“I asked Jameson to put together a small repast. Now let’s see. You take tea—am I right? Sit, sit.” She pushed me into a chair and I sat. It was that or fall over from her shove. The little woman was wiry and strong. “Jameson?” she called. “We have guests.”
The nearly unflappable man appeared in the doorway, a white apron over his khakis and button-down white shirt, a white linen towel over one arm. In the other was a teapot, the spout steaming. He didn’t look quite as happy as Esmee did to see me, which was not a surprise—the last time I was here he’d ended up under a table during the gun battle—but he didn’t try to scald me with the tea or stab me with the knife beside the piglet, so I was okay with that.
“Good day to you, Miss Yellowrock.” Turning to the side, he said, “And to you, Masters Younger. We have water for the elder Younger and cola for the younger Younger.” Which made me grin, but the brothers had obviously heard it before, because they ignored it.
Esmee pointed to seats and took the one that Jameson pulled out for her. The brothers sat as Jameson poured tea and brought drinks and passed out plates before taking a big, two-pronged sterling silver fork to the piglet and pulling meat off the bones. The smell was heavenly, divine, fabulous—all the words that meant “good.” Beast watched the fork pull on the succulent flesh and thought about catching a wild piglet in the forest.
Esmee said, “So, my dears. Who do we need to kill this time?”
My appetite went into hiatus.
Esmee clasped her hands before her like a little girl waiting on Santa. Jameson’s brows rose so far that they nearly sandwiched into his hairline. The Kid snickered. Eli’s lips twitched and he leaned back in his chair as if watching a show. I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again, and realized I had no idea what to answer.
Eli snorted softly and said, “Miz Esmee, we’re just here to reconnoiter and for Jane to do an interview. The press, you know.”
Jameson gave a small nod of approval, but Esmee’s face fell. “But . . .” She looked woebegone, as if we’d stolen her favorite doll and cut off its head, but then she smiled, showing off dazzling new white teeth. “Once you reconnoiter, then you might have to kill the vampires taking our people. Yes? And I get to help.”
Carefully, Eli said, “If we find something to kill and have time to come get you, we will.”
“What fun!” She clapped her hands, and Jameson looked at her fondly, as if she were a dotty favorite aunt. “But the press was awful to the Reagans when they were here. The media is not allowed on the property. I hope you don’t mind, dear,” she said to me, “but you will simply have to meet with them elsewhere.”
“I don’t mind at all, Miss Esmee. That privacy—and your ability with firearms,” I added quickly, “are the very reasons we wanted to stay here with you.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” She patted my hand and said, “Serve these charming young people, Jameson. They have reconnoitering to do.”
To Eli I mouthed a silent thank-you. His lips quirked up on one side and he gave his attention to a piglet sandwich, heavy on the pork, light on the bread, with a plateful of fruit to the side that might have satisfied a troop of monkeys. Eli ate healthy, while his brother’s sandwich was heavy on the sauce and bread, with an apple slice and three grapes to the side. Mine was more like a plateful of pork with no bread and no fruit at all. I groaned with delight at the burst of roast piglet flavor and said, “I may have to marry you, Jammie.”
“I’d rather be married to a cobra, Miss Jane,” he said gently in what might have been a Boston accent. “No offense.”
Miss Esmee gasped and Eli chuckled. I sipped my tea to hide my smile and said, “No offense at all, Jammie.” I pointed with my fork. “Good pig.”
“Thank you, Miss Jane,” he said, sounding serene.
After a meal fit for a carnivorous king, I took my personal gear upstairs and picked the tiny bedroom I’d napped in the last time I was here. The mattress was that memory-foam stuff and no way was I giving that up to one of the guys. The upstairs had eight bedroom suites and five baths and slept sixteen easily, more in a pinch. They could make do with whatever other room they wanted, and if it didn’t have the memory foam, well, too bad.
Tossing my bag on the bed, I cleaned up in the attached bathroom, braided my hip-length black hair, and let it hang down my back. I put on fresh black jeans, ironed by one of the girls at Katie’s Ladies, and a tailored dress shirt created for me by Leo’s fashion designer—of course the MOC of the Southeastern states had a fashion designer on retainer. It was a shirt that worked well with any of my jackets to hide my weapons—in this case, my Walther in a spine holster, a six-inch silver-plated blade, and four stakes. I tossed extra magazines for the .380 into a fanny pack and pulled on the green snakeskin boots. Western boots might be more ubiquitous in Texas than in Mississippi, but not by much. Everyone wore them in this part of the country when they weren’t wearing Gucci, Ferragamo, or Prada stillies—or cheap knockoffs of same.
With time to spare, I dropped to the bed, because what else was I going to do for half an hour? And the mattress was so tempting, all fluffy with a down comforter to keep off the chill. Arms above my head, the backs of my hands against the inlaid headboard, my boots crossed at the ankles and dangling off the mattress, I was instantly besieged with memories, images that had been dredged up by my subconscious to ambush my mind the moment I stopped.
Misha as a thirteen-year-old girl, her long chestnut hair in a ponytail, the tip pulled around front and held between her lips. She had been delicate, shorter than me—though that wasn’t odd, because even at twelve I’d been tall—and held herself, arms hugging, shoulders hunched, eyes wide. She had a habit of standing against the wall, where her back was safe. Like prey. She had watched and listened as the other girls in the group house tormented me. Not helping. Not defending. In my mind’s memory I studied her, my eyes closed against the winter light pouring through the blinds. And with the hindsight of years, I realized that she had probably been an abused child, maybe for years. Scared. Scarred. Memories holding her down.
That abuse explained the cautious and nearly compulsive way Misha went about her life and studies, always working bent over her desk, always finished with a long-term assignment a week early. Her tiny room was always spotless and neat, with nothing at all on the bureau or desktop. Compulsive—that was the word for her. Watchful, worried, fearful, and compulsive. Needing control over her life.
On the nice soft bed, I blew out a breath, hearing the air whisper raggedly out. Why hadn’t I noticed her wounds back then?
The other girls had ignored her as they had ignored me, as long as the housemother, Belinda Smith, had been in the room. I had liked Belinda. She had been the best of what an alpha woman should be; strong enough to keep us all in line, and gentle enough to teach us what we needed to survive when we left Bethel Nondenominational Christian Children’s Home. I had even liked Misha a little, as well as I could like anyone back then, as I learned how to speak English and tried to catch up in school. I did catch up—eight years of learning in two years. And Misha had been there, on the sidelines, watching, silent, back-to-the-wall prey.
And then there was Bobby. My strongest memory of him was the day I left the children’s home at age eighteen, a couple days after the birthday they had assigned to me when I was found wandering the mountain woods. Bobby Bates had come to tell me good-bye—and to try to talk me into staying. He had been prey too, his red hair bright in the afternoon sun, his freckles a cinnamon spatter. He was standing with his shoulders hunched, arms crossed, hands under his armpits, eyes staring at the asphalt. Afraid. He had always been afraid.