Lost Angeles (42 page)

A pause, in which everything seems to hang in the balance, and then Roman nods. “Yes.”

“
Is
Caspian involved?”

“You all have parts to play.”

Not what I wanted to hear.
“Is Lore in danger?”

“Oh, most certainly, now more than ever, but she’s in good hands.” Reaching out, Roman claps me on the shoulder. It’s meant to reassure me, I suppose, but I feel the transfer of responsibility as keenly as I would a sword handed into my keeping. “I’ll look into the Legacy situation,” he adds with a look that urges me to step aside.

So I do the only thing I can: I get out of his way. “Speak with Asher Reece at Phantom Firearms about that. If he can let go of his dick long enough to pick up the phone, he could be useful.”

“I will,” my sire says, opening the door.

Lumen’s got that stupid portfolio clutched against her chest like it’s precious cargo, so god only knows what I’ve been inadvertently safeguarding all these years. In passing, she leans in close to brush a soft kiss to my right cheek, then another to my left. “Please be careful, Xaine. There are things—”

Roman clears his throat in admonition, and she swallows whatever else she was going to say. As she scuttles to the car, I piece together a very clear mental picture of Benicio. Of the look on his face as I rammed that knife into his skull, inch by inch.

One less “thing” at work to worry about.

There’s the soft beep as Roman deactivates the alarm and opens the passenger door, tucks Lumen inside, then circles around. A few seconds later, his taillights disappear out of the gate, which swings shut with a
clang!

When I re-enter the house, I glance up to see Lore sitting silently at the top of the stairway. She’s dwarfed by this house, curled into a ball and peering down at me between the balusters. When she sees me, she stands but doesn’t approach, choosing instead to teeter between two steps. Her hair’s been washed and left damp, but she took the time to twist it up into some sort of churched-up ponytail that all girls know how to do. The shirt she’s wearing is one of mine, but it’s a dress shirt and it hangs nearly to her knees. I don’t recognize it, but that only means it’s new, expensive, and a little less
me
than I’m used to seeing on
her
.

Slowly, so slowly, I make my way up the stairs, climbing until I’m standing on the step two trots beneath Lore. She peers down into my face, looking concerned, and before I even have the chance to speak, I can see the flush start to creep into her cheeks.

Still embarrassed, apparently.

The moments pass in silence. Lore fidgets, but right as I open my mouth to speak, she tilts her head up and sniffs the air, her next words stealing my thunder.

“You sorta smell like spunk.”

There she goes, sassing me like she hasn’t been run through the damn wringer today, and all I can do is shake my head. It’s a little harder to slough off the tightness in my gut, harder still to ignore the ache in my chest.

I reach down for her wrists, yanking her off the stairs and into my arms as I head for the shower to deal with
all this
. “Woman, there is something seriously, delightfully wrong with you.”

My girl shrieks as I tilt her over my shoulder, but she’s laughing all the same. “Well, that makes two of us.”

For some reason, that hits me harder than all the rest, wiping the shit-eating grin right off my face.

“Yeah.” Thinking about everything that Roman told me, and all the things he didn’t, I can only mutter, “It sure as hell does.”

It takes more than a week, but I finally get a minute to myself. Hurricane Xaine is exhausting, and I’m beginning to think you’d
have
to be immortal to survive it. I’m tired, but I can’t sleep, mostly because my internal clock is all sorts of off-kilter
.
There are no alarms in Xaine’s world. Day is night, and night is day. That alone has been enough to keep me napping intermittently, eating erratically, and waking up at odd hours.

Word from PFC is that Benicio’s shredded remains were turned over to the LAPD and identified as a DNA match to the small bevy of girls assaulted and murdered over the last few weeks. Case closed on that and not a moment too soon, but I have the feeling that if Xaine hadn’t broken every bone in Benicio’s body, someone else would have eventually.

Benny being such a likeable guy and all.

