Night of the Living Dandelion (22 page)

“Fantastic! Mom will be thrilled.”

Smiling happily, I rolled into the workroom to whittle down the stack of orders, only to discover a measly two waiting for me. I pulled the first, then wheeled over to the giant coolers to gather my stems. I heard a scratching noise coming from somewhere near the back of the room, so I went to investigate. By the time I got there, however, it had stopped.

I started to move away, then heard it again, but this time it seemed to be coming from the kitchen, so I wheeled through the doorway and paused to listen. Now it sounded like it was coming from the back door.

I maneuvered the wheelchair through the narrow galley kitchen to the landing. To my left was the thick fire door that exited onto the alley. To my right was the steep wooden staircase that led to the basement, a chilly old dungeon of a place that I visited as infrequently as possible. In my current condition, that meant not at all.

There it was again.

I wheeled to the back door and put my ear against the metal. It was coming from the other side, as if an animal in the alley was scratching to be let in.

“Lottie, would you come here a minute, please?” I called.

“What is it, sweetie?” she asked, huffing as she hurried toward me.

“It sounds like something is scratching at the back door. Do you think we should open it?”

“I’m game. But you’d better move back. No telling what’s out there.” She gave the big handle a hard turn, put her shoulder against the door, and pushed until she could peer outside.

“Oh, Lordy!” she exclaimed.

“What is it?”

“Not what. Who.” She opened the door wider and said to the unknown who, “You’d better come in.”

A wraithlike figure in a hooded black cloak slipped inside. In the dim light of the overhead bulb, I saw white eyeballs with dark circles beneath them and only a partial outline of a face, the rest hidden in shadows. A puffy red hand reached out of the cloak and pushed back the hood, revealing shimmering copper hair.

“Hide me!” Jillian whispered.

“J
illian!” I cried in alarm, only to have her put a trembling finger to her blue-tinged lips.

“Sh-h! I might have been followed.”

“Jillian, sweetie,” Lottie said, “you don’t look good. Let me see if you have a fever.”

Jillian cringed and moved away from her. “I’m fine! I just need to talk to my cousin for a moment.” She faked a smile.

Lottie raised her eyebrows at me, so I nodded that it was okay.

“If you need anything,” Lottie said to me, “just call.”

Jillian waited until she was gone, then knelt in front of me. “I think she’s in on it.”

“Jillian, no one’s in on anything. You’ve got a bad infection that’s affecting your thinking.”

She rose and paced the length of the kitchen, arms folded, and said in a brittle voice, “Or so Claymore wants everyone to believe!” She opened the old refrigerator, scanned the contents, found the egg carton, and pulled out one of two remaining eggs, cracking it and emptying it directly into her mouth. Good thing they were organic.

Giving a shudder, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, disposed of the shell, then sighed, as if she felt better. “Got any raw beef?”

“No! Come on, Jill, you’re not a vampire.”

She pointed to one of her eyeteeth. “Look at this! Do you need more proof?”

“What am I looking at?”

“Fangs, Abby! I’m growing fangs!”

“Your tooth is the same length it’s always been.”

She shook her head sadly. “You’re going to have to face facts, Abs. Your gorgeous, talented cousin—the Knights’ own bright light—has become a night fright.”

An endowment that included a penchant for verse, obviously.

“If you’re a vampire, what are you doing out during the day?”

“Why do you think I wore this cape? I had no choice if I wanted to escape.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Are you rhyming on purpose?”

She fanned her face. “Why is it so hot in here?”

“Abby?” Lottie called from the workroom. “Marco is on line one, and Claymore is on line two.”

“One minute.” I glanced at Jillian. “What do you want me to tell your husband?”

“You haven’t seen me.” She glanced around like a desperate animal, saw the doorway to the basement, and scurried toward it.

“Jillian, no! Don’t go down there. It’s cold.”

“Good. I need to cool off.” She descended a few steps, then called back, “You don’t happen to have a coffin down here, do you?”

“What do you think?”

I heard footsteps going down, then from the bowels of the basement, “How about a pullout sofa? I think I might camp out here for a while.”

I picked up the receiver from the wall phone in the kitchen and hit the button for line one. “Marco, I’ve got a minor situation with Jillian on my hands. Can I call you in a few minutes?”

“Sure. I’m on my way back from the boat.”

“Okay, I’ll call you in a few minutes.” I punched line two. “Claymore?”

“Abby, Jillian’s missing again.”

I heard a clatter of clay pots coming from below. “Actually, she’s in my basement.”

“What is she doing down there?”

“From the sound of it, making a mess. She wants to camp there.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Hey, Claymore, bring her antibiotics.”

I hung up, then called Marco back. “Sorry. Jillian showed up. Despite your heart-to-heart with her, she’s certain that her eyeteeth have grown longer and that Claymore is trying to do away with her. She just went down to the basement to hide.”

Marco groaned.

“Hey, your relatives are nothing to brag about,” I said. “Tell me about the video.”

“How about some good news first? My computer-savvy friend was able to track down the HOW TO KILL A VAMPIRE Web site owner. I contacted him and explained the situation, and he promised to take it down. He said he was hired to design and manage the site and was sent the materials for it by a John Smith, who paid in cash through the mail. John Smith is an alias, so we don’t know who was actually behind it, but at least it’s down.”

“John Smith? That’s original. So what was on the security video?”

“Let me get my notes. Okay, here we go. At twelve forty a.m., a male in a black trench coat, with black hair and light skin, can be seen moving among the parked cars in the lot. It’s obvious the person is dressed to look like Vlad.”

“Just like the photo I saw on the HOW TO KILL A VAMPIRE Web site.”

