Blood Secrets

twenty-three



November 24

“A LITTLE TO THE LEFT,” ALEX DIRECTED AND GRUNTED in frustration as Stephen moved her new couch to the right. “I meant my left.”

“Will you make up your mind?” Stephen grumbled. “This thing weighs a f*cking ton.”

“Don’t curse,” Emily said as she entered the open front door of Alex’s newly renovated apartment carrying half a dozen sacks of groceries. She dropped them on the kitchen counter and brushed a stray silver curl out of her eyes. “Alexandra, are you sure you want to cook Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Yeah,” Stephen groaned as he set down the couch and then sprawled across it. “Your previous culinary efforts usually ended with a broken smoke alarm and fifty bucks’ worth of Chinese takeout.”

“Shut up.” Alex smacked the back of his head. She dodged his return slap, laughing. “Yes, Mom, I’m sure I want to cook.”

Her mother glanced at Stephen and rolled her eyes before starting the process of putting away the groceries.

Alex ignored the gesture, picked up a stack of books, and arranged them on the shelves beside the fireplace. It’d been over a month since her apartment had sustained heavy smoke and water damage in a fire. Living in a hotel had been challenging, but now she was moving and trying to get her life back in order.

Part of putting her life back together centered on filling the holes in her memory.

When she’d woken up in the hospital two days after the attack, two people had been at her side. She’d instantly known her mother, but the dark-haired vampire was a virtual stranger to her. It was as if he was someone she’d met long ago and could no longer recall his name.

She’d since learned he was Varik Baudelaire, Director for the FBPI’s Special Operations unit. Her mother had tried to explain everything to her—that she and Varik had been engaged and were blood-bound to each other. While Alex did sense a connection to him, any memory of sharing a life with him was gone, burned away by Peter Strahan when he held her down and mind-raped her.

Pain exploded in her head and she dropped the books she was stacking. “Damn it,” she muttered, massaging her temples.

“Come here.” Stephen’s gentle voice and hands guided her to a chair. “Sit.”

Alex sucked in a breath and waited for the pain to pass. She couldn’t predict when the false memories planted by Peter would resurface, but when they did, or if she thought of him, her head felt as though it were imploding.

Peter had wanted her to love him. As she sat doubled over in a chair, fighting back tears of pain, she felt only hate.

“Honey,” her mother whispered and knelt beside the chair, wrapping her arms around Alex. “It’ll pass. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?” Alex asked, a hard edge to her voice. “Half of my life is gone, taken by a f*cking psychopath. How is that okay, Mom?”

“I mean the pain will pass.”

“And if it doesn’t? What then? What if I can’t reverse what he did?” Another stabbing pain pierced her skull and she flinched, closing her eyes.

“Look at me.” Emily cupped Alex’s hot face in her cool hands, encouraging her daughter to look into her clear blue eyes. “You’re going to get through this. Stephen, Janet, and I will help you. So will Varik.”

Stephen snorted at the mention of Varik’s name, and Alex pulled away from her mother. “What can Director Baudelaire do?” she asked. “I don’t know him.”

“But he knows you,” her mother insisted. “He may be able to help you recover your memories.”

“By poking around in my head!” Alex pushed to her feet and stalked to the opposite side of the room. “I don’t want another stranger in my head, thank you very much.”

“Varik isn’t a stranger. He loves you.”

“Yeah,” Stephen chimed in. “He loves her so much he—”

“Stephen,” her mother hissed in warning. “This isn’t the time.”

“Why not?” He gestured to Alex. “It’s her life, her memory.”

“She’s been through a lot. She doesn’t need to be reminded of certain events just yet.”

“Yeah, great idea, Mom. I’m sure that will win her a lot of points with the Tribunal.”

“She also doesn’t want to be talked about as if she isn’t in the f*cking room,” Alex snarled.

“Oh, honey, I didn’t mean—”

“I think it would be best if you both left now. I’d like to be alone for a while.”

Hurt swam in her mother’s eyes, but after a moment, she nodded. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

Alex crossed her arms in front of her, eyes downcast. “It is.”

“I need to pick Janet up from class anyway,” Stephen said. He and Emily quietly gathered their things, and Stephen gave her a quick peck on the cheek and ruffled her hair as he passed.

Her mother wrapped her in a tight embrace. “I love you,” she whispered.

Alex didn’t return the embrace but nodded her silent acknowledgment against her mother’s shoulder.

They filed out of the apartment, and Alex closed the door, locked it, and slumped against it before sliding down to sit on the freshly installed carpet.

Outside, kids played in piles of fallen leaves. She listened to the sounds of life carrying on around her, lives untouched by violence and with promising futures. Fingering the scar she no longer remembered obtaining, she envied them.

Hot tears slipped over her cheeks and she wept until nothing remained of her envy but a cold, numbing hatred for Peter Strahan.

Varik held the ID card up to the electronic card reader. He’d stolen it from the same hospital orderly whose green scrubs he now wore. The system registered the valid card, issued a soft beep, and the doors to Jefferson Memorial Hospital’s intensive care unit swung open.

He entered the unit and confidently strode toward the nurse’s station. He slipped behind the empty desk and checked the chart detailing which beds were occupied and by whom. Peter Strahan was assigned to bed nine at the end farthest from the entrance.

Shift change gave him the best opportunity to carry out his plan. It’d been a simple matter of obtaining an ID card and scrubs. Once he had those, he had the freedom to wander the hospital at will. It never ceased to amaze him how few people questioned a stranger if they appeared as though they belonged in their surroundings. It was a fault he’d learned to exploit long ago.

