Deep Desire: The Deep Series, Book 1 (10 page)

Chapter Eight

Boaz drove Adin to the Hyde Park neighborhood where Edward and Tuan lived, ironically, only a few houses down from where Adin had lived when his family had finally settled in San Francisco. He took the porch steps up to their colorful Victorian and knocked on the door.

Edward answered, holding his hand up to silence Adin before he could speak. Edward was talking earnestly on the phone in French, while two men in white coveralls behind him waited patiently. Apparently, they were having the parlor painted. The furniture was covered and the men had begun masking, with blue tape, everything that wasn’t to be painted. Adin had painted his own room as a teenager and knew how painstaking masking all the crown molding and chair rails could be. He smiled at a man who was on his knees taping around the fireplace mantle.

“Adin.” Edward hung up the phone as he sailed past the parlor and motioned for Adin to follow. They walked together down a small hallway and up the stairs into a bedroom-turned-office. “Tuan called this morning. He says there’s not a sound out there about your manuscript, which is probably a good thing, because he thinks whoever stole it hasn’t moved it out of California yet.”

Adin entered the tiny but elegant room and dropped into a seat meant for visitors in front of Edward’s exquisite mahogany writing desk.

“That’s good, I guess.” Adin fingered one of Edward’s foiled and folded business cards. “I’m feeling a little hopeless, though. I’m a professor of languages. I handle authentication. I’m not exactly an action figure. What am I going to do?”

“That’s not productive,” Edward said, going to a tiny alcove in the wall where a coffeemaker sat. He poured two coffees and brought one to Adin, then went back to retrieve cream, sugar and tiny, ornate silver spoons. “Of course you can’t be expected to steal the manuscript back, but if we find out where it is, Tuan can alert the authorities. Once it’s recovered your problems are solved.”

Adin took a sip. “I know, and I’m grateful. I am. Still, I can’t help but feel—”

“Tuan promised he’d call my cell phone if there’s anything new. Let’s wait and see, all right?”

Adin nodded. Relaxed in his chair and looked around. There was a wonderful Degas ballerina sketch on the wall. It was genuine. Edward might appear to be an enfant terrible, but he knew his business, all facets of the art world, really, and it reassured Adin to know he was in capable hands. Holding his cup and saucer, Edward got up and wandered idly as he talked. When he looked out the window, he gasped.

“What?” Adin jumped to his feet, startled.

“You left Boaz outside? How
could
you?” Edward was already skipping down the stairs when Adin placed his own cup down on the table. Moments later, Edward returned with a sheepish, out-of-sorts Boaz, whom he was pulling along like a toy.

“Really, sir, it’s fine for me to stay with the car. I have a crossword puzzle and a book of Sudoku.”

“You can’t really mean to say you’d rather do that than—” Edward’s phone rang, and he picked it up. Boaz looked helplessly at Adin, who grinned. Edward moved out of the room for privacy.

“There’s coffee,” said Adin. Boaz merely looked at him. “Or tea. You really can relax. I’m not the king of the undead. I don’t expect you to behave like a sixteenth-century vassal.”

“Donte doesn’t expect that either,” said Boaz. “He does, however, expect that I do my job well, and how can I if I’m having tea in here and not watching the street?”

Adin changed the subject. “How long have you known him?”

“Donte? All my life. I’ve never
not
known him. The year I was born, he was in Lebanon for one of his import businesses and befriended my father. I believe I told you my family has worked for him off and on over the years. When I was old enough, he brought me to the U.S. to go to school. Donte has been very kind.”

“So you don’t drive a limousine ordinarily.”

Boaz laughed. “Not exclusively, at any rate.”

“What do you do then?”

“A little of everything. I’ve been an interpreter, a courier and a liaison to certain Middle Eastern corporations where Donte has holdings. Often, I entertain business associates for him. I’m a good man to have around.”

“I see.” A hint of jealousy crackled beneath Adin’s skin.

“Sometimes I take care of meals,” Boaz said, as if to remind him that he was merely food to Donte and his kind. Adin flushed and looked away.

“Speaking of food,” said Edward, coming back into the room. “I’m starving. I didn’t have breakfast. Who else needs to eat?”

