A Bite to Remember (20 page)

However, with Jackie trying to look after him too, it seemed different. It made him feel good instead of sad. It made him feel cared for in a special way rather than like the poor, pitied orphan cousin.

“You were never the poor, pitied, orphan cousin, Vincent,” Marguerite said quietly. “You were family. Now, feed.”

Vincent shifted off the bed and walked to the delivery boy.

He made quick work of his meal, then left Darryl to his aunt’s tender mercies and went into his
en suite
bathroom to shower. He was in an exceptionally good mood and even found himself whistling show tunes in the shower.

Were anyone to ask him what had him in such good cheer, his answer would have been one word. Jackie.

Truthfully, Vincent shouldn’t be as happy as he was. A saboteur was out to ruin him, people around him were getting hurt and even killed, and now he feared feeding and endangering whomever he fed on.

In effect, Vincent should be miserable. And he probably would be, if it weren’t for one thing…Jackie.

As far as he could tell, Bastien had been right on the money in sending Jackie to him. Vincent had every confidence in her ability to quickly clear up the problem of the saboteur. But that wasn’t why he found himself smiling as he shampooed his head and sang, “I’m gonna wash that saboteur right out of my hair,” taking liberty with the lyrics
as he went. Vincent was smiling because of what Jackie had just done. And last night, she had ordered the pizza with the specific intention of seeing him fed. He knew that went against her very nature and beliefs. This was the woman who had been offended on catching him snacking on one of the laborers, yet when his aunt had commented that he needed to feed, she’d immediately turned to Tiny and asked him to order a pizza.

He was rather amazed that Jackie was allowing herself to care for him at all, having been warned by Bastien that she had some attitude toward immortals, and learning about Cassius from reading Tiny’s mind. But he was glad she did. The more he knew her, the more he liked her, and the more he found himself attracted to her.

After showering and pulling on jeans and a t-shirt, Vincent jogged downstairs and into the kitchen on a natural high.

“Good afternoon!” he said brightly to the trio seated at the table as he made a beeline for the coffeepot. One sniff of the air told him it was fresh coffee and he sighed with pleasure. Vincent suspected he was becoming addicted to the drink and didn’t care. Carrying the coffee back to the table, he settled in the seat across from Jackie, smiled at her widely, then managed a more solemn expression as he said, “So? Did anything happen while I was sleeping? And what are we going to do today?”

Jackie opened her mouth to speak, but before she got out even a word, Vincent added, “Thank you for my breakfast, by the way. That was really sweet. No one’s ever brought me a meal before. I’ve always hunted my own. Well, except when I was a kid of course, we had nursemaids then, but no
one’s brought me a meal since I started to hunt for myself and this was even more special, you bringing me breakfast in bed like that.”

Jackie blinked at his words, then started to blush and Vincent grinned.

She cleared her throat, then said, “I’m sorry about waking you up. I asked the drugstore to send the delivery at 2:30. He arrived early. I wasn’t sure what to do when he got here, then decided it would be better for you to feed while he was here. You could always go back to sleep afterward.”

“Oh no, no sleeping. I’m up now and wide awake. I’ve had enough sleep,” he assured her, eliciting something of a snort from his aunt. Fortunately, Jackie didn’t appear to hear it.

Smiling and in a much better mood than she’d been in after grappling with the delivery guy in his room, she nodded. “Good.”

“So what are we doing now?” Vincent asked, standing as he spotted the muffins on the kitchen counter. Tiny had made blueberry muffins. God, he loved the big guy. Such a good cook and he always made the tastiest stuff. Moving to the counter, Vincent fetched a muffin then glanced back toward the table to ask, “Anyone else want one while I’m up?”

He waited until everyone had said, “No, thank you,” then moved back to the table.

“That kid wasn’t high or something, was he?” Jackie asked as Vincent sat down and began to take the paper baking cup off the bottom.

Vincent blinked in surprise. “No. Why would you think that?”

“You seem rather…er…cheerful,” she said finally.

