“The coworker!” I exclaimed. “Hi! I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Coworker?” The man in the inappropriate shirt pouted. “I’m hurt, Jane! I’m so much more than that!”
“Anna Whitfield, this is Dick Cheney,” Jane said, in an exasperated tone that sounded well practiced. “Coworker, fellow Council member, best bro, snark twin, and purveyor of most of the inappropriate sportswear in my life.”
Dick nodded. “That’s more like it.”
“Dick Cheney as in the vice president?” I asked, while Jane shook her head.
Dick’s pout grew three sizes. Jane shook her head and mouthed the words, Sore subject.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” I told him. “And I appreciate you coming all the way out here.”
“Well, Jane gets all uncomfortable when her personal business and Council issues get tangled up. She thinks having me along will make things more objective.”
“Good to know.” I nodded as Finn appeared at the top of the staircase.
Jane’s entire demeanor changed. Her posture grew stiffer, and her face became less friendly. I stepped away from her as she turned toward the stairs.
“Finn Palmeroy, why am I not surprised to see you involved in this?” Jane muttered.
“Excuse me, I was just an innocent bystander,” Finn insisted. “And I was doing my best to be a good undead citizen, helping Anna escape from the plane crash unscathed, staying with her as we trekked through the woods, instead of just running off and protecting my own interests. I took care of a vulnerable human in an emergency situation, because I knew that’s what the Council would want me to do.”
I wanted to make a number of smartass cracks about his concern for Council propriety and how it related to working as a double agent for the shifters, but considering all that we’d been through, I kept my mouth shut.
“OK, sure, we’ll pretend for a minute that I believe that.” Jane snorted. “How did you end up here with Anna?”
“We were on the same flight,” he began. “And when the plane crashed—”
“I have a feeling we should be recording this statement for the inevitable criminal proceeding,” Jane muttered, patting her pockets for her phone.
Dick chided her, “Just give him a chance, Jane.”
“You are always too soft on him,” Jane hissed back.
Dick shrugged. “Hear him out. Remember how often the Council accused you of the worst possible scenarios and how much you would have appreciated someone willing to listen to you.”
“The difference being, I was innocent,” Jane countered.
I raised my hand. “Sorry to interrupt you both, but Finn did help me during the crash, by throwing me out of the plane before it hit the ground.”
“We did discuss your use of the word ‘throw,’ right?” Finn asked.
“Sorry, he aided me in removing myself from the plane,” I amended. “Does that sound better?”
“Meh.” Finn shrugged. “Look, it’s a long story, which we can go over later. The point is that Anna has delivered the book to you under great personal duress, so she should be paid, in full and on time. And you should recommend her to your friends as an absolute professional.”
“That was oddly formal and appropriate,” Jane conceded.
“I just want to make sure Anna’s interests are protected.”
“I do, too,” Jane said. “I wouldn’t want her to be drawn in by someone who didn’t have her best interests at heart.”
“You barely know me, and you know nothing about Anna, so how would you know what’s best for her?” Finn shot back.
I stepped back with Dick to watch the words being volleyed back and forth. “I don’t think my presence is necessary for this conversation,” I told Dick.
“Jane has . . . trust issues with Finn. While he’s never done anything to her directly, he has skirted the boundaries of what’s acceptable for us. And last year didn’t help.”
“Last year?”
“Long story,” Dick said, frowning.
“I’m so lost.”
Dick nodded. “It’s a common feeling when you’re hangin’ out with the vampires in this group. There’s a lot of background information. Gigi made up an indexed reference guide for my Nola. I’ll get ya a copy.”
Over the increased volume from Jane and Finn, I asked, “And Gigi is . . .”
“You’ll understand when you read the guide,” he assured me.
As the bickering raged on, Dick and I made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the spindly Victorian furniture. Finn attempted to give a highly edited version of the events of the crash and the ensuing woods trek, while Jane accused him of everything but murdering the pilot right in front of me and brainwashing me into believing he’d helped me.
