Deep Desire: The Deep Series, Book 1 (16 page)

Adin opened the tiny box and played the music again, discovering on further investigation that it wound with a tiny removable key. If he wore a pocket watch, it would be fun to put the key on the fob. As it was, he knew it would be best to keep the piece in a safe deposit box. It was a nearly priceless, museum-quality piece if what little he knew of miniatures was anything to go by.

Knowing that he was sitting there in the middle of the night winding it with his bare hands and listening to it over and over would give Edward apoplexy.

Finally Adin put the box on the coffee table and closed his eyes.

Call my name into the wind, indeed. He began to drift into a dreamless void, so tired, yet not quite ready to let go. He could hear the rustling susurration of Sean’s voice whispering to him.
“Say my name…speak my name…call me…”

He was relaxing into the regular rhythm of the sound of Sean’s tenor voice and his own breathing when, abruptly, he heard a harsh baritone, which snapped him back to reality.

“Adin!”

Adin sat up painfully, his shoulder pulling a little from the force of it. He looked around, uncertain for a moment what could have caused him to start like that. Then he remembered. That deep sound—his name practically cracked like a whip—interrupted the other, slightly higher-pitched intonation that had been calling him into what he was sure would have been a lovely dream.

Before he could explore Sean’s invitation, Donte’s voice had called him back, and he’d obeyed it like a faithful dog. He closed his eyes.

Not my finest hour.

Chapter Seventeen

Auselmo, see how I’ve drawn you today. I cannot beg your forgiveness; I have no words for my shame. It was with a kind of horror that I greeted the dawn this morning, and with it, the news that Renata has followed me and dragged along her circle of dreadful actors and artists. At last, my love, you will know what I live with daily and what I’ve tried to escape. Renata is quite, quite mad.

Only a month before I came to visit you, I began to notice a change in her behavior, as if with the passage of time she was also changing into another person. In fact, I did think that perhaps dementia was creeping up along with age to steal what little beauty she possessed. As she never exhibited a shred of kindness or compassion, it seemed to me that I hardly noticed when she began to hate. And at the core of that hatred, I fear, is her disappointment in me.

Perhaps she truly loved my brother after all and resents that I have received what should have been his. I hesitate to even speculate on one whose motives are so clearly driven by insanity. Most recently, she and her lover, the actor Bonamico Delporrino, have taken to sighing and lounging indolently around during the day and practicing what can only be described as unholy rites and witchcraft at night. She grows thin and pale, and now refuses even the slightest request from me. I love my sons, Auselmo, and have no wish to see their mother branded a heretic or a witch.

My beloved, all this I have kept from you so you would not worry for me, nor be tainted by my ill fortune, and yet, when I wasn’t vigilant enough, it still found its way to your door. Mea culpa, my love. Mea culpa. We must call the priests at once and do all we can to shield your wife and son from her. I will take her from here as soon as I can persuade her to come with me.

I write this, Auselmo, a shaken man. Never have I seen you so furious. I have begged for your forgiveness and have no wish to see you angry, but I did what I did for love of you. That you cannot understand this renders me heartsick.

Auselmo, what good could come from sharing my misfortunes with you? How should I have confided that my wife is mad? To what purpose is the agony of two men, when one can bear the load himself?

You say you are angry because the love we share precludes secrets and lies and the willful deception that I have practiced on you. You say you wish to understand and share my pain. Never! By all the saints I would keep you free from the taint of Renata’s insane malice even if I have to leave you forever to do it. You may not scold. You may not rail at me or beg me or weep. I will take her home and consider what I must do, but know this: I will not let her madness touch one corner of what you have created here. Not one stone, not one blade of grass, not one hair on the head of anyone in your small family. I love you more than my own life. Whether you like it or not, I will leave on the morrow.

Please, please, forgive me now. I am trapped, amore, neatly caught between the shadow of my father and my love for my sons. All the while I act out this drama, my heart is held safely in your hands. Can you not see that your anger is likely to break me as nothing else might? Please. I take my wife tomorrow and leave. I know not what awaits me, and I care not. Come to me, Auselmo. I beg you. I hold my breath and await you. Relent for me. Come to me.

Ah, Auselmo. How many times have I drawn a robe about your shoulders as I sit sketching while you sleep? Your head is now at rest in my lap, your arms tighten about my hips if you feel me move. How perfect this seems to me. How very like the still moment before a terrible storm, when the sky is sinister with rain and the air crackles around one’s head. This is that moment, I know, and I am terribly, terribly afraid.

Renata plots. It is clear her hatred has gone beyond madness. Tomorrow we leave, but I fear—for the first time—that these might be our last moments together.

