Vampires Are Forever (22 page)

Her thoughts turned to the missing woman and her hunt for her last night. Thomas had said that he hadn’t controlled her or wiped her memory, but someone had. She was beginning to think there was a lot more going on here than any of them suspected.

Until now, Inez had half suspected Marguerite Argeneau had just got busy, perhaps following a hot lead on this case she was on, and forgot to call her family. After all, three days without contact wasn’t really that long. These were her children, not a husband or life partner. Inez only called her own mother once a week, usually on Sundays because the rates were cheaper and she had to call all the way to Portugal. They were usually long phone calls and she made them religiously, but…

Of course, the Argeneaus probably didn’t worry much about cost. Still, the woman was in Europe and they were back in Canada so surely three or four days without a call shouldn’t send her family into a panic. Even if she lived in Portugal, Inez wouldn’t worry if her own mother didn’t call her for three days.

That had been what she’d been thinking before this, but now Inez was beginning to fear she’d been wrong in that assumption. She was beginning to suspect the woman might be in trouble. Someone had taken control of her and kept her from calling Marguerite’s phone and finding her. She doubted very much if it had been Marguerite herself. That meant someone else had and she couldn’t think of any good reason for an immortal to want to keep her from finding Marguerite and setting her family’s minds at ease.

The shower door suddenly opened, breaking her train of thought and Inez smiled with gratitude when she saw Thomas holding up a bath towel for her. He held it open for her to step into, which she did.

“Thank you,” Inez whispered as he closed the towel around her.

“Anytime, beautiful,” Thomas said lightly, pressing a kiss to her forehead before stepping away. “Now stop standing here all wet and tempting and go get dressed so I can shower.”

“Yes, sir,” Inez said with a grin as she moved passed him to leave the room. At the door she paused and glanced back to ask, “You didn’t want help getting those nasty jeans off, did you?”

Inez grinned as the silver flared in his eyes at the very idea, but Thomas shook his head and one finger at her at the naughty thought. “I’m going to start calling you apple.”

Inez wrinkled her nose. “Why? Because I’m short and round?”

“No. Because you’re the apple sent to tempt me,” he announced and then added solemnly, “And you are tempting, Inez. If you knew all the things I want to do to you right now….” He shook his head and then apparently decided to tell her. “Right now I’d like nothing more than to peel away that towel, lick and nibble away every drop of liquid I see on your skin, and then—”

“Okay, I’m going to get dressed now,” Inez said a little faintly, her gaze dropping instinctively to his jeans and widening as she saw the bulge there. She wasn’t the only one affected by the images he’d presented.

“Go,” Thomas growled, the word almost a warning.

Nodding, Inez turned quickly away and hurried out into the bedroom. Her skin was covered with goose bumps and little shivers were licking down her back, and she suspected once they did get together, whether it was fast and desperate or slow torture as he did all he wanted to do to her, by the time it was over she’d be hard-pressed not to agree to anything he wanted.

Shaking her head, Inez moved to the closet and quickly selected a pair of dress slacks and a pure white blouse. There wasn’t a pair of jeans or T-shirt in the closet, but that didn’t matter, Inez didn’t wear jeans, they made her butt look big. She didn’t wear T-shirts either, feeling they emphasized her overgenerous bust.

Dropping the towel, Inez quickly dressed, listening to the sound of the shower as she did.

Thomas turned off the shower and opened the door to step out, stopping when he saw Inez at the bathroom counter. She’d brushed her hair and was pulling the damp strands back into a ponytail. He saw her eyes slide over him and then widen as they dropped below. Blushing furiously, she turned quickly back to the mirror.

Thomas smiled faintly as he reached for the second towel he’d brought in earlier and wrapped it around himself, but didn’t say anything to increase her embarrassment. Her reaction was because he was still sporting a very healthy erection. He wanted to blame it on the S.E.C. he’d consumed last night, but knew that was out of his system now. She, however, wasn’t and—judging by what he’d seen with other true lifemates—wouldn’t be out of his system ever. Oh, there might come a time, centuries down the road, when he could look at her without wanting to pin her against the nearest surface and give her “a good seeing to” as the British liked to say. But he would still want her, just in a more gentle, mellow fashion without all the desperation presently claiming him.

