Dark Descendant

EIGHT

I felt even more tired now than I had before I’d taken my unintentional nap. I brewed a pot of the terrible in-room coffee, made even more terrible by non-dairy creamer. Then I took another shower, hoping it would clear my head.

It didn’t.

Afterward, I reluctantly turned my phone back on and checked messages. As I’d expected, Anderson had tried calling back a couple of times, though he hadn’t left any voice mails. Also as expected, I had a couple of messages from Steph, wondering where the hell I was and why I wasn’t calling her back. Her third message revealed that her slight concern was well on its way to becoming full-out worry.

“Nikki. I talked to Jim, and he said you ducked out early last night. No one has seen or heard from you since. Please call me back as soon as you get this. If I don’t hear from you soon, I’m going to call the police. Please call.”

I winced in guilt as I heard the quaver in my sister’s voice. It wasn’t like me not to return phone calls, and after what must have seemed like a somewhat mysterious exit from the restaurant last night, I couldn’t blame Steph for being worried. I might not run into the kind of daily danger that cops did, but my profession was not without its risks. She’d probably come up with a boatload of worst-case scenarios already. I prayed to God she hadn’t gotten worried enough to try to call the Glasses yet. Surely she wouldn’t interrupt their cruise unless she were certain there was something wrong. At least, I hoped not.

Knowing I could put it off no longer, I put on my big-girl panties and called Steph’s house. She answered on the first ring, like she’d been hovering over the phone willing me to call. Maybe she had.

“Oh, thank God!” she said in lieu of a greeting, then immediately burst into tears.

Another wave of guilt rolled over me, even as I was momentarily annoyed at the melodrama. Steph bursts into tears at the drop of a hat. Which is probably healthier than my stoic reserve, but it gets on my nerves anyway.

In a lot of ways, it’s a minor miracle that Steph and I are so close, seeing as we’re polar opposites. Steph is a true blond bombshell, the kind that makes anyone with a Y chromosome start drooling. She’s perky as hell, and everyone seems to like her. She’d always run with the popular clique at school—naturally, she’d been a cheerleader—but she’d been friendly with just about everyone, even the kids at whom cheerleaders traditionally looked down their noses. Steph may have been a card-carrying member of the popular crowd, but behind the frothy façade, she had a backbone of steel. No amount of peer pressure was going to make her be cruel to people who were outside her usual social circle. And heaven help anyone who dared to be cruel to her adopted little sister, even when said little sister made being an outsider a point of pride.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” I told Steph as she fought to control her tears. I hadn’t yet figured out what I was going to tell her—if I’d waited until I dreamed up the perfect explanation, I’d never have gotten around to calling—but I knew I had to come up with something fast.

“I’m fine,” I continued. “I promise. Not a scratch on me. But I was in a car accident last night.”

“What?” she shrieked, and I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

“I’m fine!” I repeated. “My car has gone on to its heavenly reward, but I’m not hurt, so please don’t be upset.”

“Don’t be upset? You’re joking, right?”

Please, please, please let her not have called the Glasses yet. Mrs. Glass was the quintessential overprotective mother hen, and she mothered me every bit as thoroughly as she did Steph. Dealing with Steph’s distress was enough already—I couldn’t bear the thought of having to call and reassure Mrs. Glass afterward.

“If you were in an accident last night,” Steph continued, and there was a hint of anger seeping into her voice, “then why am I just hearing about it now? Why haven’t you answered any of my calls? You knew I was going to call to ask you how things went, and you had to know I’d get worried when you didn’t call back.”

I sighed and wished I’d forced myself to call earlier. I couldn’t blame her for being upset with me. If the situation had been reversed, I’d have been furious.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I wasn’t hurt, but I was pretty badly shaken up. I haven’t been quite myself, and I just didn’t think. My phone was turned off all day, and I didn’t even notice until just now.”

“Have you eaten yet?”

I blinked and shook my head at the non sequitur. “Huh?”

“Meet me at Angelo’s at seven. A phone call doesn’t cut it for this conversation, kiddo.”

I groaned, thinking I should have drunk more coffee before picking up the phone. If my brain had been fully awake, I’d have known Steph wouldn’t settle for a phone call. Angelo’s was her favorite Italian restaurant, a real dive that served great food and mediocre wine. My body was too confused to know whether it was hungry or not, but I knew I wasn’t up to the level of scrutiny I would undergo over dinner.

“I’m really not up to—” I started.

“Be there at seven, or I’m going to call Mom and tell her you totaled the car.”

“You bitch!” I cried. “Don’t you dare!”

I knew Mrs. Glass would have to find out about it eventually, but the more time that passed before she heard about it, the less chance that she would become hysterical.

“Show up for dinner, and I won’t have to,” Steph said, sounding smug. “You owe me for scaring the life out of me.”

I considered trying to argue some more. There was no way I could behave as if nothing was wrong if I talked to Steph in person, and I still had no clue what I could use as a convincing cover story. But as I mentioned, Steph has a quite a backbone beneath her deceptively sweet exterior. If she was determined to talk to me in person, nothing would change her mind. And if I didn’t show up, she really would call her mom and rat me out.

