building. The entrance door opened, and one-by-one the three vampires stepped out, then walked straight toward the van.
Anxiously she waited. All three walked to her side of the van, but Zane was the first to reach it. He opened her door, lashing an angry glare at her.
“What that fuck was that about?” he asked.
Jolted by his harsh tone, she shrunk back from him. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened! Absolutely nothing!” Zane ground out. “Waste of my fucking time!”
Ursula’s gaze darted past him, searching Oliver. When he met her eyes, she saw something akin to disappointment in them.
“Oliver,” she begged.
Oliver hesitated a second before he spoke. “The place was empty.”
Automatically she shook her head. “No, no, that’s not possible.” She pointed her hand toward the building. “That’s the house. I’m absolutely sure. That’s where they imprisoned me.”
Oliver cast his eyes down as if trying to avoid her. Behind him, Amaury’s face was set in stone.
“There’s nothing in there,” Amaury added. “No vampire, no human, no furniture.”
In disbelief, she shook her head. “No, you’re lying! They’re in there. They have to be!”
“We have no reason so lie!” Zane snarled. “You, on the other hand, have been leading us on a wild goose chase. I don’t know what your game is, but honestly, at this point I don’t care. Because it ends here.”
Equally shocked and frightened by Zane’s words, she felt her hands tremble. What was he planning to do to her?
“Please, I can prove it! I’ll show you where I carved my name into the wall of my cell. I can—”
Zane leaned in, his face half a foot from hers, interrupting her. “I don’t care for your lies. Whatever your game is, I’m not playing it.”
Then he turned toward Oliver.
“Wipe her memory, and then you and Cain will put her on a plane to Washington DC. Send an anonymous message to her parents to pick her up from the airport. If anything goes wrong, I’ll make you responsible. Are we clear on that, Oliver?”
No! she wanted to scream, but fear of what Zane would do if she did clamped down her vocal cords.
Oliver stared at Zane. “Listen, there must be another way.”
His bald-headed friend glared at him. “Do as I say!” He pointed back toward the building. “You’ve been in there. It was empty.”
“Yes, too empty. And it smelled clean too, as if a cleaning crew had been through there just recently. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”
“Doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“I think we should wait until Gabriel is back from New York.”
Zane narrowed his eyes. “What for?”
Oliver motioned him farther away from the car and lowered his voice, not wanting Ursula to overhear his suggestion. “He could look into her memories and tell us what she’s seen.”
“That won’t help if somebody planted false memories in her.”
“I disagree. Gabriel was able to see in Maya’s memories where they had been altered by a vampire. He would recognize it if somebody had tampered with her memories. I think we should wait.”
Zane shook his head almost instantly. “Listen, Oliver. There was nothing in there. If she really escaped from that building last night, why didn’t we find any traces of anything in there? I tell you why: because they were never there in the first place. My order stands. You can either take care of it together with Cain, or Cain will do it on his own!”
“No!” Oliver protested. He didn’t want anybody manhandling her. “I’ll do it.” And he already hated himself for it. But he couldn’t dispute their findings: the property was empty and there was no trace of any other vampires or of the girls Ursula had mentioned. She had lied to him again, and as much as he wished he were wrong, he couldn’t simply set aside the evidence.
Zane nodded, but before he could walk away, his cell phone rang.
“Yes?” he answered it with a bark.
Oliver’s sensitive hearing picked up the voice on the other end, Thomas’s.
“A couple of crazy vamps were spotted in a nightclub downtown! I need all available men! Now!”
“Shit!” Zane cursed, waved Amaury toward the Hummer, then looked to Cain, who still sat in the minivan. “Change of plans: Cain, we need you. We have a lead on those vamps going berserk.”
“Fuck!” Cain cursed as he jumped out of the van.
“If we hurry, I think we can get them this time!” Zane answered, tossing a look back at Oliver and pointing his finger at him. “You have your orders. I don’t like sending you on your own. Don’t make