Lost Angeles (27 page)

I love terrible liars. They never know when to quit.

“Is that what this is about?” I ask. “You wormed your way into my house hoping I could get you closer to Cas?”

“No, me ending up here just kinda… happened,” she says, surprising me with her candor. “I wormed my way into Scion hoping I could get closer to
Reille
.”

I frown at that. “Why?”

“I told you.” Lore swallows hard, her throat bobbing a little. She knows she’s turned down the wrong road, but she forges ahead anyway. “I met her before. That guy at the warehouse, he took me somewhere… like he took Jess. And wherever he took me, Reille was there too, except she got out, and I got left behind.”

“And you think Cas is involved?”

No blinking, no stammering. “Yes.”

Fuck
. Even if I’d tried to avoid it, Lore is trying to connect dots of her own. Just my luck that her biggest dot also happens to be a two-century-old pain in my ass.

“Me and Cas aren’t exactly bosom buddies,” I tell her. “Not to mention the fact that he’s fucked off to god-knows-where to do god-knows-what with Reille, and the last time you had a chance to talk to him, you dropped the phone like a hot rock.”

“I know.” Lore lays her hands out flat on the island, palms up, like she’s willing me to understand. “But after yesterday, I started thinking. If Cas managed to make whatever it was we gave to Jess, how would he know it even worked?”

“What, exactly, are you getting at here?”

Lore opens her mouth, then closes it, and takes a second to put together a new set of words. “At the precinct, while you were in the other room, I had the chance to talk to Asher and he thinks… we
both
think… that whoever took me tried to turn me. Only it didn’t work.”

“You’re related to him,” I remind her. “No way Cas snatched you off the street so he could human-trial his anti-vamp drug on you.”

“I know it makes no sense, and for a long time everyone had me convinced I was crazy…” Lore pauses, eyes going a little unfocused as if she’s flipping through her mental scrapbook, trying to find the answers she needs. “But I know he was there. I know I was there. I
know
.”

Cas and I have been at odds for a long time, but I don’t buy for a second that he would inflict a possible-turn on his own bloodline for
any
reason. Yeah, he’s annoying and pretentious and far too holier-than-thou for my taste, but if there’s one thing I know about him, it’s that he’s forthright. Honest to a fault.

And completely and utterly guilt-ridden.

Lore stares at me like she’s waiting for an answer. Trouble is, I’m not sure what she thinks I can give her.

“Reille never mentioned anything like what happened to Jess.” I heave a breath and shove my phone at her. “Number’s in there. Call him and see if he’ll actually pick up. If he doesn’t, he’s probably in the middle of something that involves a winch, a pulley, and his sausage basket.”

Her hand hovers over the phone for a long second, but when she picks it up, she only slides it into her pocket, putting a bookmark in the conversation.

“How ’bout that coffee?” she asks, smiling to cover the dull ache lurking in those blue eyes. “Then we can make beautiful music together.”

Pouring espresso into the frothed milk, I have to wonder if this is a box I really want to open.

Pandora’s Box
.

Because who the hell knows what’s inside.

I shake my head, setting the mug in front of Lore like some sort of caffeinated peace offering. “Drink up. You’ll need your strength.”

“You gonna put me through my paces?” Delicate, long-fingered hands wrap around the mug, and it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever envied a cup of joe.

“You’ll be walking funny by the time I’m done,” I tell her. With a soft snort, Lore jumps down from her stool and leaves me to play catch-up. “Hey, where you going?”

“The studio,” she says, headed that way with unerring accuracy.

“It’s that way.” I point in the opposite direction just to mess with her.

Lore glances in the direction of the living room before frowning and giving me a suspicious look. “No, it’s not.”

“Sure about that?”

Smiling at me over a cup full of foam, she retorts, “Your asscrack wasn’t the only thing I explored while you were sleeping.”

Keep on making yourself at home, sweetheart.

And I add Post-Its to the mental shopping list as well.