“Fine,” I said with poor grace. “I’ll see you at seven.”

I almost decided to skip the dinner, despite Steph’s threat. I didn’t like the idea that I might lead that creep Alexis right to her, and I didn’t want him anywhere near my sister. However, Blake had told me that the Oracle’s visions were rarely clear, so I figured the odds that Alexis would find me twice in one day were low. The odds that Steph would rat me out if I didn’t show up were a hundred percent. Besides, I couldn’t avoid her forever.

I pushed open the door to Angelo’s at 7:15, and the scent of garlic and tomatoes set my mouth to watering instantly. A quick glance around the chipped Formica tables showed me what I’d already expected to find: Steph wasn’t here yet. She is biologically incapable of showing up anywhere on time, despite all Mrs. Glass’s best efforts to train her to punctuality. She also has a sixth sense about what time I’ll arrive. Even when I specifically try to be late enough for her to get there before me, she’s always just a little bit later.

The hostess led me to a table for two near the back. There was no longer any smoking allowed inside, but the walls themselves must have absorbed the stink of cigarette smoke over the years, because I could still catch a whiff of it in the air. Or maybe it was just because I’d been coming here so long I knew the table was in the old smoking section.

Steph made her grand entrance about five minutes later, rushing through the door and scanning the restaurant anxiously, like she was afraid I’d have bolted by now. I waved, and saw her sigh of relief.

The Glasses had already made their fortune by the time Steph was in her formative years, so she’d grown up with the best fashion sense money could buy. She was wearing perfectly tailored slate gray slacks and a luxurious red cashmere sweater that clung to her near-flawless figure. She’d finished the outfit with a black swing coat and a pair of stiletto-heeled boots that I’d have broken my neck trying to walk in.

As usual, every male over the age of twelve gave her at least one or two appreciative glances as she snaked her way through the tables toward me. I told myself I was not jealous, but it was a lie. She was just so damn … perfect. If only she were a bitch, so I could hate her like she deserved to be hated…

Steph’s mischievous smile said she had an inkling what was running through my mind. She draped her coat over the back of her chair, then sat across from me and gave me a penetrating stare. It took every ounce of my willpower not to look away.

Steph leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Something happened,” she said with great authority. “Something other than a car accident. What is it?”

Great. I hadn’t even opened my mouth yet, and already Steph saw through me.

I considered trying to bluff my way through it. When I was on the job, people always seemed to believe whatever pretext I made up, but Steph and her parents knew me too well, and I was rarely able to slip a lie past any of them.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I’ve got some stuff going on. But it’s not anything I can talk about.” Not without getting carted off to the loony bin, that is.

Steph uncrossed her arms and began tapping the table with her perfectly manicured nails.

“I mean it, Steph. I can’t talk about it. I’m not willfully holding out on you.” Well, not too much, anyway.

She continued tapping her fingers and staring at me, not saying a word. I recognized the ploy for what it was: she was hoping that the pressure of her silent scrutiny would make me blurt something out. It was a tactic she’d learned from her mom, and under normal circumstances, it might even have worked.

The waitress interrupted our silent standoff to take our orders. Neither one of us had even consulted the menu, but then we’d memorized it years ago.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Steph finally asked when the waitress was out of earshot.

“I can’t—”

“Talk about it. Yeah, I heard you. I’m not asking for details. I just want to know if you’re in trouble, and if there’s anything I can do to help.”

My throat tightened briefly. There were times when Steph bugged the hell out of me, but she was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. She could have resented me for inserting myself into her family when she’d had thirteen years of being an only child, but she’d been nothing but supportive even from the very beginning, when I’d been a sullen, sulky troublemaker.

“Thanks, Steph,” I said, my voice a bit gruff. “But there’s nothing you can do.” I forced a grin. “Except stop setting me up on blind dates with assholes.”

For a moment, I thought she was going to resist my attempt to deflect the conversation. Then her shoulders slumped in defeat.

“What’s wrong with Jim?” she asked, though her heart wasn’t in the question. “He’s nice, he’s handsome, he’s successful, and he’s single.”

I rolled my eyes. One of the reasons everyone likes Steph is that she’s so good at turning a blind eye to peoples’ flaws. Which is why I should know better than to let her set me up with anyone.

“You honestly think he’s a nice guy?” I asked. “Have you ever talked with him?”

She looked annoyed. “Of course I talked with him. I wouldn’t set you up with someone if I didn’t know him well enough to think you’d get on.”

I bit back a caustic response, realizing that Jim might not have shown Steph the side of him I’d seen at dinner. After all, Steph was a sexist jerk’s idea of feminine perfection, so she wouldn’t have elicited the kind of reactions I’d gotten. She was beautiful, and put a lot of time and effort into keeping herself that way. She was sweet-natured enough that people who didn’t know her might think her weak or submissive, though they’d be wrong. And because she didn’t have my hang-ups about living off her trust fund, she’d never had a career to inconvenience a man who wanted her full attention.

“The problem with you,” I told Steph, “is that you like everyone. I’m a little more particular.”

She laughed. “To put it mildly.”

