Undying Read online

  “Arlan?” Fia said on the other end of the line. “How did you—”

  “Gotta go. Talk to you later.” Arlan slid his phone into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts. “I said, how are you this morning?” he repeated even louder.

  “Alive, I am. That’s always a good thing.” The elderly woman rubbed a bony elbow. “But my tennis elbow’s acting up. Must be gonna rain.” She was wearing a short, white, pleated skirt, sneakers, and a sleeveless blue polo with a tennis racket embroidered over one saggy breast. To Arlan’s knowledge, she had never played tennis a day in the last seventy-some years, but she did read The Great Gatsby annually. Gin rummy was her game. And gin, oddly enough, was her drink. She could beat the pants off anyone Arlan knew playing gin rummy or drinking gin and tonics.

  “I was wondering if you could tell me the number of Maggie Smith’s room.”

  “Who’s coming soon?”

  “No. No, room,” he said patiently. “One of your guests. I need to know where Maggie Smith is staying.”

  “You know we don’t give out information like that.” Mrs. Cahall sipped coffee from a cup, leaving a pink lip imprint on the rim. “You going to Rob Hill’s wake tomorrow night? Mary Kay is making blueberry cobbler for after.” She smacked her lips together. “I love a blueberry cobbler, don’t you?”

  “Mrs. Cahall, I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important. Actually, it was Fia who asked that I contact Miss Smith on her behalf. I think it’s FBI business.” He looked across the Formica counter at her meaningfully.

  “Why didn’t you speak up, then, son?” She practically shouted at him. “Room twenty-two.”

  He turned away. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow night. Be sure Mary Kay saves me some of that cobbler.”

  “You can go up if you like. She’s in twenty-two, but she’s not there,” the old lady called after him.

  “She checked out?” He turned back.

  “Too early for stout.” She frowned as she rubbed her elbow, looking as if he had lost his mind. “Pub’s not open yet. She walked over to the diner for some breakfast. I told her Mary Ann had a mean buttermilk pancake. I like the strawberry syrup myself.”

  “She say how long she was staying?”

  The woman cast him an odd look. “No, she wasn’t swaying.” She drew herself up indignantly. “Not that drinking is a crime.”

  “How long’s she staying?” He had changed directions and was now headed for the opposite lobby door.

  “A few days. She writes for magazines, you know. House and Garden. Southern Living. She couldn’t keep a job like that if she was a drinker. She makes a very good living. She’s going to feature some of the cottages here in Clare Point,” she said proudly.

  “Is she now?” Arlan muttered under his breath. He waved as he went out the door. “Thank you, Mrs. Cahall.”

  “You let that girl have a beer if she wants one,” the old woman shouted after him.

  At the diner, Arlan walked past the PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign. He found Macy all the way in the back, in the corner booth, facing the doorway. Arlan always picked the same table in public places. It was the best way to keep an eye on who was coming and going. The best way to stay alive.

  He slid in beside her on the Naugahyde bench.

  “You thinking pancakes or waffles?” she said, not even looking up, as if she had been expecting him to join her at any minute. “Mrs. Cahall recommends the pancakes, but I’m feeling like a waffle this morning.”

  Arlan leaned back as Mary Ann, head waitress and owner of the diner, held a stainless steel coffee pot over his cup, waiting for the go-ahead. Vampires weren’t big on stimulants, but he was feeling the need this morning. He nodded.

  “Back to get your order shortly, cutie pie,” she said.

  “Why did you lie to me about your name?” Arlan asked the minute Mary Ann was out of earshot.

  “Why do you think? You always tell your one-night stands your real name?” She set down her menu. “I doubt it.”

  He met her gaze. Her green eyes were the most incredible shade, somewhere between moss and falling autumn leaves at that point when they were no longer green, but not yet brown. Even when he closed his eyes, he saw hers. “That’s not a very good answer. You lied to Fia. Why are you lying to FBI agents, Macy? If that’s even your name.”

  “It’s what my parents called me,” she said, suddenly going from cynical to sad in a single heartbeat.

