Halfway to the Grave (24 page)

Without waiting for his reply, I shut the closet door with a bang and whirled back around, kicking his clothes and shoes under the bed. God, had he left his keys on the counter? What else could be around for her to find?

“Catherine!” It sounded like a kick punctuated my name this time.

“Coming!”

I flew over to the door and opened it with a broad, false smile. “Mom, what a surprise!”

She swept past me, more than a little upset. “I drop by to say hello, and you slam the door in my face? What is wrong with you?”

I wracked my brain to think up an excuse. “Migraine!” I
said triumphantly before lowering my voice and affecting a pained expression. “Oh, Mom, I’m glad to see you, but it’s a bad time.”

She was staring at my apartment with a look of amazement.
Uh-oh. How to explain?

“Look at this place.” Her arms encompassed the small, drastically altered space. “Catherine, where did you get the money to pay for all of this?”

Upon first seeing my apartment, Bones had derisively said he was going to slaughter my landlord for daring to charge me money for it. He hadn’t, though from his tone I didn’t think he’d been entirely kidding, but what he had done was furnish it from top to bottom. “All of this” meant the couch he’d bought with a comment that he wanted something to sit on besides the floor, the TV so supposedly I could watch the news to look out for any telltale headlines, the computer for similar purposes, and the coffee table, end tables, and appliances—well. I’d given up by then.

“Credit cards,” I said instantly. “They’ll give ’em to anybody.”

She gave me a disapproving frown. “Those things will get you in trouble.”

I almost laughed out of dementia. If she only knew how I’d really gotten this stuff, she’d forget all about the dangers of high interest rates!

“Mom, it’s great to see you, really, but…”

The way she was staring in shock at the bedroom made a chill creep up my spine. I was afraid to turn around. Had Bones ignored my directive and come out?

“Catherine…is that a new
bed
as well?”

I almost sagged in relief. “It was on sale.”

She came forward and laid a hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel hot.”

“Believe me,” I said with the utmost sincerity. “At any second, I could throw up.”

“Well.” She looked around the place once more with that little frown and then shrugged. “I’ll call next time. I thought we could go out to dinner, but…oh, do you want me to bring you in something?”

“No!” Too emphatic. I softened my tone. “I mean, thanks, but I don’t have an appetite. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

With far less force than I’d used with Bones, I propelled her to the door. She just looked at me and sighed.

“That headache is making you act very weird, Catherine.”

I actually pressed my ear to the door after I closed it behind her to make sure she was really gone. Some paranoid part of me thought she’d only pretended and was waiting to fling it back open to catch me with my undead lover.

A noise made me turn around. Bones stood in the bedroom doorway, dressed now. I managed an uneven, fake laugh that didn’t even resemble humor.

“Whew, that was close.”

He stared at me. There was no anger to his expression anymore, and maybe that’s what made me nervous. Anger I could handle.

“I can’t stand to see you do this to yourself.”

I regarded him with wariness. “Do what?”

“Continue to punish yourself for your father’s sins,” he replied steadily. “How long are you supposed to pay for them? How many vampires do you have to kill until you and your mum are squared? You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, yet you’re scared to death of your own mum. Don’t you realize? It’s not me you’re hiding in a closet—it’s yourself.”

“That’s easy for you to say, your mother’s dead!” I sat on the couch with a huff. “You don’t have to worry if she’ll hate you for who you’re sleeping with, or if you’ll ever
see
her again if you tell her the truth! What am I supposed to
do? Risk my relationship with the only person in my life who’s been there for me? She’ll take one look at you, and all she’ll see is fangs. She’ll never forgive me, why can’t you understand that?”

My voice broke over the last sentence and I buried my head in my hands. Great. Now I wasn’t faking it. I
was
getting a migraine.

“You’re right, my mum’s dead. I’ll never know what she would have thought of the man I’ve become. If she’d be proud…or despise me for the choices I’ve made. I will tell you this, though. If she were alive, I’d show her what I was. All of it. She wouldn’t deserve any less, and quite frankly, neither would I. But this isn’t about me. Look, I’m not insisting to meet your mum. All I’m saying is that sooner or later, you’ll have to come to terms with yourself. You can’t wish away the vampire in you, and you shouldn’t keep atoning for it. You should figure out who you are and what you need, and then don’t apologize for it. Not to me, to your mum, or to anyone.”

