Heartbitten (A New Adult Vampire Romance Novel) (15 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"I don't need you here."

"Sir—"

"Just go! Take the day off!" Robb paced across the living room.

"I'm concerned about you, sir," Gerry said, clasping his hands in front of him.

"Why?" Robb flung himself down on the living room couch and pressed his palms to his eyelids. He wanted the world to go away.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Gerry said. "Apart from the bloodstained sheets, the bloodstained carpet, and the bloodstained door, everything seems absolutely normal, sir. Shall I get you some more tea?"

"It's not a problem. I'll take care of it."

"The tea or the blood?"

Robb threw an acid look towards his butler.

"Both," he said.

"What cleaners will you call?" Gerry asked.

"Excuse me?" Robb said. He had been pacing the room all night and he was tired. Too tired to deal with any of
this. He wanted it to be done. He wanted to talk with Liz again. To hold her. He'd found her, and touched her, and his curse had won. It would never leave him alone. He would never find happiness.

His phone rang again.

Thad
. He turned off the ringer and let out a deep breath. His hand trembled as he put the phone down.

"The cleaners, sir," Gerry said gently. "They can't be local. You have to switch out the apartment numbers so they've no idea whose place this is. You'll have to—"

"Okay, okay," Robb said. His head was pounding. "You take care of it."

"As soon as you tell me what happened," Gerry said. "Sir, if you're in trouble—"

"It's the girl."

Gerry's face turned pale, and Robb realized how the situation looked.

"She's fine," he hurried to explain. "Things went...wrong, but I healed her. She's fine. Everything's fine."

"Does she know? About you?"

"It's alright. I've taken care of it. It's all fine." His phone rang again. "Dammit, Thad!"

"Perhaps you should be the one to take the day off, sir."

Robb looked down at his phone. Thad must need him urgently. He wanted to throw the old vampire off of a bridge.

"That sounds like a good idea," Robb said. Gerry looked at him with disbelief.

"I'll take the day off. You deal with...ah, with all this," Robb said, motioning to the carpet but not looking at it.

"Very well, sir," Gerry said. He looked around and set his shoulders square. "I'll take care of it, sir."

"Thanks, Gerry," Robb said. He put his hand on Gerry's shoulder and was surprised to see his butler flinch at the touch. It was a split-second reaction, imperceptible to human eyes perhaps, but Robb caught it. It made him stop in his tracks.

"Of course, sir," Gerry said, moving briskly to the kitchen, where he began pulling out cleaning supplies from a closet Robb didn't even remember he had.

"I'll be back later," Robb said.

He took the elevator down, not to the lobby but to his private garage. Gerry's reaction had shaken him, and as he walked to his car he found himself in a darker mood than ever. With his terrible mistake, he had driven everyone away from him, even the ones most dear to him.

He
was
a monster to everyone.

His phone rang again, and this time he answered it.

"What the hell do you want, Thad? This better be important."

"Come to the spot. Now."

"Why?"

"Just come. I need you
now
."

The phone went dead in his hand. Robb wanted to throw it against the wall. He wanted to get into his car and drive it off of a cliff, not that it would do any good. He couldn't die, not that easily.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Great." He got into the car and turned on the radio loudly. The rock blasted all of the thoughts out of his head, and as he drove out of the parking garage and turned onto the road that would get him outside London, he let his mind tune out and be carried away by the shrill notes, the pounding of the drums that drowned out his heartbeat completely.

***

"A dead body?"

"It's in the trunk of the rental car."

"Thad,
why
?"

Robb rubbed his temples with his fingers. His head was throbbing. Above him in the trees, birds chirped happily, unaware of the two monsters below them.

"Why? Because we needed a body that looked like me."

Thad's eyes were wild, red-rimmed, darting around. He couldn't keep Robb's gaze for more than an instant before flicking his attention elsewhere. He was like a hungry animal, ready to attack should any prey arrive in his path. His hair had turned almost completely white and stuck up from his head, unbrushed. His lips were cracked from lack of blood and from Thad continually licking them.

