The tranq had worked as quickly as it did in testing and it had only taken seconds for him to get out of the backseat, shift her to the passenger seat and slide behind the wheel himself. The whole thing had been over within a moment.
The only place where he could see a problem was when he’d crawled out of Lester’s trunk and got into the backseat of her car at Argeneau Enterprises in full view of at least three security cameras. But he’d worn dark clothes, and a balaclava to cover his face. There wouldn’t have been much for the cameras to catch. Paul had snuck onto the property in the trunk of Lester’s car, but there wasn’t anything the other man could tell them. Paul had broken into Lester’s garage, jimmied his trunk open, got in, and hitched a ride into Argeneau Enterprises. It meant he’d had to hold it not quite closed until the end of the long night shift.
Moments before Lester had returned to the car, Paul had slid out of the trunk and made his way to Jeanne Louise Argeneau’s car. His main concern had been that it might be locked, but few bothered in the parking garage. It was so well patrolled and had so many damned cameras, no one would try anything there as a rule. Much to his relief, Jeanne Louise hadn’t had her car locked, and she hadn’t worked past her usual half hour after end of shift but had arrived just moments after he’d gotten in. If Paul was spotted moving from one car to the other on the cameras and security had been on their way, they’d been too late. His only worry now was that Lester might be thought of as a co-conspirator in the whole business and get in trouble. That would make him feel bad. Lester was a good guy.
Aware that he couldn’t do a damned thing for the man right now, Paul pushed that worry away as he mounted the steps out of the basement. They came out in the kitchen, and he headed for the sink, intending to dump the food Jeanne Louise had left unfinished and rinse the plate. But halfway there he changed direction and instead walked out of the room and up the hall to the stairs to the second floor. Paul mounted those quickly, slipping one hand under the plate as he went to check that the food was still warm. It was and still looked fresh and tasty enough that it made him hungry. He only hoped Livy would think so too, but feared she wouldn’t. Nothing seemed to tempt her appetite anymore.
“Daddy?”
Paul forced a smile at that soft query as he crossed the pretty pink bedroom to the canopied bed to peer down at the little blond slip of a girl who almost disappeared in all the soft fluffy pillows and comforter. “Yes, baby. I’m here.”
“Mrs. Stuart said you went to work last night,” she said with a hurt expression.
“Yes, baby. Just for a bit. I’m back though,” he said quietly, not surprised that she knew. Paul had driven Jeanne Louise’s car to the parking lot where his own car had waited, relieved to find it empty. He’d quickly switched her to his car, then had driven straight home and into his garage. He’d carried her down into the basement through the garage door to chain her up before heading into the house proper and finding the babysitter.
Mrs. Stuart had reported that Livy had suffered a rough night then. He’d been disappointed but not surprised by the news. They all seemed to be bad lately. But not for long, Paul reassured himself and then tipped the plate of food slightly for her to see. “Are you hungry?”
“No,” she said dully, turning her head away from the food he presented.
Paul hesitated, but then said gently, “Sweetie, you have to eat to keep your strength up so you can get healthy again.”
“Mrs. Stuart said I wasn’t going to get healthy again. That God was . . .” Livy frowned as if trying to recall the exact wording and then said, “calling me home to be with Him. She said if I was very good and He liked me, maybe I’d get to see Mommy. But she doubted He would ’cause I was naughty and crying. Do you think God will like me even though I was crying?”
Paul simply stood frozen. All the blood seemed to have slid from his head and down his body to pool in his feet, leaving him empty and weak. His brain was having trouble processing what she had said. And then the blood came pounding back, rushing up through his body and slamming into his brain, bringing a burning rage with it.
He didn’t say a word; he didn’t dare. The expletives roaring through his head were not for a child’s ears. After a moment of struggle, Paul managed to bark one word, “Yes.” Then he turned stiffly and simply walked out of the room, straight downstairs and back into the kitchen. His movements were jerky and automatic as he scraped the food off the plate into the garbage pail. He then walked to the sink, but rather than rinse it under the tap as intended, Paul suddenly found himself smashing the empty plate across the top of it. He didn’t even realize he was going to do it, and hardly noticed let alone cared that bits of shattered glass flew up to spike his face and neck.