  And here it was again, the guilt. Thick, heavy. Encumbering. He’d been unkind and there was no reason for unkindness. The world generated too much of that on its own for him to add to it.

  “You lied to protect yourself? From what?”

  She frowned. She was drinking orange juice. Her coffee cup was turned upside down on the table. Apparently his Macy didn’t need any additional stimulants, either.

  “Why do you think? Don’t you get it? He buries them up to their necks, waits for them to wake up and then he suffocates them,” she whispered harshly under her breath. “He gets off by watching the fear in their eyes. Their fear not just for themselves, but for each other when they realize what’s happening. When they realize they can’t do a damned thing about it.”

  “You seem to understand a lot about the way the man ticks.”

  She frowned, not biting on his insinuation. “Pretty simple psychoanalysis, don’t you think?”

  He changed his tactics, knowing the bad guy wasn’t going to work in the good guy/bad guy game. “Has he threatened to do the same to you, Macy? Because if he has, the FBI can protect you.”

  “Yeah, right.” She laughed, but her tone was without humor.

  “Mrs. Cahall said you were staying a few days. That you were doing research for your job. Fia’s mom has a B and B here in town. We think you should move over there where we know you’ll be safe.”

  “You mean where you can keep an eye on me.”

  “I’m just passing on a message from Fia.” He hesitated. “You can talk to me. You can trust me, Macy.”

  She sipped her orange juice, staring straight ahead at the ball cap on the man’s head in the next booth. “It’s not about trust. It’s about wanting to speak up, finally.” She exhaled. “I tell you anything and you’re at risk, too.”

  “What about Fia? You think giving her information won’t put her at risk?”

  “I thought about that, but she’s a cop. She does this sort of thing all the time. She caught those kids who were beheading people, didn’t she?” A hint of a smile turned the corner of her sensual lips. “She’s kind of a superhero, in my book.”

  Superhero? Arlan wondered what Macy would think of Fia if she knew what Fia really was, if she knew of Fia’s constant hunger for human blood. Then he couldn’t help but wonder what Macy would think of him if she knew what he did for a living when he wasn’t installing gutters. He wondered what she would think if she saw the centuries of human blood on his hands.

  “No,” Macy said firmly. “I want to talk to Fia. I just want to sleep with you.”

  He ignored the sex part and tried to concentrate on what Fia needed from him. “So call her.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and slid it across the table. “Call her now.”

  “Breakfast, now. Call later.” She looked up at Mary Ann, who had reappeared at the tableside in the magical, perfectly timed way only seasoned waitresses could. “We’ll have the Belgian waffles.”

  “At least tell me you’ll think about moving over to the B and B,” Arlan said. They were standing on the sidewalk outside the diner. It was a beautiful, sunny day and Macy was sure the temperature had already hit eighty degrees.

  “I have thought about it. I like the Lighthouse Inn. I like Mrs. Cahall. I like her tennis skirt and her bony knees. I like her cheesy bedspreads and the ceramic seagulls on the wall.”

  He frowned, adjusting his wraparound surfer sunglasses. “Look, I have to get to work.”

  She wondered what he did, but she didn’t ask. She rarely asked questions. It made
it easier not to answer any. Subsequently, she had become good at deduction. Good at reading people.

  He worked for himself the way he came and went freely on a weekday morning. Something with his hands, she guessed. An artist? Did he make ceramic flowerpots and vases to sell to tourists in this obviously touristy town? Or did he do something more manly like sculpt bronze statues? He’d look hot in a leather apron and goggles in more ways than one. She imagined sweat trickling down his pecs, down the flat of his belly, and she smiled.

  “What?” he asked, suspicion tingeing his tone.

  “Nothing. Thanks for breakfast,” she said, looking up at him. “And last night,” she offered more softly. “I didn’t mean to creep you out. I just didn’t…” Her gaze searched his but she couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark sunglasses. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

  Silence stretched a moment or two longer than was comfortable.

  “Okay, well…” He started to back away from her, sliding a hand into his pocket.