"Vasin would have provided a body," Robb said. He didn't know how this had gotten so out of hand.

"I want this to go off without a hitch," Thad said.

"Then let me do it my way!"

Robb's voice rang out in the middle of the forest, and Thad peered up at him suspiciously, his tongue darting out to wet his lips again.

"Fine. From here on out. Your way. I promise. But you have to take the car."

"With the body in it?"

Robb glanced over at the white sedan. There was someone in the trunk, a dead man. He didn't know how Thad had come across a dead body—whether he'd stolen it, or killed a random passerby on the street. Dead bodies had never given him the creeps before, not after what the vampires had done to him. And yet, now, shivers ran up his spine.

"I can't keep this in my car," Thad said. "If I got caught—"

"You shouldn't have a dead body to begin with," Robb said. He thought for a moment. "I'll drive it out to my cabin outside of Oxford. You can go pick it up on the day we do it."

"We have to do it tonight."

"What
?"

"The feds are closing in." Thad wiped the back of his hand against his lips. Robb cringed to see the smear of red come away on his hand.

"How do you know?"

"I saw him following me. One of them. A suit."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

Robb's mind raced.

"Okay. Meet me at my place in an hour."

"I can ride back with you," Thad said. "I don't want to drive a dead body around."

"You shouldn't have gotten a dead body, then," Robb growled.

“We’ll just leave it here.”

"We can't leave it here. Animals would smell it. A bear might even claw up the trunk, and that’s something you can’t explain away with a car crash. If you want this to go cleanly we have to keep this area clear until tonight. No car. No body." God, Thad was stupid.

"Then where are you going to put the body?" Thad asked.

"Put it in the Porsche. I'll leave it in the trunk and park in my private parking until we're ready.” You park a few blocks away and walk to my place.”

“Sure, sure,” Thad said.

“Thad, listen."

Robb grabbed the old vampire by the shirt and pulled him close. His breath smelled like death. Like hunger.

"We can't be seen together in London. We can't be seen together
anywhere
. Got it?"

"Yeah. Got it." Thad's voice was seething, but Robb didn't care. He was doing Thad a favor.

“Okay. Move the body into my trunk.”

“Aren’t you going to help?”

“Your body,” Robb said. “You deal with it.”

He slid behind the wheel of his Porsche and popped the trunk. In the rearview mirror he saw Thad carrying the body over. He heard a dull thud as the corpse hit the floor of the trunk.

A dead body in the trunk. Great. That was exactly what he needed right now.

An engine roared, and Robb looked over to see Thad peeling out into the road in the rental car.

"Idiot
," he muttered. He started his car and pulled onto the road after Thad, leaving a distance between them. He didn't need to. Thad was already zooming away, and Robb would be doing exactly the speed limit until he was parked safely in his garage.

He pulled out his phone and called Vasin, who assured him that he would come over right away to the apartment. Well, that was one thing taken care of. Now for the more important matter.

He dialed Liz. No answer. He desperately wanted to talk to her. He would be able to tell just by hearing her voice whether or not he was safe. Or whether he had to see her as a threat. He hoped that he would be able to talk with her more, to convince her that everything would be okay if she forgot about everything she had seen.

The phone kept ringing, then went to Liz's voicemail. Robb tossed his phone down on the car seat.

"Come
on
," he said, tapping the steering wheel with his fingers. "Can't something go right for once today?"

Looking at the exit signs off of the highway, Robb decided that there was enough time to swing by the university. Before he could change his mind, he had already taken the exit and was tooling down a road towards the student housing.

"I don't know where she is," Jenny said, opening the door to their apartment only a crack. "What's going on with you two?"

"What did she tell you about...about what was going on with us?" Robb asked.

"She texted me last night saying she was fine, that she was staying at your place."

"My place?" Robb frowned. That was strange.

"Did she not go over to your place last night?"

"No, she did. She did."

"But she didn't stay there?" The blond girl creased her brow with worry. "Should I call the cops?"

