“Hubert’s dead,” Vincent said sharply, and that quickly, he realized what was bothering him. “They should have died,” he muttered, halfway to himself. “Why didn’t they die?” he asked louder, looking at Michael.
“Who?”
“These,” he said, waving a hand at the dead and dying zombie vamps. “Look at them. They’re so newly turned that they’re not even dusting. Their bodies will lie there until the sun destroys them in the morning.”
Michael nodded. “Okay,” he said, still not getting the point.
“So why didn’t they die when I killed Hubert?” Vincent asked quietly. “They shouldn’t have been able to survive the shock of his death. But when I came back here, you were still fully engaged, as if nothing had happened, as if . . . Fuck me,” he swore fervently.
Michael understood then. Without a word, he flicked on his headset and called the helicopter back. “Where to, my lord?”
“I don’t know yet. Let’s just get the fuck out of here for now.”
“What?” Lana was demanding, pounding a fist on his chest where he was still holding her tightly. “What happened?”
“That wasn’t Hubert I killed,” Vincent said bitterly. “I knew something was off. I just thought . . . Fuck.” The helicopter came into view, hovered briefly, then settled just above the ground. With no enemies alive to contest their arrival, the pilots could risk coming in closer.
Vincent steered Lana back to the chopper, boosting her up and in, before following her inside. As they donned their headsets against the noise, his thoughts were churning, playing back the sequence of events that had brought him here, to this remote fishing village, considering all the players and their reasons for wanting him distracted and out of the way.
“Anthony,” he growled.
“What about him?” Michael asked over the command channel, as he settled onto the seat on the other side of Vincent.
“He had a reason for sending us here. Get us to the airport. I need to call someone, and find out what the fuck is going on.”
Chapter Twelve
Houston, TX
NATALIE WATCHED the door close behind Christian, heard the heavy shutter roll down with the subdued rumble of well-oiled gears. Tiptoeing over, she peered through the peephole, and realized she could still see the outside. No one was there. She rolled her eyes. Of course, no one was there. And why was she tiptoeing?
“Get it together, Nat,” she whispered. But she couldn’t stop staring at that door, couldn’t stop thinking about how trapped she felt in this big empty house. Just to reassure herself, she crossed to the keypad and entered the code that Christian had given her.
The shutter responded instantly, raising itself with the same rumble of noise that had closed it. She opened the door and glanced outside. The neighborhood was quiet, the elegant homes each perched above a gently sloping lawn, most with soft light shining through windows, testifying to their occupation.
She breathed in a dose of the fresh air, then stepped back and closed the door. Christian was right. She needed to be smart and safe, even if Anthony was in hiding. He was sneaky and accustomed to getting his way. She punched in the code, and took comfort in the solid sound of the shutter dropping securely down again.
“Well, you can’t stand in front of the door all night like a dog, waiting for him to come home,” she muttered, then turned to survey the house. The entrance opened into a split-level living room that was filled with furniture. It was elegantly appointed, and probably very expensive. But she preferred the kitchen, where Christian’s giant espresso machine ruled the room. Her bedroom, or rather, the one she was using, was comfortable and nicely furnished, and now that she’d been there a few days, it was also cluttered with the stuff of daily living. She imagined the basement was like that, too.
That reminded her of what Christian had said about Alon being secure in a locked vault downstairs. She stared down the hallway on her right, contemplating the closed basement door, and what lay beyond it. She could go down there and see for herself. No one else was in the house, no one would ever know. She started in that direction, then stopped. No. It wouldn’t be right to snoop around while Christian was gone. She wouldn’t like it if he did that to her. She’d just have to wait, and ask him when he came back if he would show her what was down there.
She wrinkled her nose in irritation. Being a good person was a pain in the ass sometimes. She sighed and tried to decide what to do. The living room had a full entertainment suite, and she’d bet Christian had cable, or some equivalent. Probably hundreds of channels. She could find a movie to watch. But that didn’t hold any appeal. She was too nervous about what Christian and Marc would find when they reached the border, too worried about what might happen to them. She needed to distract her brain, or she’d drive herself crazy.
“Work,” she decided. Her work required full concentration. Once she started on a trail, she lost track of time and everything else. She stopped in her bedroom long enough to grab a sweatshirt and her laptop, then headed back to the kitchen.
She set her laptop on the kitchen island, and grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge. She was going to need a lot of caffeine, and for all the beauty of Christian’s machine, cup by cup wasn’t going to do it. It was times like this that her Mr. Coffee was made for. Brew a pot and mainline the whole damn thing. Fortunately, she’d bought a twelve pack of Diet Coke when she was at the store. It’s not like the vamps needed all that room in the fridge anyway.
Scooting onto one of the kitchen stools, she opened her laptop and logged in. She was about to open her work files when the new folder she’d created for the files purloined from Anthony caught her eye. She’d intended to discuss them with the guys, was going to argue for them letting her handle the research and general ferreting out of info, while they focused on the stuff she couldn’t do, like fighting and all-around intimidation. Other issues—like a full-blown street battle and an enemy invasion—had intervened before she could talk to them about it. But there was no reason she couldn’t get started.
She clicked the folder open and scanned the document list. There hadn’t been enough time to be picky. She’d simply grabbed everything she could, and still didn’t know exactly what she had. She hadn’t discussed any of this with Christian, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what they were looking for. Anything that incriminated Anthony. A nice confession would be good. Maybe a heartfelt diary entry . . . I can’t live with the lies anymore. I have to tell someone. She snorted her opinion of that happening. Anthony was one of those people who could justify just about anything, as long as it served his purposes.
Her eye trailed down the list of documents. She’d used her access to the network, and her more or less authorized knowledge of everyone’s password, including Anthony’s, to log onto his computer and copy everything generated in the last two weeks. The files were from several different folders on his computer, but for the sake of expedience, she’d dumped them all into a single folder on her flash drive. That left her with a jumble of file names and dates. She clicked the heading to sort the docs by date, which at least gave her a place to start. The most recent documents were likely to be the most relevant.
She went through the files systematically, one at a time. Most were routine stuff, but she did learn one thing. Anthony kept a record of everything, including personal notes and observations. Forget that diary, this was way better. He didn’t like e-mail, and he never texted, preferring a face-to-face conversation or a phone call, but apparently, he’d fully embraced the use of his computer as a personal journal. Getting inside a person’s head and discovering how they thought was half the battle in figuring out what they were hiding, and where. Anthony’s notes were like a roadmap for someone like her.
As she skimmed down the list, looking for more journal entries, she came across a sub-folder that she must have grabbed without realizing. It was titled “Faxes,” and she opened it expecting to find . . . faxes. Lots and lots of faxes, going all the way back to when Anthony first came to the estate. Who used fax machines these days? E-mail was much more efficient and easier to keep a record of. But it was also easier to track and hack. This was probably more of Anthony’s paranoia peeking through, but it worked for her, so she started opening files. They were all the same format—a document that someone had created for Anthony to use as a fax cover sheet, with an auto-fill function on the appropriate lines. And several had been written in the last two days. In fact, it was a flurry of faxes. Heh, heh.
Most had to do with arrangements for Anthony’s personal belongings to be packed and shipped to New Orleans, and for various details of a house he’d apparently purchased in that city in anticipation of his move. Her family would be sorry to see him return. Was it wrong for her to hope he never made it back?