He was at the door before I realized what he was doing.

“You’re leaving? Are you—are you breaking up with me?”

Bones turned around. “No, Kitten. I’m just giving you a chance to think about things without me to distract you.”

“But what about Hennessey?” Now I was using him as an excuse.

“Francesca still doesn’t have anything concrete, and we’ve struck out searching for him on our own. Won’t hurt to give it a small rest. If anything does come up, I’ll ring you. Promise.” He gave me a last, long look before opening the door. “Goodbye.”

I heard it shut, but it didn’t register. I sat there for twenty more minutes staring at it, and then magically, there was a knock.

I leapt up in relief. “Bones!”

It was a young man in a uniform. “Pizza delivery,” he said with mechanical cheerfulness. “That’ll be seventeen-fifty.”

In a daze, I gave him a twenty, told him to keep the change, and then shut the door behind him and started to cry.

T
IMMIE LOOKED AT ME WITH THE MORBID
fascination you’d give an unpredictable virus under a microscope.

“You’re having
another
pint?”

I paused with my spoon over the chocolate ice cream, raising a challenging brow.

“Why?”

He glanced at the two empty containers near my feet. Or he could have been staring at the bottle of gin balanced next to me on the couch. Whatever.

“No reason!”

It had been four days since I’d seen or spoken to Bones. Doesn’t sound that long, does it? Well, it felt like weeks. Timmie knew something was up. Out of courtesy or fear, he hadn’t asked why a certain motorcycle hadn’t been parked in our community driveway lately.

I went through the motions. Attended classes. Studied feverishly. Ate sugar and junk food until my insulin levels spiked dangerously. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even
stand to lie in bed, because I kept reaching out for someone who wasn’t there. I’d picked up the phone a hundred times a day only to drop it before dialing, because I didn’t know what to say.

Timmie kept me from climbing the walls. He’d come over, watch movies until all hours, talk or not talk depending on my mood, and just be there. I couldn’t have been more grateful, but I still felt alone. It wasn’t his fault that I had to pretend, monitor my speech, and otherwise mask half of myself as usual. No, that wasn’t his fault. It was mine for pushing away the one person who’d accepted me unconditionally, even with all the flaws and oddities of both my halves combined.

“It’s so true, you know,” he said, nodding at the TV. “They exist.”

“Who?”

I hadn’t really been watching, too wrapped up in my inner turmoil.

“Men in black. Secret government agents whose job is to control and police extraterrestrial or paranormal phenomenon. They exist.”

“Um,” I said disinterestedly.
So do vampires, buddy. In fact, you’re sitting next to one. Sort of.

“You know, I heard this movie was based on actual events?”

I gave a cursory glance at the TV and saw Will Smith battling it out with an alien monster. Oh,
Men in Black.

“Could be.”
Giant alien cockroaches that preyed on humans? Who was I to scream impossible?

“You ever going to tell me why you two broke up?

That got my attention. “We’re not broken up,” I denied immediately, more to myself than to him. “We’re, ah, taking a break to evaluate things, and, um, reexamine our relationship, so…I stuffed him in a closet!” I burst out in shame.

Timmie’s eyes goggled. “Is he still
there
?”

His expression was classic, but my sense of humor didn’t rise to the occasion. “My mother stopped by unexpectedly on Sunday, and I freaked out and shoved him in the closet until she left. After that came the whole ‘evaluate’ thing. I think he’s getting sick of my issues, and what’s worse, I don’t blame him.”

Timmie had recovered from his earlier misassumption. “Why does your mom hate foreigners so much?”

How to explain?

“Well…you know how I said we had something in common because neither of us knew our fathers? Mine’s a little more complicated than yours is. My father was…English. He date-raped my mother, so…she’s hated Englishmen ever since. You know my boyfriend’s English, and I’m, uh, I’m half English, which she’s never been real happy about. If she finds out I’m dating someone English, she’ll, ah, think I’m turning my back on her and becoming…a foreigner.”

Timmie turned the sound down on the TV. His face twisted with indecision, and then he squared his shoulders.

“Cathy…that’s the stupidest reason I’ve ever heard.”

I sighed. “You don’t understand.”

“Look, your boyfriend scares me,” Timmie went on earnestly. “But if he treats you well and all your mom’s got against him is that he’s English, then I stick to my first response that it’s stupid. Your mom can’t hate a whole
country
because of one person! Everyone’s got something in them that somebody’s going to have a problem with, but your mom should be more concerned about whether he makes you happy than where he’s from.”