"No need for that," Robb said, affecting a casual manner at odds with the tenseness in his chest. "She left early, to run some tests. You know Liz, always working."

"So she's at the lab? Did you check there?"

"I stopped here first on a whim. Wanted to give her some flowers."

"Where are they?" Jenny's eyes narrowed.

"Where are what?"

"The flowers."

"Oh. Right. They're down...they're in the car. You know, I'll go by the lab, she's probably there already."

"Yeah," Jenny said. She had a strange expression on her face as she closed the door. Robb fairly ran down the steps to the car, dialing Liz's number once more. This time it went straight to voicemail.

"All my fault," Robb said, grumbling as he pulled into the parking lot of the university. He couldn't very well leave the car parked on the university lawn, not with a dead body inside of it, but something inside of him told him that he had to get to Liz. He locked the car and sprinted through the campus to the chemistry lab. Students turned their heads to watch him, a grown man
flying down the sidewalk in expensive dress clothes.

So much for being inconspicuous.

He threw the doors to the lab open.

"Liz! Liz?"

The lights were on, but as he made his way to the back of the laboratory he realized that Liz wasn't there. There was a sheet of paper on the table. He picked it up.

Dear Dr. Chatham,

I apologize for such late notice, but a family emergency requires me to take a sabbatical from my research at the university. I am leaving to return to America...

Robb's eyes scanned the page quickly. There was nothing in the note that would incriminate him in any way. Nothing about their date. Nothing about his secret, or what she had seen. He would have expected something, blackmail or begging,
something
. But the note was dry and academic. All it said was that Liz was leaving.

Leaving
.

He picked up his phone and dialed her number again, but of course she didn't answer. Robb slumped down
onto a lab stool, the letter in his hand. He needed to get home, back to Thad. He needed to deal with all of his other problems. Liz was one mistake he should be happy to be rid of.

And that was true, wasn't it? If he really cared about his reputation, he should have been ecstatic. Liz leaving would fix all of his problems, provided that she kept quiet. God, she was heading to another country—this was perfect for him to keep all of his secrets locked tightly away. It was exactly what he needed.

Then why did he feel as though everything had just gone utterly wrong?

CHAPTER TWENTY

Liz opened the apartment door quietly, but Jenny was waiting to ambush her.

"I've been calling you for the past ten minutes straight!" Jenny said.

"I know," Liz said. "Sorry." It hadn't been only Jenny calling—her roommate and Robb seemed to be competing to see who could call her phone the most.

"Guess who was just here?" Jenny asked.

"Who?"

"Robert Chatham."

Liz, in the middle of setting her purse down, put on a neutral expression.

"Oh? What did he want?"

"What did he
want
? He wanted to know where the hell you were. And I do too. You didn't come home last night. I was about to call the police—"

"I was at the lab," Liz said quickly.

"Well, you should call and let him know you're not dead," Jenny said. "And you should have called
me
."

"Sorry," Liz said. She brushed by her roommate and
went into her room. She hadn't even unpacked half of her things. That was good. That meant she didn't have to do much packing. She dragged a suitcase out from under her bed and flung it open.

"What are you doing?" Jenny asked. She was leaning against the door, her beautiful blond hair tossed back elegantly over her shoulder.

"Packing," Liz said.  Something nagged at her mind, a thought that she couldn't piece together. She went to her closet and gathered the armful of clothes on hangers. Without folding them, she tossed the whole mess into her suitcase and went back for more.

"Packing
. Right. I can see that. Why are you packing?"

"I have to leave," Liz said. As she said the words, a pang of regret bit into her heart. Robb didn't want her to go. Perhaps she should stay. Figure out exactly what he was. If he was telling the truth—if he didn't have cancer, if he had some other genetic condition that caused him to do...whatever it was he had done to her...

No
. Robb would be fine. He would have his other women, like that one she'd seen in his apartment when she'd gone to his lab. He didn't need her. And she didn't need him. All she'd wanted to do was her work. The thought came back, an itch that she couldn't find to scratch. She pulled out her sock drawer and emptied it into the suitcase.