“The figure heads in the direction of Willis’s vehicle, then steps behind a large gray van that’s parked beside her car and isn’t seen again. At one a.m., Willis leaves the casino, enters her vehicle, and drives away alone. So whether the person in the trench coat had anything to do with her disappearance is not proven by that video, but he sure as heck wanted it recorded that Vlad was in the parking lot that evening.”

“The trench coat man could have broken into Lori’s car and hidden in the backseat.”

“It’s possible. It’s also possible that the person in the trench coat had nothing to do with Willis’s abduction. The driver of the gray van is seen leaving the casino ten minutes after Willis and driving out of the lot. There’s no way to tell if he has company or is alone. But I did get a license plate number and will have that run down.

“The bad news is that the video seems to implicate Vlad, and the police will be looking for just such evidence to prove their case. They already have digital copies, so it’s just a matter of time until they view that particular video and spot the figure in the black coat. That may be all it takes for the chief prosecutor to file a murder charge against Vlad.”

“We need to find a better suspect fast.”

“Are you prepared for your meeting with Holloway?”

“Got my outfit all picked out.”

“You’d better prepare more than that. Once Holloway finds out you don’t have a heart problem,
Gabriella
, you’d better have a really good reason for being there.”

Oops. I hadn’t thought past getting through the door. “I’ll work on it later. Clay is on his way over here, and somehow we’ve got to get Jillian to swallow a pill.”

“Will I see you at the bar at five o’clock?”

“If you’re a good boy. Actually, make that a bad boy.”

I hung up and wheeled to the landing to listen. When I didn’t hear any sounds coming from below, I called, “Jillian?”

Silence.

“Jillian, could you cough so I know you’re alive?”

“Am I alive?” came a faint reply. “Or am I now one of the undead?”

With a sigh, I went out to find Lottie. But by the time I got to the front, Claymore had arrived with two giant Neiman Marcus shopping bags.

“What did you bring?” I asked.

He began to disgorge the contents onto the table. “Chinese meditation CD and portable player, Italian red satin pj’s, Scottish cashmere socks, Swiss skin caviar, Icelandic cloud face cream, French rose water mist—”

The United Nations would be proud.

“—retainer—”

Jillian still wore a retainer? I’d have to store that away for future ammunition.

“—white silk sheets, and, of course, one of Jillian’s special pillows. She’s very picky about where she puts her head.”

“Right now, I’d guess her head is resting on a pot, so don’t be too sure about that.”

After he repacked the bags, I led the way to the back stairs. “She’s down there.”

Claymore carried the bags down the steps, calling, “Jillian? Darling? It’s me, your beloved husband. I brought your
accoutrements de nuit
.” At the bottom, he called, “Abby, where’s the light switch?”

“It’s an old basement, Claymore. It doesn’t have switches. You have to pull the chain hanging from the ceiling.”

He grumbled until he found it. I heard footsteps as he moved about the dusty concrete floor; then he said, “Darling, here are your—Jillian! What are you doing back there?”

What
was
she doing? Darned sprained ankle! I wanted to go downstairs, too.

I heard a faint raspy voice; then Claymore came up gnawing his lower lip. Already the jittery type, he now looked positively distraught by his wife’s latest antics. “She made a fort out of bags of potting soil and big clay pots and barricaded herself inside. I can’t get to her without taking down a wall, and she said if I try to come near her, she’ll chuck a pot at my head. What should I do?”

“I don’t know, but she shouldn’t stay down there. It’s damp.”

“Tell
her
that. She insists she’s going to stay until her transformation is complete.”

Oh, brother. How were we going to get her upstairs and talk her into taking a pill before that infection raging through her body did some real harm? Could I use a lure? The old Jillian would have run barefoot through the snow to see the latest pair of Jimmy Choos. Not that I could have afforded a pair anyway, but I doubted such a ploy would interest Vampira in the least now. All she was interested in was red meat.

“Claymore, did you bring her medicine?”

He held out an amber-colored plastic pill bottle with a pharmacy label on it.

“Good. I have an idea. Will you go to Adagio and get a takeout order for me?”

“You want to eat first?”

“It’s for Jillian. Adagio is the only restaurant in town that serves steak carpaccio. It’s sliced thin, so we can roll up a sushi-sized bite and hide a pill inside.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Claymore gave me a hug. “You’re brilliant!”

Huh. Claymore’s brother had pretty much decided the opposite was true. I felt the diamond ring on the chain beneath my shirt and smiled. Being dumped by Pryce Osborne had been the second-best thing that had ever happened to me. Meeting Marco was the first.

Once Claymore was gone, the workroom was quiet again, so I returned to the flower arrangement I’d started before Jillian showed up. Then I heard what sounded like chirping birds and tinkling chimes, with a waterfall in the background. I paused to listen. It was coming from the basement.

Jillian’s meditation CD. Strangely enough, I found myself inhaling and exhaling slowly, feeling the tension drain out of my body. Ah. That was actually quite relaxing.

“Yoo-hoo! Abigail!” I heard my mom call.

No rest for the wicked.

Mom swept back the curtain and came into the room, followed by a young woman who couldn’t have been a day over twenty. “Here you are,” Mom said. “I want you to meet my new student teacher, Chelsea Dunaway. Chelsea, this is Abigail.”

“Just Abby,” I said with a smile.

“Nice to meet you, Abby,” Chelsea said, shaking my hand. “Your mom brags about you all the time.”

Really?

Chelsea had long honey brown hair caught up in a low ponytail, then twisted and fastened on the back of her head, so the tips of her hair fanned out at the crown. She had straight bangs and long pieces of hair that fell in front of her ears, making her look both cute and sexy at the same time. She also had big blue eyes and a pretty smile, and she appeared quite stylish in her black peacoat, tan wool pants, and black boots. Hmm. Was she single?