As he left the nurse’s desk, he heard laughter from the nearby employee lounge, followed by an off-key choir wishing some unfortunate recipient a happy birthday. The party wasn’t something he’d planned, but it certainly worked in his favor. He reached Strahan’s room and slipped inside.

Monitors beeped softly and steadily as Strahan lay sleeping. The dim glow of the monitors cast strange patterns on his skin and bedding.

Varik ignored it all, focused on the vampire. He glided to the bedside and paused, listening for approaching footsteps or changes in Strahan’s breathing. When he heard neither, he carefully covered Strahan’s mouth while simultaneously using his finger and thumb to pinch his nose closed, cutting off his air supply.

Peter woke, wide-eyed and panicked. He attempted to grab Varik’s hand but his own were restrained, tied to the bed rails, a precaution taken to prevent him from biting any of the human staff.

Using his other hand, Varik pressed against the still-healing wound below Peter’s breastbone. Strahan’s muffled scream was silenced by Varik’s fist striking his throat.

He released Peter’s nose long enough for him to draw a breath and then pinched off the flow again. He leaned close, whispering, “Remember what I told you, you son of a bitch? That I would kill you?”

Pale yellow eyes shot heated daggers at Varik, but beneath it was an intense fear.

“I’m going to kill you now. Before I do, I want you to know that Alex is mine—always has been, always will be—and I will do everything in my power to eradicate every memory you planted in her head. She won’t even remember your name.”

Peter strained to draw a breath, his face turning a bright red.

Varik struck him again in the throat and felt the soft tissue collapse. He quickly slipped his hand beneath Peter’s head, grabbed a handful of hair, and sharply twisted his head to the side. A wet popping crunch was the only sound as his neck broke. Monitors immediately flatlined and Varik switched them off.

He had moments before the staff returned to their stations and realized something had gone wrong. He hurried to the door and checked the corridor beyond. It was empty and he heard another peal of laughter from the lounge.

He exited the ICU without anyone stopping him. No one spared him more than a quick glance, too frightened to question the golden-eyed vampire, trailing the scent of new death behind him, as he disappeared into the night.

Tasha sat behind her desk, taking in the sight of the office she’d called her second home for six years.

Now it was going to someone else.

Her resignation had been an easy decision. While she wasn’t giving up police work—she would remain on as a detective—she was giving up her title of liaison officer. Someone else could have the job. She’d seen enough death.

Kirk Beljean’s attack had planted the seed of leaving in her mind. However, the sight of Mindy Johnson’s nude body hanging from the rafters of Peter Strahan’s attic had been the final act for her. She woke up at night in a cold sweat with visions of the girl reaching for her, demanding to know why she’d died. Tasha had no answers.

It was the lack of answers that drove her to resign. That combined with the years of stonewalling she’d received from the vamps. She didn’t like who she was becoming by working with them so the best solution—the only solution—was to step aside.

She also wanted to have more time to devote to her fight against Caleb. Seeing the grief the Johnsons experienced over losing their only child made her want to do whatever she could to keep Maya in her life.

She sighed and opened the final drawer she needed to clean out. Among the half-devoured rolls of antacids, energy bars, and unopened bags of herbal tea lay a simple brown paper bag.

Tasha frowned as she picked it up and was surprised by its weight. She opened the bag and gasped as it slipped from her hands to land in the drawer. It tipped on its side, partially spilling its contents.

Two bound ten-thousand-dollar bricks of cash peeked out from the bag’s opening, along with a handwritten note.

With a trembling hand, she picked up the note and read:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION, LIEUTENANT. PAYMENT FOR YOUR RECENT SERVICES. WE’LL BE IN TOUCH.

Tasha stared at the money, her thoughts racing. If she accepted it, she could afford to hire a lawyer to fight Caleb, and she might even stand a chance of winning. It meant she could be the mother she wanted to be to Maya—to be the mother she never had.

It also meant that she was someone else’s f*cking pawn and nothing would change it.

She shoved the note and money into the bag and tucked it into her box of personal effects. If it kept her from losing her daughter, then she would play the part of a pawn.

Alex peered through the fish-eyed peephole in the front door and saw Director Baudelaire’s distorted face. She swiped at the tears lingering on her cheeks, drew a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm her suddenly racing pulse, and opened the door.

The smile that had started on his face vanished when he saw her. “You’ve been crying. What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. I was—” Her words caught in her throat. “Is there something you wanted, Director?”

His spine stiffened at the use of his formal title. “I wanted to see you—to see if you needed anything.”

Alex shook her head, avoided looking at him, and picked at a spot of peeling paint on the doorjamb.

“Right,” he whispered, shuffling his feet. “Well, if there is anything I can do, let me know.” He raked a hand through his hair and backed away. “I should probably go.”

As he turned, sunlight flashed off the badge at his hip, bringing with it a half-formed memory: a glittering pink-diamond ring on a silver chain. Loss washed over her and fresh tears followed the tracks left by their kin.

Strong arms swept her into an embrace. “I’m here, baby,” he whispered. A scent of sandalwood and cinnamon enveloped her. “I’m here.”

Alex clung to a man she had no memory of, and for the first time since she’d learned of the Tribunal’s inquiry or heard the name Peter Strahan, she felt completely safe.

She hoped the feeling would last.