Immortal (12 page)

Fin groaned inwardly.
No games
, he warned his brother.

No games
, Regan repeated, returning to the table with a Coke.

“So, how long have you kids been dating?”

He slid in next to Elena again. Close to Elena. Too close to suit Fin. Regan had a way with women, especially humans. He could get an HF into bed faster than any vampire Fin had ever known.

“Fin can be a very secretive guy,” Regan explained as he tore off the end of his straw paper and stuck the straw in his mouth. “Can’t you, Fin?” He blew hard and the paper sailed off the end of the straw, striking Fin just below his Adam’s apple.

I swear by all that is holy, brother, if you ruin this, I will remove your head from your shoulders
, Fin threatened telepathically.
I swear by our dead brothers’ graves.

You like her?

I like her.

You? An HF? I thought you swore off them years ago after that little tart in London—

An HF
, Fin interrupted firmly.

“Terrible news, isn’t it,” Regan said to Elena, without skipping a beat. When he was sober, he was excellent at carrying on more than one conversation at a time. He stuck his straw through the lid of his drink. “I can’t believe Richie went off and got himself murdered. He was such a nice guy.”

“I don’t think Richie
went off and got himself murdered
.” Fin scowled. “I don’t think he set out last night to die.”

“Sure he did. Well, not really.” Regan paused to drink. “But I mean he obviously tangled with the wrong person. A kid like him? What was he doing here so late? Stores are locked up. Beach is pretty much vacant. You can’t be looking for anything but trouble here that time of night. I don’t come down here that late at night. Do you, Elena?”

She didn’t answer but Regan didn’t seem to notice; he went on the way only Regan could. “I’m certainly not the person to tell you how to do your job, bro, but—”

“You’re right, you’re not.”

“But you find out what no good our Too Good to be True Richie was up to and you’ll find his killer. The other guy’s, too, I would suspect.”

Fin felt like the walls of the restaurant were closing in on him. The overwhelming smells of frying beef and fat bubbling in the French fryer were suddenly nauseating.

“I really have to get back to the arcade.” Fin grabbed his cup. “I promised Mary we’d be out of there by six. Seven at the latest.”

“Mary planning on opening up tonight?” Regan asked, childlike in his optimism.

“Not hardly. It’s still a crime scene. She doesn’t open until I give her permission to open.”

“Well, Uncle Sean, technically,” Regan corrected.

Fin slid out of the booth. “I can walk you as far as the arcade,” he told Elena.

Regan got up to let her out. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Regan slid back onto the bench. “So did my brother have enough sense to invite you to dinner at our parents’ Friday night?”

Regan—

Regan ignored Fin’s telepathy.

“I can see by the look on your face that he didn’t.” Regan reached for his drink. “Family dinner at our mom and dad’s B and B, the Seahorse. You’ll have no problem finding it. Ask anyone in town. Cocktails on the porch at eight, then dinner.”

Elena looked to Fin.

“Well, if he didn’t,” Regan said, “I will. My poor brother. He’s the better looking of the two of us. Certainly the most consistently clean and sober, but he’s lousy at dating. Dancing, too, if you want to know the truth.”

Fin exhaled.
Thanks a lot, Regan
.

My pleasure.

“Would you like to come?” Fin asked awkwardly. “It’s not a big deal. Just dinner. Probably pretty boring for you.” He felt as if he was sixteen again and he despised that feeling. He hated being a teenager more and more with each passing century.

“I would love to come for cocktails and dinner.” She looked him directly in the eyes. Again, she touched her neck. “The question is, would you like me to come?”

Fin thought for a minute, surprised by her response. This was more than just about an invitation to dinner. She’d been the one from the beginning who had said all she wanted from him was sex. Now it seemed like she was asking him if he wanted to continue
the relationship
. Or was he reading something into it? “I would,” he said. And he meant it. He had hoped that avoiding Elena this week would weaken his desire for her. If anything, it had increased. It didn’t matter that seeing Elena would only make his difficult life even more difficult. He wanted her. He wanted her so badly that he almost felt as if he needed her, and that scared him.