Nope, she went ahead and did that, too.
Across the parlor, a heavy oak door swung open. Mrs. McCreary appeared, wearing a pink flannel bathrobe and old-fashioned sponge rollers in her thin graying hair.
“Excuse me!” she shouted, giving me the evil eye, despite the fact that I was sitting quietly on the couch. “What do you think you’re doing? I run a respectable establishment here! Not some party-all-night flophouse!”
Mrs. McCreary seemed to have a lot of ideas about what her establishment was and was not. Jane and Finn immediately looked cowed and went quiet, though Finn gave Mrs. McCreary a sheepish grin and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. McCreary.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s not your fault, sweetheart,” she cooed before jerking a thumb toward me. “These must be the friends that this one was talking about.”
I frowned. “This one?”
Dick turned to me, eyebrows raised. “Have you been up to no good, Waldo? You seem like such a nice girl.”
“Please don’t assign her ‘Waldo’ as a nickname, Dick. That’s just mean,” Jane told him.
“Come on, we lost her for days on end. No one could find her. It’s hilarious!”
“I am a nice girl,” I muttered.
“Mrs. McCreary,” Jane said, turning her back on Finn to give the cranky old woman her full attention. “I’m sorry about the noise. We were just having a discussion, and it got loud.”
“Yes, loud enough that I might just have to call the sheriff!” Mrs. McCreary exclaimed. “I don’t stand for that sort of behavior here!”
As Jane took a menacing step toward the old lady, Dick stood. I stayed on the couch, content to be out of McCreary’s swiping range. I was sure that the vampires didn’t mean to crowd around the old lady, arguing loudly to intimidate her, which was good, because Mrs. McCreary didn’t seem intimidated in the least, threatening again to call the sheriff, the local emergency management team, and the Council office just for daring to shout in her sacrosanct parlor.
“We are the Council office!” Jane exclaimed.
“Well, unless you’re a paying guest, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Mrs. McCreary sniped.
“That’s no problem,” Jane insisted. “Ms. Whitfield was going to leave with us anyway.”
“That girl has to leave, but you, of course, are welcome to stay, young man,” Mrs. McCreary told Finn.
I supposed “that girl” was better than “that one.” Frankly, Mrs. McCreary was starting to remind me a little too much of my mother with her disapproving glares and high-handedness. I would not be leaving a positive review of her establishment on my comment card.
I glanced behind Jane, the last place I’d seen Finn standing, but he wasn’t there. My eyes swept toward the front door to the inn, which was standing open.
“Um, where did Finn go?” I asked, looking around for my wayward vampire.
“He was here just a second ago,” Jane said, spinning and scanning the living room, as if we’d just misplaced a six-foot-three-inch vampire behind the couch.
A sinking feeling gripped my chest, dragging me down to a truth I’d already accepted but didn’t want to believe.
“Oh, no.” I sighed. “No, no, no.”
/>
And then I let loose a stream of profanities so obscene it would have made the Phone Sex Operators of America go into permanent retirement.
By the time I’d come up for air, Jane’s eyes were the size of dessert plates, and Dick had taken a large step back from me.
“So many f-words,” Dick marveled.
Jane cleared her throat. “Um, Anna, not that I didn’t find that entertaining and super frightening, but . . . why?”
I sighed. “Jane, check your bag.”
“What?”
“Check your bag,” I told her again.
“There’s no way he got into my purse,” she said. “I’m shocked he managed to get out of the room without us noticing.” She reached into her shoulder bag, and seconds later, the only book clutched in her hand was a Gideon Bible, presumably from the nightstand in our room. She raised her fist at the ceiling. “Palmeroy!”
I sank back down to the uncomfortable, fragile sofa. “Sonofabitch.”
9
There is no worst-case scenario to plan for when camping with the undead. Because no matter how bad you think it is, it can get much worse.