How I love you. I am both weak from it and strengthened by it. I am prepared to kill Renata or be killed by her, as I think that is her aim. There have been whispers among the staff of animals dying mysteriously. There has been talk of spells by some, and poison by others. I have only hinted at this to you, still determined to protect you. I can see by the way you sleep that it is working, for I will probably never sleep again. I can never turn my back on her or anyone in her little group for fear of finding a blade sticking out of it.

I saw you playing with Cristiano today. He has your smile and your stillness, but also exhibits a spark of playful mischief that I suspect you have in you but ruthlessly subdue. It was a great comfort to me that you do not seem willing to subdue it in him. He is a fine son. I promise my unquestioning love and loyalty to you both, and your kind wife, as long as I live. That may be all I have to give, but I give it with all my heart, my love.

Now that I’m mired in it, madness fascinates me. It is very like the enclosed conveyance in which they transported me from your home, beloved, in that it has holes, and light streams from them in long, slanting beams, like swords, and I must not let them touch me or I will burn and die.

Adin heard the jingle and scrape of keys in the lock and looked up. Sometime, although he didn’t quite remember when, darkness had fallen. His sister’s cozy bungalow windows were still wide open, but none of the lights were on. Adin had been lounging on the living room sofa working on his brand-new and inexplicably foreign and uncomfortable-feeling laptop, unaware even that he’d been reading for who knew how long. He sat up, and the throw he’d draped over his legs slid to the floor. He was just picking it up when Deana entered.

“Oh, Adin.” Dismay was evident in her voice. She switched on a light. “Didn’t you go out at all today? You’re exactly where you were when I left.”

Adin put the computer on the coffee table and rubbed his face, stubbled now with several days’ growth of beard. “I am not.”

“You are. Did you even eat?”

Adin couldn’t remember eating, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done it. “Sure I did.” Deana didn’t look like she bought that. “I’m sure I must have. I’m not hungry in the least.”

“Oh, oddball.” She sighed, and he felt ashamed. “Maybe you should talk to someone.”

Adin smiled wanly. It had been little over a month since his defeat by the undead, and Deana still believed he was the victim of a violent mugging. Privately, he wondered if she thought he’d been raped or violated in some other way and found it difficult to talk about. She never spoke of it if she did.

“I could find you someone local, maybe through the GLBT community, and they could—”

“Deana, I’m really fine.” Adin stood. “Do you have plans for dinner? Maybe we could go out to eat. Canter’s?”

“You’re changing the subject again. I will not be distracted by food.”

“What about jewelry?” he asked without emotion.

Deana snarled at him; playfully, he hoped.

“I’m going to change clothes.” Deana walked past him to her room, calling out behind her, “If you want to go out to eat, then let’s do that. At least you’ll get out.”

Adin showered quickly and made himself presentable. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a white button-down shirt he’d purchased since arriving in Los Angeles. He’d had nothing with him when he’d arrived, only the clothes that Edward brought him in the hospital and what he’d been wearing when he was kidnapped. His luggage was in Washington, and his laptop case had been lost in Sausalito, at Santos’s place. He’d finally purchased a new computer and the necessities, and Deana, who always loved to shop, brought him something new every night. Today, she presented him with a bag containing aftershave from Barneys, where she’d apparently shopped during lunch.

He’d liked the delicate fragrance. It was better than what he usually wore. “This is very nice, Deana Beana, but I feel like a refugee. You don’t have to keep buying me things.”

“Refugees don’t wear Hierbas de Ibiza,” said his sister dryly.

“No, they don’t.” He grinned, but his heart wasn’t in it, and she knew it. He scented himself to make her happy, and they left in her BMW.

“Adin, you’d tell me if anything happened to you that night. I mean anything you haven’t already told me about?”

Adin squeezed her hand. “I was mugged, and someone beat the unholy crap out of me. That’s hard to take.” He looked away. “But what you’re sensing from me has nothing to do with that. Your sisterly intuition is sniffing out a broken heart.”

Deana stared at him with her mouth open when the light turned green. Several horns honked.

“All
right
.” She cursed. “I’m going.”

“Don’t look so shocked.”

She darted through traffic, dodging slower-moving and double-parked cars. “Adin, are you telling me you’re in love?”

“Yes,” Adin replied quietly.

“Since the last time you were here? You were only gone for what? A week?”

“It was sudden, and I’m not even sure I knew it was happening at the time.” He braced himself as she sped around a tight corner. “Anyway, it didn’t work out. He wasn’t over someone he lost, and it was impossible.”

Canter’s came into view.

