Shrouded in Darkness (Shrouded Series) (8 page)

“Can I help you?”

She jerked up from her semi-crouched position and choked back the scream in her throat. Arms crossed, Jake stood with a shoulder pressed up against the doorjamb of the adjoining bathroom.

She slapped a palm against her chest. “God, you scared me. I didn’t hear you.”

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”

He didn’t move away from his relaxed pose, but she sensed a tension, an energy animating from him. His sunglasses hid his gaze and any expression she might have gauged. Alone in the house with him, standing in the shadows of the same room with him, she found Jake suddenly threatening. His whipcord body beneath the dark jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt was hard, muscled and much stronger than her own. The black gloves over his hands made him appear even more sinister. What did she really know of him, other than what he’d told her?

She’d been caught red-handed, snooping where she didn’t belong. “I thought you might need some fresh towels.”

“I’m fine, but thanks.”

He stood unmoving, not giving anything away.

Her explanation sounded far too lame. She gave up any pretense and nodded to his computer. “I was just curious. Is it something you’ve been working on from your old job at Miltronics?

“Yes.”

“Do you mind me asking what?” She was growing more awkward by the second, and his non-committal answers weren’t helping.

“Yes.”

“Talking to you about Miltronics is like pulling teeth.” She sighed. “You sound just like—”

“John?”

She rubbed her upper arms. “Yes.”

His tone gentled. “Well, Miltronics has a way of keeping their employee’s mouths shut.”

“What do you mean by that?” She’d always wondered about Johnny’s work, and maybe now was the time to find out.

He lifted his hand as if he wanted to rub his face but dropped it back to his side. “Maybe that didn’t come out right. Much of their work is experimental and highly classified. The competition is fierce. They pay their people damn good, and because of that, they expect absolute loyalty and absolute silence.”

“Are they associated with the government? Johnny wouldn’t even tell me that.”

“No. It’s privately owned. They have a number of contributors. People with too much money and too much power.” He pulled away from the doorjamb and walked into the room. “Enough about Miltronics. I don’t work there anymore.”

She took the hint and shut her mouth. He had every right to his privacy, but even knowing that, it didn’t help her from feeling rebuffed. Turning to leave, she bumped her hip and knocked a section of newspaper off the dresser. She caught the folded newsprint in midair. About to put it back, she paused when the glow from the screen caught the word Miltronics in bold print across the newspaper. Frowning, she opened the paper and saw the caption on the front page of the Boston Globe.

“Twelve Dead in Explosion.” Unable to read more because of the room’s darkness, she reached over for the light switch.

“Don’t!”

She jumped at the harsh urgency in his voice. She’d completely forgotten about his problem with bright light. The shock of seeing Johnny’s company in the papers had blinded her to anything else around her.

“What is this? When did it happen? I have to know...”

Pivoting, Margot hurried from the room, gripping the newspaper tightly with one hand. She rushed down the hall. She was only half-conscious of Jake behind her as she entered the den and turned on the lamp. After sitting down in one of the high-backed chairs, she read the first several paragraphs in disbelief. When finished, she looked up at Jake.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Jake asked softly.

“I—” She stared at him standing along the edge of the room’s shadows. “Johnny, he...” She hesitated, then shook her head. “I feel terrible. I never knew.” She reread the date. “It happened a couple of days after Johnny was killed. These people worked with my brother. And here I thought no one showed up at his funeral because they were too damned busy. I didn’t know they were all dead!”

She tightened her grip on the newspaper, mangling it between her fingers. “They say it was arson. One of the employees. A janitor. They found evidence at his home.”

“That’s what they want everyone to believe,” Jake muttered to himself, knowing damn well who the real arsonist was.

“What did you say?” Her gaze narrowed. “Are you telling me that they don’t have the right person?”

Damn. That was stupid. He needed to learn to keep his opinions to himself. One wrong move from him, and Margot would get suspicious. Then sooner more than later, she’d be asking Malcolm and anyone associated with Miltronics questions. If she did that, she wouldn’t live long. Not with Malcolm.