On a slightly more pleasant note, Asher calls intermittently, giving me updates on Jess as she recovers from her own set of near-death experiences. They didn’t find Doctor Osamu at CasDec; apparently he up and quit soon after my release. Toss another mystery on the pile, because nobody can actually tell me how Jess recovered, only that she did. I should be thankful, but the lack of answers niggles at the part of me that knows there’s more to this story.

And that it’s not over. Not by a longshot.

As a distraction, I pick up the Martin D-100 and cradle it in my lap, allowing it to sit in the curve between my crossed legs. It’s a hundred-thousand-plus-dollars’ worth of pearl-inlaid mahogany, rosewood, and dreams, as far as I’m concerned
.
Xaine might be the only collector on earth who would leave it out for me to play. Hell, he’d probably kick back and listen, but alas, the man of the house isn’t actually
in
the house right now, because apparently the only thing that it takes to launch a vampire into full-blown pop culture
hero
status is catching a serial killer.

Who knew?

So here I sit, alone for the moment, content as a kitten in a basket full of yarn. I could do this for hours, getting lost in the chords, lost in the songs, lost in the music until my fingers go numb from clutching the pick, until I can’t feel the tips anymore because of the constant vibrations from the wires. I’ve got a notepad propped on my knee, and every once in a while I slip the tortoiseshell triangle between my teeth so I can scratch out a new note or a line of lyrics. It’s what I do, and if nothing else, Xaine can rest assured that I keep busy in his absence.

When it feels mostly right, I fire up my laptop and lay down a simple recording of the new song, just me and the guitar, to get a sense of how it sounds. The hairs on my arms come up a little when I listen to the replay, which tells me it’s good enough to copy onto a thumb drive.

Good enough to play for Xaine—

The doorbell rings, and I jump a mile. It’s an involuntary response, just like I can’t help the dart of excitement at the thought that he might be home, though I know darn well that if he’d locked himself out, he’d be hammering on the door by now. I hop off the couch anyway, setting the guitar down and shoving the thumb drive deep in my pocket. Craning an ear toward the sound of Rosa’s voice, I catch a click and an echo when the front portal is sealed shut again. When I move toward it, I spot the housekeeper headed back toward the kitchen.

“Rosa, was there someone there?”

“No.” She turns to face me, already shaking her head. “Nobody.”

“I am not nobody.” The voice on the other side of the door gives her away, but Rosa only hitches her narrow shoulders at me. A moment passes, but the housekeeper’s expression betrays nothing in the way of acknowledgment. Eventually, our visitor gets antsy over the extended silence. “Hello? Did you leave? Lore?”

“Is that Jackson Trace?”

“It’s nobody,” Rosa repeats, and I frown at her, eyes narrowed at her dodgy, well,
dodging
. Slowly, I reach toward the door knob, but the housekeeper shuffles her body, blocking the latch from my roving fingers. “Mister Xaine said not to open the door for strangers.”

“Jax isn’t a stranger,” I tell her.

“He’s strange, very strange,” she insists, gesturing to the gray and white outfit that makes up her uniform. “Too fancy. He dresses like a woman.”

I laugh at that, then grin wider as Jax’s annoyed voice comes through the door again.

“I do not dress like a woman! Lore, let me in!” Then there’s a significant pause. “Please?”

“It’s fine, Rosa.” I’m already reaching for the handle again, dipping my hand under her arm and wrapping my fingers around the cool metal. “Jax Trace is the most harmless human being on the planet. I know children who are more vicious than he is. Total cream puff. Complete softy when it comes to kittens and puppies and babies and—”

“Ha, ha, so funny. Can we open up now?”

Raising my voice, I shout through the door, “Rosa’s worried you’re going to hurt me. Promise Rosa you’re not going to bite, Jax.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” There’s a beleaguered sigh from the other side. “Rosa, I am not going to hurt her.”

