Mitch (4 page)

“Do you know why he’s after his daughter?” She
said she didn’t, not for sure. “Can you find out for me? I could ask Vinnie,
but...well, I don’t want to add any more stress to her right now.”

“I think he’s after something that Vinnie
has. I’m not sure...there is the mother, but she’s a little on the weird side
too. Have you met her yet? Amber Graham?” He said he’d not, but did mention she
was already trying to figure out a way to get him out of the picture. “She
might be working with her mate. They were never the most...well, from the
things I’ve been told, they neglected Vinnie more than they cared for her. But I
wouldn’t trust her as far as you can toss her. I don’t know why or if the
things I’ve heard are true, but she’s not to be trusted.”

When she left him, Mitch stayed where he was.
There was so much going on right now, and he was overwhelmed. Just this
morning, before leaving to come here, he’d been served papers saying the attorney
for the other side had been excused, but the proceedings were going on. He had
to get himself a good attorney.

And Mitch decided it was time to talk to
Steele and the others. He had an idea Ray knew a lot, but maybe not all of what
had happened to Mitch as a kid. And he had a feeling Nick did as well, but again,
not all. There were things that had happened to him that he...there was just so
much going on he found he wanted to just crawl deep into a cave and never come
out again.

Chapter 3

Addie wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be
doing here, but she watched and waited to see if someone would tell her. She
and Kari had come to this house this morning when the men hadn’t been back in
time to do this job. It had sounded simple enough, and Steele had told them to
be extra careful. They were only here to see what the man who had come to the
house with Billy had wanted.

“You said he needed us to give his
granddaughter something. But you don’t know what.” Billy nodded and smiled at
Kari. “This is not very helpful, in the event you didn’t know that.”

“He’s a good friend to me. Been hanging out
at the same stone now for a long while.” Billy had been dead for nearly fifty
years, but there were times when Addie thought for sure the man had only passed
a few days ago, he was so fresh and lively with everything he did or said. She
wished all ghosts were like that. “You’ll like him, my dear. He’s one of the
kindest men I know. You’ll see when he comes to see us.”

“And what is it we’re to give her? And if you
tell me once more it’s a good thing, I’m going to send you back.” Billy
laughed. It was an empty threat. Kari loved old Billy about as much as she did
his grandson Steele. “Why are we here?”

The moment he stiffened, Addie felt her body
do the same. Her thinking was, if he was scared or nervous, she’d better be as
well. Waiting for something to happen, she told Kari to stand with her. As her
friend moved toward her, the man—a large monster of a man—slowly appeared in
front of them. His voice boomed into the room with him.

“What are you doing here? You were not
invited.” She didn’t even look at Billy or Kari when the man’s voice thundered
at her. “Be gone from here.”

“Who are you?” Kari asked her who it was, and
that was when she realized Kari couldn’t see him. “I asked you a question and
you have to answer me. What is your name?”

He fought her. She could see how much it was
costing him to not answer her. But when he did, she wasn’t even sure what the
big deal was. Horatio Mower Graham didn’t sound like anyone of all that much
importance to her. But apparently he was to the otherworld.

There were at least a dozen others there with
them now. People she trusted, friends of the other world. She still had trouble
calling them ghosts when they were so real to her now. As they circled around
Kari, Billy came to stand with her as well. The man, a vampire he told her,
just stared at her. Hatred was almost palpable as it came off him. Billy put up
his hands as if to ward him off before speaking.

“What are you doing here, Horatio? This is not
a house you belong in.” The vampire grinned, but she could still see the strain
it put on him to be there. “You will be gone from here now.”

“I’ve a reason to be where you are. I have a
message for you to give to my little girl. The bitch killed me like I was
nothing to her.” Billy told Addie that he was Vinnie’s father. “You got that
right, and that’s not the half of it. The kid has no respect for me, none at
all. I’ve been trying to get to her for months now, and she won’t have a thing
to do with me. Now I’m pissed off. More of an ungrateful brat than I’ve ever
seen, let me tell you. But you’re going to take her a message for me; you being
a necro, you will do that for me. You tell her I’ve decided to give her what
she gave to me. A child should be more honor bound to their father than to
stake them out for the sun. Tell her to let me come to her house and I’ll
forgive her for doing this to me.”

