Lucas (23 page)

Kathryn couldn’t argue with that.
“But what about the fire and the lights?
Is that unique to you?”

“I would like to claim it, but, no. If a vampire is powerful enough, he—or she, though most vampires are male for reasons I’ll not get into at this moment—can manipulate energy. That is probably not a scientifically accurate description, but that’s what it feels like when I do it. Even for vampires, however, the laws of physics still hold. I cannot create energy. I can only effect change on what is already there. I simply do with raw energy what you would do with a match. The effect is still the same. I’m just skipping a step or two.”

She regarded him silently, careful to keep her thoughts from her face. She’d bet she wasn’t the first person to underestimate Lucas
Donlon
. To assume he was nothing more than a handsome charmer with no meaningful thoughts in his head. The laws of physics! Not her best subject. Not her
subject at all, come
to think of it. She’d avoided the science and math listings in her college catalog with a diligence that bordered on some sort of phobia.

“As I said earlier, Kathryn,” Lucas commented quietly, “things are not always what they seem.”

“You’re right,” she conceded.

“Of course, I am,” he replied predictably.
“But enough about the secrets of Vampire.
Tell me, why do you think Alex Carmichael is involved in the disappearance of your brother?”

“I’m not sure I do. Right now, he’s only someone I want to talk to.”

“How much did Kurt tell you when you talked to him at the club tonight?”

Her first thought was to wonder how Lucas knew she’d talked to Kurt at all, but then she frowned as she considered the phrasing of Lucas’s question. He clearly already knew at least some of what Kurt had told her, and in the next moment, she realized that Kurt had only spoken to her at all because Lucas had
okayed
it.

“You knew about Kurt and Daniel,” she said.

“Not when you came to me. But I told you I started my own investigation that night. I would have told you all of this if you’d given me time, however, events intervened. My presence was demanded elsewhere, and you went to the club without me.”

“The blood on your pants.”

“One thing at a time.
How much did Kurt tell you?”

Kathryn didn’t say anything for a long moment. On the one hand, it seemed as if he’d been keeping information from her yet again. On the other, it was entirely possible he was telling the truth. That he would have told her what he’d found out if whatever the emergency was that had pulled him away hadn’t happened, and if she’d waited the extra day and gone to the club with him.

“All right,” she said. “Kurt told me he’s worried. That Daniel came into the club two nights in a row to see
him
, and when he didn’t show up the third night, Kurt went looking for him and couldn’t find him. He stressed to me that he
really
looked, which, given your demonstration with the candles, I now take to mean that you all have ways of looking that are not available to the rest of us.”

Lucas nodded absently. “Some, though it depends—”

“On the vampire,” she finished for him. “Yeah, I got that.
But what about Kurt?”

“Kurt is my best tracker. He not only knows your brother, he knows that part of the
Badlands
. If he says Daniel isn’t there, he’s not there.”

“Which brings us back to Alex Carmichael,” Kathryn insisted.

“It could be someone trying to set him up.”

“I’m aware of that. I know my job, Lucas. But at a minimum, I need to talk to him. His assistant confirms that Daniel is a favorite of his in the gallery, and yet he recently removed a major exhibit of my brother’s work. I’m not talking about anything you bought from him. This take-down was so recent that it was still in progress when I was there today, which—”

“You went to
Chicago
?” Lucas demanded with far greater urgency than she would have thought necessary.

Kathryn frowned.
“No,
Minneapolis
, why?”

“Nothing,” Lucas said, shaking his head. “What else did you find there?”

It wasn’t
nothing
, Kathryn thought to herself. It probably had something to do with the so-called
events
which had kept Lucas from making their club date tonight. The same
events
that had torn Nicholas’s face up and left Lucas covered in blood. She’d get it out of him eventually, but she wanted to know more about
Carmichael
, so she answered Lucas’s question first.

“What I didn’t find,” she continued, “was
Carmichael
. He was not only out of town, but supposedly unreachable. And in a time when even children have cell
phones, that
makes me think he’s avoiding me.”

“I told you, he’s in
Chicago
. But that doesn’t mean anything. He’s based there. He has his main gallery there.”

“So why won’t he call me? I’m sure his assistant had him on the phone two minutes after I walked out the door, letting him know I’m on his trail. And speaking of trails, the local one here has gone cold. I think it probably went cold within hours of Daniel’s disappearance, that whoever has him took him away from here long ago. Kurt’s information only confirms it. Which is why I’m going back to
Minneapolis
tomorrow, and from there I’ll go to
Chicago
, if I have to. There has to be a reason why Alex Carmichael is so determined to avoid me, but he can’t hide forever.”

“You’re leaving?”

Kathryn shrugged.
“Unless I find a reason to stay.
I’ve already packed most of my brother’s gear. It’s too valuable to leave in that motel room, so I’ll take it with me.”

“You can leave it at the ranch. It will be perfectly safe.”

Kathryn studied him. Daniel’s gear would certainly be safer at Lucas’s ranch than in her SUV, but then she’d have to come back here to retrieve it, especially if, when she found him, Daniel wasn’t up to coming back for it himself.

