A Bite to Remember Page 0,61

opened her mouth to speak, but before she got out even a word, Vincent added, "Thank you for my breakfast, by the way. That was really sweet. No one's ever brought me a meal before. I've always hunted my own. Well, except when I was a kid of course, we had nursemaids then, but no one's brought me a meal since I started to hunt for myself and this was even more special, you bringing me breakfast in bed like that."

Jackie blinked at his words, then started to blush and Vincent grinned.

She cleared her throat, then said, "I'm sorry about waking you up. I asked the drugstore to send the delivery at 2:30. He arrived early. I wasn't sure what to do when he got here, then decided it would be better for you to feed while he was here. You could always go back to sleep afterward."

"Oh no, no sleeping. I'm up now and wide awake. I've had enough sleep," he assured her, eliciting something of a snort from his aunt. Fortunately, Jackie didn't appear to hear it.

Smiling and in a much better mood than she'd been in after grappling with the delivery guy in his room, she nodded. "Good."

"So what are we doing now?" Vincent asked, standing as he spotted the muffins on the kitchen counter. Tiny had made blueberry muffins. God, he loved the big guy. Such a good cook and he always made the tastiest stuff. Moving to the counter, Vincent fetched a muffin then glanced back toward the table to ask, "Anyone else want one while I'm up?"

He waited until everyone had said, "No, thank you," then moved back to the table.

"That kid wasn't high or something, was he?" Jackie asked as Vincent sat down and began to take the paper baking cup off the bottom.

Vincent blinked in surprise. "No. Why would you think that?"

"You seem rather... er... cheerful," she said finally.

Vincent opened his mouth to say that yes, he was, then recalled that he really shouldn't be. He'd had to close plays. People were dying. Stephano, a good friend and excellent vice president, had been attacked. The fact that he liked Jackie and thought she might like him back shouldn't nullify all that, he lectured himself. And it didn't, he realized. Thinking about Stephano and the poor dead girl he'd fed on managed to dampen some of his good cheer.

Frowning, he glanced toward the door and commented, "I should go check on Stephano. Is Neil still here?"

"Yes. He's working from Stephano's room. He had his portable brought over and moved the fax machine and printer up from your office," Jackie announced. "Stephano hasn't woken up yet."

Vincent frowned at this news, but wasn't really surprised. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since the start of the turning, and Stephano had been badly injured.

"You go check on Stephano and talk with Neil," Jackie suggested. "I want to grab a notepad and pen. I had an idea while we were waiting for you to come down."

Vincent considered asking what the idea was, but decided he'd find out soon enough, and simply stood to leave the room.

It was a short visit. Stephano wasn't awake yet and Neil wasn't in a mood for chat. His voice was brusque as he announced that he hadn't been able to contact his mother in Europe, and Vincent knew he was worried that she would hear the news that her son was dead before he could contact her and explain the true situation. However, Neil didn't want to leave such news on an answering machine, so had simply left a message for her to call him back at Vincent's home.

Neil then took him by surprise, by asking if he should be arranging a funeral. When Vincent simply stared at him nonplussed, he pointed out that if Stephano were really dead they would be having a funeral for him, and as they wanted the saboteur to think he was dead, shouldn't they be arranging a fake one? Neil had nearly lost his brother once, and wasn't willing to risk him again. He would do whatever it took to keep the saboteur from hunting Stephano down and finishing the job.

Vincent had agreed that this would probably be a good idea, but said he'd talk to Jackie about it first. If she agreed, they'd start making phone calls to arrange it. Vincent would, of course, cover the costs. He then frowned, and added that he'd talk to Jackie about Neil at least seeming to interview replacements