And that scared Jake. In far too short a time, he’d come to like this woman. He’d realized that the second he thought Malcolm was going up to the house to confront her. Jake had raced out of the barn, thinking to head him off. Instead, he’d found the bastard leaving the place. God, the relief had almost brought him to his knees.

Jake folded his arms and shrugged. “I never said they had the wrong person. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

She stared back. It looked like she wasn’t completely convinced. But hell, it was damn hard to act convincing when the idea of someone else taking the fall for Malcolm’s criminal activity tasted like crow. Granted, the guy they caught hadn’t exactly been a model citizen with two prior arrests and an outstanding warrant for burglary.

“I need a drink.”

Jake bit back a retort. If she wanted to drink herself under the table, that was her business. After all, that’s what she, herself, pointed out so eloquently the other day. Frustrated, he watched her fling the newspaper on her desk and stride from the room.

Times like now, he questioned her relationship with John. Granted, they could both be obstinate, but he’d always considered her brother mild-mannered—so far off the scale from Margot. At work, John had been the cool, collected, calm one. He’d been dubbed Clark Kent, the alter ego of Superman.

From day one, the name had stuck. The resemblance had been uncanny between the character and John. John had found the idea amusing, and played along, by exchanging his old wire rimmed eyeglasses for a pair of ugly, thick black framed ones. The joke had gone so far, that on his birthday, Jake and the others had a fake, but very authentic looking drivers license made for John under the name of Clark Kent.

Jake smiled at the memory. John had kept that thing in his wallet and would breeze into their department and flash it around when someone would get stumped in reading X-ray results or a glaring error would show itself in the Miracell model. “Not to worry,” he’d say, “I’ll get to the bottom of this. I have super powers.”

According to Johnny there’d been a deep bond between him and his sister, closer than most siblings. He had often confided to Jake about Margot. Nothing in any great detail. More of his hopes and worries. He’d been very proud of her accomplishment with the tough time she’d had with her parents. Jake knew, though, when she’d left her husband and lost her job at her law firm that same year, John had worried. But he’d never explained, and Jake had never learned the reasons why. Maybe now, in hindsight, he should have.

Jake moved over to one wall lined with books, where he was deeper in shadow. He glanced over at the shelves and realized he was in the paranormal section. The Encyclopedia of Death caught his attention. Not exactly reading material he wanted to get into. It came too close to home. The book beside it wasn’t much better. The Vampire Book: An Encyclopedia of the Undead. He slipped it from the shelf and quickly leafed through the pages.

Topics ranged from movies and books to mythology, psychological perspectives and sexuality of vampires. He re-shelved it, and pulled out another alongside it. This was far more interesting. Vampire Myths. Opening the book, he glanced at the index. Case studies of people claiming to be vampires, historically on up to the present day. These were individuals from across the globe, India, Japan, the United States and Canada. According to the introduction, it was a scientific study, conducted by several reputable and renowned doctors. He didn’t recognize any of the names. How accurate or authentic was anyone’s guess.

“What do you have there?”

He snapped the book closed and shoved it back in the shelf. He cleared his throat. “Nothing. Just looking at what you have here.” Glancing over, he saw the half-empty glass of red wine in her hand. Again, he told himself forcibly, it wasn’t his business. “It looks like you have an extensive collection.”

She smiled, a gentle curve of her full lips. The first smile he’d seen of genuine pleasure. “It’s taken me almost two years to get this far. Compared to many, it’s pretty modest.”

“How did you get into something like this?”

“By accident. I was looking for an out-of-print book I’d loved as a child, because I wanted to give it as a gift to a friend’s daughter. I stumbled across it on the Internet. Pretty soon, people where asking me to find this book and that. It just snowballed from there, and now it’s starting to take a different turn. The whole book industry is drastically changing, and I’m scrambling into the future of electronic formats.”

“Why such a drastic change from being a corporate lawyer?”

Her smile didn’t look so genuine now.

