Caught in Darkness (4 page)

That I believe. If there was one
thing Carol Wyndham would accept having her plans altered for, it was an
increase in Veronica’s love-life. They were in constant disagreement about how
much emphasis she should be putting on romance. Instead of commenting on that,
however, Veronica replied, “It’s Ali’s birthday, Mom. She’s actually celebrating
this year.”

“Oh,” Carol said, clearly surprised
at the news. It only took her a second, however, before she smiled again and
added, “Well why
didn’t you
bring her? She could have
a free dinner; doesn’t everyone like that? She knows she’s always welcome.”

“She made plans with all of her
friends, Mom, not just me,” Veronica explained. There was no point in adding
that Allison had less reason to be interested in this potluck than she did.

“I see,” Carol stated with a faint
nod. She uncrossed her legs, then, and prepared to stand as she added, “Well,
the next time you see her, tell her I said hello, won’t you? Now come on, it’s
time to gather the casserole.”

Unsurprisingly, the entire
neighborhood seemed to have turned out for the potluck. And, much to Carol’s
bewilderment, Veronica was the only grown child who returned for the dinner. She
even had a few of their long-time neighbors ask what she was doing there and
why she wasn’t out having fun on a Saturday night. For her mother’s sake,
Veronica only smiled and said that she had been planning to come home for
dinner that
night
, anyway. And, when Carol took
Veronica up to the new neighbors for introductions, Veronica began to suspect
the truth behind her mother’s insistence.

The new neighbors were a nice-looking
couple, probably in their late fifties or early sixties, and they were standing
on either side of a young man who looked to be about Veronica’s age. He was a
handful of inches taller than her, the slightest bit overweight, with styled
light brown hair and smiling hazel eyes. For all intents and purposes, he was a
good looking man. But he was no Seth Hunter.

“—and their son, Cliff,” Carol was
saying, her arm extended a bit towards the man in question.

Veronica allowed her mother’s words
to drag her out of her internal argument over whether or not Seth should be her
new standard and pulled out her politely-friendly smile once more. “It’s nice
to meet you,” she said, extending her hand toward each member of the family
whose surname she’d missed.

Cliff’s and Veronica’s hands were
still mid-shake when Carol suddenly said, “Oh, Anita, have you met Pauline yet?
I saw her sitting over by that beautiful tree in the backyard; I’d be happy to
introduce you.”

Subtle, Mom, Veronica thought with
a silent sigh. Predictably, Anita and her husband quickly jumped on the offer,
leaving their son to keep her company.

When they were alone, Cliff offered
her a lopsided grin and declared, “It’s nice to see someone else my own age
around here.”

Relegating herself to the role of
‘potluck buddy,’ Veronica’s smile returned and she threw in a short laugh as
she said, “Yeah, I think these things have gotten a lot less interesting since
I was a kid.”

“Did you grow up here?” Cliff
asked, hooking his thumbs in his pockets and shifting his weight.

“I did,” Veronica replied honestly.
“Spent the first twenty years of my life two houses over.”

His grin broadened a bit and he
said, “You’re lucky. We moved a lot when I was young; it wasn’t until my
freshman year of high school that we finally settled in for a while. But my
parents got to retire early and decided to go for one more move, so here we
are.”

“Do you still live with them?” she
asked before she could stop herself.

Cliff laughed quietly and shook his
head, his eyes dancing with understanding amusement. “No. I was actually
already moving to town for work; I think that’s why they chose this city.”

Well, that’s one piece of relief,
at least. “I can sort of understand that,” she replied. And that much was also
true; she knew if she ever left town that her mother would most likely pack up
and
follow
her.

“So,” Cliff began, removing one
hand from his pocket in order to gesture to their surroundings, “
what’s
there to do around here, anyway? I’m afraid I haven’t
had time to play tourist yet.”

