"Craft table," Jo murmured in a disbelieving voice, and when he glanced at her, she flushed and shrugged and muttered, "It just seems odd to think of a vampiress doing crafts. That"s so... mundane," she finished finally.
"We"re just people, Jo," he said quietly.
"Yeah, I suppose. People with fangs, who drink blood, live a long time, and apparently do crafts." She shook her head.
Nicholas smiled faintly, but tilted his head back again and continued. "I probably wouldn"t have taken the gift to Carol if-"
"Carol?" Jo interrupted in question.
"Annie"s friend at the hospital," he explained. "They worked the night shift together."
"What did Annie do at the hospital?" Jo asked curiously.
"She was a nurse in the critical care unit," he said, smiling faintly at the memory. "Annie was... She was special. She liked to help people and-" Nicholas paused abruptly as he realized it was probably bad form to go on about the wonders of a past life mate to a present life mate... even if he couldn"t claim her.
"Anyway," he muttered, "as I was saying, I probably wouldn" t have taken the gift to Carol, but I wanted to ask her if she knew what Annie..." Nicholas paused as he realized he"d left something out. "I should tell you that the night before Annie died, she called me in Detroit and said-"
"What were you doing in Detroit?" Jo interrupted.
"I was hunting a rogue," he explained. "It was going to be my last case. Annie was nearly due and I didn"t like being away from her when she was so close to delivery."
"You were hunting a rogue?" Jo asked slowly, and then, "You were a rogue hunter too?" "We"re actually called enforcers. I mean they are," Nicholas corrected himself with a frown.
"But you were one?" she insisted.
"Yes," he admitted.
"Better and better," Jo muttered. "Go on. Annie called you in Detroit and said... ?"
"She said she had something to tell me when I got back. She was excited and I was curious, but she wouldn"t tell me what it was over the phone. She said she wanted to see my face when she told me."
"But she died," Jo prompted.
"Yes. She died and I forgot all about it for a while."
"But then you saw the gift and you thought you"d deliver it as an excuse to ask this Carol if she knew what it was Annie was going to tell you when you got home."
Nicholas. nodded, releasing his breath on a slow sigh. Jo was making this as easy as she could for him. She was also very quick at putting things together.
"Did this friend Carol know?" Jo asked curiously.
Nicholas shook his head. "I never found out. I put the gift in the car and drove to the hospital, but as I was crossing the parking lot to go inside a woman came out. She was pet.i.te and blond like my Annie. She even looked like her a little... and she was very pregnant."
"Like your Annie," Jo suggested.
"Yes," he said wearily, closing his eyes. "I remember being really angry, fur ious even that this mortal woman lived while my Annie, an immortal who should have lived for centuries, was..."
"That"s normal too, Nicholas," Jo said softly, slipping her hand into his and squeezing gently.
When he glanced at her with obvious disbelief, she nodded solemnly. "Shortly after my parents died, I met my friends at this restaurant for lunch where there was this older couple seated at a table across from us. They were ancient. White hair, wrinkled, they had to be in their eighties or nineties..." She paused and shook her head. "I don" t know what it was about them. Perhaps it was how they smiled at each other, or the way she shared her food with him, but for some reason it made me think of my parents, and for one moment I was absolutely furious that these two old codgers were alive and happy while my parents, so much younger, were dead." Jo sighed unhappily at the memory and then shrugged. "I think it"s probably a natural part of grieving."
"Did you take the old couple home and slaughter them?" Nicholas asked grimly.
Jo"s eyes shifted to meet his, sharp and hard. "Is that what you did?"
Nicholas looked away and shrugged. "Apparently." "There"s that word again," she said dryly. "I don"t want to hear apparently. Tell me what happened. You saw her and were angry and..."
Nicholas frowned as he sifted through his memories trying to find the ones that covered what happened next. Finally, he just said, "I ripped her throat out and fed on her."
"Right there in the parking lot?" Jo asked with shock.
"I-No..." He reached up to rub his forehead unhappily. "At my home. In my bas.e.m.e.nt."
Jo was silent for a long time again, and when he finally glanced to her, she was peering at him as if sorting out a puzzle. Finally she shook her head and said, "How did you get her there? Did she say something to really p.i.s.s you off? What happened?"
"I don"t know," he snapped with frustration. "I just remember looking at her, and being really angry. The next thing I knew Decker was shouting my name and I opened my eyes to see that I was sitting on the floor of my bas.e.m.e.nt with the pregnant woman, dead in my arms. There was blood everywhere, including in my mouth. I killed her, Jo."
Much to his amazement, Jo suddenly smiled and leaned back against the headboard. Her voice was satisfied as she said, "You didn"t kill her."
For some reason her calm certainty infuriated him. "G.o.ddammit, Jo, I did."
"Then why don"t you remember it?" she asked calmly.
"I must have been in a blinding rage," he said at once. It was the only explanation he"d been able to come up with after all these years. Not that he"d thought about it often. He"d been so horrified by what he"d done that Nicholas had done his best not to think about it at all until the night he"d met Jo. Since then it was constantly in the back of his mind. What he"d done, why he"d done it, how he"d ruined his chances to be with her.
"Nope, you weren" t in a blinding rage," Jo said with certainty, snapping his attention back to her with disbelief of his own.
"Well I sure as s.h.i.t wouldn"t have killed her if I hadn"t been in a blinding rage," he snarled.
