No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1) (3 page)

“You can’t do that. It’s against the
rules.”

“Rules,” I choked out, yet further
flabbergasted by all of this.

“You can’t take anything. It could be
noticed missing.”

“I think I know better than to take
anything that would be noticed being gone. I’m not an idiot. I also think I
know best as to what would be missed, or if anything at all would be missed. You
know nothing of my life.” I tossed my entire embossed brass jewelry box into
the suitcase; I couldn’t bear to part with any of the items that occupied it, I
did it with a little more oomph than was needed, just to get my point across.

I turned to him, glaring. “Look Liam,” I
snapped at him, but there was an edge of surrender to it. “I worked so, so hard
to rebuild me life after a horrible fiasco over a year ago—I’m not even going
to get into that mess—but I finally got my heart put back together, I might
even want to fall in love again at some point. I got published, have a decent
car, a great apartment, a handful of friends that I can honestly say that I
truly care about and love, I’m not hurting for money—a total first for me—I was
even saving for my place in New Orleans, everything was going perfectly…”

I threw my hands up, huffed and hastened
back over to the closet, pilfering my faves from there as well, luckily all my
laundry had been done or there would be a basket to go through as well, but
that was mercifully empty.

I stopped and looked at him, wondering
what was going on in his head, what that look on his face meant. “I’ll do this,
I obviously have no choice, but I will not go into it struggling and empty
handed. You, or whoever else is in on this fun, will just have to deal. Hey,
consider it my severance-from-my-life-pay.” I finished my tirade and swallowed
hard, my heart pounding heavily, hurting, and hoping I hadn’t pissed him off.
Or if I had that he wasn’t a wrathful sort. I mean, really, I had no idea what
or who I was dealing with here.

 I watched him, waiting to see what
the reaction would be. It took only a moment for a smile to slowly spread
across his face. I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering what he was playing at.
What did that grin mean for me? Could he be bribed? Could I buy him off to
allow me to continue the raid on my apartment? Our eyes locked and remained
that way for just a few heartbeats.

“Feisty…I like that.” He paused looking me
over. “Ok, fine, but we have to be quick. We need to get out of here. We should
already be gone.”

 I grinned and made a mad dash down
the stairs, dragging the remaining bag behind me. Into it I tossed a copy each
of my two  published novels, a vast collection of flash drives and
CDs—containing all of my writing files and photos—two actual photo albums, my
tablet, a few framed pix from the sofa table and break front. And my plush
gator—Boudreaux.

I was looking over the room for anything
else that I just couldn’t stand to leave behind, and would not be missed, when
Liam approached from the bottom of the stairs, hauling the baggage with him.

“Thanks!” I glanced over at my CD and
DVD stacks. Maybe some bribery would ease the climate. “Anything you want?”

He shook his head solemnly, but after
glancing briefly around the room—his eyes spying my quite large CD
collection—he shrugged, set the luggage down and rummaged through the
assortment, picking and pulling with some deliberation. That would buy me a
little time for my own personal larceny.

I hurried back up the stairs and then
peeped over the railing to be sure that Liam was still occupied. He was
engrossed in his task and next to him the stack was steadily growing.

I moved to the corner of the loft and pushed
back a book filled chest. Beneath that lay my treasure trove, my cash stash. I
stuck the edge of my handy hedgehog letter opener into a seam of the hardwood
floor and pried an entire two foot by three foot section up. What I pulled out
from that hollow-hidey space was a rather large Victorian hatbox. I retrieved a
roll of duct tape from my craft bin and swiftly taped the box securely closed.
It was filled with greenery. Wonderful wads of twenty and one hundred dollar
bills!

It was absolutely stuffed full. I didn’t
even know for sure how much was in there, I had stopped counting when it had
reached five thousand. Getting my money out of the bank might prove difficult
now that I was deceased. I was so glad I had started squirreling this away well
over a year ago—my emergency horde. Well, this definitely qualified as an
emergency.

I hastened back downstairs. The bedroom
was as cleaned out as I could do under the conditions I had to work with. I had
everything that I simply could not stand to leave behind.

“Ok. I guess that’s it.” I plunked down
the hatbox with the other bags. I suddenly felt very nervous, apprehensive.
What the hell was I doing? I shifted from foot to foot. I bit down on a dark
burgundy fingernail. “What now?” It came out as nearly a squeak. I cleared my
throat.

Liam gathered up his plunder, a very
satisfied grin on his mug. “We take all this to my car and hit the road…now.”
He rather gallantly picked up the heaviest of my gear and trudged towards the
door.

