Cafe in the Park (Siren Publishing Classic) (15 page)

Veronique followed her in and waited by her side until the coffees they ordered at the counter were made. Emily didn’t want this encounter stretching out by using the waiter service. She led the way to a table for two by the window. When they were settled, staring at each other over the short white expanse of linen, Emily sighed. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

Veronique twisted a paper napkin she’d acquired into a knot. “He’s not in love with you. He lies all the time. The other night when we were making love he told me he loved me. That you were just a diversion and he’d been waiting for me for three hundred years.” She sniffed and threw the knotted napkin onto the table.

Emily cleared her throat thinking fast. The woman’s words brought a shiver of apprehension, but she believed in Chris now. “That’s outright garbage and you know it. Move on to the other secrets.”

Veronique reared back from the table.

Emily fleetingly thought she was about to upturn it and storm out.

Then the woman shrugged. “Whatever you wish to delude yourself with. Has he told you he eats raw meat? I wouldn’t be surprised to find he still hunts when he’s shifted. How do you like the taste and smell of animal innards when he kisses you?” She grimaced to show her own disgust.

Emily faltered. Was this true? What if it was? Did it matter? She couldn’t let that stop her loving Chris. He was all she wanted. He was a special being and he loved her. She loved him. So far, there was no sign he hunted anyway. “I already knew that. Do you have anything better?” Emily glared at Veronique. She picked up her coffee and took a drink to hide the lie.

Veronique pursed her lovely lips.

“So he’s told all. I have nothing to offer, but beware, he is a liar.” She stood and swept out of the café after that last ditch attempt at shattering Emily’s composure.

Emily looked through the window and watched her disappear down the side path. It was then she felt the flood of emotion. Anger, worry, and sadness all mixed up to make her shake.

She drank some more coffee and left the café. Her car was parked in the underground car park of her office building. Deemed “after hours” now, the security people would bring her car up if she asked at the kiosk in the entrance.

She waited for her car on the sidewalk, tracing the seam of two pavers with the pointed toe of her pump. The car arrived. She smiled her thanks at the guy who held the door open for her when he got out.

Emily set off home. She was meeting Chris at his place that night. He wanted to show her something, a surprise. She decided to tell him about Veronique, gently, and with no insinuation that any of it was true. Deep in thought, she drove the familiar route, and never noticed the small blue car that kept pace with her, following her to her apartment building.

* * * *

Veronique had left her car on the road alongside the park. After walking out of the café, she waited for Emily to start her journey home. Veronique curb crawled the short distance to Emily’s office building, at any moment expecting her to notice the new blue car, but Emily didn’t. Veronique was pleased
. Emily must be preoccupied.
I’ve rattled her after all with my declarations about Chris.

She followed Emily home.

She thought about Chris as she drove. Veronique was impressed all over again by Chris, and not only by his good looks and sexy demeanor. She’d been amazed at his patience, and generosity. All of a sudden, she wanted him back. She wanted the lifestyle he could provide, but she also wanted him. She’d enjoyed his muscular body under her hands as she pestered him at the gigs. When she’d leapt at him in the dance club, her pussy creamed as she wrapped her legs round his slender waist. She recalled the strength in his thighs, and she longed to feel his cock in her again. She sighed with regret and grimaced with determination.

Veronique was intent on ridding the world of Emily that night.

She saw Emily park her car in the carports provided next to the gothic, candy castle apartment building. She stopped her own vehicle a little way off. When Emily went in through the big doors, Veronique leapt out of her car and ran across the road.

Emily was nearing the top of the stairs when Veronique started up them. As Emily closed her door, Veronique reached the top of the stairs and heard the click of the lock.

She waited for a few moments and then rang the bell.

Emily opened the door and the look of astonishment on her face was salve for Veronique’s jealousy, because she knew in her heart Chris loved this girl.

“I came to see you, to apologize. I’ve been mean.” She saw Emily’s emotions in a series of expressions, disbelief, hesitation, resignation, and belief.

Emily opened the door wider.

“Come in.” She closed the door and Veronique waited.

Emily led her all the way to the kitchen. “I’m watering my plants. Come outside onto my roof garden and sit down. It’s lovely out there.”

Veronique followed. This was more than she’d hoped for, thinking she’d have to resort to a strangulation murder, and then hide the body, Veronique quickly planned something else.
She can “accidentally” fall off the roof as she waters her plants.
Veronique sat down at the garden table.

Emily finished watering a fern and came to stand near.

“I know how long you’ve been alive. It must be difficult. You’d have to keep it secret.”

Veronique was surprised by this. Emily was being kind. She recognized it and used it to her advantage. “That’s why I needed help from Chris. It’s very hard, although he seems to have prospered.”
Did that sound petulant?
She covered it. “Did he tell you how he gave me longevity?”

Emily sat down on the chair opposite. “Yes. It’s bizarre, the whole story.”

Veronique took pleasure in proving Chris was a liar, when in reality the story she’d told him was the lie. “Yes, when Chris and I were lovers, we would give each other love bites, as I sucked his skin, his blood rushed to the surface, a peculiarity that gave me longevity. I tasted it on a few occasions. His blood holds something special.” It didn’t matter that Emily knew the truth because she wouldn’t live long enough to do anything with it. She saw Emily’s smile disappear and jumped on the chance to hurt more.

“Oh, I see Chris told you something different. He just can’t help lying, but you’ll get used to it, in time.”

Emily stood with a sad expression. She walked to a plant and took some dead flower heads off it.