What he said sounded so simple! So elementary, he could have ended his sentence with,
Duh.
My bad example of her prejudice had broken the situation down to its most basic elements, and suddenly I realized it
was
that simple. Either I went through the rest of my life punishing myself for my bloodline—atoning, as Bones had noted—or I
didn’t. Simple. So incredibly simple, I hadn’t been able to wrap my mind around it before.

“Timmie,” I said with absolute conviction, “you’re a genius.”

His baffled countenance returned. “Huh?”

I got up, kissed him full on the mouth, and then dashed to the phone.

“I’m calling him,” I announced. “Got any advice for apologizing? ’Cause I’m not good at that, either.”

Timmie still sat where he was, stunned. “What? Oh. Say you’re sorry.”

I grinned at him. “Genius,” I repeated, dialing Bones’s number.

He answered on the first ring. “Francesca?”

I froze, suddenly speechless. Okay, not what I’d anticipated! His voice came again a second later.

“Kitten, it’s you. I’m already on my way over. Something’s wrong.”

“What is it?” I asked, forgetting my concern over how he’d answered the phone.

“Get dressed if you need to. I’m hanging up; I have to keep this line clear. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

He did hang up before I could ask him anything further. Timmie watched me expectantly.

“Well?”

I started throwing on a sweater over my T-shirt. It was cold out. The sweatpants should be fine, but Timmie had to leave so I could get my knives. “He’s coming over, but we have to go right away. Something…something came up.”

“Oh.” Timmie got up, shuffled his feet for a second, and then blurted, “If it doesn’t work out with him, would you consider going out with me?”

I froze in the middle of putting on my shoes.
Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.

“I know I’m not suave or have that bad-boy thing going
on like
he
does, but we get along really well and your mom already thinks I’m your boyfriend, so…I’ve kind of been preapproved,” he finished gamely. “What do you say?”

That if Bones could hear you, these would be your last words.

“Timmie, any girl would be lucky to go out with you. Any girl, including me, but I’m hoping to work things out with my boyfriend, so you understand I can’t answer a hypothetical like that right now.”

I didn’t want to hurt him, and I was frankly out of my league. Turning someone down gently wasn’t my forte. Usually my form of turning someone down was shoving a stake through his heart while smirking,
Gotcha!

The sound of motorcycle squealing thankfully cut off any further conversation. Timmie’s eyes widened in alarm. He bolted from my apartment with a hasty, “Good night!” while I went into my bedroom and pulled my weapons box out from under my bed. That action right there highlighted why I could never date him. It wasn’t his lack of suaveness, or the fact that I only wanted to be with the man currently striding up my steps. It was that some things could never be explained. Let alone preapproved.

I didn’t have a chance to tell Bones about my epiphany. His first words on entering my apartment took precedence.

“I think Francesca’s been caught.”

Oh,
shit.
Instantly I was contrite over every mean thought I’d ever had about her. “What happened?”

He paced in frustration. “She rang me two days ago, said she was getting closer to finding out who was pulling the legal strings for Hennessey. It wasn’t a judge or a police chief, but someone higher up than that. She couldn’t tell me more, she was still digging. Then ’round an hour ago she called me, and she was very agitated. Said she wanted me to pull her out, because what Hennessey was involved in went
too deep. I told her I’d meet her tonight, and we were arranging a place when she said, ‘Someone’s coming,’ and the bloody phone cut off. I haven’t heard from her since.”

“Do you know where she was?”

His eyes were shooting green sparks. “Of course not! If I did, I’d be on my way there!”

I backed up at the anger in his voice. He made a constricted noise and caught me in one stride, pulling me next to him.

“I’m sorry, Kitten. This has twisted me into nastiness. I can’t imagine what would have scared her so much that she’d try to bolt, but if Hennessey caught her spying on him, it’s nothing compared to what he’ll do to her as punishment.”

Bones wasn’t exaggerating. I might not have liked Francesca, but the thought of what she could be going through right now made me sick.

“It’s all right. Don’t apologize. Look, let’s assume for a minute that it’s not as bad as it could be and start from there. If she had to get out of somewhere in a hurry and she couldn’t contact you yet, where might she go? Is there any place she’d feel safe? You know her. Try to think like she would.”

