Jack Kursed (32 page)

*****

Tiffany sat quietly and
watched the streets of Parkville race by as Erica drove through the
streets of Parkville. Erica had the windows open, and the wind blew
through their hair wildly. They had just got done watching a movie
and were on their way for ice cream.

"Did you like the movie?" Erica
asked.

It was difficult to talk
in the loud Jeep, and Tiffany had to raise her voice.

"Yeah, I did. Thank you for taking
me."

"Anytime, Tiffany. You're good
company."

"If I tell you a secret, will you
promise not to tell Jack?"

"Sure."

"It's a lot more fun to
ride in your Jeep than his truck."

They stopped at a red light. Tiffany
took the chance to stick her hand out the window.

"Whenever you want to go for a ride,
as long as it's okay with Jack, we'll do it. It'll get cold soon,
but it's fun to ride on the beach at night in a Jeep."

"You do that? That's so cool. Me and
Jack went to the beach the other day. It was awesome."

"Jack and I," Erica corrected. "I
haven't been in a while. Didn't have anyone to go with."

"You can come with Jack and
I-"

"Jack and me."

Tiffany rolled her eyes.
"You can come with us."

"Well, thank you. We’ll
run it by him tonight when we see him."

"You want to kiss him,
don’t you?"

Erica looked at the girl with her eyes
wide. "What?"

"You want to hug him and kiss him,"
she said, giggling.

She shifted uncomfortably.
"We’re just friends, and I’m your teacher. You wouldn’t want the
kids in school teasing you about us kissing, would you?"

"It would be cool," she
said. "Then they’d stopping teasing you about your
face."

Erica ran a finger along
her cheek. "They still do that?"

"Just a few. At lunch I
hear them talking. Anyway, you can kiss Jack. I’ll let
you."

"Oh, you will?" she said with a
laugh.

"Sure. It’s not like
you’ll be my teacher forever. And Jack doesn’t want me
forever."

"What?"

"He takes care of me, but
he keeps telling me I’ll need a real family soon. He just doesn’t
want to say he doesn’t want me."

"I don’t think Jack thinks
that. He’s very honest, almost too much. He wants you to have a
mother and father, maybe a brother or sister."

"I want to stay with him."

Erica simply watched
Tiffany, unsure of what to say, but keenly aware of the sadness in
the girl’s eyes. The light turned green.

She was halfway through
the intersection when a car rammed her from the back. Their bodies
lurched forward against the seat-belts and slammed back against the
seats. Erica looked at Tiffany, who was just as surprised as she
was. She was registering the fact that they’d been in an accident
when another car crashed into the driver’s side, sending the Jeep
into a light pole.

The last thing she heard before
falling unconscious were muffled voices and Tiffany
shouting.

*****

"I hate technology," Jack said. "How
much longer?"

"Another ten minutes."

"And then what? You go meet your
contact?"

She nodded. "We crack this
data, and I find out why I’ve wasted a month of my life in this
wonderful town."

"Hey, I like Parkville."

"The beach is nice."

Jack sat on the bed next
to Victoria. He looked at the laptop to see the progress bar barely
moving. Computers definitely kept track of time in an odd
way.

"You asked me once if I have any
regrets over my life."

Victoria perked up. "Now you have my
attention. You actually have regrets?"

"Only one.
Well,
two
, if you
count falling asleep next to a witch. I was angry with you, but
shouldn’t have held a grudge for a hundred
years."

"Aww, Jack, you’re getting
soft on me."

"Yeah, I know. Tiffany’s
made me a little soft. The funny part about all of that, it worked
out exactly the way it was supposed to."

"What do you mean?"

"The people we saved in Monterrey, two
of them got together, and now Tiffany is here. They were her
great-grandparents."

"Wow. You’re
kidding."

"Nope. The world would be a lot darker
without her in it."

Victoria smiled. Jack
still had his moments, but he was a very different man from the
person she knew that didn’t care about mortals.

"Do me a favor," he said.
"Let me know what’s on that laptop."

"Ah, you’re
curious?"

"Yeah. This guy...he’s not
an evil mastermind. He’s just a tool, and someone’s using
him."

"Would you like to be there when I
really dig my claws into this thing?"

"Eh, nah. Tiffany hasn’t
said anything, but she wants to learn an instrument. So we’ll be
dealing with that soon."

She shook her head. "I
never thought I’d see the day you’d be looking after-"

Her iPhone chimed, signaling a text
message. Her jaw dropped as she scanned the abbreviated words only
a mortal of the twenty-first century could come up with.

"Shit."

"What’s up?"

She left the bed and ran to the
balcony, looking to the street below.

"That was Tonya.
Collins is bringing her back here to
conclude
their evening. He must be
horny. She couldn’t keep them away. They’ll be here any
minute."

Jack laughed. "Maybe
Parkville really is boring. Nothing to do but screw."

"This isn’t funny. The
laptop’s not done copying, and I can’t just take it. Go down there
and stall them."

"So, this is why you brought me
along..."

"Come on, Jack. Help me
out here. Just give me..." She checked the laptop. "nine
minutes."

"More like twenty, the way
that thing’s running."

"Jack!"

"Alright, alright, I’m
going. But just to be clear, you want a distraction. You’re not
gonna bust my balls about how I do it?"

"Get moving!"

He smiled. "Done. Hold
these for me." He handed over his phone, wallet, and
keys.