I stopped for a one last glance around
my life, the life that I was abandoning. This was so incredibly painful,
absolute anguish.

He ran his hands through his hair.
“There’s no time left. I have to get this sorted. We have to go.”

I frowned at him, tears in my eyes.

“Uh, sorry…just try to speed it up a
bit, this…” he gestured at my spoils, “is entirely against the rules. I
shouldn’t be helping you do this.”

“And if you had nothing to gain, I’m
sure you wouldn’t be allowing it.” I paused and studied him. “So, why are you?”

He looked daggers at me. “And this,” he
waved at me from head to foot, ignoring my words, “is...I don’t know what this
is about, but it won’t make anything easier if we get caught leaving here.” He
looked slightly unwell. “And may I suggest a hat?” He added, tossing me a black
newsboy cap from where it hung on my wall. My favorite, glad he’d thought of
it.

~
Chapter Three ~

It
only took nineteen hours to arrive at Liam’s place in Seattle. And grudgingly,
I’d have to say it was one of the most enjoyable road trips of my life—my
somewhat short life.

Other than a few pit stops for high
octane coffee, various snacks, and leg stretching, we drove straight through. I
didn’t mind the lack of sight-seeing. Not only had I made this drive before,
when I’d been engaged to a Seattleite boy many years before, not long after
high school, but I wasn’t in the mood for any trivial chit chat.

Sleep. I wanted the empty oblivion of
sleep.

Normally, I’d feel really guilty for
leaving the driver without company and conversation, but I just didn’t care. It
was his job after all, so let him do it.

Once in the car—a very sexy midnight
blue Lexus—I snuggled into the leather seat and using my coat as a pillow,
rested my head against the window, settling into sleep mode; alone with my
chaotic, jumbled thoughts and emotions. Nothingness is all I wanted. A straight
eighteen hours or so of that, blissful unconsciousness.

Gideon…no I didn’t…Someone cocked this
up pretty bloody well, but it wasn’t me…I thought she was just having one over
on me…I saw her mail…It’s Isabelle…No, she’s not Lissa…I don’t know…Her license
says Isabelle Finne…No, not Lissa Ingersoll…What do you want me to say…No, she
was the only dead girl there…Yes, I saw her Lanmhuchadh, I saw it happen…I
don’t know what else I can tell you…She may have been, but she wasn’t dead…I’m
already on my way.

I
succeeded…with about three—and they were unpleasant and full of murky
conversation—and Liam had other ideas about me sleeping any more than that
anyway, so it would seem.

He decided after our first
stopover—somewhere up the California coast sometime after mid-morning—to become
incredibly talkative.

He began his tête-à-tête with where he
was originally from. Ireland. He’d grown up in the quaint little village of
Carndonagh and then at twelve...“after my mother passed, I moved to
Cnoc
Na
Slea
with my
grans
. I traveled a bit with them on holidays. The usual,
London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Wales, Dover,
Whitby
,
Newcastle…I saw some wonderful things and places.

 I also had a set of
grans
in the Scottish countryside. I would go to stay with
them summers. They had a farm, I really enjoyed that, miss it from time to
time.

Instead of going to University, I moved
to London. Had

a
flat with a couple of mates. Did all the usual things one does at that age, but
London, a city that size, was not quite my thing. I was missing the country,
the wide green fields, the
lochs
, the hiking. I made
my way to
Wicklow
Gap, in Ireland; lived in a small
stone cottage on a farm outside of
Enniskerry
and
became a farmhand. It belonged to my
grans
…the ones
in
Cnoc
Na
Slea
. It was one
of my favorite times.” He went on—and on—about places he’d lived and traveled
to; adventures he’d had.

At least I knew what his accent was, a
fine blend of Irish and Scottish. His voice was beautiful, lulling in
combination with the thrumming of the car’s engine; I drifted in and out of
sleep. During my waking moments he surprised me with quite a few jokes, though
I can’t recall any of them. I’m very bad at that under normal circumstances,
but I was finding myself charmed by him, his stories and jokes. It seemed as
though he was trying very hard to take my mind off of what had occurred.

We
stopped just north of San Francisco for an actual bite to eat, both of us
completely sick of ‘car food’. I couldn’t imagine wanting to eat beef jerky or
potato chips for quite some time.

“I’m going to freshen up. I’ll meet you
at the table.” I informed him. Nine hours ago this would have been met with an
oblique glance of suspicion, but we’d passed that point of mistrust. He had
questioned me the first time I’d needed a pit stop, but what was he going to
do, follow me into the ladies
loo
and watch? Well,
almost, but not quite.