Realizing that she was going to
have to entertain the new guy for the evening—or at least until dinner—Veronica
bit back a sigh and set about answering his question. If she was lucky, though,
the night’s events would help to keep her mind off of everything that had taken
place earlier that afternoon.

****

To the best of Robert’s knowledge,
he only had two vampires named Wilson in his Family—brothers by the names of
Troy and Tobias. Throw in Gregory Richards, and there were three—the exact
number of men Veronica had seen. It was too much of a coincidence to ignore. So
far as Seth was concerned the only part that didn’t add up was that the
brothers would have been pitted almost against each other. And while he had
certainly seen his share of family feuds, Robert had insisted that the brothers
were actually fairly close. Then again, Seth reminded himself, one or both
types of behavior could be an act.

Not that it mattered. Now that he
had names his job was about to get a lot easier. Robert had given him the
relevant addresses, and since the sun had fully set it was time to pay the men
a visit. To appease his sanity, Seth had opted to start with Richards. From
what Veronica had witnessed, Richards seemed to be the aggressor of the group—which
meant he was the biggest threat all around.

Seth parked his car a couple of
blocks down from the entrance to the apartment complex, cut the engine, and
waited. His eyes scanned the street ahead of him, looking for movement, but
everything around him seemed quiet. Of course, he wasn’t really expecting
problems until he got to where he was going, but it paid to be careful. Once he
was sure that nothing suspicious was hiding behind the light poles, Seth
stepped from his car and started toward the appropriate driveway. His body
tensed as he moved; he knew exactly what he was walking into.

Robert owned the complex where
Richards and both Wilson brothers resided. He had purchased the property nearly
thirty years before in order to provide housing for his Family, though, of
course, ordinary humans lived there as well, entirely oblivious to the
creatures in the buildings around them. From what Robert had said, the majority
of the apartments were currently occupied by Family, which meant Seth needed to
be careful. If Richards or either Wilson were smart, when Seth made his move
they would make noise and draw the attention of their neighbors, and Seth would
find himself surrounded by angry vampires regarding him as the traitor. It was
a dangerous situation.

The complex itself was well-kept. The
buildings were relatively clean, with fresh-enough coats of paint; the trees
weren’t quite in need of trimming, and the visible lawn spaces were
well-watered and recently mowed. There was a pool area—containing both pool and
average-sized hot tub—to the immediate right of the front driveway. The office
building—and adjoining apartment, occupied by a long-standing member of the
Family—stood alone in the center while the driveway curved around on either
side. Richards’s’ apartment was off to the left, near the middle, according to
the simple map Seth had seen in Robert’s office.

Seth kept his pace deliberate, his
gaze forward, as he walked down the driveway. He knew that someone was likely
to see him, and he didn’t want to raise any unnecessary suspicions. It took a
conscious effort to keep from increasing his speed, but he forced himself to
hold back. The last thing he or anyone needed was for a human to catch sight of
him right before he slipped into a true run. And then he was standing in front
of the cluster of apartments that contained Richards’s’ number, and he paused
one more time to ascertain his surroundings.

Everything was still quiet. He
could just barely hear the whisper of a neighbor’s television a couple of doors
down, and someone’s howling cat, but nothing else. No one was walking around
outside, even though it was only barely past nine.
Too quiet.

Guard up, Seth started forward
again, following the grass-lined sidewalk up to apartment forty-six and
knocking. He hated the idea of giving his prey any sort of warning, but it was
more important to avoid making a scene, so he knocked sharply once and stilled,
listening. Again, he heard nothing.
Absolutely nothing.

Suspicion was flaring in his gut,
and Seth again raised his hand, only this time he reached out and tried the
knob. The door was locked, of course, so Seth dipped his hand into his pocket
and extracted the master key that Robert had given him. Within seconds the door
was swinging open, Seth’s eyes automatically adjusting to the change in lighting,
and he stepped through quickly before pulling the door shut behind him.