I swing the door open before the housekeeper has the chance to intervene. With a huff of disapproval, Rosa heads toward the kitchen, and I’m almost positive I’m going to receive a call from the master of the house very soon. When I return my attention to Jax, he’s standing there in all his Clark Kent glory, adjusting a slant-stripe silver-black tie until it lays flat over his white undershirt. Unbelievably, he’s wearing
two
vests today: a black one layered over a gray one. The former is open at the front but held neatly together with a short, black chain. His shirtsleeves are turned up, exposing a patterned inner cuff. Black pants and a wide leather belt complete the ensemble, and I have to give the guy props—he knows how to put together an interesting outfit.

“Nice shirt—”

“No, I didn’t steal it from a Beiber fan,” he says, pushing past me and into the house.

“Pffft. Like a Beiber fan would wear something that
understated
. Give me some credit.” Closing the door behind him, I watch as he cranes his neck, taking in the classic front hall and curved staircase, not looking particularly impressed. “Where’s your sidekick?”

“Ditched me for pancakes.” He pauses a moment, then adds, “And probably pussy.” Turning toward me, Jax gives me a slow once-over. By the end of it, I get the distinct impression that he’s actually disappointed to find me alive and well and
not
in need of rescue
.
“How’re things?”

“Last time I saw you, you were defying death and the laws of nature. Now you’re stopping by to chitchat?”

“Pretty much.” Jax gives an impatient shrug. “So, everything’s good?”

I open my mouth to give him the rundown, then realize everything I say is going to sound like that game you play with the fortune cookies.

“I’ve been hanging around.”
In bed.
“Working on a new song.”
In bed.
“Xaine and I have been…”
In bed, in bed, and oh, in bed.
“Right. Anyway, I am fine.” When I fumble, the guitar pick I completely forgot I was clutching hits the floor with a little
plink
.

Without missing a beat, Jax picks it up and sets it on the table by the door. “So, you turned on the television lately?”

“How lately? I’ve been kinda busy…”
In bed.

Fuck you, brain.

Jax pauses, like he can hear the thought, then moves further into the room with his hands in his pockets. It’s the kind of mosey you would do on a boardwalk or down a beach somewhere. A little bit careless, a whole lot aimless, until he hits the first massive black and white photograph hanging on the wall. “I like what you’ve done with the place. Gives it a real Martha Stewart homey feel.”

I have no clue what he’s referring to until he jerks his butt-chin upward. Only then do I realize it’s a photograph from the shoot. Xaine and me, larger than life. His finger is hooked in my panties, yanking them down like the puppy in the Coppertone sunscreen ad.

You know, something totally classy for the foyer.

I stare at it, then my eyes skip over the other pictures. All of them have been replaced, making it a parade of my face alongside Xaine’s all the way down the hallway and up the stairwell. Candids from the shoot, film captures from the interviews, the last two weeks distilled into a slideshow. And the pictures are… beautiful.

Surprisingly honest.

It’s a little scary, a lot overwhelming, and the worst part is that I have no idea when he changed out the old black-and-white Xaine show for one of the two of us.

You’re the only fuzzy bunny I want in my house.

“Holy hell.”

I’m so busy staring that it takes me a few seconds to realize Jax has wandered off like a little kid at Disneyland. I track him down at the French doors that lead to the backyard. I’ve been out there a handful of times; it’s all immaculate landscaping and perfect blue infinity pool.

“Sort of a waste for a dude who doesn’t see much daylight.” Jax gestures out the window.

“Night swimming definitely has its perks,” I say. “No sunscreen required, plus there’s always a
full moon
. Or two.”

Jax pulls a face, one that comes up just short of horrified. “Jesus, Lore, I can’t
unthink
that.” When I open my mouth to expound, he holds up a hand to stop me. “Please don’t tell me anything else about your sex life.”

I can’t help a small snicker before asking, “What’s on television that I should have seen?”

“Oh, this, that, and the usual. Xaine, wars in the Middle East, Xaine, celebrities flashing their cooter getting out of limousines—” There he looks at me over his sunglasses. “Try not to leave the house without underwear, all right?”