A Bite to Remember (34 page)

“You didn’t come back and I started to worry,” he said as he moved to the desk to peer down at her.

Jackie smiled faintly, then shrugged. “I was just thinking.”

“Worrying you mean, about Vincent, and the case, and—” He paused at the flicker of her expression, his eyebrows rising in question. “What’s wrong?”

Jackie stared at him for a moment, guilt soaking through her, then admitted, “I wasn’t thinking about the case. I should have been. That’s why we’re here, but instead, I was sitting here thinking that I love Vincent and wondering if he loved me back.”

Tiny hesitated, obviously debating which issue to address first, then he settled on the corner of the desk and said, “Yes, he loves you. I knew he was coming to care for you early on,
but the night you were attacked it was obvious he loved you. Vincent was so upset, and so determined to save you.” He shook his head. “And tonight he introduced you as his life mate. Vincent loves you, Jackie.”

Jackie felt a smile pull at her lips. She’d known Tiny for ten years. The man was an excellent judge of people, both mortal and immortal alike. It reassured her that he thought Vincent loved her.

“As for not thinking about the case,” Tiny went on, and Jackie felt herself stiffen as she realized how quickly her concern had shifted from guilt over not thinking about work, to relief that Vincent might love her. What was the matter with her?

“I think you should cut yourself some slack there, Jackie,” Tiny went on. “You were attacked and nearly died no more than a couple days ago. Your body has been going through major changes since then and still is. And you’re falling in love for the first time in your life.”

“But Bastien asked me to come here to help catch the saboteur. That is my primary job. These other distractions are just—”

“Your life,” Tiny inserted dryly. “We will catch the saboteur, but your life is important too.”

Jackie opened her mouth to respond, then paused and glanced toward the door as the buzzer sounded. “That will be the pizza.”

Tiny started to get up, but Jackie waved him back to his seat as she stood and moved toward the door. “I’ll get it.”

Jackie moved to the panel and flipped on the monitor to show who was parked at the gate. When she saw the pizza
delivery name on the top of the car, she pressed the button to open the door and said, “Come on up.”

She then turned and moved to lean in the office door as she waited for the pizza. “We only have two or three immortals left on the list that we haven’t eliminated.”

Tiny eyed her solemnly and for a minute she feared he wouldn’t go along with the topic change, but in the end he nodded.

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’ll 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.