by Lynsay Sands
Relaxing a little, Jackie sighed and ran her hand through her hair. “I don’t think any of them are the saboteur. I’m starting to think stealing the list was just a red herring.”
“You mentioned that as a possibility at the time,” Tiny murmured and frowned. “But surely the saboteur wouldn’t go to all the trouble of stealing it from the office and attacking Stephano just to send us down the wrong path?”
“Wouldn’t he?” she asked with a frown. “It’s kept us from looking in other directions and had the benefit of upsetting Vincent at the same time.”
Tiny looked troubled at the possibility, then they both stilled as a knock sounded at the door. Straightening, Jackie turned and moved to answer it.
Vincent was having a nightmare. He was lying stretched out on the cold tiles beside his pool and ugly little demon things with sharp, sharp teeth were perched on their haunches on his chest. They had ripped open his stomach and were feasting away on his insides. It was a most unpleasant dream and terribly painful, and yet in the dream he wasn’t screaming, Jackie was. Vincent could hear her terrified screams, but couldn’t see her. He tried to raise his arm to knock off the little creatures on his chest, intending to get up and look for Jackie, but he couldn’t move his arm, he couldn’t even move a finger.
“Vincent! Vincent!”
Vincent blinked his eyes open and stared at the figure bent over him. Coming from the nightmare he’d just been having, he almost struck out at the figure, but was glad he hadn’t when he recognized Tiny’s voice.
“Wake up! They took Jackie!”
“What?” He sat up abruptly, fully awake now. His gaze shot automatically to the bed beside him where Jackie should have been, but Vincent could see in the light coming from both the bathroom and bedroom doors that she wasn’t there.
“Where is she?” he asked with concern.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Tiny growled unhappily. “She ordered a pizza. I think she wanted to feed you. The pizza guy buzzed and she opened the gate, then there was a knock on the door and she went to get it and…” Tiny shook his head. “I was sitting on the desk in the office. There was no scream, no warning, nothing. Just silence, but I started getting Jackie’s hinky feeling. It was too quiet, I guess.
“I went into the hall to see what was happening, but it was empty. I opened the front door and she was walking to this pizza delivery car. There was a young guy at the wheel, staring straight ahead like he was in a trance and Jackie was walking to the car with a woman.”
“A woman?” Vincent shifted the blankets off and got up to start pulling on his clothes. “Why? What did they do once they got to the car? What happened?”
Tiny shook his head, his expression upset. “I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t do anything,” he mourned, obviously feeling guilty. “I thought the saboteur was a man. Wasn’t it a man who attacked her on the beach the night you had to turn her?”
“Ye—” Vincent paused. Everything had happened so fast that night and he’d been in such a panic…
“It could have been a woman,” Vincent admitted, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. Frowning, he growled, “What happened? You said someone took her?”
“She got in the front passenger seat of the car, but she was walking funny, almost like a robot, stiff and blank-faced. The woman got into the backseat and the pizza guy turned the car and drove off.”
“Jesus!” Vincent had his pants on now and snatched up his shirt as he headed out of his room. He tugged it swiftly on as he jogged down the stairs.
Marguerite was in the hall, peering into the office when he reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Have you seen Jackie and Tiny?” she asked as she spotted him. “Jackie went to order pizza and Tiny followed to tell her something and they never came—oh,” Marguerite interrupted herself as Tiny reached the top of the stairs and started to hurry down after Vincent. She frowned at their upset expressions. “What’s happening?”
“Someone’s taken Jackie,” Vincent said grimly.
“Who?” Marguerite asked with alarm.
Vincent stilled halfway up the hall and whirled to face Tiny. “What did the woman look like?”
“She was one of the two women who came over just before Cassius at the funeral,” Tiny said. “The little one who looked so young.”
Vincent stared at him blankly, then finally said with disbelief, “Lily? The thin, little blonde who looks about fourteen?”
