Vanished

CHAPTER 14

As if someone had drawn a cork from the bottle of memory, things flooded back. I did remember long-haired Jill,A smiling and yelling and urging me into all sorts of trouble. Not that much urging had been needed. Rare holidays at Uncle Ron’s had been some of the few times I’d spent whole days goofing off with other kids. During the school year my life had been nonstop classes—at school or dance studios—rehearsals, and performances, or exhaustion and hiding in my room to steal an hour reading my precious mystery novels.

In the midst of memory, there came a rising nausea, and a sharp pain cut through my left hand. The slicing sensation brought on a bright instant of vision, like a single frame of film flashed on a rough white wall: Will Novak, his left hand severed at the wrist, blood bright scarlet on plaster walls. I gasped and jerked reflexively toward the vision as if I could stop him bleeding.

“Sweetie? What? Are you OK?” my mother asked, startled.

“Fine,” I snapped. Then I caught my breath properly and replied in a quieter voice, “It’s nothing. Just some kind of muscle spasm. In my hand. Cramp, I guess.”

She glanced at my hand clenched in my lap. “Are you sure? I have some warming gel if you want it. ”

I shuddered at the thought of the smelly companion of so many casual injuries in my youth. “No, thanks, Mother. I’ll be fine. Really.”

I was as startled by the vision as by the content. It wasn’t quite identical to the previous night’s bad dream, but it was close enough to be of the same moment. But I wasn’t sleeping, and Michael had said there was nothing wrong with Will. Was this what had happened to my father? No. His visions seemed to come only after paranoia. I wasn’t paranoid—just cynical. And I couldn’t stop wondering what was happening to Will. Was this some kind of portent or just a fabulation? The logical part of my brain said he was fine, just as he’d been fine when I’d called before, but some terrified monkey part was screeching that he was dismembered and stuffed in trash bins spread across half of central London.

I forced the thought away, clenching my teeth at the mental effort. The horror wanted to stay. I’d never had visions before, and I’d been assured over and over that I wasn’t psychic and didn’t have the power to see anything beyond what was actually present in the Grey. Still, it gave me the creeps.

“Mother, have there been other. deaths in this family, like Dad’s and Jill’s?”

“Good heavens, sweetie, how ghoulish of you!”

“No, Mother, I just wonder if we have some. curse.”

She tossed her head so her glossy hair flipped and swung. “No! We’re not some family from a Southern Gothic novel, for goodness’ sake!”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure if I should believe her, but surely she wouldn’t start hiding things now. She hadn’t needed a lot of prompting to tell me about my father’s suicide or Jill’s accidental death. The frustrated actress in my mother relished the recitation of tragedy.

I’d have asked more questions, but my phone rang and without thinking, I answered it. I could see a message icon from earlier and reminded myself to check it when I was done with the current call.

“Harper Blaine.”

“This is Carol, Mr. Kammerling’s secretary. We’re very anxious to have a meeting with you as soon as possible. Would you be available tonight?”

I wasn’t sure if I was being ordered around or begged. I’d talked to Edward’s various secretaries and assistants—both the mortal ones and the vampiric—and the tone from this one was a bit less imperious than usual. Of course, she might just be new and not yet used to being the daytime minion of Seattle’s top vampire.

“I’m in Los Angeles at the moment,” I replied. “Edward will have to wait until I get back. What is he so eager to meet with me about, anyhow?”

“I’m sorry; Mr. Kammerling’s instructions don’t say. It is extremely urgent, though. I can have a corporate jet bring you to Seattle this afternoon and return you to LA tomorrow, if you like.”

Corporate jets aren’t that big a deal to someone with Edward’s fiscal standing, but the urgency was a bit unusual. Time has a different scale when you’re three hundred years old, and while Edward Kammerling isn’t known for his patience, he’s gotten cagier since he’s known me. Things in the vampire world rarely need to move at the speed of sound, but if his problem were a corporate, daylight-world one, he had a stable full of lawyers, assistants, runners, and two-legged sharks to deal with it. This must have been something of the nightsider kind, but putting his cards on the table was definitely not Edward’s standard operating procedure in either realm.

I thought I’d test the waters before I committed to anything. “I should be done with my business here tomorrow,” I told Carol. “Can’t he wait that long?”

“No. He could come to you if it’s necessary. ”

“He must be desperate.”

She didn’t reply to that.

I sighed. “All right. I’ll wrap this up and come home today. If you can have the plane ready to go at Burbank airport by eight, I can be on it.”

With the daylight lingering into the evening hours, Edward and his bloodsucking kind wouldn’t even be moving until after nine p.m., so he wouldn’t be much put out by my arrival at ten. And I wanted to see just how desperate he was.

“I can arrange that,” Carol replied. I could hear her keyboard clicking in the background as she spoke. “The plane will be waiting for you at the executive terminal on Clybourn Avenue. I’ll have a car meet you at Boeing Field when you land and bring you to the meeting.”

Either Edward was very sure of himself and had already arranged the flight—somehow already aware of where I was—or his secretary had carte blanche to make it happen. Either way, I was impressed and a little worried.

My mother was glancing at me with suspicion as I hung up.

“Are you really leaving, just like that?”

“I have to. And I’m pretty well done here, anyway.”

“But you just got here!”

“And I never meant to stay very long. I think I have most of what I wanted.”

“I don’t understand what it is you needed to know.”

“I told you. I wanted to know if there was anything weird about my past—”

“It’s not that weird,” my mother objected.

“Oh, come on, Mother. Surely it’s not normal to have a father who killed himself and a cousin who drowned with you, as well as a boyfriend who was killed in an accident and a near-death experience of your own in the first thirty years of your life. That’s just a little too much death and devastation for one woman who isn’t in the military or a Tennessee Williams play.”

She heaved a dramatic sigh. “If you must dwell on the negative, I suppose it would seem that way.”

I closed my eyes and breathed slowly before responding. “Yes, it does seem that way. Thanks for your help and understanding, Mother. It’s not my choice, but I need to leave tonight. Let’s finish up with these photos, all right?”

She stood up and flapped her hands over the table covered with pictures. “No, no. Don’t worry about that. I’ll finish them up. It’s already five. If you have to go, you should get moving. Go, go, go.”

Ah, the guilt trip. I guess my mother hadn’t learned that I’d become immune. I took a few of the photos and tucked them in with my father’s journals and the puzzle. Then I let my mother chivvy me toward the door. She was mad, but she’d be damned if she’d show it.

At the blue-painted front door—less conveniently located for the carport under which my rental was parked—we paused and stared at each other, already turning back into strangers as we stood. I bent down and kissed my mother’s powdered cheek. She was so tiny I felt like a giant.

“Congratulations, Mom. Take care of yourself, OK? And gain some weight.”

She bit her lip and smacked my arm. “Don’t be fresh.” I could see moisture gathering in her eyes. “I’ll send you an invitation. And I’ll be very upset if you don’t come to this one.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course! We’re not best friends, but. I’m still your mother!”

“Undeniably.” I nodded, reluctant, but feeling I had to. “I’ll come if I can.”

She didn’t try to hug or kiss me. She just waved me away and watched me go.