Right now he couldn’t even think of the woman without “little Thomas” perking up with interest. It was really rather disconcerting.

“I’m going to go get dressed,” he said brushing his fingers lightly down her back as he passed and smiling when she shivered in response. That was one good thing about all this; at least he wasn’t alone in his need. Inez wanted him just as badly, he knew. Thomas could smell her hunger for him in the pheromones pouring off her body every time he got near.

Thomas hurried from her room and into his own, passing through the door just as the phone began to ring. Turning to the bedside table, he snatched up the phone, saying a cheerful, “Yo?”

“Thomas?”

He stiffened at the urgency in Bastien’s voice. “Yes.”

“You have to get moving. You have to find Mother.”

Thomas felt his hand clench around the phone. “What’s happened?”

“We’ve been calling Mother on her cell phone,” Bastien said grimly. “None of us have been getting answers, but Etienne got the idea of trying during the daytime when she would be sleeping and couldn’t miss the call. He apparently checked the Internet last night and found out what time sunrise was in Amsterdam and then called fifteen minutes after that.”

Thomas waited, trepidation creeping up his back. He knew bad news was coming.

“The phone was answered this time,” Bastien said grimly. “But not by Mother. A man with a British accent answered. He cussed out Etienne for the constant calls we’ve all been making, told him to ‘bugger off’ and stop calling or he’d—I quote—‘Kill the bitch’ and then he hung up.”

Thomas sucked in a breath of combined rage and worry and then snatched up the knapsack he’d left lying on his bed and began dragging out fresh clothes one-handed. “I’m dressing right now. I’ll be on the street in three minutes. I’ll find her Bastien,” he vowed grimly.

Thomas didn’t wait for Bastien to say goodbye or hang up, but slapped the phone back in its cradle and snatched it back right away as he punched in Herb’s number.

“I’m heading out now,” he announced abruptly, not bothering with a greeting. “Can you check the coordinates again and get back to me if they’re different?”

The moment Herb agreed, Thomas said thanks and hung up.

“Inez!” he shouted as he whipped off his towel and dragged on a clean pair of jeans.

“Yes?”

He glanced up as she came rushing into the room, concern on her face.

“Are you ready?” Thomas asked, doing up his pants. “We have to move.”

“I’m ready,” Inez assured him, patting the purse hanging from her shoulder. “What’s happened?”

“Etienne got through on Aunt Marguerite’s phone,” he said as he grabbed the T-shirt he’d pulled out and tugged it on over his head. “Some guy answered and said if we didn’t stop calling he’d kill her. We have to find her before he does something to her.”

Inez nodded solemnly and he could feel her watching him as he pulled on a pair of socks and slipped his feet into a pair of casual Merrells.

“Do you think this man who answered Marguerite’s phone is the one who took control of me and wiped my memory?”

Thomas glanced sharply her way. Her voice had sounded vulnerable and she looked upset. He didn’t blame her. It would be very upsetting to know that someone had taken control of your mind and then wiped the memory of whatever had happened from your thoughts. Anything could have been done to her and she wouldn’t now know about it. Stepping in front of her, Thomas pulled her to his chest and rubbed her back soothingly.

“I don’t know,” he admitted softly and then said flatly, “But if he is, he’ll be sorry.”

Ten

“This is the spot.”

Inez looked slowly over the five or six restaurants in a row. Each had a grouping of tables and chairs outside. They were presently filled with people enjoying a late breakfast in the sunlight, or under the shade offered by the large umbrellas over each table.