“I’m sure if Vinnie killed you, then she had
a good reason.” At least Addie hoped so. He roared at her that his daughter’s
name was Victoria and not that sham of a name her mother called her. “Cool your
jets there, buddy, and give me the message. If I think about it when I see her,
then I’ll tell her. Otherwise, you have until the count of ten to get your
fucking ass out of here.”

“You’ve no right to speak to me like I’m
nothing. I was a powerful vampire when I was alive. I am a great man in my own
right now too.” Addie snorted. “You will respect me, human, or I will find you
and kill you. If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I can do this too.”

“Yeah, good luck with that threat. In the
event you missed something, you’re kind of dead. And all your rights have been
burned up, right along with your body. So you are now down to the count of five.
Four. Three—”

“Tell her I want what’s mine and she had
better pay up. As her father, what I want is mine and she’ll learn that or
else.” One of the other ghosts got too close, and he reached out and grabbed it
by the throat and shook it until it disappeared. “You will do well to remember
that I was great as a vampire, and am greater still as this being.”

“So you said before. And she’ll know what the
hell you’re talking about, right?” He grinned, and she could see that his fangs,
or what was left of them, were rotted and broken. She wondered if it had
happened in the fire that had killed him or if something bigger had gotten the
jump on him. She shivered when she thought of whatever might have been bigger. “Be
gone from this family and their heirs. Never to return.”

With a shove of her hands he disappeared, but
not before she heard his laughter. Addie grabbed onto the wall behind her just
as Billy walked to the rest of the group of dead. Addie slid down the wall and
sat there on the floor with her eyes closed. When Kari said her name, she
looked at her.

“What was that?” Addie told her who he was
and what he wanted. “So this is the infamous Graham that Steele was telling me
about. Apparently this guy is big with the clients he’s been working with. And
not so much in a good way. He’s terrorizing a group of them and bullying them
into doing things they don’t want to do. I guess he killed some people a while back
that got him in trouble with their council.”

“Yeah, apparently Vinnie staked him. With the
permission of the council, I guess. I wonder if they know what he’s up to now.”
Kari sat down next to her and told her she wasn’t sure. “Do you know if this is
why we were here?”

“No. Billy went to get his friend to get this
finished. I guess from what he said, this Graham guy has been here off and on
over the last few weeks giving the little girl that lives here nightmares. But
we’re here, according to Billy, to give the family some help. I’m not sure what
it is, however. But I’m sort of...well, confused why that guy came to you and
not his daughter. I mean...can she see him?” Addie told her she didn’t think
so. “Do you think she will because of what Mitch is, or do you...? I guess I
just thought since she was sort of dead she’d be able to see them as well.”

“She’s not. Dead I mean.” They both looked up
at Connie when she spoke. “Victoria—that’s her real name as you might have guessed—isn’t
dead. Not like someone who has been converted into a vamp. She’s a pureblood.
Not a lot of those left from what I understand. And you should meet her
grandmother if you want to meet stern and controlling. Not in a bad way, but
she’s really different. I’ve been talking to her about what is going on with
their family. None of it is very good or comforting.”

“How do you know her? Or do we want to know?”
Connie looked around the room, and both she and Kari did as well. “This is
going to be good, isn’t it?”

Connie pinched her lips, but Addie could see
a hint of a smile behind it. “She was at a few functions I chaired at one time.
It took me longer than I think it should have to realize she wasn’t human, but
when I did...well, I might have made a slight fool of myself. I do believe
there are a few of her friends that talk about it to this day.”

“What did you do?” Connie only shook her head
at Kari. “Well, I suppose we could just ask Vinnie or her grandmother. By the
way, just how old is her grandmother, anyway? I mean, Vinnie is nearly seven
hundred and fifty. Her grandmother must be...sheesh, it boggles the mind. But I
bet she’ll want us to—”

“I wore garlic around my neck to the next few
meetings until they told me to stop it or they’d have to let me go. And I mean,
like a dozen bulbs of it around my neck so big that it looked like I’d had a
growth there all the time. I swear to you, even I thought I smelled really
strongly of it, but Alexandra thought it was funny. I have never been so
embarrassed...well, I had to make amends, and that wasn’t much better.” Connie
smiled. “Of course, it was a bit of fun too. That Alexandra, she can be very funny
when she chooses to. But as loyal as they come as well. She loves her
granddaughter with all her heart.”

The little girl they were there to see came into
the room, accompanied by Billy and the little girl’s father. It was true that
the young and the mentally ill could see the ghosts. While most of them were
harmless, there were a few, like Horatio, that were just evil and would do most
anything to harm those that didn’t understand. Addie decided she’d talk to
Vinnie about her dad and what it was her father wanted from her. But for now,
she had a job to do.