“Look, Lore, I know you’re worried.” Asher’s voice rumbles out of the iPhone. Somewhere along the way, he dropped the “Miss Chase” and even the “Lourdes” and picked up the nickname Xaine gave me. “And I’m well aware that you want to talk to Jess, but she’s sleeping off—” A hesitation, brief but enough to make me anxious. “Everything.”

“What, exactly, is ‘everything’?” I ask.

“Jesus, Lore,
everything
,” he says, impatient. “She’s got a slight fever, and she’s still sweating pink, but otherwise, the doctors say she’ll be fine. Whatever the hell Cas gave me, it worked.” Another pause, and I can easily imagine Asher with his fist in his hair, pulling it out by the roots. “Hand to god, I’ll have her call you the second she wakes up.”

I’m not quite ready to give up on the subject, but I don’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter. “Okay, fine. But
as soon as
she wakes up.”

“Gotcha,” he promises.

I’m alone in the house. Well, I’m as alone as someone can be, surrounded by a small army of people that I barely hear or see. Occasionally I catch sight of Xaine’s housekeeper, Rosa, but the rest of them move like silent shadows, raking the leaves, cleaning the pool, dusting the marble bust of Xaine that’s stationed in the foyer. The man of the house bailed out a while ago, muttering something about getting me breakfast, although I don’t know when it became normal to eat breakfast at three PM.

Maybe right about the time you became platonic bedmates with a vampire.

Or maybe platonic-adjacent. I’d woken up draped over Xaine again, only this time he had his fingers threaded through the holes in my borrowed shirt, and he was idly plucking my nipple in his sleep. Hadn’t apologized for that, either, only gave me that signature fangy grin as he’d tossed his phone at me and headed downstairs wearing only a silk robe. I’d punched up Caspian Declan’s contact information and spent the better part of five minutes staring at it before scrolling back to find Asher’s number instead. He’d picked up on the first ring and relayed everything that happened at the hospital, plus how he got Jess cleaned up and tucked in at Phantom Firearms. Rationally, I know she’s as safe as she could be with him, and yet the irrational side of me wants to steal Xaine’s car again and go down there, if only to hold her hand while she sleeps and be there when she wakes up.

“You don’t have anything to worry about, either,” Asher says, reminding me he’s still on the line. “Benicio isn’t going to come anywhere near the mansion with the team I have in place there.” Another hesitation. “Don’t leave the house, Lore. I know it’s not fair to make you feel like a prisoner right now—”

I can’t help but laugh at that. “Oh, yeah, it’s the trial of the century to be holed up in a mansion in the Palisades—”

Asher runs over the top of my sarcasm with, “You could have just as easily ended up dead last night as…” He trails off, and I wait, but he doesn’t give me anything beyond a cough and a muttered, “Chasing you down once was enough, if you get my drift.”

“Yeah, I do. And I cross my heart promise that I’m looking forward to a very quiet day of planting my ass on Xaine’s couch with all the pizza and beer ever and
not
getting stalked by a serial killer, thanks.”

Oddly, Asher sounds amused when he says, “Good luck with the pizza and beer part of that plan. I’ve got the rest covered,” before he hangs up.

I stare at the phone for a long moment, wondering what he meant by that, then slowly exhale and pull up Caspian’s number again. This time, I don’t give myself a second chance to chicken out and hit “send” before I can reconsider. I sweat my way through six rings before it rolls over and I hear his voice—
that voice
—responding with “You’ve reached the voicemail of Caspian Declan.”

Then it beeps. No warning, no “leave a message and I’ll get back to you” pleasantries, just a beep and then the hissing crackle that tells me my awkward silence is being recorded for posterity.

“This is Lourdes Chase, calling from Xaine’s phone… but you probably already guessed that.” Wincing a little, I forge forward. “I think it’s important that we speak as soon as possible.” I pause, debating with myself before blurting out, “There are things I remember, and things I don’t, and a lot of things I don’t understand. You’re sorta… all of those things. If you could call me back? If not, I could… I could… I’ll try again later. Okay, um… thanks… bye.”