Tiny nodded, then frowned with realization and said, “But Lily had normal eyes at the funeral. They weren’t metallic like the rest of you guys. She couldn’t have been controlling Jackie and making her get in the car. She couldn’t be the attacker.”
Confusion covered his face and he added, “But Jackie wouldn’t just walk off like that either. Maybe there was someone else in the car too.”
“Lily is an immortal,” Vincent said on a sigh and moved to his office.
“Why would she have done all this?” Marguerite asked, following him.
“I’m not sure.” He grabbed his Rolodex off the desk and began looking for Lily’s card with her address on it.
“What are you doing?” Marguerite asked. She pointed out, “She’d hardly take Jackie to her house.”
“She might have,” Vincent argued and desperately hoped she had. It was the only place he could think to look for her.
“Marguerite’s right,” Tiny said. “That hasn’t been her pattern. She attacked Stephano at the office, killed that one woman in the hills, and attacked Jackie here on the beach. She won’t take her back to her house.”
Vincent stared at them, feeling completely and utterly helpless. His mind was running in circles, panic stealing his ability to think. Where would Lily take her? Why would Lily do this? Where was Jackie? His mind seemed stuck in stupid, like a hamster running on a wheel and getting nowhere…and then his phone rang.
“Maybe that’s Jackie,” Tiny said hopefully as Vincent pulled the phone from his pocket and flipped it open.
“Vincent?”
His shoulders slumped as he recognized Christian’s voice. Vincent’s voice was dull when he said, “Yeah.”
“We’re stopped at the stoplight on the corner two blocks from your house. There’s a pizza delivery car stopped on the opposite side and Jackie is in the front seat with some pimple-faced kid driving. What’s going on?”
“Is there anyone else in the car?” Vincent asked sharply, moving out of the office and up the hall.
“Yeah. It looks like there’s a blonde in the backseat. I can just see her head over the front seat…It looks like your production assistant.”
Vincent grimaced and his hand tightened on the phone. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed Tiny, it was just that it was hard for him to accept that little Lily was the one behind all this madness. She’d worked for him for about six months and hadn’t even been on the play in New York. She’d been on vacation then. Still, as Tiny had said, Jackie wouldn’t just wander off. Someone had to be controlling her and it appeared Lily was that someone. But was she doing it on her own, or for someone else?
“Do we stop them?” Christian asked.
Vincent hesitated, unsure what to say. If Lily was working with someone else, Jackie might be safe if he had Christian and the boys stop the car somehow. But, if Lily was the saboteur who was out to make his life a misery, stopping the car might get Jackie killed on the spot. He wanted to catch Lily if she was the saboteur, but was more concerned with Jackie being alive than doing so.
“The light’s turned green, they’re driving past us,” Christian announced. “What’s happening, Argeneau? What do we do here?”
“Either Lily’s the killer, or she’s taking Jackie to the killer,” Vincent said grimly. “You need to follow them, but not let them spot you.”
“Turn around, Marcus!” Christian barked at the other end of the line, then said into the phone, “What are you going to do?”
“We’l
l follow you,” Vincent announced firmly.
“Fine. Call me once you’re on the road and I’ll tell you where we are,” Christian instructed.
Vincent’s mouth tightened as the phone went dead in his hand. Flipping it closed, he headed through the kitchen to the door leading into the garage.
“What’s happening? What did he say?” Marguerite was hard on his heels as he snatched his keys off the hook by the door and hurried into the garage.
“Christian’s going to follow them. We’re to call once we’re on the road,” Vincent announced, leading the way out to his car. He got into the front seat, hit the remote to open his garage door as Marguerite slid into the passenger seat beside him, then handed her his cell phone and started the engine as Tiny got into the backseat. “Call Christian back and see what’s happening.”
“How do I call him?” Marguerite asked, staring at the phone uncertainly as Vincent steered out of the garage.
“Give it to me, Marguerite. I’ll do it,” Tiny rumbled from the backseat.