“No more blind dates, okay? It never turns out well.”

“You never give it a chance to.”

“Please, Steph,” I said, suddenly feeling exhausted again. “I don’t want to fight.”

Steph leaned across the table and squeezed my hand, smiling gently. “We’re not fighting. I’m trying to give you sage, older-sister advice.”

The advice might have been more convincing if Steph’s love life had been any more successful than my own. Beauty and wealth attracted a lot of men, not all of them for the right reasons. Not to mention the men who made the mistake of thinking that because she was nice, pretty, and blond, she’d be a pushover and put up with crappy behavior. The door hit those guys on the ass pretty hard on their way out.

“Since when has giving me advice been a productive use of your time?” I asked, returning Steph’s smile with a wry grin.

“Good point.”

The rest of the meal was much more relaxed. Steph and I stayed away from sensitive subjects and just enjoyed our food. Steph talked about her upcoming charity project, a dinner and auction to support the American Cancer Society, and extracted a promise from me that I’d be there. Steph might not work a paying job, but with the stable of charities she actively supported, she worked a hell of a lot more than most of the nine-to-fivers I’d ever met.

Things didn’t go to hell until we were sipping our after-dinner coffee and picking at the remains of the slice of cheesecake we’d shared. Steph’s phone rang, and she frowned in annoyance.

“I should’ve turned the damn thing off,” she mumbled, but I knew she couldn’t quite bear to do that. The big auction was less than two weeks away, and she had to be available for crisis management at the drop of a hat.

I smiled as I took another sip of my rich, dark coffee. “Don’t mind me,” I assured her. “It could be important.”

She acknowledged my point with a nod, then dug her phone out from her tiny designer handbag. She looked at the caller ID and frowned.

“I have no idea who this is,” she said, but she answered anyway.

Her frown deepened at whatever the caller said. I don’t know what it was about her expression that made me sit up and take notice, but the hair on the back of my neck prickled.

“Who is this?” Steph asked, her voice tight with what sounded like alarm. Our eyes met over the table, and the prickle at the back of my neck turned into a chill of fear.

Steph lowered the phone and covered the microphone with her thumb. “He says his name is Alexis, and he wants to talk to you.”

My hands clenched so hard it was a wonder I didn’t break the coffee cup I was holding. How dare that bastard drag my sister into this? Even without talking to him, I knew his decision to call on Steph’s phone had been a deliberate threat. I used my cell phone for business all the time, so if he’d learned my identity—which he obviously had—he’d have had no trouble finding my number.

I put my cup down so hard that coffee sloshed out and spilled on the table, but I didn’t care. I reached for the phone, ignoring the combination of alarm and curiosity on Steph’s face. There wasn’t anywhere I could talk truly privately, but I got up from the table and moved a few paces away anyway. I was painfully aware of Steph’s eyes boring through the back of my head as I tried to calm myself down enough to talk. The last thing I wanted was to let Alexis know he’d gotten to me.

“What do you want?” I asked, and despite my best efforts, no one could have missed the fury in my voice.

“We didn’t get to finish our conversation this afternoon,” he said, and I could hear how much he was enjoying my reaction.

“I was finished with it even before Blake showed up.”

“But I wasn’t, and that’s all that matters. You are not living in Anderson’s mansion, therefore you’re not covered under our agreement with him. I tried playing nice with you this afternoon, but you made it clear that playing nice wouldn’t work.

“Meet me tomorrow at twelve noon in the lobby of the Sofitel. Konstantin requires your services. If you cooperate, you’ll be rewarded more than generously. I doubt you’ve ever had a client who can pay you the sums we can.

“But make no mistake, Nikki Glass: you will do what we ask, whether it’s to gain the financial rewards of cooperation, or to avoid the consequences of refusal. Are we clear?”

I wanted to crawl down the phone line and kill him right then and there. This afternoon when I’d shot Blake, I’d felt bad about it even though Blake was a jerk. Right now, I wouldn’t have hesitated a moment to shoot Alexis. And no, I would not have felt bad.

I couldn’t help sneaking a quick glance over my shoulder at Steph. She was chewing her lip with worry as she watched me. If Alexis or one of his cronies laid so much as a finger on her…

I must have been taking too long to answer, because Alexis spoke again.

“Your sister is truly a lovely woman,” he said, his voice oozing slime. “I’m sure Konstantin would be delighted to make her acquaintance. He can be a little rough with his women, but I’m sure she’ll still be at least marginally attractive when he tires of her and passes her on to me.”

My blood boiled in my veins, and I bit down, hard, on my tongue to keep from giving him any more satisfaction than I already had.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at noon?” he asked, back to using the pleasant, friendly tone he’d first tried on me, as if he hadn’t just made such an ugly, revolting threat.

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth, because what else could I do? I had no clear picture of what Alexis and the Olympians were capable of, but I knew they had more power and resources to draw on than I did. I was under no illusion that I could single-handedly protect Steph.

“I knew you would make the right decision. I’ll look forward to chatting with you again, without the interruptions.”

Luckily for me, he hung up before I said any of the stupid, vitriolic things that came to mind.