  Obviously he didn’t quite know what to make of the fact that she made no attempt to avoid the subject of their physical intimacy. Most men were that way. They were all about getting in your panties so long as you didn’t mention it later.

  “I’m going to get to work and you’re good with Fia, right?” he asked, giving her a thumbs-up.

  “I’ll call her.”

  “You need anything else? I mean, what are you going to do the rest of the day?”

  She slid her sunglasses on. “Not everything is about you, Arlan Kahill. I really am researching a piece. Victorian beach cottages.” She smiled at him, thinking that there was something about this man that genuinely made her smile. It wasn’t forced or fake as it was so often. “See you around.”

  Leaving Arlan standing on the sidewalk in front of the diner, Macy walked east, toward the ocean. In the hotel lobby, she’d picked up one of those tourist maps with colorful parking signs and ice cream cones printed on it, but she preferred to get a feel for a new town on her own. She’d been through Delaware numerous times, staying in Rehoboth Beach and in the New Castle area, but she’d never been to Clare Point. Mrs. Cahall had suggested that she go east and then north. That’s where the prettiest cottages were, the old woman had insisted.

  So Macy walked east and then a block off the bay, turned north. As promised, the street was lined with neat, quaint cottages that appeared to have been built at the turn of the century or earlier. Not a single house was less than a hundred years old for what looked like a two-to three-block radius. Like the houses in Cape May, New Jersey, though smaller, they were painted pastel Victorian colors: pink, yellow, robin’s egg blue, making for a picturesque scene.

  Delighted by her find, Macy slipped her camera from the canvas bag slung over her shoulder and began to take random shots. Tonight, back in the hotel, she would look at them more closely. Once she chose a couple houses she was interested in, she’d chat with someone in the local chamber of commerce office. It had been Macy’s experience that the chambers of small towns were always eager to help her find homes to photograph when they thought there might be some free publicity for them in the deal.

  Macy was halfway down the second block when she spotted an attractive woman watering zinnias that flanked both sides of her quaint entryway. The woman appeared to be in her late twenties and had short, spiky hair that was almost a fluorescent red. Not the person one expected to see watering flowers in her front yard. The young woman smiled.

  Macy smiled back, reading invitation. “Good morning,” she called.

  “’Morning.” The woman held the spray trigger on the hose and a soft rain fell over her brightly colored flowers.

  “Beautiful houses on this street.” Macy looked up at the pale peach porch trimmed in white. “This your place or a rental? It’s amazing.”

  “It’s been in my family for generations,” the woman said, taking Macy in casually.

  Macy slung her camera over her shoulder and reached into her knapsack, coming up with a business card. “Macy Smith. I work for House Beautiful and a couple of other home and garden magazines. I’m always scouting for unusual homes and gardens to feature.”

  Directing the hose away from Macy, the woman accepted the card, read it and looked up. “Pretty cool. Would you like to have a look around?” She gestured with the hose nozzle. “Out back, I have rosebushes from Ireland that are more than two hundred years old. The blooms are incredible.” She smiled almost shyly. “Eva Hill.” She shrugged. “I have this thing for roses and other thorny things.”

  Macy smiled back, offering her hand. Eva didn’t look like the typical rose gardener with her wild hair and dark makeup. Macy liked it when people surprised her. “Nice to meet you, Eva.”

  The redhead turned the valve on the sprayer off and dropped the hose, taking Macy’s hand. She had a warm, confident grip.

  “Nice to meet you. Come around back. Want some iced tea? It’s going to be another scorcher today.”

  That night, unable to sleep, Macy sat at the dinette table in her room at the Lighthouse and flipped through the photos she had taken of Eva’s house and others on the same street. She sipped an iced herbal tea. It was after midnight. She was tired. She should have been able to sleep, but she couldn’t, so she worked. Other than sex with strangers, work was her only balm when she was restless like this.