“Maybe I’ll ship it home,” she said instead.

Lucas studied her in turn. “You still think I lied to you.”

“You
did
lie to me.
A lie of omission to be sure, but still a lie.”

“I didn’t know if
Carmichael
was involved. I still don’t. And I’m not willing to sic the FBI on him without evidence.”

“I’m not the FBI, not in this case.”

“Don’t split hairs, Kathryn. You know what I mean.”

“Not really. I only want to ask him a few questions.”

“That’s all any of you want, and pretty soon you’re compiling databases of who we are and what we can do, and the next thing we know the peasants are after us with pitchforks and torches.”

Kathryn scowled.
“Pitchforks and torches, Lucas?”

“A movie caricature, to be sure, but the sentiment is valid. We’ve been hunted before, and we’ve no intention of being hunted again. We’re stronger now, smarter. We’ve learned to hide in plain sight, and to use your laws and culture against you.”

“So you lied about Alex because you were protecting him?”

“Not only him, specifically, but, yes.
I told you, I have my people checking him out. If I find anything, I’ll tell you. If not, there’s no harm to Alex or to you. This is my town, my territory. If a vampire is committing crimes here, it’s my business.”

“And mine,” she reminded him pointedly.

Lucas shrugged.

“You don’t think so.”

“Alex is Vampire. By our laws, he is responsible to his master and no one else.”

“His
master?
Talk about caricatures. Do you make him eat flies if he disappoints you?”

Lucas gave a bark of laughter. “That’s a good one. But I’m not Alex’s master. His master is in
Chicago
, as a matter of fact, which is why you don’t want to go poking around there.”

“Why not?
I came poking around
here
.”

“Not nearly enough for my taste,” Lucas murmured. “But then, I’m a much nicer guy than the vampire who rules
Chicago
.”

“I’m not looking to make friends, Lucas. You all may think you’re not subject to our laws—which are yours, too, since you live here—but believe me, you are. What’s this vampire’s name, in case I need to question him?”

Lucas stood abruptly. “Drop it, Kathryn.”

She watched in surprise as he moved restlessly around the room, finally stopping near the small kitchen. A sofa table matching the distressed wood of the coffee table was pushed up against the wall there, with a big book standing open on one of those old-fashioned book stands, the kind people, or museums, used to put a particular book on display, like a work of art or something. On the wall above the table was a collection of framed prints and photographs, most of which looked fairly old.

Kathryn set her water bottle down and walked over to see what he was looking at. Her eyebrows shot up when she got a closer look at the book. It was a Bible, its pages old and fragile looking, but with the elaborate margin and text embellishments typical of that type of book. The reds and blues were somewhat faded, but the gold appeared to be gilt rather than ink, and it still gleamed.

Kathryn wasn’t religious, and so she didn’t know if publishers still put out these types of Bibles, or if everything had gone digital by now. But she’d had a friend in childhood whose mother had a Bible like this. The mom had made them wash their hands before touching the delicate pages, but had always been willing to show it to them. She’d especially enjoyed pointing out the front pages, which had listed her family’s ancestors going back several generations.

Lucas’s book was open to just such a page, but this book was far older than her friend’s mom’s had been. This Bible had a genealogical listing that started in the 16
^th
century, and that was just the page Kathryn could see. It was obvious that the previous pages went back even further. She looked closer and saw that, although there were several surnames mixed in through the various marriages, only one surname was present throughout, and that was
Donlon
. This was
Lucas’s
family bible. And wasn’t that interesting?

She peered closer and saw that the family tree stopped altogether in the late 18
^th
century. The last marriage was Lord
Donal
Donlon
and Moira Keane, which joining produced only a single child, a daughter named
Brighid
.
But after that, nothing.
Kathryn scanned the previous generations, but didn’t see Lucas’s name listed anywhere. She was dying to turn the page back and find out exactly when he’d been born, but didn’t quite have the courage to touch the antique Bible with her unwashed fingers—a lesson lingering inconveniently from her friend’s mom.

Stymied by good manners, if nothing else, Kathryn straightened and checked out the framed pictures on the wall instead, half-expecting to find more of her brother’s work. But most of these were far too old to be Dan’s. Several were of the same thing, a gray stone castle, with twin towers and
crenelated
battlements. She looked more closely. There were two images of the castle at the very top which weren’t photographs. One appeared to be an ink sketch, while the other was a watercolor. Lower down there were four separate photographs of the same thing, ranging from sepia to black and white, and then what she assumed to be the most recent one, which was in full color. In it, the sun was shining in a cloud-dotted blue sky, highlighting the emerald green lawn which rolled down the hill in front of the castle.

“Castle
Donlon
,” Lucas said right next to her.

Kathryn’s heart caught. She’d been so engrossed in the
images,
she’d almost forgotten he was standing there. She glanced over and saw him watching her.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, feeling embarrassment heat her face.

“Of course not.
They’re on the wall to be seen.”

Maybe.
But Kathryn had a feeling not too many people saw them. This place had the feel of a retreat, not a meeting house.