by Sierra Dean
“Who knows. A house that old, with so many people dedicating their lives to working there. Work that never, ever ended? I’d wager one or two spirits are lurking in the halls. Sarah died there.”
I looked at the website, which offered fewer photos and less history than I’d gotten from Maxime, and put it together with what I’d learned during my meeting with the Tribunal.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“If Eilidh sent Sutherland to get her the window, that’s all well and fine. But he didn’t get it. There would have been some news about it going missing if it’s as valuable as you say. So, there’s more to this. They told me they were afraid the item might fall into the wrong hands. Sutherland doesn’t have the window, which means they’re worried about something else entirely.”
Maxime and Holden both stared at me. I was a little offended by their shocked expressions. This was hardly the first time I’d made an astute observation.
“As far as I know, the window was the Tribunal’s endgame. Eilidh wanted it, and she sent Sutherland to get it.”
I shook my head. “Then we’re all being lied to. They want me to find Sutherland because he went to get the window and found something else. And whatever it is he found, that’s what they’re really after.”
Chapter Sixteen
I hated being lied to.
I liked being used even less. Having been a pawn to one council for most of my adult life, I didn’t appreciate another council treating me like one now. I was their equal, but they sought to use me in some master scheme.
They thought I was foolish enough to charge ahead without asking questions because the quarry was my father? How stupid did they think I was?
I didn’t want an answer to that.
I took the laptop from Maxime and asked him to leave Holden and me alone. I wasn’t sure why I needed the computer. It wasn’t as if I was going to be able to hack into the Tribunal’s master files and glean their secrets. I could barely file an online tax return.
Taking a second look at the photos didn’t tell me anything new, nor did an Internet search on Sarah Winchester or Charles Tiffany. If the item we were hunting belonged to the home owner or Eilidh’s former lover, the Internet wasn’t offering me any clues.
Maxime’s story about Eilidh’s obsession with the sun was all we really had to go on, which made me think this item we were looking for was related.
“Have you ever heard of anything that could grant a vampire the ability to walk in the sun?” I asked Holden.
“Aside from a death wish?”
I shot him a venomous glare. “Be serious.”
“I am being serious. I’ve never heard of anything that could make what you’re talking about possible.”
“Do you think I’m being paranoid? Maybe this really is just about the stupid window.”
“No. I think you’re right. They’re freaking out because Sutherland is missing, and if the window isn’t gone, they’re worried about something else.”
I pursed my lips and did a quick perusal of the other files on the computer. It didn’t seem to be Maxime’s personal laptop because nothing on it was related to him. My best guess was it was a general-use computer, and as such there was nothing of any value on it.
I took a last look at the photo of the window, zooming in to see if there were any clues within that might tell me what I was searching for, but there was nothing. It was just a window. A pretty one, sure, and I could see why Eilidh hated that it wasn’t able to face the sunlight, but it wasn’t anything other than a window.
“Well, it’s as good a place to start as any,” I said with a sigh. According to the website there would be a guided moonlight tour two nights from today, which would be an ideal way to get in after-hours without resorting to a B&E. “Maybe once we’re there, we can get a better feel for what’s missing. Or find Sutherland’s trail.”
“You want to go all the way to San Jose to see what the Tribunal is lying to you about?”
“They asked me to find my father. I’m going to do that. Whatever else I find along the way is fair game. I don’t know Sutherland, so I have no idea if he’s honorable or not. He might have gone rogue, and I’m prepared to deal with that if it comes to it, but in the meantime I want to know what he might have gone rogue for. You don’t up and decide to betray your government one day without a mighty good reason.”
“Unless you’re mentally disturbed,” he reminded me. “Which most government traitors are.”
Closing the laptop and setting it down on the table, I angled myself on the couch to face him. “Are you coming with me or not?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “Of course I’m coming with you. I think we’re beyond the point of that even being an option anymore. I’ve followed you to another frigging plane of existence, for Pete’s sake.”
I had to smile. “Look how well that turned out.”
Since it was still early in the evening, with hours to go before sunrise, we were able to arrange for the jet to take us from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Virgin Air had planes jaunting all over California at a moment’s notice, meaning we could have flown in a passenger jet instead, but Holden put the kibosh on that plan straightaway.
“No. We are not putting three vampires on a plane with a hundred humans. Worst possible idea.” He’d been adamant. I tried to convince him it would be fine as long as he and Maxime had eaten.
I wanted to fly in a real plane.
I’d been on jets before and understood I should be grateful to have avoided a genuine travel experience, but I still wanted to try it. I didn’t get to do a lot of standard human things, and sitting side by side with bored, irate travelers seemed like fun to me for some reason.
It was just so undeniably normal, which was something I didn’t get to experience often.
Too bad it wasn’t meant to be.
My only victory in the whole thing was this time we were allowed to fly inside the passenger compartment rather than the cargo hold. Maxime and Holden showed little interest in the view from the small cabin windows, but I practically had my face glued to them.