His fingers flexed on my shoulders. Not painfully, but not a massage, either. From his expression, I doubted he was even aware of it.

“She might go to Bite,” he mused. “It’s the only place in this area where there’s no violence allowed on the premises. It’s worth a shot. Will you come with me?”

I gave him a look. “You think you can stop me?”

He almost smiled, but there was too much worry on his face for it to take. “Right now, luv, I’m glad I can’t.”

The club where we’d had our first date and I was subsequently drugged bore no sign of Francesca. That same brawny female bouncer was at the door, and Bones pulled her aside and gave her his cell number in case she saw
Francesca later. Next we tried the hotel where we’d met Francesca a few weeks ago. Nothing. Bones called Spade, who was still in New York, but he hadn’t heard from her, either. As the hours dragged on with no word, Bones began to look more and more grim. It was clear this wasn’t going to have a fairy-tale ending. I felt helpless.

By dawn, we’d checked the hotel and Bite again, just in case, but with no more luck. Bones’s cell hadn’t rung once. He started heading back in the direction of my apartment when he suddenly slowed his bike, pulling over to the shoulder of the road.

Up ahead a couple miles on the highway were the flashing red and blue lights of multiple police cars. What little traffic there was on the road this early was being routed into the single far lane. The other three were blocked off with flares that went all the way into the nearby trees.

“There must be an accident, we should take another way,” I began before gazing around with a feeling of déjà vu. “This place looks familiar….”

His jaw was granite as he turned around. “It should. This is where Hennessey dragged you away to bleed you. Well, not right here. Up where the coppers are.”

I stared at him and those flashing lights beyond, which now seemed more ominous. “Bones…”

“I can hear them,” he said in a flat, emotionless tone. “They’ve found a body.”

His hands were knotted into fists on the handlebars, and very softly, I nudged him.

“It might not be her. Keep going.”

He revved up the bike and pulled back onto the highway, tersely saying only not to take my helmet off no matter what. I knew he wanted to keep my features hidden. Just in case there was anyone watching.

With the reduced speed and merging, it took us over thirty minutes to reach that two-mile marker where police
activity was the thickest. I heard them, too, talking among themselves, calling in the medical examiner over the squawk of the police radios, taking detailed notes on how the body was found….

Every head passing that area turned to gawk, so the officer directing traffic probably didn’t think much of the stare Bones leveled at the form on the ground that was the center of attention. I only caught a glimpse—and then my arms tightened around him.

Long black hair spiraled out from behind the policeman bent over the body. His bulk concealed most of it as he meticulously took photographs, but that hair was distinctive. And the arm partially visible was skeletalized.

I was so numbed at seeing Francesca’s remains, decomposed to her true age as they had been, that I barely noticed the weaving, erratic way Bones drove. He took back roads, gravel roads, and no roads before reaching the woods bordering the cave. If anyone had tried to follow us, they would have gotten lost ten times over. Then he effortlessly carried the bike one-handed the last two miles to cut the noise while I walked beside him. It wasn’t until we were well inside the cave that I spoke.

“I’m sorry. It’s not adequate, I know, but I am so sorry Hennessey killed her.”

Bones looked at me and a small, bitter smile twisted his mouth.

“He didn’t. Bloke would have done many, many things to her, but killing her straightaway isn’t one of them. Her body was dumped within an hour or two at most after I spoke with her. Hennessey would have kept her alive for days at least. Until he’d found out every detail of what she’d relayed to me. There isn’t one of Hennessey’s sods who would have gone behind his back and done it themselves, either.”

He wasn’t making sense. “What are you saying? Then who killed her?”

His mouth twisted further. “Francesca did. It’s the only logical explanation. She must have been trapped, saw there was no escape, so she killed herself. It would only have taken a second for her to run a silver blade through her heart, and then there’s not much they could do about it afterwards. Hennessey’s leaving her where I nearly finished him was just his way of saying he knew who she betrayed him to.”

I couldn’t imagine the ice-cold courage it must have taken for her to do that. It reminded me of the Indian who’d given Bones the cave. Deciding his manner of death was all he’d had left also. One last stand before that final fall.

“Your part is done in this, Kitten. Finished.”

His uncompromising tone whipped me out of my contemplation. “Bones,” I said gently. “I know you’re upset—”

“Bollocks.”