Reborn Yesterday - Tessa Bailey Page 0,28
harder it’ll be to erase them accurately. I don’t want to take chances.”
Ginny threw back her shoulders and sailed down the stairs, leaving Jonas to follow behind her with the suitcase. For one fantastical moment, she pretended to be Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. A rich debutante with a handsome manservant, preparing to depart for Paris. She wished desperately for a pair of white, silk gloves so she could whip them out and don them while looking annoyed. “Now then,” she murmured when Jonas stopped beside her at the bottom of the staircase. “Have the driver bring my car around.”
“What was that?” Jonas asked, his tone verging on amusement.
“N-nothing.”
He tucked his tongue into his cheek and herded her down the hallway, toward the back door. “As luck would have it, we do have a driver.”
“Who is it?”
Jonas hesitated with a hand on the doorknob. “One of my roommates, Tucker. Prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
He opened his mouth to answer, closed it and pushed open the door instead. She heard the low pump of bass before the black Impala slid into view at the curb, idling for a moment, before the passenger side window rolled down—and smoke billowed out into the night air. It cleared to reveal a Cheshire smile with a cigar clamped somewhere in its midst. The smile belonged to a man who was more like a mountain, a gold chain draped around his thick neck.
Brightly colored tattoos were the only thing covering him, as he was decidedly shirtless, his coloring reminding Ginny of a slightly sunburned Irishman she’d once worked on in the morgue who’d died while on vacation.
“Jonas,” called Tucker, taking the cigar out of his mouth slowly. “That’s a human girl.”
“I’m well aware of what she is. Put out the cigar.”
Tucker didn’t look happy about stubbing out the stogie in his ashtray. “Are we having her for dinner?” he drawled. “Or having her for dinner?”
Jonas left her wobbling in the wake of his swift departure. One second he was standing beside her, the next he was speaking to Tucker in a low, unintelligible tone through the driver’s side window.
After a moment of listening, Tucker threw back his head and laughed. “The prince himself is breaking the rules. Holy shit, man, this is going to be interesting.”
Ginny was in the backseat of the car before she could catch her breath, Jonas pressed in beside her. “What did you say to him?”
“Only that he’d be having stake for dinner if he comes within five feet of you.”
“Steak? I thought you don’t eat food.”
“S-t-a-k-e.”
“Oh.” Once she’d absorbed that violent implication, she leaned forward. “It’s lovely to meet you, Tucker. You’re the prankster, are you?”
“At your service.”
“I’m sorry Jonas has already threatened your life on my behalf, but you have to admit it’s well deserved after leaving him to be embalmed.”
Humor-filled eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “Threats to my life are all in a day’s work.”
“The day’s work of a vampire?”
“Nope.” He pointed to the circular sticker in his front window. “An Uber driver.”
Ginny chuckled. “I see.”
“Don’t judge me too harshly for the prank, sweetheart,” Tucker continued. “Playing the occasional trick keeps us human. As much as that’s possible, anyway. Think of it as me doing him a favor.”
“I’ll never understand how you get Elias to agree to these pranks,” Jonas muttered. “It’s not exactly his style.”
“I caught him with a picture of Roksana. I promised not to tell anyone if he’d help me execute the prank.” He gave an exaggerated wince. “Whoops.”
“Drive the car,” Jonas said mildly. “And don’t call Ginny ‘sweetheart.’”
Jonas was reaching up with the thin, black swath of material, preparing to tie it around Ginny’s eyes, when a thought occurred. “Jonas, how do I know you’re not the one dropping me into oceans and highways?”
His hands dropped like stones to the seat. Several seconds ticked by. “How can you ask me that?”
She waited.
“I’ve explained to you, it would take someone older and more powerful to transport you like that.”
“How do I know that’s true?” Without breaking the intensity of their stare, she reached down and fingered the material of the blindfold. “You’re asking for my absolute trust and giving me none in return, Dreamboat.”
“She called him Dreamboat!” More raucous laughter from Tucker. “Yes, indeed. This is going to be goddamn interesting.”
Jonas’s tortured expression was the last thing she saw before the blindfold turned her world black.
Ginny mentally counted the third right they’d taken since leaving P. Lynn Funeral Home, though she couldn’t be sure