She realized she was color coding the earrings when her grandmother laughed at her. Vinnie had always been organized. She thought perhaps it was because of the way she’d grown up. Chaos was hard to thing for her, and she’d made sure that at least her living space had been clean and things put away.
“I have a lot of money.” Her grandmother told her she knew that. “No. I mean a great deal of money. I’ve been watching markets for a long time, longer than most investment companies have been around. I have stock in businesses that have been around for hundreds of years, which I bought for pennies a share. Now it’s worth millions. I was on the ground floor to a great many projects that paid off, as well as a few that didn’t pan out as well as we’d hoped. Like you, I’ve saved and saved, but now...well, with Mitch, I find I want to do things with the money. I’d like to travel, I think. It’s more possible today with planes and such than it was when I was younger.”
“Then you should do it. I have traveled a great deal and seen things that are still a wonder to me. I don’t fly. There is something so confining about that, but I do take ships. You can see so much from the ground. And if I have troubles, I can always leave. I gained that power long ago.” Vinnie asked her if she traveled that way as well. “Only if I feel a need to get away. You do know that Mitch can do that as well? You’d have to keep track of him for a little while, but he can travel the same way you do.”
“He heals faster already. Much faster than I thought him to.” She picked up a pair of ugly earrings and set them aside. She knew they were expensive, but she didn’t want them in front of the new showcase. “Also, I can see the clients, as he calls them. I didn’t...there are more than I dreamed there would be.”
“There is a lot of meanness in the world.” Her grandmother picked up the earrings and put them to her ears. “I think I’d like to purchase these. I think them to be quite lovely.”
They worked through most of the night. The workers, most of them shifters or other vampires, left one by one until around sunrise, they were alone in the building. Vinnie was moving the things to the safe that had been there when she’d opened the doors as her grandmother moved to see what sort of progress was made on the other items. Just as she turned off the light to leave with her, she saw her father.
He wasn’t near enough for her to see well, but she could see that something had happened to him. His face looked like he’d had a stroke—part of it was sagging badly—and his hair had fallen out as well. Her father had always been a very vain man, and to see him like this was a great shock. Telling her grandmother he was there, she told her to move along without talking to him. She was nearly ready to do that when he said her name.
“They told me that you can see me.” She didn’t say anything but did keep her grandmother close at her side. “I want you to talk to me, damn it. I’m your father.”
“Are you? I thought perhaps you’d forgotten that when you thought to have me killed in my own bed. Why is it you and Mother only remember that when you want or need something from me?” He told her to shut up and listen to him. “No. I don’t think so. I’m finished with you and whatever plans you want me to be a part of.”
“I don’t have anything. And if you remember correctly, you murdered me first.” She didn’t speak. It was obvious, even to her, he didn’t have anything. “I want you to take me in. Let me...I don’t know, haunt your house so I can have a place to rest. That guy, he said I’d have to go back where you murdered me to rest, but I figure it’ll do me just as good to rest where you are so I can shit on you every day.”
“Yeah, that makes it so appealing to me. No, you’re not going to come to my home. I have a mate now, and you are not going to be anywhere he is. Much less Grandmother.” He asked her what that meant. “She’s living with me now. She sold her house.”
“That fucking bitch. She should have given it to me. Damn it all to fuck and back, won’t no one do what’s right for me? I tried to go back there to rest and I couldn’t get in it any more than I could your house. What did you do, have one of them witches put you a spell on it? Tell me which old broad did it and I’ll have a talk with her.” She told him who had done it. “You’re in cahoots with the necros now, are you? I heard you were mated to one. Your dearly departed mom, she was really disappointed in you.”
“I don’t care. I could care less what either of you ever thought about me.” He just snorted at her, and when her grandmother told to her ask him something, she did. “What were you going to do with all my money, Father? You don’t have any needs…you’re dead.”