Instead, he had decided on waiting
outside the door, after determining that there were no windows for me to escape
through.

We’d begun this journey with some trust
issues, but I think they had narrowed down a bit. After all, as I’d told him
rather simply, where was I going to go? I no longer had a home to go to, or a
family or friends I could confide in. Everything and everyone was no longer
accessible to this life.

At our first rest stop, gas, and snack
fill-up, I had purchased some necessary items. So I took the opportunity to
brush my teeth, and fix my hair—and touch up my makeup—I don’t know why I was bothering
with my makeup. Why was I? Ok! He was cute. Way beyond cute.

And he was charming and funny.

And had the most awesome voice.

And oh, how I wish I’d met him some
other time or under better circumstances, like that trip to Ireland that I’d
always dreamed of taking.

I stopped applying my lip balm and gazed
at myself in the mirror, and sighed. What did he think of me like this? What
did he think of me at all? How did he get assigned to me and why were we going
all the way to Seattle? He had told me nothing; had steered clear of any
conversation regarding the incident and what was going to happen— and why he
was so disturbed by the way I looked.

Did he like the way I looked? I shook my
head.
Stop thinking like that! You’re his job. He’s only doing his job….but
he’s so cute and funny and sexy and smells so good and he’s so cute…

I was beginning to think that spending
so many hours locked in a car travelling with him, perhaps had not been the
wisest choice of whoever was in charge of this mess.

I closed my bag, giving myself one last
glance as I left the ladies room.

I had intended to be more resolute and
defy his charms, to ignore the tingling sensation in my head every time he
glanced at me, to eat in silence quickly and get back on the road. But Liam had
other plans. He’d bought a deck of cards and rallied me into playing a round of
black jack for a ‘kitty’ of mini Jolly Rancher candies— which were mostly wild
cherry, my fave—while we ate our patty melts and fries.

He had me laughing again. And more than
once our fingers brushed when reaching for our winnings, causing a not all
together unpleasant electric thrill to run up my spine.

“I have questions Liam,” I said very
bluntly while shuffling the cards, hoping to cash in on the playful moment we
were in. “I want to know why this happened to me. Why am I supposed to be this
Coimhdeacht? What is that even? I need you to explain all of this to me better.
I think I’ve been pretty patient with waiting. Why were you sent to get me and
why do I have to be in Seattle? Why was I chosen? Why did I have to die?” I
whispered the last.

He cut short, pulling several bills from
his wallet and fixed his eyes on at me, his face suddenly impassive “I can’t
tell you anymore than I already have. I’m not allowed to, that’s Gideon’s deal.
We have to go. I’m sorry I can’t give you answers, but I simply don’t have
them. And nothing I could tell you is going to ease what you’re going through.”
He placed the cash on the table with the bill. “It’s time we move along.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to
say?”

“It’s all I can say, Isabelle. I wish I
had more. I want to, but I don’t have the answers. Gideon only told me to
retrieve you; he’ll be the one to explain it all.”

I wasn’t happy or satisfied with his
response, but as usual what could I do about it? It’s not like I could just run
off and go back to my life or even start a new one. My license, my I.D., all of
that official stuff…I no longer had. My name was no longer mine really. I kind
of was no longer Isabelle. Who was I?

We got back on route moments later, I
felt lower than low. I felt conflicted. I snuggled back into my coat-pillow and
closed my eyes. I didn’t want to like him. I only wanted to hate this person,
this thing, this not quite human individual. He’d taken my life. He’d taken me
away from my home and everything I loved. He may not have done so directly, but
he was the one ushering me away. I didn’t want to be reeled in by his humor and
allure…but I was. I liked him. He was nice. It wasn’t just a performance. I
could somehow sense his sincerity, and I didn’t want to.

I didn’t know what to make of these
feelings, or the sensations that I had been experiencing for the past few hours
as we drove up through the top half of California. It was so similar, too
parallel, to the things I wrote of when I wrote about my vampires in my novels.
Something aside from my appearance was different. Something deep inside, an
energy thing. A rippling, humming, under my skin. Empowering. Strengthening.

Liam continued to ramble on, apparently
not expecting any responses from me. He was telling me about his favorite books
and movies, while listening to his favorite Pandora station—Florence and the
Machine. He liked action movies, thrillers, suspense, even
rom-coms
.
Some of his favorite authors were Raymond
Feist
, Dean
Koontz, Max Brooks, Jane Austen—wow—and that’s about the last I remember before
drowsing off.