc. Marguerite seemed to feel bad for Stephanie, but then so did Drina.
Harper nodded and pulled a U-turn on the empty road, heading back the way they’d come. The highway entrance was just beyond the gas station.
“Do you want to call Teddy before we leave the area?” he asked, as they approached the gas station.
Drina shook her head. “We’ll call from Windsor if we find her there.”
“It’s more than two hours away,” he warned.
Drina bit her lip but shook her head. “Anders will call Lucian, and he’ll have someone in the area head right over. I’d rather Stephanie wasn’t faced with strangers to deal with this.”
Harper nodded and squeezed her hand with understanding. They drove past the gas station and took the on-ramp to the highway.
Chapter Sixteen
“That’s it,” Harper murmured, slowing and pointing to a large two-story redbrick building.
“Don’t stop. I don’t want to scare her off if she’s here,” Drina said quietly. “Drive around the block. We’ll find somewhere to park and walk back.”
Harper eased his foot down on the gas, speeding up a bit to cruise up the road. At the
corner, he turned right, then slowed to a stop as they passed the mouth of an alley that ran behind the houses.
“What do you think?” he asked quietly. “We could park on the road here and walk up the alley.”
Drina nodded silently and unbuckled her seat belt as he parked. Her gaze slid out the window to the lightening horizon. It had taken them far longer than the expected two hours to get here to Windsor and it was almost seven o’clock. There had been an accident on the highway. Emergency vehicles had blocked off the highway, stopping traffic completely while they’d removed the injured and the cars and cleaned up the mess.
They’d actually hit the city half an hour ago, but then they’d had to find a pay phone and phone book to look up the McGills. There had been a handful listed, but Drina hadn’t known Stephanie’s father’s name so they’d had to check almost all of them. As it turned out, Stephanie’s family’s phone number wasn’t listed, but eventually they’d hit a McGill who was related and Drina had pulled the address of the family home from the mind of the grumpy man who had answered the door. Now here they were, hours after they’d set out.
Drina hoped to God she hadn’t made a huge mistake by not calling Teddy’s house and letting Anders call Lucian. If anything bad had happened because she’d made that choice, she’d never forgive herself, she thought, as they got out of the car.
They were silent as they walked up the dark alley, counting houses as they went and watching for the two-story redbrick. Drina didn’t know what to expect or even what to do once they got there. Now that they’d reached Windsor, she was beginning to wonder if Stephanie really would have come this way. She must have known they’d think to check here. And if she had come here, would she have approached the house? Walked up and knocked? Was she inside even now, in the bosom of her family?
They slowed as they spotted the house ahead. At least three of the second-floor lights were glowing in the early-morning darkness, but they couldn’t see the first floor yet. The neighbor’s garage blocked their view of the McGills’ backyard. They had barely passed the garage in question when Harper caught Drina’s arm and drew her to a halt. He needn’t have bothered. She too had spotted the slender figure hugging the tree in the McGills’ backyard and had been about to stop herself.