—Where the Wild Things Bite: A Survival Guide for Camping with the Undead
Finn was gone. Again.
I’d fallen for it. Again.
Was there some sort of an award for insistently refusing to learn from mistakes?
Jane cursed violently and ran out the door at vampire speed. Dick, however, sank slowly onto the couch next to me.
“Anna, hon, are you OK?” he asked. “You’re awfully pale.”
My hands had gone cold and shaky, as if I couldn’t get them to obey the commands my brain was sending out. After all that—the insane woodland camping trip from hell—Finn had taken the book. He’d just taken it and run, using his evil carnie-folk sleight-of-hand tricks. No good-bye. No apology for screwing me over again.
And what really sucked was that at some level, I’d been expecting it. Somewhere inside, I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I couldn’t believe that he’d ever really want me. I’d held back from him because at any moment, I’d expected to turn around and find he was gone.
Maybe Finn had sensed that. Maybe if I’d trusted him, he might have—
Wait.
No.
This was on him. This was not my fault. This was not Michael all over again. This was Finn’s choice, to take the book, not mine. If I didn’t trust him, it was because he’d given me ample reason not to trust him. I hadn’t handed the book to Finn blindly; he’d stolen it.
After he’d practically forced Jane to admit receipt in front of several witnesses . . . in an apparent effort to protect the remaining shreds of my professional reputation.
OK, maybe I should have seen this coming.
Sonofabitch, it still hurt.
Finn leaving had caused an actual physical ache in my chest, like I was being crushed by some merciless, oversized hand. Just last week, this pain would have stopped my whole day, sent me running for the nearest emergency room and an EKG (followed by repeat, ritualistic hand-sanitizer use), but now I was just too angry and hurt to worry about whether I was having a heart attack.
I needed a battle-ax. Now. Like a really, really big battle-ax. Maybe I would develop the upper-body strength to lift it by the time I found Finn. And I would find him. I would make him pay.
Right, good plan.
Dick took my cold hands between his and rubbed them carefully. His own skin was room temperature, so he didn’t provide much heat, but it was comforting that he was even trying. Dick tipped my head toward his and winced at something he saw in my eyes.
“I think you might be going into shock, sweet cheeks. How about some water or a cup of coffee or something? Some caffeine might perk you up.”
I shook my head. “I—”
“I knew you were trouble from the moment you walked through my door.” Mrs. McCreary sniffed, having recovered quickly from her enthrallment with Finn. “Well, who’s going to settle up the final room bill? This one ran up all kinds of extra charges, room service and what have you.”
Room service. She had the nerve to call that nasty cheese sandwich room service.
Shrugging off Dick’s friendly grip, I rose on steady legs and crossed the parlor, eyes fixed on Mrs. McCreary’s wizened face. She was smart enough to shut her mouth and duck behind the front desk, which offered some protection. She was also fortunate that a small white square caught my eye before I could do something regrettable.
On the front desk, on stationery labeled “Possum’s Nest Lodge,” were two carefully written words. “I’M SORRY.”
Well, I guessed Finn had left with a few words after all. Righteous, indignant anger burned through me like a lit fuse, searing a path from my heart to my gut. Finn could keep his freaking sorrys. I didn’t want them.
Growling, I grabbed a long brass letter opener and stabbed it through Finn’s note.
“That’s two hundred dollars’ damage on top of the room fee!” Mrs. McCreary yelled. My head whipped toward her, and she recoiled, terrified by the feral expression on my face. Dick was at my side in a flash, digging the letter opener from the wood and gently prying my fingers from the handle.
“OK, OK, we’re going to stick with decaf for you, sweet cheeks,” Dick said, his tone intentionally soothing. “Mrs. McCreary, the Council will pay whatever you want to charge us if you will just shut your mouth right now and go on to bed.”
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed.
“I figure that’s part of the problem,” Dick told her. “Now, send us an invoice in the morning. Go on.”
