Caught in Darkness (5 page)

Her eyes easily scanned the room,
noting the lone customer sitting in a back chair and typing away on their
laptop. She smiled at the familiar sight, realizing she’d almost forgotten the
late-night regulars who claimed a chair until someone politely asked them to
leave. And then her gaze continued on, quickly spotting the messy, light brown
bun attached to slightly hunched, slim shoulders at the back counter. Mandy had
her back turned to the front, undoubtedly trying to use the moment of quiet to
get a little pre-cleaning done, and so hadn’t seen her.

“I’ll be with you in just a
second!” Mandy called without looking over her shoulder as she scrubbed at
something that seemed to have stained the counter.

Veronica came up to the register
and leaned her hip against the counter sideways so that she could watch her
friend as she teased, “I don’t know that I can wait that long, M.”

Mandy paused, lifted her hand and
her head simultaneously, and turned a bit with a curious expression on her
face. The curiosity lasted only a second before it was replaced with a bright
smile and she called back, “Well you’re going to have to; we don’t give special
treatment to the people who fall off the face of the earth after getting their
shifts switched.” She threw in a wink for good measure.

“Need I remind you that you’re the
one who went and got sick last week?” Veronica returned with a grin before
honestly adding, “How are you feeling, by the way?”

“That doesn’t count,” Mandy
insisted as she tossed the dirty rag into the back room and turned properly
toward the counter. “And I’m just about all better now, unless you count the
cough that never ends.”

Veronica shook her head as she
straightened as well, saying, “I don’t. How’s night shift been treating you?”

“The same,” Mandy assured her. “
Gonna
tell me what you want?”

“No,” Veronica replied. “I’m going
to make you guess.”

“Coconut caramel it is,” Mandy
declared as she typed.
“Usual size, and hot or cold?”

“Yes, hot,” Veronica ordered with a
laugh. Mandy quoted her the employee-discounted price, Veronica handed over the
cash, and the two moved toward the adjoining preparation counter.

“I thought Ali’s party would last
longer than this,” Mandy said as she set about preparing Veronica’s drink.

Releasing a long-suffering sigh,
Veronica easily launched into the story behind her evening; and as she was
talking it occurred to her to mention what had happened that afternoon, but she
hesitated. Did she really want to involve her friends in whatever that was? Did
it even really matter at this point? She had decided to be hopeful that Seth
was right and she wouldn’t be bothered by Gregory Richards, Wilson, or the
other guy whose name she didn’t know, but there was still a part of her that
worried. And there were arguments for both telling someone about it and for not
telling someone about it.

On the one hand, if she told
someone about it and nothing ever happened, then she made one of her friends
worry for nothing. Of course, if something did happen then someone else had an
idea of what was going on already and could be there to help if it came to that—or
would at least know to go to the police if she went missing. But that all led
to the flip side of the thought. Telling a friend about everything would be
involving them, and involving them could—potentially—put them in danger. She
would hate herself if she put someone else in danger unnecessarily.

“Well, that sucks,” Mandy declared
as she set Veronica’s piping-hot drink on the shelf.

Veronica blinked, staring at her
friend for a long second. Had she told her without even realizing it? No, she’s
too calm to have just heard a story like that.

“V?” Mandy called, recognizing the look
of distraction in her friend’s face.
“Everything okay?
Is there something else you wanted to talk about?”

Shaking her head, Veronica grabbed
the cup and quickly replied, “Oh, no, no, sorry I was just a bit distracted for
a minute.
Nothing to worry about.”

Mandy narrowed her light brown eyes
on her and said pointedly, “Uh-huh. Well, when you change your mind, let me
know.”

That was one of the things she
loved about Mandy. Mandy wasn’t the type to let her friends get away with
anything. If she noticed that something was bothering someone she demanded to
know what it was—though she always stopped short of being rude—and once she
knew what it was she either offered a shoulder or a solution.
Sometimes both.
But that was also one of the things that
occasionally made Veronica wish she was talking to someone else, because
sometimes she didn’t like talking about the things that were bothering her. And
Mandy was good at being observant.