“Oh, Adin.” Deana pulled into the parking lot. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well…”

She didn’t move from her seat. “This is your first time, isn’t it?”

“Are you kidding?” He tried for a joke. “Do I look like a virgin to you?”

Deana rolled her eyes. “In love. This is the first time you’ve ever been in love?”

“Yeah. We met on a plane. He was—” Adin shook his head.

“Oh, baby.” She pushed her door open, and light flooded the compartment. Adin hoped he didn’t have that expression on his face, the one he’d seen in the mirror lately. The one that reeked of hopelessness and self-pity.

Deana reminded him of his mother so abruptly that he caught his breath. “You know that means an extra dessert, don’t you? A broken heart?”

He pushed his own door open. “Yeah, let’s do it. At least until it makes me fat and no one wants me at all.”

Deana threw him a look that spoke volumes about his attitude.

They walked through the deli together and were seated in the middle of the huge and bustling restaurant. By the time they were finished with the matzo ball soup, Deana had outlined a five-year plan of romantic disappointment recovery that even Adin approved of.

Maybe he and Edward had been switched at birth. Edward would have gone right along with her prescription for spa vacations and shopping extravaganzas and rich dark chocolate.

As if she could read his mind, she said, “I sent Edward his package of beauty products today. He told me to be gentle with you.”

“Ah,” said Adin.

“Do you want what he and Tuan have?” She sighed. “I mean, I know, who wouldn’t, right? But I thought you weren’t that into the idea of finding love. I thought it was all about the treasure hunt for you, the quest. Both for manuscripts and men.”

Adin drank his Bloody Mary, not unaware of the coincidence. “It was—it is. But maybe lately it’s grown a little mechanical. You know what I mean?”

“Mechanical,” Deana said. “Read: boring?”

“Oh hell no.” Adin thought about Tariq and almost shivered. “No. More like pointless.”

“But, Adin, you’re not likely to want to assemble bicycles for the kids on Christmas Eve. You have a life a lot of men dream of. You can pursue a career you love. You don’t need money. You certainly don’t lack physical companionship.”

“To
whom
have you been talking?”

“Anyone with eyes can see you’d do fine at a club. People like you. You’re genuinely nice. Can’t you see that if a committed relationship is what you want, you can probably make that happen, despite what you’re feeling right now?”

“I know all this,” he said. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, will you? I thought I was immune to even the basic concept of love.”

“Brought low at last.”

The waitress brought his food, and as he scanned the crowded restaurant, preparing to eat it, he realized he was looking for some sign of the undead.

Deana picked up her glass. “Oh, what fools these mortals be.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” He touched his glass to hers.

Later that night, Adin drove Deana’s car down Santa Monica Boulevard, taking in the lights, the scenery and the sheer exuberant excess that was West Hollywood. He’d dropped Deana at home and asked to borrow the Beemer, giving himself the excuse that he needed some fresh air.

She’d asked if he remembered he was in Los Angeles and he’d have an awfully long drive to find any. He’d been down to the beach already, driven up and down Pacific Coast Highway, and stopped for a while near the Santa Monica Pier to people watch.

It was late enough that the traffic was light by L.A. standards, and he found himself parking the car near the Hollywood Forever Cemetery with very little in the way of a plan in mind, just an imperfect memory of what had been, for him, a perfect night.

He walked to the entrance, assuming he’d be turned away or at least locked out if there were no guards on duty. But when he got there, he saw the tiny golf cart coming toward him with the same security guard in it he’d seen talking to Donte. Adin racked his brain trying to remember the man’s name.

“Michael?” he asked as the security guard approached him on foot. “Was that your name?”

The man squinted at him. “Do I know you?”

“I came here with Donte Fedeltà,” said Adin. “I’m Dr. Adin Tredeger. I’m a researcher, specializing in antique manuscripts.”

That sounded impressive, even to Adin’s mind.

“Oh, yeah, now I remember. The last time Mr. Fedeltà was here you were with him, right?” The man tipped his visored hat back on his head. He had a contagious smile. “How is Mr. Fedeltà?”

“He’s fine,” prevaricated Adin. “Last time I heard from him I was in the Bay Area, but he seemed fine.”

“Good. Mr. Fedeltà is nice. Always polite. Respectful of the dead.” He looked around. “Did he send you here? He didn’t call me or anything.”

“No,” said Adin quickly. “No, he didn’t. I was visiting my sister who lives here. Well. Not here, here,” he said, referring to the cemetery, “but in L.A., and she gave me her car for the evening. I was driving around, and I thought I’d see if I could come visit the cemetery again. It’s peaceful here at night.”