Veronique sensed Emily’s turmoil. She took the opportunity. She leapt up and, with her extra special strength, felled Emily to the roof tiles with a blow in the middle of her shoulders.

Emily lay there trying to catch her breath.

Veronique knelt over her, lifted her by the T-shirt and slugged her on the jaw.

Emily’s head fell forward onto her chest.

Veronique smiled.
Easy as pie.
She dragged Emily by the arms to the roof edge, choosing the side with the crenellations as it was nearer. She looked over and gave a low whistle.
Wow, that’s a huge drop.
Veronique grabbed Emily under the arms, she stepped between the huge terracotta pots of night-scented stock, positioning herself so that she could roll Emily off the roof once she got her on the low notches.

One moment Veronique was balanced lifting Emily, the next, her strappy high-heeled shoe had caught on the edge of a terracotta pot. Veronique was off balance. She teetered and dropped Emily back onto the roof between the wall and the row of pots. She flailed her arms, cursing and trying to rebalance, but fate had other ideas. Veronique fell. As she dropped to the sidewalk below, she grabbed at the air, her mouth open, but no scream came. She landed in front of an elderly couple taking their dog for a walk, her skull shattered, and her back broken.

The elderly couple cried out and called for help. A man on the other side of the road ran across. He stood staring in horror at the grisly sight for a few seconds, and then he took out his cell phone and called the police.

* * * *

The police and the ambulance arrived quickly. They pronounced Veronique dead. The police officers talked to the elderly couple. They had to investigate. It looked as if Veronique had fallen or been pushed from the building before them. They went immediately to the top floor of the apartment building. They rang Emily’s doorbell, but had no answer, and so they busted the door in. They dashed through the apartment and then onto the roof. The youngest officer found Emily unconscious between the huge flowerpots and the low roof wall. He called for paramedics, and his colleague wandered around searching for clues as to what could have happened.

* * * *

Emily woke to find police and paramedics looking down at her. They had moved the flowerpots away. One officer squatted by her side and as she struggled to sit up, he helped. A paramedic took her blood pressure and looked into her eyes with a special light.

The officer asked her questions. Another took notes.

“What happened here?”

Emily only knew that she’d turned her back on Veronique, been hit, winded, and slugged.

“I was here with an acquaintance. We were talking. I went to the flowers.” She gestured at the tub of flowers across the roof. “Then I was hit in the middle of my back, hard. I couldn’t breathe. It still hurts. I didn’t even realize Veronique had done that until she picked me up and punched me in the face. I must have fainted then. Did you catch her?” Emily tugged at the front of her T-shirt to show the officer how she’d been lifted and slugged.

Another police officer joined them. They looked at each other wryly as Emily asked if they’d caught the dead woman.

“I’m sorry to tell you, she’d dead. Fell from the roof. Chances are she fell trying to toss you off it. Why else would she knock you out? Do you have anything valuable that she might have wanted to steal?”

Emily stared in confusion. “She’s dead? No, nothing valuable. This is awful. What can I do?”

The paramedic turned to the officers. “We can move her. She should go to hospital for observation.”

For an instant, Emily thought they meant Veronique.

The police officer nodded. He looked back at Emily. “Do you want us to call anyone? We’ll take a full statement in the morning.”

Emily’s tears coursed down her cheeks. She didn’t want to involve Chris, but she had no one, and then she thought of Art. He’d help and keep Chris out of it. “If I can have my cell phone I’ll call a friend and tell them what happened.”

A female police detective arrived and took over the conversation. She asked Emily more questions. Emily slumped exhausted from the ordeal. The young officer who found Emily brought her cell phone to her as paramedics insisted on loading her onto a stretcher.

They carried her out. When Emily saw her broken front door, she burst into tears.

She saw someone in a blue coverall putting police tape over the gap. She called Chris as the medics took her to the waiting ambulance.

He must have been busy somewhere because Art answered. It was a relief to talk to the older man, who assured her he would help. She asked him to keep Chris away. He told her not to worry.

The doctors checked Emily over again at the hospital. When they left her to sleep, she stared at the night sky through the window and tears slid down her face.
I should be with Chris now. I wish I’d never met Veronique in the café. I wonder what the surprise is he had for me? I hope Art doesn’t let him come here. I wish Veronique hadn’t done this…

At five in the morning, a nurse woke Emily. She took Emily’s blood pressure and her temperature, checked the bruise on her back and jaw, gave her cool water to drink, and then smiled at her.

“Your fiancé has been here all night. He’s not allowed to talk to you until the detective has been in again. Doctor will be along soon.”

Emily sat up. She was about to question the nurse, but as she thought better of it, the nurse rushed off anyway. Emily waited for a few moments and then she got out of bed. With the fuss they were making she expected to feel ill, dizzy, or unsteady, but she felt fine. She went to the door and carefully opened it. She peeked out. Chris lay stretched out on the bench seat along the wall outside her room, his eyes closed. There was a police officer sitting on a chair opposite her room. She closed her door.

Chris had come to her, even though she knew he kept a low profile, even though he might have to answer questions about Veronique. Emily sat down on the bed and looked for her cell phone. It had gone from her bedside unit.

She lay back down in the bed and waited. A doctor came along an hour later, read her notes, and checked her over again.

“You can go home as soon as the detective has finished her questions. Any nausea, double vision, or dizziness, call your doctor immediately.” He wrote something on the chart at the bottom of her bed and left.

The detective who had asked Emily questions the night before came in.

“Why is there a police officer outside my room?”

The detective sat on the chair by Emily’s bed.