Vincent was aware of his aunt handing the phone back to Tiny, but concentrated on his driving as he raced up the driveway. The gate was closed, and Vincent tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as he waited for it to open. His gaze shifted to the rearview mirror as Tiny found Christian’s number on the received calls page and dialed back.
Tiny put the phone to his ear just as the gate finished opening. Vincent steered through and paused at the street, unsure which way to go.
“Christian?” Tiny’s voice rumbled and Vincent shifted sharply to glance in the backseat.
“Ask him which way we should go when we leave the driveway,” Vincent ordered.
Tiny nodded and asked the question. He listened briefly, then his head lifted and he barked, “Right.”
Vincent turned the steering wheel right and pulled out with a squeal of tires. “Have they caught up to the car yet? They didn’t lose her, did they?”
“They’re following it now,” Tiny answered after a pause during which he listened to Christian speak.
“Tell them not to lose them,” Vincent hissed.
“Turn left here,” Tiny ordered a moment later and Vincent turned left.
“Christian says they’re on the highway,” Tiny announced.
Gritting his teeth, Vincent nodded and followed the directions Tiny continued to give. He was speeding and fear was making sweat trickle down his back. He couldn’t believe it was Lily: sweet, smiling Lily. He’d kill the little bitch if she hurt Jackie, he thought coldly.
“Vincent?” Tiny asked suddenly and Vincent glanced in the rearview mirror to see the troubled expression on his face. “If Lily is an immortal, why doesn’t she have the metallic eyes?”
Eighteen
If Lily was immortal, why did she have hazel eyes?
That question kept running through Jackie’s head as they drove along the highway. It was not the most important thing she could ask right then, but it was the one that bugged her the most. The day Sharon and Lily had come to the house with the list and she’d seen Lily’s normal, hazel eyes, Jackie had assumed she was mortal. Boy, had she been wrong.
Jackie attempted to shake off the control Lily had over her mind, but wasn’t surprised when she was unable to. They had concentrated on teaching her to keep her fangs in, bring her fangs on, and she’d even attempted to read Tiny’s mind a time or two, but other than that she hadn’t yet learned any of the skills Marguerite wanted to teach her that would have kept her safe tonight. Those had been next on the list of skills to learn. Unfortunately, it looked like the lesson had been left too long. She’d realized that the moment she’d opened the door tonight and felt Lily slip in to take control of her thoughts.
Jackie hadn’t even had the opportunity to shout to Tiny or Marguerite for help. She’d opened the front door, blinked in surprise at the sight of Lily, then found herself turned into a puppet. All control of her body had just vanished and she’d found herself walking out of the house, pulling the door quietly closed, and walking calmly to a pizza delivery car in the driveway. Or, at least, it had looked calm on the outside, she was sure. Jackie certainly hadn’t been feeling calm on the inside, and still wasn’t.
Jackie had tried to fight off the sudden control Lily had taken of her mind, but it had been useless. As far as she could tell, Lily didn’t appear to be having any more trouble controlling her than Cassius had when she was nineteen and still mortal, and Jackie promised herself that if she survived this night, she would make darned sure they taught her how to keep from being taken over like this again.
God, she hoped she survived. Jackie didn’t want to die. There were a million and one things she still wanted to do before she died. But then, she supposed few people were ready to go when it was their time.
Unable to do anything else, Jackie stared straight ahead, and silently prayed that Tiny had wakened Vincent when he realized something was wrong. She wondered how long it had taken Tiny to realize something was wrong. Probably only moments, she guessed. Hopefully, in time to see her getting into the delivery car.
Jackie instinctively tried to turn her eyes to the left to peer at the delivery driver and actually managed it. Lily must have eased her control, she realized. But then, Jackie supposed it must take more effort to control two at once. Vincent had said it did. That might give her half a chance here, she realized, and wondered why Lily would risk having to control two people at once.