Positive that I’ve made a complete and utter ass of myself, I disconnect the call and drop the phone onto the nightstand.

“Didn’t pick up, I’m guessing,” Xaine observes from the doorway, and I jump a mile.

“No, he didn’t.”

“Probably busy.” Completely pokerfaced, Xaine heads for the closet. “Saving the world, curing disease, bringing fresh water to impoverished villages, that kind of thing. Oh, and banging Reille.”

“Does it bother you that he’s with her?” I ask, not sure I want to know the answer.

“Nope,” is the muffled reply. “I have zero fucks left for Reille or Cas. The two of them are welcome to each other.” Xaine heads for me with a second robe, which he drops in a silken puddle in my lap. “Put that on.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” Except I can’t help the fact that I’m already smiling. “I was told there would be breakfast.”

“There is
all
the breakfast ever downstairs. And if you want to go down stark-naked, that’s your business. Will make for a very interesting start to our afternoon.”

“Why?” My stomach suddenly bottoms out. “What’s happening this afternoon?”

Because it could be anything, with Xaine. He could just as easily toss me on a plane as he could in the swimming pool. It could be a photoshoot, a movie shoot, a swanky party, or the two of us on the top of the tallest building downtown. Not to have dinner, but to base jump off the roof. Xaine doesn’t answer me, instead heading out of the bedroom like it’s just another day in paradise. I follow him, chin up, determined not to be the one who blinks first.

Which lasts about as long as it takes me to get a good look over the banister.

The entire first floor looks like the backlot at Universal Studios. Chairs and tables and lights occupy significant real estate. Black electrical cords snake across the marble, held in place with strips of gaffer’s tape. Xaine is three steps ahead of me, but I catch up and clamp down on his shoulder hard enough to make him pause on the first landing.

“What’s going on down there?”

He half-turns, grinning up at me as he reaches for my robe. “That? Is the beginning of a blitzkrieg.” His hands fiddle with the sash, pulling me down to meet him one inexorable stair at a time.

I resist, for whatever that’s worth. “And what, exactly, are we blitzkrieging?”

“You, sweetheart.” His eyes don’t waver from mine as he runs down the list, but there’s an evil glint lurking in those baby blues. “Hair and makeup in the game room. The light’s best in the foyer, so that’s where we’ll film the mini-interviews. They’ll give you a sheet of questions I approved, if you want to start thinking up some pretty answers.”

He’s said ten mouthfuls in as many seconds and I’m flailing, waving my hands at him until he stops the litany of All The Things. “But
why
?”

Xaine leans in, so the next bit is conspiratorial. “Shit like this happens, Lore, when a song no one was expecting from someone they’ve never heard of debuts at number
five
on the Top 100 charts.”

His words don’t really process until I blink, then blink again, staggered and thrown all at once. Suddenly, I’m getting the full gist of what I did the other day when I signed on the dotted line. My mind flashes back to the in-house studio, laying tracks for hours on end. Even then, head ducked close to Xaine’s, working over the harmonies and laying the tracks, it was just fun and games. Two people with like hobbies sharing a few precious hours of mutual passion. The strictly platonic sort.

Then I peered over that banister and saw Tinseltown staring back at me.

This
is what hitting the big time looks like.

Holy fucking butts.

“But it’s not even a new song,” is my only line of defense. “It’s not even
my
song.”

“It’s new to them,” Xaine tells me with enviable nonchalance. “In less than twenty-four hours, this thing’s chewed up iTunes and spit it out again, not to mention Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube. And that is the glory of a digital world, sweetheart.”

I can only stare, slack-jawed, blindsided, and more than a little tempted to shove Xaine down these stairs. The only thing stopping me is the fact that he still has a death grip on my bathrobe. As it is, I barely manage to keep myself from turning around and marching back into the palatial bedroom, mostly for the same reason.