Los Angeles from above was stunning, a far-reaching grid of lights spreading farther than the eye could see. New York was so small in comparison, one glowing island as opposed to this huge, illuminated blanket.
I called Desmond since our pilot didn’t seem to mind if we used our phones on board.
“I was just thinking about you,” he told me, sounding close in spite of the thousand miles between us.
“Good things, I hope.”
“Is anyone in earshot?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll stick with good things then, yes.”
“I miss you.” I watched the lights of L.A. get farther away. “Things here have been so strange. I’ll have some unbelievable stories for you when I get home.”
There wasn’t time to get into the whole Sutherland issue over the phone, and I wasn’t in the mood to rehash it right then, anyway.
“You’ve only been gone a day.”
“I know. Doesn’t take long to stir up drama with the vampires.”
“Something they have in common with us.”
“I’ll call you in a day or two, okay? Love you.”
“Love you too.”
After I hung up, the remainder of the flight was uneventful. My impression of San Francisco from the air was marred by cloud cover, but I did get a good view of the Bay Bridge lit up at night, and it reminded me of home. The sweeping wires and towers were more modern than the Brooklyn Bridge, but living on an island made me compare every bridge to the ones I saw at home.
We landed at a small private airport where a town car was waiting to take us to our residence for the next two nights. Although the West Coast council no longer made their home in San Francisco, they still had a number of local connections to make it easy for them to spend a night or two in their old haunting grounds s
hould they choose to.
Which worked out well for us.
We’d be staying in the same hotel suite Sutherland had last been seen in, which I hoped might give me some clues as to what my father had discovered, and perhaps where he’d run off to. Galen informed me the room had been thoroughly inspected by his wardens, and they’d come up with nothing, but maybe my father and I had something other than just DNA in common. Perhaps I’d be able to see something the wardens had missed.
It was probably wishful thinking, but all the same I was hopeful.
Holden’s tension had eased some since we’d left Los Angeles, but he’d kept his distance from me on the plane and opted to sit up front in the car rather than next to me in the back. It wasn’t the most ideal way to sell himself as my full-time lover, but now the only person we had to convince was Maxime, and Holden didn’t seem too interested in keeping up the ruse around his brother.
Maxime didn’t appear to care one way or the other. He was so excited to be out of the Los Angeles keep he kept nattering on about the history of San Francisco and all the places that had been former vampire playgrounds. Under normal circumstances this would be exactly the kind of history lesson I would love to listen to. Right now, though, I was more interested in Holden and the sulky state he’d fallen into.
I’d tried to tell him I wasn’t upset about what had happened in my bedroom, but he was carrying the burden of guilt with him all the same. He was angry with himself, and nothing I was saying helped ease his mind. Shouldn’t I be the one to decide if he should feel guilty about his actions? And if I said there was nothing to feel bad about, why couldn’t he shrug it off?
Our driver took us to an old brick warehouse where a car with our belongings was waiting. Maxime hadn’t stopped talking since we’d landed, and continued to chat about the storied past of the building and the work that had gone into restoring it after the 1906 quake. From what I gathered—I wasn’t listening to everything—it sounded like the council made a handsome income by renting the space to several pornographic film companies as a soundstage.
Maxime assured me several times we wouldn’t be disturbed during our stay, and all upcoming bookings had been rescheduled. I think he was worried I’d be offended by the double life of the warehouse, but quite to the contrary, I thought it was the most interesting piece of information he’d provided since we arrived.
We wouldn’t be sleeping at the warehouse, but it would be our nightly base of operations since the hotel we’d be using was a busy tourist stop, and we couldn’t come and go without drawing unwanted attention. And we certainly couldn’t bring in three coffins without questions being asked.
The hotel was outfitted with light-safe privacy suites thanks to all the demanding nocturnal guests who had stayed there over the last hundred years. We had nothing to worry about in the sunlight department. I didn’t know whether or not the hotel was aware their sensitive guests were vampires, but they had definitely grown accustomed to catering to some seriously strange demands.
Maxime assured me the two-bedroom penthouse he’d secured for us was designed to suit any needs we might have, and we’d be left alone during the day. He also made it clear Holden and I would be very comfortable in our room, and his own bedchamber—his word—was at a nice distance across the suite.
He wanted me to know he wouldn’t be listening in if Holden and I wanted to do the nasty.
It was both thoughtful and a little creepy of him to go to such lengths. I didn’t ask why he hadn’t just booked his own room. He appeared to be thirteen, so there was no way he could have a suite to himself without it seeming suspicious.
In a lot of ways Maxime retained much of the childish innocence he must have had when he’d been human. Though he was only a couple decades shy of his bicentennial, he still had a wide-eyed appreciation for the world around him and delighted in sharing his experiences with others. I was genuinely touched by the way he attempted to draw my attention to the sights of the city, like a little boy might share a captured butterfly with friends. He saw so much beauty in it, and wanted others to see it too, to understand it the way he did.