Offering Mandy an apologetic smile,
Veronica said, “Really, don’t worry about it.”

Mandy held her hands in the air,
saying, “I’ll play along. But you should call Ali if you haven’t yet.”

“I’m going to,” Veronica replied
honestly. “But, actually, to do that I really need to get going. We should
really get together some time now that you’re feeling better, though.
Text me?”

“Will do,” Mandy assured her with a
grin.

They exchanged goodbyes and
Veronica took her mocha in hand as she stepped out into the fresh, still warm,
night air. She made her way to her car casually and paused, one hand wrapped
around her keys, to inhale a deep breath of her drink. Her eyes fluttered as
she focused on the smell, and she nearly missed the blurred movement in her
peripheral vision.

As soon as she registered it her
eyes snapped open and her head spun to the side, searching for the movement
that she knew she’d seen. And, at first, she still only saw nothing. But then
she realized that there was a man walking away, his back to the coffee shop and
his hands tucked into his jeans pockets. He was wearing a t-shirt and dark
baseball cap, and between the bad lighting and his distance it was hard for
Veronica to tell if he was familiar to her or not. Had he been there before?

An uneasy feeling settling in her
gut, Veronica swallowed heavily and hurried to unlock the car and duck inside. Either
she was becoming certifiably paranoid or something really was going on. And
could it really be a coincidence that these weird things would start happening
right after what she’d overheard? She wasn’t sure, but she did know it was time
to go home and lock the door behind her.

****

After a long, frustrating night,
Seth had only learned one thing: Robert’s mystery informant wasn’t the only
vampire who’d suddenly gone missing. Despite searching all night, Seth had been
unable to find Richards or either Wilson brother. Now he needed to meet with
Robert again, to check in and see if anything had happened on his end, but
first he needed his daily coffee. And maybe he’d get to check in on Veronica
while he was there, too.

It didn’t take long for his eyes to
land on the smiling face of the woman in question. She was behind the register
this time, which was actually good—it meant he’d have an excuse to speak to her
for a moment.

When it was his turn to place his
order Veronica looked up, eyes slightly wide for an instant, and then offered
him a new smile. “Good morning,” she said easily. “Usual?”

His lips twitched a bit at her
question and he inclined his head. “Please.
And good morning.
How was your evening?”

Her resulting hesitation was brief—nearly
impossible to spot by most—before she lifted her attention from the register
and replied, “Largely uneventful.”

Seth deliberately arched one dark
eyebrow above the rim of his sunglasses as he repeated, “Largely?”

She took his money, counted out the
change, and handed it back as she quietly explained, “I had a couple of…small
paranoia attacks.
Nothing to speak of.”

He inclined his head again,
pretending to buy her words at face-value, and dropped the change in the
donation jar. “That’s good.” She nodded, wishing him a good day, and he stepped
away to wait for his coffee as he thought over her words. He wished there were
some way to know what she meant by ‘small paranoia attacks.’ But without
pulling her aside he wasn’t likely to ever get an answer—unless, perhaps, he
ran into her again after she got off work. That idea was tempting.

By the time his coffee was ready he
had decided that that was the best way to go, which left only the need to
figure out how to go about it. Should he try following her from work to see if
she went somewhere where he could believably pop up? No. That would be too much
like stalking, and he was not a stalker. So he opted for the straightforward
option and, as he settled in the driver’s seat of his car, he pulled his phone
from his pocket. A quick text asking her to let him know when they could talk
and he was done.

Now it was time to go see if Robert
had anything useful for him.

He didn’t, of course. All Robert
had was an upset, frustrated wife who didn’t understand why they had had to
cancel their plans or why they had actually stationed a guard outside their
door. There was no word on the disappearance of his friend, and no one Robert
had talked to had seen or heard from the trio of traitors. Seth wasn’t sure he
agreed with the way Robert was handling his end, but that wasn’t for him to
decide. What mattered was that Richards and the Wilsons seemed to have vanished
into thin air.