The lights were off in Richards’s
apartment. Nothing was moving, or even breathing. There was sparsely-scattered
furniture in the living room and dining area, as well as some typical clutter
on the kitchen counters, but for all intents and purposes the apartment was
empty. Still, Seth quietly moved through the rest of the space, poking his head
into the bathroom as well as the single bedroom and two hall closets. Bare-minimum
furniture was all he found.

Damn! Richards had, as he’d feared,
anticipated that someone would come looking for him. There wasn’t a single sign
of where he might’ve gone, and something about that realization had warning
bells firing in Seth’s head.

Chapter Three

“What a nice evening,” Carol
declared as she led the way up to the front door. “I dare say Grandmother’s
casserole was a hit!”

“Grandma’s casserole is delicious,”
Veronica agreed, doing her best to keep her exhaustion from her voice. “But now
you don’t have leftovers.”

“You know I don’t like leftovers,
anyway,” Carol reminded easily. She came to a stop on the front stoop and
turned to face her daughter, asking, “Will you be staying?”

Veronica shook her head easily,
replying, “No, I need to get home.”

Resignation muted Carol’s
expression and she nodded. “I suppose you do.” She paused for a beat, adjusted
her grip on the casserole dish, and asked, “What did you think of Cliff? He’s a
nice enough young man, don’t you think? His mother was telling me that he was
the star of the football team in high school.”

Of course he was. Veronica’s smile
was a bit more forced as she slowly nodded and said, “He seemed nice.” It was
her turn to pause as she struggled to find the best way to get her point
across, before she finally settled on the direct approach and added, “But
please tell me you’re not trying to fix me up with him.”

Carol scoffed as if the idea was
beneath her and said, “Veronica, please be reasonable! You’re a grown
woman,
you need to make your own choices.”

“Mom,” Veronica cut in
deliberately, a note of warning in her voice.

“Relax, Veronica,” Carol insisted. “Now
go on. You want to get home before it gets too late.”

A sinking feeling settling in her
stomach, Veronica released a breath and nodded again. “Okay. Good night, Mom.” Her
mother called ‘good night’ as she turned and started toward the car still
parked in the driveway, and she managed to offer a big smile and little wave
through the windshield as she backed into the street a minute later. But she knew
what her mother was doing. She was going to try and set her up with Cliff, she
just wasn’t going to call it that. That was, after all, exactly what she’d done
for the potluck.

Veronica was straightening the car,
now aimed in the proper direction for home, when a flicker of movement caught
her eye. It was just a blur, and there was nothing standing on the lawn between
her mother’s house and the older house next door when she took a closer look. But
there wasn’t a breeze of any type at the moment, and she could have sworn there
had been something there. Whatever it had been, though, it was gone now. Maybe
I’m more tired than I thought.

Shaking it off, Veronica returned
her focus to driving home and started down the street. She was clearly going
delusional; she knew first-hand that the neighbors were all either in their
homes or at what was left of the potluck. This wasn’t a late-night-out
neighborhood, and the people who lived in the house next to her mother’s didn’t
have a pet that she knew of, either. That settles it; I either need to go
straight to bed or drink a cup of coffee. And since she still needed to call
Allison in order to wish her a happy birthday she would definitely be going
with the coffee.

She was halfway home when she
decided that she would take a detour and stop over at the coffee house instead
of making a drink of her own. With any luck, her coworker and friend Mandy
would be there, too. She hadn’t actually seen Mandy since her abrupt
reassignment to the morning shift at the start of
July,
and this close to closing they were usually about dead, so it would be a good
chance to catch up. By the time she was pulling in to a front parking space she
was already feeling a bit more awake and her smile was easier.

The soft tinkling of the bells over
the door heralded her arrival, and Veronica found herself oddly comforted by
the sound. After a long evening of required socializing and faking her interest
in what was going on around her the coffee-enriched air of the small building
brought a lightness to her spirit and eased out a bit of the tension in her
muscles. There was something about the smell of coffee that always resonated
with her—it was why she had chosen to apply for a coffee shop in the first
place.