“Then I will come.” She turned to nod to Regan. “Thank you for your invitation. Will you bring a date?”

“Just out of rehab. No dating allowed.”

She looked at Fin questioningly.

“No secrets in our family. No details of our lives too painful for fellow family members not to drag across the porch, at every given opportunity. You’ll see.”

“I look forward to it.”

Fin stepped aside, allowing her to pass. As he did, in his mind, he slid Regan’s paper cup full of soda to the edge of the table. It teetered.

Regan yelped as Fin escorted Elena out the door.

F
in reached for a mini corndog and glanced up at Kaleigh, who was going for the same corndog from the other side of the card table. “What are you doing here?” he asked, short-tempered.

“I was invited.” Immune to his tone, she snatched up the dog on the toothpick, dipped it in a dish of honey mustard, and popped it in her mouth. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” he defended. Having second thoughts on the wieners, he took a square of cheese. “At least I used to, before the Hannenfelds took over my room. They’re staying three to four weeks. What do people do in this town for a month?” he wondered aloud.

Kaleigh shrugged and surveyed the appetizers. “How’s the cheese?”

“Dry.”

She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. Like half of the teenage girls on a Friday night in June in small-town America, she was wearing a jean skirt and tank top. But she didn’t look like other teenagers. When Fin looked into her eyes, he didn’t see a girl almost seventeen years old. He saw a woman much older and much wiser, a vampire wisewoman coming into her own.

“Your mom said she didn’t think you were coming.
The investigation.”

“I told her I was coming.” Fin backed up until he was touching the porch railing. “At least six times.”

“
And
bringing a date?”

“
And
bringing a date,” he conceded.

“A human date,” she added with amusement.

“A human date,” he repeated with serious regret.

The only reason he’d invited Elena to dinner in the first place was because Regan put him on the spot. He was hoping for a small sit-down meal with just his parents and siblings. What he’d found when he’d arrived was half the town mingling on the wraparound porch of the rambling Victorian home. Mary Kay, forever the hostess, had really done things up. Votive candles sparkled on the porch railings, Christmas lights twinkled in the trees, and she had several tables strategically placed with hors d’oeuvres. Near the front door, his uncle James was blending margaritas.

Fin had taken one look at the three-ring circus and almost turned around and gone home. Standing on the sidewalk in front of his parents’ place, he had cooked up a scheme to go to the office and call his mother and Elena from there, begging off their date with the excuse he was working on the case.

Then Mary Kay had spotted him and it was a lost cause. The thing was, he really
should
have been working on the murder cases, because they were going nowhere fast.

“Investigation going badly, huh?” Munching on a stalk of celery, Kaleigh circled the table to stand beside him.

“Hey, stay out of my head!”

If Fin listened, he could hear dozens of people’s thoughts, but he tried to keep their voices to a soft roar. They just made him too crazy, especially in a crowd like tonight.

Kaleigh gave an innocent smile. “Oops, sorry.”

“Yeah, right, oops. That might work with your mother, but not with me.” He eyed her. “But if you must know, Miss Nosy, the investigation
isn’t
going well.” He rubbed a spot of flaking paint on the porch deck with the toe of his flip-flop. He’d changed clothes twice tonight, preparing for his dinner date with Elena. Then he’d felt like a complete fool for doing it. He was almost sixteen hundred years old, not sixteen. He’d settled on summer dress–casual: a polo, khaki shorts, and leather flip-flops. “I thought I had a piece of the puzzle, then discovered today that I jumped too fast to a conclusion.”

“And that was…?”

He frowned. “Kaleigh, I can’t discuss—”

“Remember, I can read your mind if I want to,” she interrupted.

His frown turned into a scowl. “Not without me letting you in, you can’t.”

She gave him a look that made him think otherwise. Most Kahills couldn’t read others’ minds unless permitted to do so, but there were a few of them with the ability to push through the walls put up to block such intrusions. Fin knew from the past that fully mature, Kaleigh would eventually be one of them.