Mouth thinning, she peered over the sea of faces, and then glanced up toward the sky where the sun shone brightly down, and finally to Thomas beside her. Worry drew her eyebrows together. He’d binged on six bags of blood before they’d left the hotel. He’d also pulled on a hat, sunglasses, and a long-sleeved shirt that was now buttoned all the way to the top to protect him as much as possible from the sun’s damaging rays, but she knew it wasn’t enough. He really shouldn’t be out here at all, but had refused to listen when she’d suggested going by herself.

Thomas’s refusal to even consider the suggestion had left her both upset and relieved. Inez was upset because she knew he really shouldn’t be out here, but relieved because after being controlled the night before, she feared it happening again and really didn’t want to go anywhere alone.

“I don’t see her,” Thomas said with frustration, and Inez turned her gaze back to the crowd, running her eyes more slowly over them, searching each table for Marguerite Argeneau.

“I don’t either,” she said at last. “But then if she’s being held against her will, they aren’t likely to take her out in public.”

“No,” Thomas muttered, his mouth tightening. “But whoever has her has her phone, and he shouldn’t be out here either.”

Inez glanced at him, eyebrows rising. “Why not?”

“He has to be immortal too,” he pointed out. “And most wouldn’t sit out in the sunlight like this.”

Inez opened her mouth to ask why it had to be an immortal, but then realized that with the whole mind-control thing, no mortal could keep an immortal where they didn’t want to be. That suggested that either Marguerite was dead, badly injured and without the strength necessary to take control of a mortal, or she was being held by an immortal who had a mortal working for him, and it was the mortal who had the phone and was seated here in the sun, eating a leisurely brunch. She was hoping it was the last option.

“The person with her phone could be anyone… If her phone is even still here,” she pointed out as his phone began to ring.

Thomas tugged the cell out of his pocket, flipped it open, listened, grunted an “okay,” and then slapped it closed.

“That was Herb. It’s still here,” he announced, slipping the phone back into his pocket.

Inez was silent, her eyes scanning the sea of faces, but she had no idea who she was looking for. “You’re going to have to call and see who answers the phone.”

“No,” Thomas said at once. “He threatened to kill Aunt Marguerite if we keep calling.”

“He can’t kill her if she isn’t here with him,” Inez pointed out reasonably. “And after you call and figure out who he is, you can read his mind to see where she is and we can go get her.”

“Not if he’s an immortal,” Thomas pointed out unhappily. “If he’s older than me, I won’t be able to read him.”

“But an immortal isn’t likely to be out here,” she argued.

“Not likely, no,” he agreed. “But not impossible. I’m here.”

“Yes, but—Never mind,” she interrupted herself. “We’ll call him and if he’s mortal, you read him and find out where she is. If he’s immortal and you can’t read him, we keep our distance and follow him back to wherever he’s staying.”

“What if he’s inside one of the restaurants instead of outside?” Thomas asked, his eyebrows threaded with worry.

Inez hesitated and then sighed. “We’ll have to take the chance.”

Thomas turned on her sharply, eyes flashing with anger.

“Surely if he was inside, the coordinates would have been on the next street over where the restaurant fronts are,” she pointed out quietly. “This is behind the buildings. And to safeguard things, I can call. My number won’t be on her phone. He won’t know it’s a family member. He might not blame her for it.” She let him think about that and then added, “It’s either that or we follow the phone around all day again and hope he goes somewhere where he’d be completely alone and we can figure out who he is, but I don’t think the chances of that are very good in a crowded city like Amsterdam.”

Thomas blew a weary breath out and then nodded once, grimly. “Make the call. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll think it’s a wrong number.”

Inez nodded solemnly and quickly punched in the number he rattled off, but didn’t press the button to start the call, instead she glanced at Thomas and said, “I think you should take one half of the restaurant tables and I should take the other half. If we positioned ourselves halfway along our portion of the restaurant seats, it would give us a better chance of hearing where the ring comes from when I call.”

Thomas nodded and abruptly turned away, only to immediately swing back. He gave her a quick, hard kiss and then growled, “Be careful.”