“Hello.” The little girl looked up at Billy
when Addie spoke to her. An older man was there, just behind the little girl,
and was looking at her fondly. The grandfather, she’d bet anything. “I’m Addie Stark
and this is my friend Kari Bennett. You’re Missy Stone, right?”

“Yes. My mommy is in the kitchen, but this is
my daddy, Denton. He’s an inventor. Mommy won’t come in here because she told
me not to talk to Grandpa anymore, and she said she wants nothing to do with
this. But I want to. She said he’s gone and that I can’t see him even though I
really can.” Addie looked up at the man behind the child, then back at Missy. “I
love my grandpa very much and miss him all the time. Why can’t I talk to him?”

Why indeed
, Addie thought. “Most people, like
your mom, can’t see him anymore. Just very special people can do that. He’s
here with us now, did you know that?” Missy bent her head back and smiled up at
the man behind her. “He loves you very much, and has something for you that
might help you, he told us. Something to help your family out.”

“I’d rather just have him back. Can we do that?”
Addie told her she couldn’t. “I guess I can take it then. But I’d really like
for him to be here. He was really nice and used to read to me all the time. I
miss him making the voices of the stories.”

“I’m sure your mom and dad love you as well.”
Her dad nodded, and Addie moved to the desk in the office. It was old and messy,
but Missy’s grandda told her to go to the bottom drawer and pull it out. She
wasn’t really sure that was a good idea, and had the child come and pull it out
for them. Reaching deep into the back of the desk, she touched her fingers onto
something made of paper. Denton came to stand by when she pulled it free and
handed it up to him.

“I’ve gone over this thing a hundred times. I
just wanted to find some part of my dad that I could give to Missy to help
her.” Addie really wanted this to be good news and was pleasantly surprised
when a thick envelope was pulled out of the dark place with Missy’s name on it.
“That’s his handwriting. I’d know his perfect penmanship anywhere.”

Denton sat down on the floor beside the big
desk, and Missy came to sit on his lap. She watched her dad while she held onto
the envelope. When he looked at her, she could see how much he missed his dad
as well. When Denton smiled, Addie thought they were going to be all right even
if the envelope had nothing more in it than a note telling them that he loved
them all very much.

“I guess he’s really here. I mean...I had no
idea. I wanted to believe he was around but...my wife said it was wrong to
encourage Missy to talk to him.” He nodded to the envelope as he continued. “Did
he tell you what it is? Or what we’re supposed to do with it?”

“No. He just wanted her to have it.” Addie
looked up at the client she’d come to help. As he spoke, she repeated it to his
son. “He said he’d had plans to tell you where it was, but got...he wasn’t
expecting to go so quickly. The accident, he said, really mussed up his plans. Your
father said to tell you that you’re doing a great job with your child, and he’s
never been prouder of you than he has been lately.”

Denton laughed. “Yeah, the accident messed up
my plans too, having him gone like this. I was ready to have him come and help
me get my business going, and he up and has a heart attack while driving home
from the library.” Denton hugged his daughter before he looked around the room
to continue. “Dad, if you can hear me, I miss you so much. Every day, every single
minute of every day, I find myself wanting to find you to tell you something.
Or show you what I’ve done. Not having you around feels like a hole in my heart
and life that will never fill up.”

“He said he sees it and misses you as well.
And he hears you talking to him. He wishes he could help you, but he thinks
that will help.” Addie pointed to the envelope. “He left you that so it will
keep you in good with the wife. And to help Missy when the time comes.”

Missy opened the envelope and money spilled out
in her hands. Hundreds of hundred and five hundred dollar bills landed on her
lap and around them both. When Mark picked up the folded paper that was with
it, he sobbed hard as he read it. Then he looked at her and Kari.

“He said that...my dad said that he’d been
saving for a rainy day, and when it pours someday I’m to use this. He goes on
to tell me that he didn’t rob a bank, which I have to admit I’d not put past
him the way he was. He has no idea.... It’s been pouring for a few weeks now.”
Addie knew that. Denton senior was telling Billy that his son and family were
about to lose it all. Their power was going to be shut off, as well as the bank
was about to foreclose on the house. There was a second folded sheath of papers
with the letter. Denton looked it over, then looked up at her. “It’s an
insurance policy. I don’t...do you think this is real?”