Vincent opened his mouth to say that yes, he was, then recalled that he really shouldn’t be. He’d had to close plays. People were dying. Stephano, a good friend and excellent vice president, had been attacked. The fact that he liked Jackie and thought she might like him back shouldn’t nullify all that, he lectured himself. And it didn’t, he realized. Thinking about Stephano and the poor dead girl he’d fed on managed to dampen some of his good cheer.

Frowning, he glanced toward the door and commented, “I should go check on Stephano. Is Neil still here?”

“Yes. He’s working from Stephano’s room. He had his portable brought over and moved the fax machine and printer up from your office,” Jackie announced. “Stephano hasn’t woken up yet.”

Vincent frowned at this news, but wasn’t really surprised. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since the start of the turning, and Stephano had been badly injured.

“You go check on Stephano and talk with Neil,” Jackie suggested. “I want to grab a notepad and pen. I had an idea while we were waiting for you to come down.”

Vincent considered asking what the idea was, but decided he’d find out soon enough, and simply stood to leave the room.

It was a short visit. Stephano wasn’t awake yet and Neil wasn’t in a mood for chat. His voice was brusque as he announced that he hadn’t been able to contact his mother in Europe, and Vincent knew he was worried that she would hear the news that her son was dead before he could contact her and explain the true situation. However, Neil didn’t want to leave such news on an answering machine, so had
simply left a message for her to call him back at Vincent’s home.

Neil then took him by surprise, by asking if he should be arranging a funeral. When Vincent simply stared at him nonplussed, he pointed out that if Stephano were really dead they would be having a funeral for him, and as they wanted the saboteur to think he
was
dead, shouldn’t they be arranging a fake one? Neil had nearly lost his brother once, and wasn’t willing to risk him again. He would do whatever it took to keep the saboteur from hunting Stephano down and finishing the job.

Vincent had agreed that this would probably be a good idea, but said he’d talk to Jackie about it first. If she agreed, they’d start making phone calls to arrange it. Vincent would, of course, cover the costs. He then frowned, and added that he’d talk to Jackie about Neil at least seeming to interview replacements for Stephano as the daytime vice president as well. This, too, would be something they’d have done if he was dead.

It was as he was about to leave to return downstairs that Neil had suddenly blurted, “Thank you, Vincent.”

Surprised, he paused by the door he’d been about to open and glanced back. “For what?”

“For saving Stephano.” His expression was solemn. “I realize what you gave up by turning him.”

Vincent stilled as Neil’s words sank in.
I realize what you gave up by turning him.
It was only at that moment that Vincent realized just what he’d done. It had been instinct. Stephano had been dying, attacked by a saboteur who was trying to hurt Vincent. It was his fault. He’d done what he
had to do to save him…without considering for a moment the ramifications.

He could turn only one.

He’d turned Stephano.

“Vincent?” Frowning, Neil moved to his side and grabbed his arm as if he thought he might need steadying. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said weakly, but wasn’t at all sure it was true. Vincent didn’t regret what he’d done and would do it again in a heartbeat, but it was still heart wrenchingly painful to accept what his actions meant for him…and for his future. Whether he could read Jackie or not, whether she was his life mate or not, he could never turn her. He may have finally found the woman he was meant to live out his life with and she was now forever beyond his reach. Or, at least, she would be there for only a heartbeat of time in the many centuries that his life was likely to last.

Vincent turned to the door and pulled it open.

“I…er…I have to go,” he muttered and hurried from the room, desperate to be on his own.

Neil didn’t try to stop him and Vincent stumbled out of the room, then along the hall to the top of the stairs where he paused and closed his eyes. His mind was whirling. A great, huge ball had lodged itself painfully in his throat, his chest was aching, and he felt nauseous.

All Vincent had ever wanted his whole life was a life mate of his own and now he could never really have one.

“Vincent?”

Blinking his eyes open, he stared down at the foot of the stairs. Jackie had apparently returned from retrieving
her notepad and pen from the office and spotted him at the top of the stairs. She was now staring up at him with concern.

“Are you all right?”

Vincent forced a smile and started downstairs. “Yes. I was just thinking.”

“They must have been pretty grim thoughts. You looked upset,” she commented as he reached her side. “Is Stephano all right?”