It dawned on me the reason I liked Max so much was because he reminded me of Brigit. They had the same sweetness, in spite of being vampires, and there was a certain guileless quality to Maxime that made him loveable. At first I’d thought it was a trick because of his youthful face, a perfect ploy to lure unsuspecting victims in. But the longer I spent time with him, the more I realized that was just his way.
Now I understood why Holden had insisted I trust the younger vampire. I wasn’t sure I did yet—not absolutely—but I didn’t need to trust someone in order to like them.
After our quick moonlit tour of the warehouse, we made our way to the hotel.
Inside the lobby I hung back while Holden and Maxime checked in, and while perusing the various pamphlets on historical San Francisco tours, a familiar voice said, “Secret?”
I stopped dead, pamphlet still in my hand, and tried to tell myself it was all in my imagination. I was not hearing that low, rumbly baritone. It did not make the wolf inside me stir from her slumber and perk both ears up like she’d been whistled at.
“Secret, is that you?”
I glanced over my shoulder, and my eyes confirmed what my brain still refused to believe.
Lucas Rain was standing five feet away from me.
Chapter Seventeen
“What are you doing here?” I snarled, unable to mask my displeasure in seeing him. There’d been a time when I might have feigned politeness towards my ex-boyfriend, but I didn’t think Lucas warranted the effort anymore.
They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That goes quadruple for a woman stood up on her wedding day.
Especially when the groom-to-be refuses to admit he’s done anything wrong.
“I might ask you the same question,” he countered. “I own this hotel. So what are you doing here?”
My gaze darted side to side, making sure there were no humans within eavesdropping distance. I didn’t see any people, but did spot Dominick Alvarez, Desmond’s brother and Lucas’s personal bodyguard. The small blond man was seated in the lobby nearby, and when he saw me, he raised an eyebrow and gave a wave. I returned the gesture, and to Lucas I explained, “I’m here on council business.”
“You’re in San Fran doing vampire work?” He looked grossed out by the idea.
“Yes.”
Holden and Maxime came up, and since Maxime was blithely unaware of the change in my demeanor—maybe because I hadn’t been very cheerful before—he continued to chatter on to no one in particular.
Holden wasn’t oblivious. He took one look at Lucas and grabbed me by the arm, tugging me protectively to his side. Sure, he could barely spare me a glance the entire trip here, but throw one werewolf king into the mix and he got all handsy.
Go figure.
“What’s he doing here?” When Holden and Lucas both asked this question simultaneously, I almost laughed. Too bad I was still flustered from Lucas’s sudden appearance to find anything funny right then.
“I’m her consort,” Holden said, a victorious tone in his voice. Lucas was a king; he wouldn’t miss the meaning of the word.
Unfortunately, according to Lucas, I was still his queen, so—
“Who are these people?” A twenty-something woman with a familiar face came up to Lucas’s side and threaded her arm under his. “Luke, who are your friends?” she asked again when he didn’t reply right away.
Luke? Only Kellen, Lucas’s younger sister, had ever called him Luke. I was used to people treating him with near-reverential respect because of who he was. This girl clearly had no idea.
“Willow, this is Holden Chancery.” He spit the name out like it was poison on his tongue.
“Charmed,” Holden said with a doozy of a smile. He took Willow’s hand and brought it to his lips, placing a kiss on her knuckles.
If he didn’t turn down the charm a few notches
, there wouldn’t be a dry pair of panties in the whole hotel.
“Do I know you?” Willow gave Holden an intense stare. “You look familiar. Did we do an indie awhile ago?”
“An…indie?” He was usually quick on the uptake with most twenty-first century lingo, but the term had apparently evaded him.
“An independent movie,” I whispered.
“Oh. No, I’m not an actor.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a gleam of pride in his eyes at being mistaken for one, though. He was a vain creature to the core.
“What a shame. Cheekbones like those.” Willow gave him a once-over that was equal parts sexual and predatory. I’d seen the same expression on serious antique collectors who desperately wanted to possess something. She wasn’t looking at him like he was a person, but rather a thing.
Her comment about films made my recognition of her face click. “Sorry, you’re Willow Chalmers?”
She beamed like a thousand-watt spotlight at being recognized. “Guilty as charged. And you are?” The cursory glance she gave me wasn’t nearly as interested as the one she’d given Holden.
“Secret McQueen.”
The initial curl of her lip when she heard my name was a common enough response. People had a lot of trouble taking my name seriously, and it was a burden I’d learned to live with. Especially after finding out my mother had wanted to name me Harmony. Ick.
But getting such a dismissive look from a girl who shared her name with a tree, a television witch and a dwarf? Come on.
“Secret…McQueen?” She repeated my name back to me as if to say, Are you sure that’s what you want to go with? Then she seemed to process it and looked from me to Lucas. When her gaze returned to me, her mouth had gone slack.
I guess the gossip columns out west had liked my story as much as they had in New York.
“You’re Lucas’s ex.”