Vampire Games (16 page)

“
Leave your iPads in my office, too.”

“
But Mom!” they both said in unison.

“
That’s what happens when you call each other names. We’re a family. We don’t call each other names.”

“
Since when?” asked Tammy.

“
Since forever. And especially now. If you want to question me further, young lady, you can see what life is like without a DVR player.”

“
Sheesh. Sorry.”

“
That’s better. iPads. Office.
Now
.”

They stormed off. Tammy grabbed her iPad from her desk. I heard Anthony rummaging around his room for his own. I silently longed for the days when no TV had been enough. I also silently longed for the days when I could eat heaps of guacamole and chips. They returned a few moments later, both looking glum.

“
Anthony, come in and shut the door. I’m going to talk to both of you.”

Anthony’s eyes widened a little. After all, he had done a darn good job of concealing our secret from his sister, although I suspected, with her newfound gifts, his secret wouldn’t be concealed for long.

Too many secrets, for too long.

I patted the carpet in front of me and told them to sit. They sat. It was time for the truth, and so, I reached out and took their hands and told them everything. From my attack seven years ago, to my ability to fly, to their father’s revulsion for me, to Kingsley Fulcrum being just as much a weirdo as me.

I told them everything.

Everything.

Chapter Thirty-eight

We were at Cold Stone Creamery.

“
Isn’t it nice to know that you don’t have to keep faking it all the time, Mom,” said Tammy as we all sat in a booth in the far corner.

Although the weather was warming, the creamery was empty. I wasn’t complaining. My kids couldn’t keep their voices down even if I paid them to. Especially not now. Not with this much excitement in the air. After our talk a few hours ago, it had been Anthony who suggested we all go get ice cream. No surprise there. The kid was literally eating me out of house and home.

Interestingly, just in the past two hours, the kids were getting along better. And not just getting along but being—and get this—
friendly
toward each other. At one point, Anthony suggested to Tammy that she try the Snickers on her ice cream, and she actually did. She didn’t tell him to mind his own business. She didn’t ignore him. She didn’t tell him he was stupid and looked funny. She said, “Sure.”

I stood there in amazement, watching the scene play out. Tammy then nudged Anthony and pointed to a big stain on the worker’s apron and they both giggled.

Together.

Granted, they were laughing at someone else, but at least they were getting along.

Baby steps.

I considered Tammy’s question as I sat with the two of them. I was drinking from a water bottle and chewing gum. The gum was nice. It only gave me the smallest of stomach cramps—no doubt from the trace ingredients in the flavor—but it was nice to chew and drink and look like a real mom. I said to Tammy, “Yes. It is a relief, actually.”

“
You don’t have to keep pretending to eat or to have stomach aches,” said Anthony.

“
At least, not around you two,” I said.

“
Or Daddy,” said Anthony.

“
I don’t eat with Daddy anymore.”

“
Oh, right.”

Tammy was eating her ice cream thoughtfully. “But when we are around other people...”

“
Yes, I will still have to pretend to eat, or pretend that I’m full, or pretend that I have a tummy ache.”

She nodded thoughtfully. Somewhere through all of this, my daughter had seriously grown up. Having access to others’ minds might have something to do with that. Or maybe it was realizing that her mother was the mother of all freaks, too.

“
Remember, what I am,” I said to them again, “is a secret.”

“
We knoooooow,” said Anthony, laying his head on the table. “You told us like a Brazilian times.”

“
Bazillion,” Tammy corrected. “Brazil is a state.”

“
Country,” I said.

“
Whatever,” she said. “The point is, we all have secrets now. We should make a pact.”

“
What’s a pact?” asked Anthony.

I waited for his sister to ridicule his question, or, at least, to roll her eyes at his simplicity. She didn’t. Instead, she surprised me again by turning to him and saying patiently, “It means we all agree to something forever.”

“
Forever?” said Anthony, blinking. “But mom’s a mimmortal.”

“
Immortal,” said Tammy, only slightly losing her patience.

“
That’s what I said. Mimmortal. She lives forever. That’s a long time to keep a secret.”

I nearly fell out of my seat. Listening to my kids discussing something so casually that I had tried so hard to keep secret from them was just too surreal. I didn’t know if I should smile, weep, or fear for the mental health of all of us.

“
Okay,” I said. “We’ll make a pact to keep our secrets forever. Deal?”

“
Deal,” they said together.

We all looked at each. Anthony voiced what was on all of our minds. “So, how do we make a pact?”

“
I honestly don’t know,” I said.

“
A blood pact!” said Tammy.

“
I don’t wanna make a blood pact!” screamed Anthony.

“
No blood pacts,” I said, shushing them. The Cold Stone worker had looked over at us.

“
How about an ice cream pact!” said Anthony, although I was pretty sure no one knew what he was talking about, least of all himself.

I said, “How about a pinkie pact.”

“
Yes! A pinkie pact,” shouted Anthony.

Tammy nodded, too, and we all held our pinkies over the slightly sticky table. We interlocked them. Theirs were warm. Mine, not so much.

“
Pinkie swear,” I said.