“Yes,” he answered and felt a little of his distress ease. Stephano was alive. He was alive. Jackie was alive. And where there was life, there was hope.

His smile becoming a little less forced, he took her arm to lead her to the kitchen where Tiny and Marguerite waited. Vincent quickly told them about Neil’s suggestion about the funeral and putting out feelers for a vice president to replace the supposedly dead Stephano and as he did, the pain in his throat began to ease. The one in his chest didn’t, however. He suspected it never would.

“He’s right,” Jackie said slowly when he finished. “Neil should at least seem to be arranging a funeral until Stephano wakes up and we know if he recalls who attacked him. And you’re right about his putting out the word that a new daytime vice president will be needed. Both of those are things that would be done if Stephano were really dead.”

She tapped her pen on the notepad she’d fetched while he was upstairs, then nodded. “We’ll have to at least start the arrangements of the funeral. If Stephano can’t name his attacker, it may even be a good idea to carry it out. The attacker will surely be one of the people who attend.”

“Why are you so sure he would attend?” Marguerite asked curiously.

“Because of the letters. He seems to be enjoying taunting Vincent with what he’s doing. I think he’ll want to see how much he’s upset him by killing Stephano.”

Vincent frowned, once again searching his mind for someone, anyone, he might have hurt in any way, even unintentionally. But there was no one he could think of who could possibly want to harm him this way. Pushing these frustrating thoughts aside, he glanced at the notepad lying on the table. “What are we doing now?”

Jackie drew the notepad closer and said, “I called the computer whiz I usually use in New York about retrieving the files the saboteur erased. Unfortunately, he can’t fly out until the day after tomorrow. But, I was thinking, while we can’t access the computer files, we can still get started on the list another way.”

“The list of employees on the Dracula play?” Vincent asked.

“Yes.”

Marguerite frowned. “But we won’t need the list if Stephano can tell us who his attacker was.”

“If he can,” Jackie agreed. “But there is no guarantee that he’ll be able to, and I’d rather not waste time just sitting around waiting for him to wake up, then find out that he can’t.”

Vincent nodded in understanding. He had no desire to sit around waiting either. Having something to do would make the time pass more quickly. “How can we work on the list?”

“You name off all the people you remember being in the
play and then we go to them and see who they remember and so on. We might actually have the list made up before my computer whiz gets here.”

“Maybe you should call and cancel having him come out here then,” Tiny suggested. “He can be pretty pricey.”

Jackie shook her head. “No. I want to be sure we have everyone listed. Besides, Vincent will need the files for work anyway, so he has to have them pulled up.”

“You’re right,” Vincent agreed. “We will need those files back, but this list is a good idea.”

Jackie smiled slightly, then picked up her pen and began to make columns on the page. “So, let’s see. I guess we can start by listing the departments. Security, production, actors…” She stopped writing and glanced up at him. “Shall we start with security?”

Vincent nodded. “Max Kunstler headed security.”

“Max Kunstler? The security chief at V.A Productions?” Jackie asked with surprise. She’d met the man the day before while going from department to department with Vincent in search of files the saboteur might have missed.

Vincent nodded again. “Uh-huh. Unless there’s a problem, there isn’t really much to do around the production company most of the time. Max schedules the security guys, and so on, but other than that…” He shrugged. “Max doesn’t like to just sit around twiddling his thumbs, so he often oversees the setup of security for the plays. He goes to the theatre, decides what needs doing and how many men should be on site, hangs around for a couple weeks to be sure everything’s running smoothly, then returns to the company to take up the reigns there again.”

“Oh.” Jackie wrote his name down, then glanced at Vincent and said, “So he knew about the sabotage attempts before we spoke to him?”

“He knew, but he didn’t believe they were sabotage.”

Jackie’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”

“The same reasons I didn’t. The male actor who broke his leg was a drunk, the actress injured when the set fell on her just seemed bad luck at the time, the fires seemed accidental…” He shrugged.

“And when the ‘contagious anemia’ cropped up?” Jackie asked, arching one eyebrow. “He didn’t wonder then if it might be more than an accident?”