A moment later, Jackie recalled the day Sharon and Lily had brought the list to the house. Sharon had said Lily didn’t drive. Jackie supposed that meant that she’d had no choice but to involve another person. While she could have forced Jackie to drive her wherever she planned to take her, presumably Jackie wasn’t intended to return. Someone had to drive her there, so that she would have someone to drive her back. Had Lily hijacked someone else’s mind to take the woman Vincent had fed into the hills, Jackie wondered. If so, she hoped the girl had not been conscious and frightened at the time.
Her gaze slid out the window, and Jackie wasn’t sure if it was good news or bad that Lily didn’t appear to be taking her into the hills. They were headed in the wrong direction.
“You can speak now.”
Jackie turned her head in surprise at Lily’s comment, then blinked as she realized she was able to move that as well as her eyes. Lily had eased her control considerably. Jackie tried moving other parts of her body, but it seemed she’d been given back control of her mouth and head only.
“You’re an immortal,” Jackie said abruptly.
“Wow. I can see why Vincent hired you, your powers of deduction are brilliant,” Lily said dryly.
Jackie ignored the sarcasm and said, “Your eyes don’t have the metallic gleam immortals have. I assumed you were mortal.”
Lily laughed. It was an unpleasant, mocking laugh. “My eyes are silver-green.”
“They’re hazel,” Jackie said.
“Look at me.”
Jackie turned at the order and peered at Lily as she bowed her head and lifted a finger to each eye. She blinked in surprise as Lily removed something, then lifted her head to reveal beautiful sea-green and silver eyes.
“Colored contacts,” Jackie breathed, feeling incredibly stupid. One of the secretaries in her own company wore colored contacts. Some days she came in with green eyes, some days with blue. Yet, Jackie had never considered colored contacts. God, for a detective, she was an idiot, but it had never occurred to her to think that an immortal would want to hide their beautiful eyes behind contacts. “Why?”
“Many of us wear them. Having silvered eyes tends to draw attention.”
“I’ve never met another immortal who wore them,” Jackie argued.
“Would you know they were immortal without their silvered eyes?” Lily asked archly, then laughed again. “You’ve probably met many immortals and just not recognized them, because you didn’t see silvered or bronzed eyes.”
Jackie breathed out slowly, kn
owing Lily could be right.
“Immortals who don’t have to interact a lot with mortals don’t tend to bother, but anyone who wants to blend with mortals, does their best to blend.”
“I didn’t know,” Jackie muttered. Bastien had never mentioned this tendency and her father had never made a note of it. Perhaps her father hadn’t known, and perhaps Bastien simply didn’t think of it. She was pretty sure Bastien never used contacts. Nor did anyone who worked for him that she knew of, but then Argeneau Enterprises was filled mostly with immortals.
“So much mental effort wasted on my eye color,” Lily said with a shake of her head, making it obvious she was reading Jackie’s mind. “I would have thought you’d ask me something more important.”
“Why did you steal the list of employees on the New York play when you weren’t even on it?” Jackie asked, and the question brought another smile to Lily’s face.
“No, I wasn’t on the list,” Lily admitted with amusement. “As it happens, I was on vacation, first in Canada, then in New York.”
“The fire at the theater in Canada,” Jackie realized. Lily would have had to go there to set it. And then she’d followed Vincent to New York to sabotage that play too.
“Yes,” Lily said, having read her thoughts. “I planned it all out ahead of time, and didn’t want to risk being under suspicion for the sudden case of anemia that went around in New York. So, I asked for some vacation time. I flew to Canada, caused a little trouble, then flew to New York ahead of Vincent and took a position on the janitorial staff as a young boy named Bob. I put overalls and a baseball cap on and pretty much disappeared for everyone. It was incredibly easy.” She smiled faintly. “But to answer your question, I stole the list to lead you down the garden path.” Her smile widened. “And you all followed so easily.”
Jackie felt her mouth tighten. She’d wondered about that the night the papers had gone missing, but they’d had to look into the names on the list anyway. Of course, there had been reason to do so when the lists had shown up missing from the office as well and Stephano had nearly died.