"Yes," Jackie agreed with a sigh, acknowledging to herself that they weren't going to get in and out quickly here either. They did need everything; Vincent's home didn't even have the staples, like salt and pepper.
"Here." Vincent reached into his pocket and pulled out some money. Handing it to her, he gestured to the end of the store. "Why don't you go pick up a couple of drinks for us and I'll start the shopping?"
Jackie followed his gesture to the coffee shop sign at the end of the store and nodded with relief. A dose of caffeine would make it all bearable. "How do you take your coffee?"
Vincent blinked at the question. "Regular?"
Jackie arched her eyebrows. His answer told her that he didn't normally drink coffee. However, since he was giving her a reprieve from shopping, she let it go and merely headed for the coffee shop.
Ten minutes later she'd downed half her cappuccino and felt about a hundred times better. She didn't even mind that Vincent seemed to want to look at everything on the shelves. The man was practically salivating as he looked at the pictures of the food on the cans and boxes. His reactions made her think she had to be right and he didn't normally eat as she'd suspected.
Unfortunately, when she said as much, Vincent just shrugged and said the restaurants he went to didn't serve things like this. Jackie was sufficiently mellowed by her caffeine boost to let the matter go for now, but she still was sure he didn't eat.
The kitchen purchases had arrived at the house and Tiny had put most of them away by the time they returned. That still left the groceries. Jackie and Vincent helped the giant put them away before she fetched her briefcase and set it on the table.
Retrieving a notepad and pen, she closed and set the briefcase on the floor, then sat down and glanced toward the two men. Vincent and Tiny were trying to figure out how to work the ice cream maker... without bothering to read the instructions, Jackie noticed, and bit back a smile. It was so typically male one could almost forget the man was a vampire.
The thought made her frown. The last thing Jackie wanted to do was forget that. He was attractive and charming and... a vampire. She had to keep the last part in mind and ignore the rest. It was for her own good.
Mouth tightening, Jackie watched the two men for another minute, then said, "Vincent?"
"Yes?" He glanced over in question.
"Bastien gave me a very brief rundown of what was happening here, but as you know, it wasn't much." She was too tired to bother to hide her dissatisfaction. "Tiny and I need to go over it with you to learn everything."
"Work time," Tiny said with regret, setting the ice cream machine aside. "You two go on. I'll make coffee and start dinner. I can listen while I work. Jackie will feel better once she's eaten. She's always grouchy when her sugar's low."
Jackie set her teeth at the comment. She wasn't being grouchy. All things considered, she thought she was reacting remarkably well. It was after seven o'clock at night, for heaven's sake. She'd spent the better part of the day in airports and planes, eating rotten food and drinking worse coffee, then arrived here to go shopping. She... Okay, so supper would be good.
"I'll make something quick." Tiny moved to the refrigerator.
Smiling, Vincent moved to join her, his gaze moving curiously from the pen she held to the notepad on the table.
Jackie resisted the urge to cover her notes and cleared her throat. "As I mentioned, from what Bastien said, I understood that you had decided to close down the plays because of the sabotage attempts."
"Yes and no. None of them are running right now, and I did sort of close them down, at least temporarily, but it wasn't all at once, and it certainly wasn't my choice," he muttered unhappily as he took the seat across from her, then explained, "One by one I had to delay the openings of each play scheduled to begin, and temporarily shut down plays that were already open."
"Why? Bastien mentioned accidents and minor catastrophes."
"Yes." Vincent ran a hand wearily through his hair as he thought of the events that had taken place over the last several weeks. "We've had two plays suffer minor fires, an accident where paint got spilled over every single costume for another play?
"Slow down, slow down," Jackie said with a frown. She'd started to try to take notes as he spoke, but he was going too quickly and she couldn't keep up. "Perhaps we should go over the events one at a time and in order. What was the first incident that you think is tied into all this?"
"That was here in L.A. A can of paint got knocked off a shelf in the costume department and splashed over every costume in the room." His mouth tightened. "No one knows how the paint got there, or why the lid was off, or who knocked it over."
Jackie considered the matter, thinking that it could have been an accident.
"The next accident was a fire in one of the theatres in Canada," Vincent continued. "It was a small fire. The theatre itself didn't sustain much damage, but our stage set was ruined. It, too, seemed to be an accident at the time, a cigarette in a garbage can. It wasn't until the other stuff started happening that I thought perhaps those two incidents hadn't just been random accidents."
When Jackie merely nodded, he continued, "Next, there was another fire, this one here in Los Angeles. It was a bigger fire than the one in Canada."
Jackie arched an eyebrow. "Was anyone hurt?"
"No, fortunately the building was empty at the time, but the fire destroyed the theatre entirely, taking our costumes and sets with it," Vincent said grimly.
Jackie made another note on her notepad.
"The next event was at the second play in Canada. I was told a cable broke loose and a part of the stage set fell on the female lead." Vincent grimaced. "She broke her arm. I had to replace her."