The stupid vicious, nasty old cow. He never should have had Mrs. Stuart watch Livy. He’d known she wouldn’t be able to keep her Bible-thumping to herself, but he’d had no choice. Mrs. Stuart used to be a nurse before retiring, and there was no one else he’d trusted to know what to do if there had been a problem. But he’d never let the old bitch near her again. If she was good, God might like her? But he probably wouldn’t because she’d cried? The child was dying of cancer, being eaten alive, wasting away and suffering a pain that he couldn’t even comprehend, and couldn’t prevent. They had given him a prescription for pain meds for Livy, and the strongest dosage they could, but they did little for the girl. The only other option was to keep her sedated in hospital until she died and he refused to do that. He wouldn’t simply watch her die. He wanted her cured, but until then, nothing seemed to ease the pain she was suffering and for Mrs. Stuart to suggest that her crying because of that excruciating pain might make God not like her so she wouldn’t see her mother—
“Daddy?”
Stiffening, Paul sucked in a breath to calm himself and then turned to peer blankly at the five-year-old girl standing in the kitchen doorway. In the next moment, he was rushing forward to scoop her up. “What are you doing out of bed, baby? You shouldn’t be up.”
“I’m tired of staying in bed,” Livy said unhappily and then reached up to touch his chin. “You’re bleeding. Did you cut yourself?”
“No. Yes. Daddy’s fine,” Paul assured her grimly, carrying her back to the stairs and up. She was all bones and pale skin and his heart ached as he held her. The child was precious, the most precious thing in his life. Paul lived for her, and he’d die for her too if he had to. But for now, he’d put her back to bed and then catch a couple hours of sleep himself. He’d stayed awake all night and needed to be alert and on the ball when he talked to Jeanne Louise Argeneau. He needed to be clear and persuasive. He needed to convince her to make his child one of her kind. He’d give her anything she wanted to get her to do that, including his own life, just so long as she turned her and taught her to survive as a vampire. He’d give anything and everything to know she lived on. He’d failed her mother, his wife, Jerri. But he wouldn’t fail Livy. He had to convince Jeanne Louise to save her life. She was his only hope.
Two
Jeanne Louise woke to the awareness that she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t instinct. It was the hum of a mortal’s thoughts playing on the periphery of her mind. They buzzed there like a bee by her ear, soft and, at first, not entirely intelligible as she slid back to consciousness, and then she opened her eyes and turned her head.
She wasn’t surprised to find a child standing at her bedside rather than the man who had left her there. It was something about the thoughts, their tempo and lightness, she supposed. The thoughts she’d awakened to had been soft, questing, curious like a child’s rather than heavy and defensive and even fearful like an adult mortal’s usually were.
Jeanne Louise stared at the girl for a moment, taking in the pallor to her skin and thinness of her body. The child looked like a stiff wind would take her away, and one inhalation told her the child wasn’t well. She caught a strong whiff of the sickly sweet stench of illness coming from her. The child was dying, Jeanne Louise realized, and found the thought troubling. Mortals died much younger than immortals, but rarely this young. This was a tragedy. All that hope and promise snuffed out before it had been allowed to bear fruit. It was an abomination.
“Hi,” Jeanne Louise whispered, the word coming out almost a croak. She should have drunk more of the water her captor had offered earlier, she supposed. As he’d promised, it apparently hadn’t been drugged, and it might have eased her condition. Without it, she was now parched either from the tranquilizer dart he’d shot her with or from the nanos’ efforts to remove it from her body as quickly as possible.
Jeanne Louise took a moment to work her tongue in her mouth, building up saliva and swallowing to try to ease the dryness, and then tried again, “Hello. Who are you?”
“I’m Olivia Jean Jones,” the little girl said solemnly, one hand rising to fuss nervously with a strand of her long, lank blond hair. “But everyone calls me Livy.”
Jeanne Louise nodded solemnly. She hadn’t really needed the child to tell her her name. She had already plucked it from her mind along with the name of her father, who was also the man who had kidnapped and chained up Jeanne Louise. Paul Jones.
Leaving that bit of information for now, she quickly rifled through the girl’s mind to see if she would be of any use in getting her free. But the child didn’t seem to even know there was a key to the chains, let alone where it might be. Disappointed but not terribly surprised by the knowledge, she said, “Hello Livy. My name is Jeanne Louise Argeneau.”
Olivia’s eyes widened. “You’re Jean like me.”
“Close,” Jeanne Louise said with a smile.