“I’d like to know.” He trailed a finger along the edge of a shelf. “Johnny said you’d lost your job. I know he’d been real worried about you for a time. It takes guts to dive in and try your hand at something completely different.”

He wasn’t just being polite, Margot realized. He did want to know. She took a large swallow of wine and sank down in a chair.

Why not tell him? She didn’t like the memories, but if she talked enough about them, maybe, just maybe, they might fade in time.

“I lost my job right after the divorce. I’d been the one that filed. I think—no, I know—it really hit Malcolm’s ego. He fought me all the way—until the end. Then he got real nasty. He even claimed battery. Tried to have me arrested. I guess you might say that I had problems coping with it all.”

The truth was she’d had a complete breakdown. Margot glanced down at the glass in her hand. She’d tried not to sound bitter, but, damn, she was. She tipped the glass and emptied it down her throat. Briefly, she closed her eyes, savoring the taste, full-bodied with just a hint of smoke and spice. “I missed too much work. They considered me unreliable. They needed someone they could count on. I can’t blame them really. If I’d been them, I’d probably have fired myself long before they ever did.”

Henry, her direct boss and a die-hard chauvinist, had actually called her flighty, too emotional for the image they needed to portray. That had stung. She’d never thought of herself as that.

She rubbed the back of her neck to relieve muscles gone tense. The silence was thick and far too awkward. She sat in her chair, feeling like a fool. She’d talked way too much. The wine. God, the wine was dangerous and loosening her tongue. But at the same time she felt this strange sense of release by telling a near stranger things she’d never been able to tell her best friend Joyce.

“Do you want to go back into law?”

She glanced up, not realizing he’d sat down several yards away in a matching chair of deep green velvet. “No,” she answered truthfully. She made an arc with her wine glass. “I’ve got my books.”

“Sounds lonely to me.”

“I’m alone, not lonely. There’s a difference. I don’t need anyone. I’ve become self-sufficient. And I like it that way.” She raised a brow. “Why? Are you lonely? You’re not married, with two children, a loving wife and a picket fence, now are you?”

She stiffened. He actually could be. She’d just assumed for some crazy reason that he wasn’t married. My God, and she’d been kissing him. No chaste peck, but open mouthed, hot and wet, and so deeply erotic that it still had the power to curl her stomach in remembrance.

“No. I never had the opportunity.”

The muscles in her body eased and she sank back into her chair. “Why?”

“Work always came first.”

“Do I detect a note of regret?”

He’d been casually rubbing a gloved palm along the chair’s armrest, but his hand stilled and he lifted his head to look at her. “I had my priorities wrong,” he admitted. “Family, friends, the little things. I took them for granted. I should have learned from my parents. Hell, they were perfect examples of what not to do. Both workaholics. One a professor at a leading university and another a Dean to a prestigious college. They’re both so wrapped up in their positions and titles that I don’t think they have any real feeling or passion for anything or anyone beyond their careers.

“One thing I have learned in spite of them and myself, and that is that life’s too short and far too precious to bury yourself in a job that can drain the life blood out of you.”

Margot shifted and clasped her hands around the stem of her wine glass with rigid fingers. Such conviction, such deep passion beneath his words. She didn’t want to think they held any truth. To her, life was long, painful, and filled with disappointment after disappointment. “Is that why you quit?”

He laughed, a harsh, deep sound of bitterness. “Quit? No. You could say I was terminated.” He rose quickly to his feet and said gruffly, “I think I’ll go on a walk.”

She watched him slip from the room. They’d both lost their jobs and been rejected by their employers. She could relate to his bitterness, taste it on her own tongue. Having your job ripped from beneath you could shatter your self-confidence and also your sense of purpose or direction.

When she heard the front door close, she walked over to where he’d been standing by the books. He’d been looking at a certain book, a hardback set in the middle of the shelving unit with a dust jacket the color of blood. She lifted a hand to run a finger across the spines. When she saw the bold, black letters of the title against the red dust jacket, her hand froze in mid-air.

Vampire Myths.

My, God. Vampires.