Mrs. McCreary tightened the sash on her robe and swept out of the room with her nose in the air. Dick shuddered slightly. “That could have gone easier, but I feel that honesty is the best policy in dealing with cranky old ladies, don’t you?”
“Uh, no,” I told him, thinking of my mother again. “I have never found that to be true.”
The door swung open to reveal a highly indignant Jane. “He’s gone. I couldn’t even get his scent trail.”
“He had just taken a shower,” I said absently, pondering the large puncture I’d made through the inn stationery. Without meaning to, I’d perfectly centered my strike through the “O” in Finn’s “SORRY.” Yay for me.
Jane seemed to note my damp hair, made the connection, and clucked her tongue. “Oh, honey.”
I seemed to recall from one of Jane’s e-mails that she’d mentioned she was a mind-reader. Oh, that was so embarrassing.
“Don’t worry, I don’t peek into people’s brains at random. It’s rude.”
My face flushed.
Jane shrugged. “I only heard that because your brain is sort of screaming right now. But if you’d reduce the number of flashbacks to Naked Finn, I would really appreciate it.”
“I didn’t even realize I was doing that,” I said, cringing.
“Most people end up thinking about the one thing they don’t want to think about when they know I can see their thoughts.”
“I’m so sorry, Jane. I thought once I put the book in your hands, it would be safe, I should have known better. And I was an idiot, trying to protect him when I called you. Finn was planted on the plane by some shifter family that found out I was researching Friar Thomas’s book. Finn owed the family money or favors, a lot of either. They wanted the book for themselves, and they were willing to crash the plane, and me along with it, to get it. Finn had a change of heart and helped me at the last minute before the crash. He’s been helping me all along, but I guess he was only trying to ease his conscience before he delivered the book to his ‘employers.’ I should have just FedExed the damn thing to you. It would have been safer than leaving it in my hands.”
Jane shook her head, closing her hands around my shoulders. “No, I’m sorry, Anna. Frankly, I should have known better when I saw that Finn was involved. I should have been more on guard. You were just trying to be responsible, and it turned int
o a disaster of ‘Jane’ proportions.”
“I’m unclear on what you mean by that,” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Someday the ladies of our circle will sit down, get you drunk, and share our humiliating ‘getting turned into vampires’ stories,” she told me, her voice solemn. “Besides, it’s not me I’m worried about, it’s Jed.”
“Jed?”
“He’s a shifter. I promised to give the book to his family once I knew whether it was legit or not.” Jane ran her hands through her thick dark hair, as if that would rake all the problems in life free from her head.
“Well, there’s a problem there,” I said. “I mentioned an issue with the final chapter on the phone. Friar Thomas wrote about this herbal concoction that could basically ‘undo’ all of the genes that give shifters their abilities. Make enough of it at that concentration, and you have yourself a heck of a supernatural threat. You may not want to give that book to anybody.”
“I think I’m going to have to say some f-words myself,” Jane groaned, scrubbing her hands over her face. “OK, we’ll deal with the book issue when we get to it. For now, let’s get you back to the Council offices,” she said, a kind expression on her face, though she was still clearly disappointed. “We’ll get you home, and we’ll assign a protection unit to your apartment building for the next few months, in case Finn or his employers try anything.”
“No, I want to see this through,” I told Jane. “I feel responsible for getting that book into your hands. And I’d like to say a ‘proper good-bye’ to Finn. How can I help?”
“If that proper good-bye involves that battle-ax you were thinking about earlier, I fully support this plan.”
“Stop that!”
“I can’t help it, you’re a particularly vivid broadcaster. Now, do you know anything about the family Finn was working for?” she asked.
“On the plane, Ernie the pilot called them the Kelleys. I’m pretty sure I met one of them. She was big. I mean linebacker big. So if that runs in the family, you’re going to want to be careful,” I told them. “Also, she’s probably not going to be very happy with me, because I covered her in wasps.”