“
Pinkie swear,” they said together.

“
To keep our secrets to ourselves.”

They both nodded solemnly, and we unhooked our pinkies and Anthony was about to go back to his ice cream when he paused and said, “Tammy can really read my thoughts?”

“
Yup,” she said.

“
That is so weird.”

“
No weirder than you being half vampire.”

“
I’m not half vampire. I’m just strong like a vampire. Like Mom.”

“
That’s the half part, buttface.”

“
You’re the buttface, buttface.”

“
You can’t say buttface twice, buttface.”

“
You just did!”

I rolled my eyes and checked my watch. They had gotten along for all of two hours.

Better than nothing.

Chapter Thirty-nine

The Pacific Ocean at sunset.

It was beautiful. Expansive. Tinged with so much color that one’s soul sang. Even souls trapped in immortal bodies.

As I drove north along the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu, I realized that today was the first day that Kingsley had not tried to call me or text me. I had always kept Kingsley at arm’s length. I had done so for a number of reasons, and one of them was because I suspected he would do something like this. The man was an infamous womanizer.

Maybe I had been too cautious with him. Maybe I had shut him out of my heart for too long. Maybe I had made it easy for him to be with another woman.

To fuck another woman.

I was pressing hard on the gas again, too hard. I was whipping past other cars at an alarming rate. I eased up and unclenched my grip on the steering wheel.

According to Kingsley, he had been ready for a relationship. He had been ready to settle down, to explore something serious. I hadn’t been. I was dealing with a lot of hurt and had no business starting anything new with Kingsley. But he had been persistent, and sexy as hell...and unlike anything I had seen before.

But a tiger didn’t change his stripes.

Granted, this tiger—or wolf—had a little help from above. Namely from my guardian angel who had set Kingsley up. And Kingsley, being the dog that he was, fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Bastard.

Maybe I should thank Ishmael for showing me Kingsley’s true colors. Then again, maybe I should tell Ishmael to go to hell, since he’d caused this mess in the first place.

But didn’t he give you immortality?
a voice inside me asked.
And the gift of flight? And great strength?

Had that been me asking those questions, or the thing inside me? I didn’t know. Still, they were valid questions.

So I thought about them as I drove on. Ishmael had acted out of love and selfishness. Tainted love. Ishmael had put me in unparalleled danger. He had risked my life...

He had risked his own salvation for love. His love for me.

He had risked everything.

For me.

I thought about that...and I continued thinking about that even as I pulled up to Andre Fine’s Malibu beach home.

Chapter Forty

The house was gated and beautiful.

It was also difficult to find for anyone who wasn’t an ace private investigator. Andre Fine wasn’t showing up in my basic records searches. No surprise there. Many celebrity-types were hard to find. Often their properties and homes were in the names of their accountants or managers or other family members. In Andre Fine’s case, the home was under a sister’s name. It was a nice precaution to keep people like me from looking them up.

Except most private investigators didn’t have the federal government’s massive resources at their disposal. Or an ex-partner who owed his love life to them.

I wasn’t here to interview Andre Fine. I wasn’t here hoping he would see me. I suspected there was one way—and one way only—to get a confession from him.

For now, I waited down the street in my minivan, where I hoped to attract little or no attention. Generally, a woman sitting alone in a minivan on a quiet street attracted little attention. A man in a minivan would warrant a call to the police.

Sometimes it’s good to be me.

Or a woman.

As I waited and watched, I reflected on the fact that tonight was a big night in the Moon household. After all, tonight was the first night that Tammy and Anthony would watch themselves. Without a babysitter.

Tammy was proving to be surprisingly mature, and Anthony was already stronger than most men. My sister, of course, was on high alert, with her phone nearby. Forty minutes into my surveillance, my text message alert chimed.

I glanced at the phone, my heart immediately racing. Was there something wrong at home? If so, why would they text and not call? I grabbed my cell and swiped it on.

A single message from Tammy:
Ant’s being a jerk.

I frowned and dashed off a text:
Don’t call him Ant. You know he doesn’t like that. And kindly turn your TV off for one hour.

But why?
she wrote back almost instantaneously.

For calling your brother a jerk.

But Mom!!

Another text came through, this one from Anthony’s cell phone:
Fanny’s being mean.

Don’t call your sister Fanny. No TV for the two of you tonight.

Not fair!

You’re mean.

This sucks.

Anthony’s feet smell.

Tammy’s breath smells. So do her armpits.

My armpits do not smell. I’m a girl!

How I got into their loop of name calling, I didn’t know. But they continued like this for the next few minutes...all while I shook my head sadly. Finally, I put a quick call in for my sister, who told me she was on her way over. I checked the time. My kids had watched themselves for all of two hours.

Again, better than nothing.

* * *

An hour later, a convertible BMW with its top down came up behind me. It was silver and sleek and probably more expensive than my house in Fullerton. Seated in the driver’s seat was none other than Andre Fine. A beautiful blond was in the passenger’s seat next to him. Both were laughing as they drove past me. Neither glanced at me. Just another perfect day in Malibu.