Victoria paced a moment
before peering out from the balcony, and paced again. She was a
vampire, one of the older ones. Strength, speed, quickness,
cunning, a unique immunity to sunlight, all meant nothing as the
laptop seemed to slow to a crawl, mocking her. She needed the data
so she could be more than a stalker hoping to catch a break. She
agreed with Jack that something was happening somewhere, and
Collins was her way in.

Glancing once more over
the balcony, she saw a yellow cab stop in front of the hotel. The
rear door opened and a pair of lean legs stuck out. Victoria saw a
dress that looked like it came right out of Las Vegas, and knew
Tonya and Collins had returned. The doctor emerged from the cab and
took Tonya by the hand.

She jumped as something
flew past her from above. It took another second for her to realize
it was a body, falling to the street below. It crashed on the hood
of the cab, sending glass in all directions. Cars screeched to a
halt and pedestrians screamed as panic broke out. The cab driver
crawled through the driver’s side window and fell to the street.
Collins and Tonya circled the cab and helped the driver to his
feet.

Victoria shook her head as
she recognized Jack, laying on the hood of the cab.

"Jack Kursed, king of subtlety," she
said.

She had all the time in
the world as she watched the hard drive clone complete. An
ambulance pulled up outside, as well as a police car. A crowd
gathered on the street and talked solemnly, asking if anyone knew
the depressed victim. The paramedics worked quickly, noting Jack
still had a heartbeat. Victoria made a quick stop to Collins’
bathroom to retrieve another item her contact needed. She packed up
and glanced at the hotel room one final time, making sure
everything was in the right place.

She left the hotel through
a back door and climbed in her Porsche. By the time she circled
around to the front the crowd had grown even larger. Jack lay on a
gurney and two paramedics moved to slide him in the back of the
ambulance. Victoria put the engine in neutral and gave it some gas
as a police officer approached her.

"I’m sorry, ma’am," he
said. "You’re gonna have to back up-"

The crowd sprung to life
once again as Jack sat up on the gurney. The paramedics jumped back
four feet when Jack swung his legs over the side and stood
upright.

He said nothing. His
clothes were dirty, but he managed to avoid getting cut and bloody.
He took a step toward the Porsche, and a paramedic grabbed him by
the shoulder.

"Sir, please, we have to get you
to-"

Jack shoved him. "Don’t
you ever fucking touch me."

Victoria slipped on a pair
of sunglasses when she noticed Collins and Tonya in the crowd.
She'd avoided the doctor’s eye for the entire month, and wanted to
keep it that way. She simply leaned across the seat to open the
passenger’s side door.

Jack slid in next to her,
not making eye contact with the crowd. She backed up and turned a
corner as the crowd continued to watch in awe. Her anger spilled
over as she handed him his items.

"Can't pretend you're a salesman and
hold them up in the lobby. Nope, not Jack. Your idea of a diversion
is to jump off a roof and destroy a cab."

"Hey, it worked, didn't
it? And I remember you saying you weren't gonna bust my balls about
it."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Did the copy get done?"

"Yeah, it's in my pack."

"That Tonya is something. Hot little
lady. How much did she cost you?"

"You're such a gentleman."

"And you say you missed
working together?"

She laughed as they passed another
ambulance. "Yes, I did."

His phone rang as he
slipped his wallet and keys away. Victoria glanced over his
shoulder to see the call was coming from the hospital. She listened
as a calm woman spoke to him. A sinking feeling ate at her as Jack
gave her a look she'd never seen from him before.

Concern.

CHAPTER 15

Jack nearly stumbled past
an elderly man in a wheelchair as he rushed into the emergency room
waiting area. He thought he had everything planned out when he
arrived. Every footstep, every word that left his mouth. Now that
he stood in the middle of patients waiting to be seen, and nurses
calling names to examination rooms, he wasn't sure what to
do.

Somewhere in this hospital, Tiffany
and Erica were hurt. Emotions Jack hadn't felt in a long time
overwhelmed him. Worry. Fear.

Victoria put a hand on his
shoulder. He'd nearly forgotten she was with him.

"Jack, are you alright?"

"No, I'm not. Where are
they?"

Victoria approached the nurse at the
triage station and flashed a smile. Jack was glad she was with him.
She was calm and in control, unlike him.

"Hi," she said. "We're
looking for Erica Hernandez. She would have had a little girl with
her, Tiffany March. We were told they were admitted here? Car
accident."

The nurse pecked at her
keyboard, and Jack was losing patience with every passing second.
His heart sank when the nurse frowned.

"We do have an Erica Hernandez. Banged
up pretty bad, but stable. She's on the second floor, room 212. But
she was admitted alone."

Jack leaned on the desk. "What did you
say?"

Victoria grabbed his
shoulders and pulled him back. "Thank you, ma'am."

She led Jack down the hall
to the elevators. His hands shook, and he slid them in his pockets
to hide them. His hyper sense of awareness returned as he stared at
the elevator doors. Doctors walked up and down the corridors,
studying charts and clipboards. Two of them were having an affair.
He could tell by the look they gave each other as they passed. Some
of the male doctors, and even one female, slowed down to give
Victoria an appreciative look. He wanted to kill them, simply
because they irritated him.

"Where is Tiffany?" he said. "Why
wouldn't she be here?"

"Maybe they made a mistake checking
her in."

"Don't patronize me,
Victoria."

"Fine, Jack. Calm down. I
don't know what's going on. But it could be anything. Maybe she was
taken to a different hospital. Maybe the car accident killed her,
and she's in a morgue somewhere."

A sound of depair escaped his throat,
and he leaned against the wall. Victoria, immediately regretting
her words, held his face tenderly.