A Bite to Remember Page 0,108

was a knock on the door and she went to get it and..." Tiny shook his head. "I was sitting on the desk in the office. There was no scream, no warning, nothing. Just silence, but I started getting Jackie's hinky feeling. It was too quiet, I guess.

"I went into the hall to see what was happening, but it was empty. I opened the front door and she was walking to this pizza delivery car. There was a young guy at the wheel, staring straight ahead like he was in a trance and Jackie was walking to the car with a woman."

"A woman?" Vincent shifted the blankets off and got up to start pulling on his clothes. "Why? What did they do once they got to the car? What happened?"

Tiny shook his head, his expression upset. "I didn't know what was happening. I didn't do anything," he mourned, obviously feeling guilty. "I thought the saboteur was a man. Wasn't it a man who attacked her on the beach the night you had to turn her?"

"Ye? Vincent paused. Everything had happened so fast that night and he'd been in such a panic...

"It could have been a woman," Vincent admitted, feeling like he'd been punched in the stomach. Frowning, he growled, "What happened? You said someone took her?"

"She got in the front passenger seat of the car, but she was walking funny, almost like a robot, stiff and blank-faced. The woman got into the backseat and the pizza guy turned the car and drove off."

"Jesus!" Vincent had his pants on now and snatched up his shirt as he headed out of his room. He tugged it swiftly on as he jogged down the stairs.

Marguerite was in the hall, peering into the office when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Have you seen Jackie and Tiny?" she asked as she spotted him. "Jackie went to order pizza and Tiny followed to tell her something and they never came梠h," Marguerite interrupted herself as Tiny reached the top of the stairs and started to hurry down after Vincent. She frowned at their upset expressions. "What's happening?"

"Someone's taken Jackie," Vincent said grimly.

"Who?" Marguerite asked with alarm.

Vincent stilled halfway up the hall and whirled to face Tiny. "What did the woman look like?"

"She was one of the two women who came over just before Cassius at the funeral," Tiny said. "The little one who looked so young."

Vincent stared at him blankly, then finally said with disbelief, "Lily? The thin, little blonde who looks about fourteen?"

Tiny nodded, then frowned with realization and said, "But Lily had normal eyes at the funeral. They weren't metallic like the rest of you guys. She couldn't have been controlling Jackie and making her get in the car. She couldn't be the attacker."

Confusion covered his face and he added, "But Jackie wouldn't just walk off like that either. Maybe there was someone else in the car too."

"Lily is an immortal," Vincent said on a sigh and moved to his office.

"Why would she have done all this?" Marguerite asked, following him.

"I'm not sure." He grabbed his Rolodex off the desk and began looking for Lily's card with her address on it.

"What are you doing?" Marguerite asked. She pointed out, "She'd hardly take Jackie to her house."

"She might have," Vincent argued and desperately hoped she had. It was the only place he could think to look for her.

"Marguerite's right," Tiny said. "That hasn't been her pattern. She attacked Stephano at the office, killed that one woman in the hills, and attacked Jackie here on the beach. She won't take her back to her house."

Vincent stared at them, feeling completely and utterly helpless. His mind was running in circles, panic stealing his ability to think. Where would Lily take her? Why would Lily do this? Where was Jackie? His mind seemed stuck in stupid, like a hamster running on a wheel and getting nowhere... and then his phone rang.

"Maybe that's Jackie," Tiny said hopefully as Vincent pulled the phone from his pocket and flipped it open.

"Vincent?"

His shoulders slumped as he recognized Christian's voice. Vincent's voice was dull when he said, "Yeah."

"We're stopped at the stoplight on the corner two blocks from your house. There's a pizza delivery car stopped on the opposite side and Jackie is in the front seat with some pimple-faced kid driving. What's going on?"

"Is there anyone else in the car?" Vincent asked sharply, moving out of the office and up the hall.

"Yeah. It looks like there's a blonde in the backseat. I