“You’re not coming with us?” Christian exclaimed.
“I can’t,” Grace said, her shoulders bracing. “I have an errand to run.”
“That is
not
acceptable,” Christian said.
From the corner of her eye, Grace saw the boys glance from her to Christian and then at each other. Their brows began to wag as they deduced their relationship must have changed—precisely what Grace hadn’t wanted to happen.
“I’ll be in public,” she said as levelly as she could. “In broad daylight. And Miss Wei knows I’m going.”
“Clearly, Miss Wei doesn’t take your safety as seriously as I do.”
“There hasn’t been an incident in a week.”
“There was an incident?” Charlie asked.
Christian didn’t bother to answer. He was too busy glaring at her from under his Stetson’s brim. Even his irritation was sexy. Grace willed her cheeks not to redden.
“I need to do my job. And you need to do yours.”
“
Grace
,” he warned, a rumble darkening the sound.
“Stop smothering me!” she cried. “I’ll run my errand, and I’ll come straight here. I won’t be more than an hour.”
Christian pointed his finger of doom at her. “An hour is all I’m giving you. I’ll come after you if you make me.”
He swung out of the car before she could come up with a retort.
I’m not a child, you caveman,
didn’t hit the right professional note for her. The other boys got out more slowly than Christian had.
“Boy,” Charlie said as he shut the door. “Love can be a real pooper.”
G
race did her best to ignore Charlie’s observation. Yes, she was stupidly attracted to Christian, maybe even romantically addled. That, however, didn’t mean she was in love. It wasn’t her fault Charlie was too young to tell the difference.
“A total baby,” she assured herself as she parked the car across the street from the typing service’s glass storefront.
She was here to pick up fresh pages for the movie’s climactic scene. Miss Wei had decided Charlie and not Matthew ought to be the friend Christian’s father killed, and had asked Grace for a rewrite. Grace had understood her reasoning. Ever since Charlie crashed the motorcycle, Christian had developed a rapport with the smart-mouthed boy. Their star would naturally be more affected by playing out a death scene with him. Unfortunately, this meant Matthew was going to be crushed. He’d been looking forward to expiring cinematically.
True to form, Miss Wei couldn’t simply tell everyone. She’d asked Grace to keep the switch a secret, refusing to have her own secretary type the changes for fear of the news leaking. The choice was probably strategic, to keep Charlie from overthinking or Christian from preparing for the shock ahead of time. Miss Wei was no coward, but sometimes she did things too indirectly for Grace’s taste. She tended to treat her actors like chess pieces rather than human beings.
But that was her right as the boss. Resigned, Grace pushed through the jingling door to the typing place. The bored, gum-chewing girl behind the counter had her job ready, mimeographs and all. Grace signed for it and tucked the box underneath her arm. Her watch still missing, she glanced at the wall clock before she left. She was finished earlier than anticipated. If she wanted, she could go have coffee; use up the full hour Christian had
allotted
her.
Knowing she wouldn’t, she dashed back across the two lanes of traffic, grimacing wryly. Her work ethic was too strong for that sort of childishness.
As she reached the opposite sidewalk, she noticed a tall dark-haired man leaning on the front grill of the Fury. Alarm ran through her in a sharp ripple. The man was Adam Chelsea,
Teen-Age Vampire
’s original screenwriter.
It occurred to her that he had a grudge against her. He could have broken into her cottage, maybe even taken a shot at her. The latter seemed unlikely, though the possibility was sufficient to slow her steps. Sympathy warred with caution inside her gut. Adam Chelsea was an uncomfortable person to be around. Being organized enough to kill someone seemed beyond him, but Grace supposed she shouldn’t bet her life on it.
He straightened his rail-thin frame when he spotted her. He looked worse than when she’d last seen him: shaggy hair uncombed, clothing rumpled, big dark circles shadowing his eyes. He smelled like he was still showering, but maybe not this morning. Her grip tightened on the box of script pages.
“Adam,” she said gently, her heart as always going out to him. “You know Miss Wei doesn’t like it when you talk to me.”
“You have to help me,” he said in his intense way, as if every word were a matter of life and death. “No one else will return my calls. No one else understands.”
Grace wasn’t sure why he thought she did, but there seemed no point in saying that. “I can’t change the script back, Adam. Audiences wouldn’t have watched it the way it was.”
“You took out half the characters! Their story needs to be told. You know they deserve it. You had to have recognized them when you read what I wrote.”
Adam’s right hand was jammed in the pocket of his frayed sport coat. He was holding something whose tip stuck through the tweed in a silver point. Her heart abruptly in her throat, Grace took a careful step back from him. This side of the street contained a small grassy park, but the only person in it was a little boy and his dog. If she ran down the sidewalk, she was pretty sure Adam would catch her.
When she spoke, her voice shook more than she wanted. “Maybe we should go have coffee. Talk this through like reasonable people.”
“No,” he growled and lunged forward.
He was strong for a skinny guy, his long arms grabbing and shoving her easily into the backseat of Miss Wei’s Fury. Her box of copies fell into the gutter along the way. To her dismay, Adam crowded into the car after her. She didn’t have a chance to get out the opposite door.
“Stop that!” she shouted, but not loudly enough. One female pedestrian turned to look, then simply walked faster. Grace’s pulse went crazy as Adam pulled out his knife. Though it wasn’t huge, it seemed plenty sharp, especially when he pressed it against her neck. When Grace swallowed, she nicked herself on the point.
“
You
stop,” he said. “You know what I wrote was true.”
“Vampires aren’t real, Adam.”
“Vampires don’t matter!” His expression was as wild as if he were the one cornered. “Hans mattered. And Michael and William. You erased them!”