Fin lowered his voice. “The first kid had had sex just before he died. So had the second, so I was thinking somewhere along the lines of—”

“Like a black widow or something?” she asked eagerly. “She lures him into her web, has sex with him, and then…” She drew her finger across her throat.

“Something like that. But then I found out today after interviewing the second victim’s ex-girlfriend that
they
had sex the night he died.”

“He had sex with his ex?”

“Apparently they became exes
after
the sex.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “So you were thinking it was a woman and now it could be a guy. You know you shook up poor Rob pretty badly in your interrogation. Is he a suspect?”

“Rob is
not
a suspect and I did
not
interrogate him. I just asked him to make a list of people who had been in the arcade in the last day or so.”

She scrutinized him for a moment. “There’s something you’re not saying.” She narrowed her gaze, then gasped. “You don’t think it’s one of us, do you?”

“I said stay out of my head, damn it!” He exhaled, lowering his voice. “I can’t talk about it and you can’t either. Not before I talk to the General Council again.”

Kaleigh’s mouth still gaped open, her eyes still wide with surprise. “Fin, how could—”

Regan strolled over to the hors d’oeuvres table and Kaleigh halted mid-sentence. For once, his brother’s interruption was welcome.

“Hey, I was looking for that shirt,” Fin accused.

Regan ran his hand over the sage green polo he was wearing. “Found it in one of those boxes you haven’t gotten around to putting away yet. It was kinda wrinkly, but Mom ironed it for me.” He pushed half a deviled egg into his mouth. “Hey, Kaleigh.”

“Hey, Regan.”

“You get stood up again, bro?” Regan pretended to look around for someone.

Fin waited a beat before responding. He was not going to let Regan goad him tonight. He was not going to let him ruin his evening. “You didn’t mention that Mom was having half the town to dinner before inviting my date. I thought it was just going to be us.”

Regan stacked two pieces of cheese between three crackers and stuck the whole thing in his mouth. “Didn’t know.” His words were garbled by the food. “Cheese is dry. You guys try these hot dog thingies? They safe? There’s nothing to eat in our house. I’m starved.”

Kaleigh chuckled and walked away. “Just let me know if you need me, Fin,” she called. “And stop picking on my boyfriend.”

I wasn’t picking on your boyfriend
, Fin telepathed.

“What was that all about?” Regan grabbed two more deviled eggs. “You’re picking on Rob?”

“Who’s picking on Rob?” Fia walked around the corner of the house, carrying a red plastic cup.

“Margarita?” Regan snatched the cup from her hand and sniffed.

She watched him make a face. “Lemonade. Want some?”

Regan handed the cup back to his sister. “No thanks. I was hoping it was a margarita, just so I could smell it. This being on the wagon sucks. No recreational drugs. None of Uncle James’s famous margaritas.”

“Sober and clean. It does suck. So does being unemployed.” She looked down at the hors d’oeuvres. “You do anything about getting a job, yet?”

“Jezus, Mary, and Joseph, now you sound like him.” Regan pointed at Fin with a mini corndog.

“You didn’t tell me you knew Colin Meding
and
Richie Palmer,” Fin said. He still stood on the far side of the table, leaning against the porch rail.

“I did so tell you I knew Richie. Colin just came in once in a while. Hell of a hockey player.” Regan reached for a napkin decorated with pink bikinis floating on a purple background. “Not as good as me, but good.”

Fia walked over to the porch railing and leaned against it, beside Fin. “It’s time you grew up, Regan. It’s time you stopped playing games with kids, got a job, and started taking some responsibility for yourself. You’ve strayed from the sept’s objective and you need to get back on track with the rest of us.”

Regan wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Look, I’m clean. I’m doing my best, but it’s not good enough for him and it’s not good enough for you, either, is it?” He crumpled the napkin, tossed it into a waste basket under the table, and walked away.

Standing side by side, Fin and Fia watched him walk away.

“You think I was too hard on him?” she asked.

Fin smiled sympathetically. “Probably.”