Neither Adin nor Boaz said anything, but in typical fashion, that mattered not at all to Edward. Soon they were headed to Scoma’s for lunch. Once there, Boaz flatly refused to dine with them, arguing that he needed to remain with the vehicle. Nothing Edward said or did could change his mind.

“What a stubborn little man,” Edward remarked, still angry after they’d ordered drinks. Adin watched boats bobbing along their docks. Gulls dashed about from one to the next, fighting over territory, swooping and circling in the pearly gray late-morning light.

“Edward.” Adin hardly knew how to approach what had been uppermost on his mind. “Did you ever wonder if there were things on earth that you didn’t imagine existed?”

To his credit, Edward gazed at him seriously. “Like what?”

Adin looked away. “Like, oh I don’t know. Ghosts or monsters or ESP or something?”

Edward laughed. “My grandmother used to say she had the ghost of a little Pakistani boy in her home in Sussex. I think she just said it to freak me out. She said she saw him playing ball on the stairs at night. It kept me safely tucked in bed till morning every time I visited.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t go running off as soon as you heard about it to make his acquaintance.” Adin nodded at the waiter when he brought their drinks. “But, did—”

“What’s this really about, Adin?” Edward watched him closely. “Have you been seeing ghosts?”

Adin shook his head. “No, it’s nothing that silly. I just feel…twitchy. Like nothing today is the same as it was last week. Maybe it’s because I’m home, but home isn’t here anymore. I’m disoriented.”

“I felt that way when I met Tuan.” Edward leaned forward. “Like I was being sucked into something and nothing would ever be the same. It wasn’t something I was looking for… I was happy to play around, you remember?”

“Oh yes, I remember.” Adin fondly recalled his high school days with Edward and their subsequent adventures together, first in London and then in Paris. Both had vowed to take most of it to the grave.

“Did you meet someone, Adin?”

“Yes. No… It’s that damned manuscript.” Adin played with his forks. “The lovers in that diary were beautiful. I wish you could have seen the drawings. The entries make me feel rudderless.”

“Rudderless? You?” Edward acknowledged the waiter when he brought the appetizer. “You’re hardly flotsam, Adin. You’ve always steered your own craft; what’s happened?”

“I’ve never felt anything remotely like what I read in those journals. Is that real? Or is it just somebody making things up for dramatic effect? The man who wrote that diary was a man wholly given up to his lover and not the weaker for it. His love gave him immense strength. He was different from anything I’ve ever imagined. He said when his lover sighed it came from his own lungs.”

“Scary. Boundaries are healthy.”

Adin peered at him, knowing Edward had none where Tuan was concerned. He raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, all right. When I met Tuan in Paris I spent at least six months running away from him. He scared the crap out of me. He made me want new things.” Edward took up his napkin and primly folded it in his lap. “It’s crazy when you know you’d die for someone if they needed you to do that, when you think that would make you the happiest person on earth.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. “What a drama queen you are,” Adin whispered.

“Hey!” Edward growled, dipping a calamari ring into cocktail sauce after lacing it liberally with Tabasco. His many bracelets and rings clanked as he shook some of it off. “I’m not the one who’s in love with an Italian petty noble from the sixteenth century.”

“Who are you calling petty?” asked Adin, feeling a little better. He dug into lunch with a newly returned appetite while Edward talked about his most recent work. It seemed he’d been hired as a go-between for an old man who had some of Max Perkins’s private notes on Thomas Wolfe’s work and a Dartmouth grad who had studied Perkins and collected anything he could find on the man. Adin let him talk.

“So,” he finished up. “It’s time you thought about what you’re going to do if you never get your manuscript back.”

“I’ll get it back,” Adin said. “If Tuan can’t find it, I’ll start putting feelers out as a private buyer.”

“What? You would seriously do that?” asked Edward. “Can you come up with that kind of cash?”

“I can.” Adin was grim. “I would. It would take everything I have that’s liquid, probably a whole lot more. And there’s no guarantee that the other men who want this so badly can’t buy me and sell me, but at least I might find out where the manuscript is. I was going to talk to Tuan about it.”

“If you find out where it is, and the authorities can’t get it, you could probably have it stolen back, for a price.” Edward looked away. “Tuan could give you names.”