“I’ll put them back,” she promised. “Let me go so I can.”
For a moment, she thought he might. He sat back a little, the knife easing off her throat. Tears welled on the lower lids of his eyes. Ridiculously, she saw his lashes were pretty.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said in a leaden tone. “Those were people I used to love.”
I
’m not going to drop you,” Christian said patiently for the second time.
He and George, his movie father—the slightly washed-up star of black-and-white Westerns—were running through the blocking for their first confrontation scene. Nim Wei thought it would be more dynamic if Joe responded to George’s shove by thrusting his father into a chair, which he would then tip onto the ground. As long as George trusted Christian to hold his weight, there’d be no risk of injury.
“We can call your stunt double,” Nim Wei offered, but not as if she wanted George to accept.
“I don’t need a goddamned stunt double,” he blustered. “I’ve been taking falls since this yahoo was in diapers.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Nim Wei inquired.
“The problem is you want my son here to get the best of me. It’s too early in the story for him to pull that off.”
“It’s not too early for him to be stronger than you. Kids his age can often overpower their fathers, though I admit Joe doesn’t know for certain if he can at this point. What it’s too early for him to do is go full-out toe-to-toe with you. That’s why, as soon as he has you on the ground, he’ll back off, thereby proving he’s not ready to depose the corrupt king.”
“I don’t know . . . ” George said, wagging his handsomely silvered head.
Christian took a literal step back from their debate. George had disliked him ever since Christian had nearly barreled him over on his hasty exit from the read-through. Given that this was so, George and Nim Wei would settle the issue quicker without his input.
The pair had lowered their voices, so he wandered toward the wall of the Victorian parlor. In person, the stage set seemed staged: no ceiling, no next room adjoining it, acetate curtains standing in for silk. On film, he’d been assured it would all look real. He supposed he’d find out when he saw it.
He rubbed the back of his neck, aware that a pointless tension was knotting there. Grace wasn’t due back yet, and Nim Wei had confirmed she’d sent her on an errand. Christian was an adult. He’d get through a morning of shooting without Grace to cosset him.
Then a flashbulb seemed to go off inside his skull, exploding through his normal guards against intrusion. Before the brilliant light could fade, he saw Grace cowering in the backseat of Nim Wei’s car. A man he didn’t recognize was looming over her, holding her at knifepoint. Grace was trying to convince him of something as fear-sweat rolled down her face.
Christian was shaking when the strange and too-brief vision snapped away. Without a true blood bond between him and Grace, he doubted he’d see more. To be honest, he was surprised he’d seen as much as he had.
“Where is she?” he demanded hoarsely of Nim Wei. “Where exactly did you send Grace today?”
She told him with a succinctness he appreciated, then began to ask what was wrong.
Christian didn’t stop to answer. He barely had the restraint to duck behind the set’s fake walls before he sped away. He hoped no one had seen, but that wasn’t his first concern. He wasn’t going to lose Grace. Not again.
Not ever, if he had his way.
H
e’d have been faster if it were dark, but Christian still reached Grace within five minutes. The god-awful pink car was parked across the street from the address Nim Wei had given him. Traveling so quickly while the sun was up left him dizzy and panting. Ignoring that, he bounded over and through the traffic. It barely took a second to yank the Fury’s street-side door open and haul Grace out to safety.
He doubted her attacker saw more than a smear of color.
“Christian!” Grace exclaimed as he let her settle to her feet in the little palm-dotted park.
Her hands were on his chest, her eyes wide with shock. He couldn’t have stopped himself from embracing her. He was going to hold her like this forever, was going to rock her and stroke her and press his trembling lips into the cool red waves of her hair. Grace seemed agreeable with his plan. She hugged him back for a good half minute. She made him glad his jacket was unzipped.
“I knew you’d save me,” she said against his white T-shirt. “I wasn’t half as afraid as I should have been.”
He kissed her temple and let out a little growl. He hated that she’d been afraid at all. “Let me get you away from here. I’ll come back and deal with that man.”
Grace pushed away from him, her hands covering her mouth. “My copies, Christian! I have to rescue them from the gutter.”
Christian tensed as he registered the man who’d threatened Grace coming up behind him. Christian didn’t care that he spun too quickly for a human, as long as he shielded Grace. Her attacker was tall and gangly, thirty or thereabouts. He still carried the knife, but as if he’d forgotten what it was for. Grace’s hands knotted on the back of Christian’s jacket. Christian hoped she’d stay where she was, though the man didn’t seem to pose an immediate threat. For a crazed assailant, the dawning wonderment on his face was odd.
“Christian?” he said when he was a few feet away. “What are you doing here?”
Despite the brightness of the day, Christian felt as if he’d been plunged into ice water. Was this
another
soul returned from his past? He racked his mind for which enemy it might be. Timkin, his father’s assassin? Lavaux, who’d been good with blades? Or maybe his sire himself had returned again.
“It’s me,” the man he was facing said. “It’s Charles.”
Christian was stupefied. This wretched soul was
Charles
? His friend Charles, who’d once been the merriest person he knew? The actor who played Charlie in the movie looked a hundred times more like him—felt a hundred times more like him, for that matter.
“I know,” the man said, seeing his doubt. “I’m called Adam now, and I don’t look much like I did. You, though . . . my God, you take me back to those days.”
“He’s Adam Chelsea,” Grace whispered behind Christian’s shoulder. “He wrote the original screenplay.”
Christian didn’t have much time to absorb this. Adam frowned at Grace, which caused Christian to bristle. Adam shifted his gaze back to Christian and rubbed his forehead. The gesture would have been innocent if he hadn’t used the hand that still held the knife. Christian was wound up like a watch by then. Grace caressed his arm as if she wanted him to calm down.