33
“Here,” Oliver said after he and Ursula had gotten dressed. He pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.
“What’s that for?”
“It’s a spare I have. It’s untraceable. I’ve programmed in my number so you can reach me, and I can contact you.” He motioned to the phone on the nightstand. “I’m guessing that phone is only a house phone. I’ve put the ringer on vibrate. Make sure nobody finds it. Hide it from Vera and the others, but keep it close enough so you know when I’m trying to contact you.”
“Thank you.” She lifted herself on her toes and kissed him.
“One thing: I know you want to talk to your parents, but it’ll have to wait.” He pointed to the phone in her hands. “The phone is locked. The only number you can call is mine. I’m sorry, but I had to do it. I know you’ll be tempted, and sometimes it’s just better to remove temptation before it has a chance to take root.”
She nodded. “I understand. Really, I do.” Her eyes confirmed her words.
He drew her into an embrace, holding her to his chest for several minutes without speaking. Then he kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back tomorrow night.”
After leaving Ursula, Oliver checked in with Cain and went patrolling with him. Cain was one of the few colleagues whom he hadn’t pissed off yet, and Oliver took great pains not to say anything that would lead to an argument.
“Glad you joined me; it’s not as boring that way,” Cain said as they walked toward the entrance of another nightclub, where a couple of dozen clubbers lined up to be let inside.
“Guess it was different the other night. How bad was it?” Oliver tossed him a sideways glance then let his eyes wander over the young people outside the club to scan for anything unusual.
“It wasn’t pretty, let me tell you that.” He lowered his voice, so the humans around them couldn’t hear him. “She looked like he’d butchered her.”
Oliver spoke just as quietly. “Worse than one of our kind in bloodlust?”
Cain shoved his hands in his pockets. “And so useless. What a waste of a life. It’s terrible what drugs can do. It’s evil, pure evil.”
Oliver thought back to the time when he’d taken drugs as a human. “Yes, senseless.” And if Samson hadn’t pulled him out of it, he would have perished. Thinking about it now brought back the guilt he felt about how he’d parted with Samson. He stopped just before they reached the entrance to the nightclub.
“Listen, Cain, do you mind if I leave you for a while? I need to talk to Samson.”
Cain rocked back on his heels. “Something important?”
“Something very important.”
“No worries. I’ve still got a few more clubs to check out. Call me if you want to rejoin me later. That is, if you’re done before sunrise.”
Oliver checked his watch. He’d spent half the night with Ursula, and this was already the third club he and Cain were checking out. “It’s late. I’ll call you if I’m done in time.”
It took Oliver twenty minutes to get to Samson’s house. When he stood in front of the entrance door, he hesitated for a moment. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with cool night air, before he rang the door bell.
“Here goes,” he mumbled to himself.
The door was opened by Samson himself. His boss stared at him, his face serious. For a long moment they simply looked at each other, neither saying a word. Then Samson broke the silence. “Come in then.”
Samson stood to the side to let him enter, then shut the door behind him.
Oliver stood in the hallway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, not knowing how to start. He hadn’t exactly thought this through. He wasn’t like any of his colleagues who had a way with words. He was much simpler than that. Less sophisticated.
He sucked in a breath, then raised his eyes and looked at his boss. “I’m sorry, Samson. For what I said.”
Samson sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. Seconds ticked by. “It’s not easy seeing you grow up and become a man with his own opinions. I guess I still see you as the kid I picked up from the street one night, to make myself feel better.”
Oliver stared at him with curiosity. “What do you mean?”
A sad smile played around Samson’s lips. “I was at a low point in my life, thinking of all the bad things I’d done in my past. I wanted to do good, and suddenly just running Scanguards wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to save somebody. To turn their life around. So I chose you. For my own selfish purposes. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be selfless, that I could do something for a human being without expecting anything in return.”
“You chose me?”
“I did it to make myself feel better. To be proud of something.”
Oliver dropped his head. “And now you’re disappointed in me. I can understand that.”
Samson put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder, making him look up. “No. I’m not disappointed in you. It’s not that. I wasn’t selfless. It was selfish to think that I could make decisions for you. And when I realized that you’d started making your own decisions, I got defensive. I couldn’t let go, when I knew I had to. Oliver, Quinn might be your sire, but you’re like a son to me.”
Oliver felt a stinging in his eyes and realized that they were welling up with tears. He pushed them back. “I’ve always looked up to you.”
Samson pulled him into a hug. “I know that.”
Oliver felt the tension in his body ease. “Are we okay?”
Samson released him and ruffled Oliver’s hair. “We’re okay. Now tell me why you’re smelling like a spa.”
Shock coursed through him, making him freeze in place for a moment. What else was Samson smelling besides the bubble bath he’d shared with Ursula? Could he still smell Ursula’s scent on him?
“There’s nothing wrong with a man taking a bath,” Oliver said in a light tone then winked. “Just don’t tell Rose that I’m borrowing her expensive gels and lotions.”
Samson leaned a little closer, sniffing again. “She must have changed brands. It doesn’t smell like her.”
Oliver forced a chuckle, hoping his boss wouldn’t realize he was lying. But there was no way he could let him know that he’d seen Ursula. “Women. As soon as you think you’ve got them figured out, they change things around.”
Samson laughed. “Wiser words have never been spoken.”
This small crisis was averted. Relief flooded him just as his cell phone buzzed. Oliver pulled it from his pocket and checked caller ID, but it only said Private Caller. At least that meant it wasn’t Ursula, otherwise the number of the cell phone he’d given her would show up. Talking to her when Samson would be able to listen in on the call wouldn’t be smart.
“Let me see who wants something from me,” he said to Samson, then pressed the talk button and answered the phone. “Yes?”
“Oliver Parker?” the male voiced asked.
He recognized it immediately. “Mr. Corbin!” Oliver motioned to Samson, indicating that he wanted him to listen in. “What a nice surprise.”
“Yes, yes. Are you still interested in that address we talked about?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you have something to write?”
He noticed Samson snatch a notepad off the sideboard and pull out a pen from the drawer.
“Shoot,” Oliver instructed the vampire on the other end of the line.
Corbin dictated an address in the East Bay, and Oliver watched as Samson wrote it down.
“Thank you so much.”
“No problem. Just one thing: if you’re going there, you should probably go soon. The email blast I received said that it was only a temporary address. Looks like they might be moving again.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
“Sure.”
Then the line went dead. Oliver stared at Samson then pointed to the phone. “That was the vampire whose wallet Ursula stole.”
“I figured.” He pointed to the address on the notepad. “Let’s alert HQ and get this show on the road.”