“Now that our rank desperation is on the table, shall we be a little more optimistic? Maybe Tuan chased it down already and will be calling any minute with the good news.”

Edward raised his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

Adin raised his own. They clinked their glasses together just as their entrées came.

Adin was smashing his crab with a mallet when Edward’s phone rang. Edward quickly wiped his hands and answered, motioning for Adin to continue, while Edward left to talk in private outside. Adin was just finishing extracting the crabmeat from a final claw when a man squeezed into the booth beside him.

“Hello.”

Adin didn’t recognize him. As he wiped his fingers on his napkin, he kept his face carefully neutral. “And you are?”

“I’ll bet you’re wondering why I would come over and sit down next to you, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.” Adin glanced around. The room was filled to capacity; it was hardly likely anyone could harm him here.

“I’m here to deliver a message, Dr. Tredeger.” He went on unhurriedly. Adin darted a glance in the direction Edward had gone. “Your friend is fine.”

Adin nodded, not trusting his voice.

“Here’s the thing about
Notturno
.
It drips with old anger and personal grudges and—shall we say—blood ties. This is not something you want to be involved in. Leave it alone and you’ll probably survive.”

“I can’t do that. That book belongs to the university I work for. I bought it with their money. I
must
get it back.”

“Not anymore.
Notturno
has a far greater purpose than study. Leave it alone. You can’t hope to win.” He helped himself to the rest of Adin’s wine before rising to his feet. “Last warning, eh?”

He put the glass down and left. Adin sat in silence until Edward came back. “Did I see you talking to someone?”

“Not someone I knew,” Adin admitted, thinking hard. Had that been yet another vampire he’d failed to detect? In the daytime?

“You’ve still got it. I swear, when you go out men come out of the woodwork.” Edward picked up the crackers for his crab.

“You have no fucking idea.” That earned Adin a surprised look. They finished the rest of their meal in silence, and then Edward had Boaz drive them to the de Young Museum. Adin was agitated, and Edward had energy to burn.

“Do you mind going ahead for a minute?” asked Adin. “I need to talk to Boaz.”

“Sure.” Edward stepped out to the curb and headed for the museum. He turned back to call out over his shoulder, “I’ll meet you inside.”

Boaz held the door open, and Adin stepped out. “Something the matter, Dr. Tredeger?”

“A man approached me in the restaurant to warn me off
Notturno
,” he said. “He told me if I stayed out of it, I’d survive.” Adin tried to remember the exact words. “He said the manuscript had a greater purpose than study. What can that mean?”

“Can you describe this man?” Concern shadowed Boaz’s hooded eyes. “It would help.”

“If you had paper I could sketch him.” Not like Donte, who—based on his journal—could have rendered him perfectly. “I’m not an artist, but—”

“I’ll get paper while you’re inside.” Boaz chewed his lower lip. “I’d better call Donte. You go. Have a good time, sir. Phone me when you’d like me to pick you up.”

Adin and Edward explored the de Young’s collection of American painters, and as he had been when they’d first met—even as a teenager—Edward was an intelligent and knowledgeable guide. He more than put Adin in a good mood with his witty remarks and anecdotal information about several of the artists, and they were glared at by more than one serious art lover before they left.

Tuan called as they were leaving the building, and Edward excused himself while Adin phoned for Boaz. When the limo drove up, Adin climbed in by himself, as Edward seemed to be arguing about something with his lover. Adin found a sketchpad and pencils in a bag in the back of the limo, so he idly began to draw the man from the restaurant. He was working on that when Edward returned.

“Oh, hey! That’s the guy who was talking to you. You’re not a bad artist yourself, Adin. How come I never knew that about you?” Edward slid into the seat next to him.

“I’ve taken some classes. I’m just a technician.” He thought about Donte’s work and it gave him a hollow feeling. “I can hold my own in a class of amateurs.”

Edward took the finished sketch from him. Adin thought it was more of a doodle. “Adin, I think you should pursue it.” He frowned. “Did this man threaten you? You made him look very menacing.”

Adin tried to laugh it off. “I was going for seductive meets rough trade. Must have nailed it.” He tore the page off and waved it at Boaz, who rolled the partition down and took it from him, then looked at it briefly when they were stopped at a light.