"You can't
leave
! What do you mean,
leave
? Leave London? Leave the university?"

"I can't stay. It's an emergency. I have to go back home. For a year. At least. I might be back."

"For heaven's sake, Liz,
why
?"

Jenny trailed her to the bathroom, where Liz plucked her toothbrush from its holder. Everything else she could leave here.

"I'm sorry, Jenny. I'll pay my half of the rent for this month, until you find another roommate."

Liz went back to her room, but when she turned to put another armful of clothes in her suitcase, she found Jenny sitting on top of it.

"Liz. Stop."

"Jenny, what are you doing?"

"What am
I
doing? What are
you
doing?" Jenny sat cross-legged inside of her suitcase, daring her to pack. Liz sighed and tossed her clothes next to her roommate on the bed. "You can't just pick up and leave without telling me why. I'm your roommate. I'm your lab partner. We are in the middle of a project—"

"Oh,
shit,
" Liz said.

The thought that had been pricking at her mind
suddenly tore through to the front.

"What?" Jenny asked.

"My project notebook."

"Notebook?" Jenny looked completely confused.

"I left my lab project notebook at Robb's place. Shit." Her mind raced. It had all of the most important data recorded in there. Including the data on Robb's cell culture. She didn't want to leave the only clue she had behind. "I have to get it. All of the results—I haven't transferred them over to the hard drive."

"So?"

"Can you go get it for me?"

"What? Me? Go to Robert Chatham's home?"

"His lab. He has a private lab..." Liz trailed off. How much could she tell Jenny without giving away his secret? "Jenny, I
need
that notebook."

"Then go get it yourself."

"I can't. You have to go get it for me. Please."

"No. You won't even tell me what this is about." Jenny crossed her arms.

"You don't want to know," Liz said.
And you'd never believe it.

"Is this about Robb Chatham? Did he reject you or something?"

"No!" Liz cried.

"So he loves you?"

"No! Yes! I don't— I don't— "
Liz was so flustered that she almost answered with the first thought that popped into her head:
I hope so.

"Which is it, Liz?" Jenny said, standing up and facing Liz.

"I don't know. I can't—"

"Do you love him?"

"Yes
!"

Liz shut her mouth abruptly. She hadn't even known it herself until she said it. The man she knew was a monster. The man who had hurt her. The man who had given her so much pleasure, who had been gentle and passionate in equal measure.

She loved him. That was the strange feeling that had made her heart ache to think of never seeing him again.

"That's
why you're leaving?" Jenny continued. "You're just going to go running away because you're scared of your feelings? Liz, I don't get why you're making this such a big deal. He's a professor. Not even! He's just a lab director."

And a vampire.

"No," Liz said, shaking her head.

"You can't imagine anything that doesn't fit into your perfect little world," Jenny said. Her face turned dark. "You're going to up and leave after one little messup."

"That's not it," Liz protested.

"Life is messy. Love is messy. You can't just shove things into neat little slots."

"You don't understand!"

"I think I understand more than you do," Jenny said. She walked over to the bedroom door and looked back. Hurt and disappointment were written all over her face. "But hey, go. Take a year off. Maybe you'll meet a hottie somewhere else."

"I'm sorry, Jenny." Liz wanted to stay. She wanted to stay so badly. But she couldn't, not knowing Robb's secret. "Will you get the notebook for me?"

"No! I'm not going to let you walk away without facing him."

"But—"

"No. You two should talk things out. I'm going out."

"Now?"

"I need a drink." Jenny's voice was flat, and Liz longed to hug her, tell her that everything was all right. Things weren't alright, though, and no amount of talking would fix the underlying facts. Jenny turned away, and all Liz could do was listen as her former roommate and lab partner slammed the apartment door behind her.

Liz threw the armful of clothes she had into the suitcase. She felt numb. All of her work was over. Her life as she knew it was gone. She would go back to America, empty-handed, and start again. For all of her effort, all of her work, to end up with nothing. Nothing...

She had to get her notebook back.