She sighed and was quiet for a moment. “So Richie had a bite wound, too, huh?”

“Yup.”

She was quiet for a second, then glanced at Fin. “You think these murders could be related to him? Payback from the Rousseaus for him stealing their drugs last summer?”

Fin glanced over his shoulder, looking toward the street. Still no sign of Elena. He couldn’t decide if he was relieved or disappointed. “I considered that, but it’s really not their style. They’d have left their initials written in blood on the floor or something equally dramatic.”

“True.” She sipped her lemonade. Regan wasn’t the only member of the family with dependency issues. Fia never drank any alcohol, beyond a pint of Tavia’s ale at the local pub. Came from centuries of living with an alcoholic who could never forgive his children for their transgressions.

“The Rousseaus aren’t the only vampires on earth who like to kill humans for fun. Any other baddies in the vicinity?”

“Not that we know of.” Fin massaged his forehead; he was fighting a headache that was feeling more like a heartache with every passing day that the murders went unsolved. “No one on the radar except for some Russians working in Ocean City as store clerks and bag boys, and a couple of transplants from Devonshire trying to get in on the gambling action in Atlantic City.”

“So what are you going to tell the General Council Monday night?” Fia pressed.

“The truth.” He met her gaze in the porch shadows. “That it’s one of us.”

Fin was beginning to wonder if maybe Elena
had
stood him up. At eight forty-five, Mary Kay had announced that the buffet was ready. He was trying to extricate himself from Mary McCathal’s presence to give Elena a call, but the widow hadn’t taken a breath in at least five minutes.

“I don’t know how soon Liam will be home, but it will be so nice to have him here again, don’t you think?” People filed past them to get in the buffet line. “Your mother says we should have a little welcome home get-together, but I don’t know that he would like that. You know how Liam…”

Fin let Mary’s voice fade in his head as he fingered his cell phone in his pocket. Mary McCathal looked pretty tonight, pretty for a woman her age, at least. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkled, and she was wearing what appeared to be a new blouse. He’d thought maybe the rumors about her and Victor were just that, rumors, but Mary definitely had the glow of a widow in love, or at least a widow with a man in her bed. It was hard for Fin to imagine Victor as a gentle lover, but he knew from experience that intimate relationships didn’t always make sense.

Glancing toward the empty sidewalk, Fin wondered if he should take Elena’s not coming as a sign. A romance with her really was a bad idea. It would be better to end it now before it got off the ground. She’d said she wasn’t looking for anything long term or emotional, but he knew women better than that. They were all looking for an emotional connection. Hell, if he was honest with himself, that’s what he was looking for. Seeking but would never find.

Fin reached out to rest his hand on Mary’s arm, to interrupt her mid-sentence, when he felt Elena’s presence. He looked up, then turned, startled by his abrupt awareness of her. Dressed in a flowered, flowy dress and heeled sandals, she walked toward him, a bottle of wine tucked under her arm. There had to be fifty people on that end of the porch, all jockeying to get in line for the buffet, but she seemed to see no one but him.

“My apologies for being late.” She leaned into him, kissing one cheek and then the other. “For your mother.” She offered the bottle.

“Ah, thanks.” For a second, Fin just stood there looking at her. Thankfully, Mary McCathal had found a new victim to discuss the intricacies of her son’s return with. “I’m really glad you came.”

She smiled, gazing around, seeming completely impervious to the crowd of exuberant Kahills. If only she knew who they were, what they were, she’d be afraid.

“Your mother?” She lifted a fine, arched eyebrow. “Would it be possible for me to meet her and thank her for her invitation?”

As Elena spoke, she rested her fingertips across the base of her throat. She had a habit of doing that. An utterly hypnotizing habit that brought a whole new meaning to the phrase
making him see red
.

“Fin? Your mother?”

He blinked. “Oh, sure. Come meet Mary Kay.” He took her hand. “You’re in for a treat.”

“You didn’t stay at Aunt Mary Kay’s long.” Katy held her tongue just so as she stroked the lavender nail polish on her big toe nail.