This is getting ridiculous, Seth
grunted to himself as he drove past the complex one more time. From his
(admittedly poor) angle, nothing seemed to have changed. Robert had assured him
that he’d contacted the manager and instructed her to call him if she spotted
any of them, but Seth didn’t hold a lot of hope that that would pan out. If
there was one thing he could say about the men he was chasing, it was that they
were good at laying low. Were it not for Veronica they would likely have gotten
away with their planned robbery the night before.

And that was what concerned him. Veronica
was the reason that their plans had fallen through. A large majority of
vampires had little to no respect for humans as a species anyway, and Seth
doubted that those three were any different. She had painted a large, neon
target on her throat and she didn’t even know it. He needed to find and stop
them before they exacted whatever bloody revenge they had in store for her.

The ringing of his phone pulled him
from his thoughts, and Seth tapped the small device in his ear, answering with
a slightly-clipped, “Hunter.”

There was a beat of hesitation
before the caller spoke. “Seth? It’s Veronica…you said something about wanting
to talk?”

Taking a deep breath, Seth flexed
his fingers around his steering wheel and replied, “I did. Do you have a few
minutes to meet somewhere?”

“Yeah,” Veronica said easily, the
uncertainty that had laced her voice all but gone now. “I just got out of work,
so I can pretty much meet whenever.”

Seth glanced at the dashboard
clock, realizing it was only just past eleven, and said, “Why don’t we talk
over lunch? You can choose the place, I’m not too picky.”

There was a smile in her voice, and
he could just see the twinkle reflecting in her eyes as she said, “Okay…how about
twelve-thirty at Pete’s Pasta? I’ve been in the mood to go there lately,
anyway.”

“I’ll be there,” Seth replied as
his lips lifted in the faintest of grins. Was it even possible for smiles to be
contagious over the phone?

“Great,” Veronica began, “I’ll see
you at twelve-thirty, then.”

They disconnected a beat later, and
as Seth’s hand returned to the steering wheel he decided to spend as much of
the hour that he had left continuing the search. By noon they would likely be
holed up for the day, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

****

“She called him?” Gregory Richards
hissed,
a level of incredulity in his voice. “You’re sure?”

Tobias Wilson shrugged, offering,
“Well, unless she happens to know another Seth. You want me to swipe her phone
and check her contacts?”

Richards released an exasperated,
drawn out breath as he thought over the offer. “That might not be such a bad
idea…but probably we shouldn’t try that before her little lunch
date
.”

“So,” Tobias began carefully, “not
yet?”

“No, not yet,” Richards snapped,
shooting a glare at his companion. He cast his gaze around the room, then, and
asked, “Where’s your idiot brother, anyway?”

It was Tobias’s turn to sigh as he
shrugged once again and replied, “Feeding, I think.”

“And tell me again why you insisted
on dragging your dumbass older brother in on this?”

“Because he’s loyal to me, even if
he’s stupid,” Tobias explained casually. “Besides, if he somehow found out
about this and we didn’t cut him in then he’d go blabbing to Robert for sure.”

Arching a brow now, Richards
challenged, “I thought he was loyal to you?”

“To a point,” Tobias clarified.

Richards threw his arms into the
air, nearly punching the low ceiling of the darkened room around them, and
growled aloud before saying, “Yeah, well, if we hadn’t had to give him the
damned update then none of this would have happened! It’s as much his fault as
that human bitch’s!”

“He doesn’t know how much money we
stand to get if it works out,” Tobias said, “just
slice
his portion.”

The hesitation in the air was
tangible before Richards finally replied, “That’s not a half-bad idea…you’d go
along with it?”

“With getting a
little more cash?”
Tobias began, smirk slowly curving his lips. “Who
wouldn’t?”

Richards nodded. “Then that’s what
we’ll do. Of course, we have to get the fucking money first.”