  After a tour of Eva’s amazing rose garden, Macy had ended up touring the inside of the house, too. They had hit it off so well that Eva not only offered her home to Macy to feature in a magazine article, but suggested she might be able to persuade some other homeowners on the street to do the same. Macy was thinking of a serious feature article. Ten-, maybe twelve-page spread. A feature piece would take a lot of time and effort, but she was sure more than one of the publishers she freelanced for would be interested. These houses on the shore were so unusual, true gems tucked away in Smalltownville, East Coast, USA. It might turn out to be her most profitable sale to date.

  At three this afternoon, she had spoken to Fia on the phone, telling her she would be in town for a few days. They agreed to meet Friday night. Fia hadn’t been crazy with the idea of being put off any longer, but she was savvy enough to realize that Macy had the upper hand here. Macy was relieved to be able to put the encounter off a few more days. It would give her time to think about what she was going to say. How much she was going to tell. It would also give her the opportunity to chicken out and hightail-it back to Virginia if she so chose.

  Walking away without saying good-bye to Arlan might prove more difficult than usual. There was something about him that was different from other men she had known. Something about him that made her wish she was different. But who was she kidding? He wasn’t different. He wasn’t special. None of the men she ever met were. No one could save her. Of course she could walk away. She’d done it countless times before.

  After looking over the photos and sending out several e-mails to editors at various magazines, Macy logged online using the wireless Internet code Mrs. Cahall had provided her earlier in the evening. Somehow, Macy wasn’t surprised that the spry old woman was Internet-connected.

  Macy was halfway through the mail when the IM box popped up with a ding. It was Teddy, of course.

  I’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been?

  She stared at the flashing cursor.

  Did you see the papers? The news. She’s quiet tonight, very quiet.

  He was talking about the voice. The voice that he said made him kill. A mixture of fear and anger tightened her stomach. She wanted to close the dialogue window. Shut him up. But if she was serious about helping the FBI, she needed to remain in contact with him and stay in his good graces.

  I saw. She hit the Enter key, then added, How could you?

  I don’t like your tone, he responded. Her fingers flew over her keyboard. You’re a liar. You lie to me. You lie to yourself.

  Orphan.

  “Ah, so we’re going to play that game to
night, are we?” she said aloud. “What, we’re twelve?” She hesitated before she typed. I wish you had talked to me. I wish you hadn’t done it.

  If wishes were horses, Teddy answered.

  I’m serious. Macy didn’t know what was making her so bold. We should talk.

  But we do talk, dear Marceline. You’re my best friend in the whole world. We talk all the time.

  The idea of being this monster’s friend made her want to throw up. The idea that he thought they could be friends after what he had done was somehow even worse.

  Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as she considered what she should say. If she was going to talk to Fia Friday night, she should have something to take to her. Some sort of proof she wasn’t a nut job. Some sort of information that really could help.

  I noticed the moon that night. It wasn’t right, Teddy. You missed the full moon. You hesitated. Then you did it anyway.

  His words popped up almost instantly. The moon? How do you know about the moon????

  She sensed she’d struck a nerve. I know all about the moon.

  Teddy didn’t answer. She waited. She sipped her tea. As the seconds stretched to a minute, two, she began to feel empowered. All these years she had just sat here afraid. Afraid to talk to him, afraid not to. Now maybe he was afraid.

  Just when she was ready to shut down her computer and go watch something mindless on TV, another line of text appeared.

  No one knows about the moon…

  She thought before she typed. No one but you and me. Because we’re friends, right?

  Another hesitation before she read, Friends.

  So why did you do it when the moon wasn’t right?

  I…I don’t know, he answered. I thought I could wait but I couldn’t.

  Does someone tell you to do it? she probed.

  No, no one tells me. No one is the boss of me!

  No one is the boss of me? The surprising outburst made Macy sit back in her chair and stare at the computer screen. He seemed to have regressed further. Now, he sounded like a five-year-old. She thought about all the pictures he had cut out of magazines and sent her years ago when he still did that sort of thing. The reccurring theme had been little boys. At one time, she had wondered if he was some kind of sexual predator, too, but now she wondered if all the little boys were him. Were Teddy.