"Nicholas," she said patiently, shifting to kneel beside him on the bed. "Think about what you"re saying. You saw her and were angry because she looked like your Annie, was pregnant like your Annie, but was alive when your Annie wasn"t. Your anger was natural, and if you"d told me you"d struck out at her right there in the parking lot, one angry shot that had killed the woman, I might have believed you"d killed her in a blinding rage. But that"s not what happened. Supposedly, in this blinding rage, you transported her to your car, got inside, drove her to your place, and took her down into your bas.e.m.e.nt and killed her... without ever coming out of your blinding rage. Without remembering a thing about it until you opened your eyes and peered down to find her dead in your lap?" She shook her head. "Nope. Didn"t happen that way."
Nicholas merely stared at Jo blankly as she suddenly sat back and looked thoughtful, and then she asked, "You say Decker was shouting your name? That"s what woke you up?" "I-Yes," he said on a sigh.
"He did it then," she decided calmly, and as Nicholas began to shake his head, she said, "Yes, he did. He took control of you and took you both back to your place and killed the woman, set her in your lap, and then released his control."
Nicholas closed his eyes wearily. "Decker didn"t do it, Jo. Decker wouldn"t kill a mortal. He"s a rogue hunter, he protects mortals and immortals alike. He wouldn"t kill anyone but rogues."
"Yet you would," she asked dryly, and pointed out, "You were an enforcer too."
"Yes, but I was grieving, my head wasn"t on straight. I was-"
"Controlled," Jo said firmly.
Nicholas wished he could agree with her and say that was what had happened, but shook his head. "Immortals can"t be controlled."
"You said you can read each other"s thoughts just like you can mortals," Jo said at once.
"Perhaps an older immortal can also control a younger one. Decker probably-"
"Decker is younger than me," he interrupted. "And yes immortals can read each other, but only a very new turn can be controlled. I was centuries old."
"You"re sure about that?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
Nicholas ran a hand through his hair and nodded solemnly. "Yes. It would take a three-on- one to wipe my memories and control me-three older immortals working together to do it.
The minute you try to erase or bury an immortal"s memories, the nanos will be trying to bring them back to the surface. They have to be buried and reburied over and over again. It takes days, and it was still the same night when Decker got there. I wasn" t controlled, and I didn" t have my memory erased," he a.s.sured her regretfully.
"Then you were drugged," she decided promptly.
"Jo," he said wearily.
"Stop fighting me and help here," she snapped. "You"re wallowing in your supposed guilt.
Stop that and use your noggin. It just doesn"t make sense, Nicholas. You apparently risked getting captured and killed earlier in the summer to help Dani and Stephanie, and then just the other night you did it again to save me. I was a complete stranger and I presume Dani and Stephanie probably were too, but you risked losing your own life to save us. That doesn" t sound like a man who would kill a woman just because she looked like your life mate." She paused to suck in a breath and then said, "Honestly, you"d be more likely to control the woman and keep her to play house with and pretend your Annie was still alive."
Nicholas frowned at her words. "But she was in my lap."
"But you don"t remember how she got there," Jo said at once. "Does that seem right to you?
How did you get her there? What happened to the gift for Carol? Did she say anything to you to set you off? Did she cry and beg for her life? Did you take control of her and keep that control as you drove to your place? And why the bas.e.m.e.nt?"
Nicholas peered at her blankly as her questions rained over him. When she put it that way, it didn" t really seem right. Surely she was correct and if he"d lost it, he"d have killed the woman there in the parking lot or at least remember something about getting her home, but... "Drugs don"t work on us."
Jo paused and tilted her head. "No drugs? Not at all?"
"Well..." He hesitated and then admitted, "Weaker drugs will be removed by the nanos before they can do anything, and stronger ones wouldn"t have as strong an effect or work for more than twenty minutes to half an hour."
"How long a drive was it from the hospital to your house?" she asked at once.
"Ten minutes," he said quietly. "I didn" t want Annie to have to drive far to get to work."
Jo raised an eyebrow. "So you could have been drugged, taken home, the woman killed and set in your lap before you woke."
"Her blood was in my mouth," he reminded her.
She rolled her eyes and suddenly bounded from the bed and hurried from the room. Nicholas stared after her with surprise, and then threw the sheets and blankets aside to follow. He found her in the living room, bent over, picking up something from the table. His eyes slid over her bare derriere with interest totally inappropriate to the conversation they"d been having and he grimaced to himself, and said, "What-?"
That was as far as he got. At the sound of his voice, Jo suddenly straightened, turned, and threw a gla.s.s of wine in his face.
Nicholas gasped in shock, eyes instinctively shutting as the liquid splashed over him, hitting his face and upper chest.
"Oh look, you have wine in your mouth. Did you drink it?" she asked sarcastically.
Nicholas opened his eyes slowly to stare at her.
"Wake up, Nicholas," Jo snapped, setting down the gla.s.s. "This is your future. Stop just accepting that you killed the woman and start considering other possibilities, because the story you told me makes no sense at all, but everyone believes it and that can get you killed."
Turning abruptly, she walked into the kitchen. Nicholas simply stood there, watching her a.s.s as she walked away. Once she disappeared, he glanced down at himself, noting that the wine was running down his body and dripping onto the carpet. He was about to go find a towel or something to clean up when Jo reappeared from the kitchen with a dish towel in one hand and a slice of cold pizza in the other. She tossed the dish towel to him and then dropped onto the couch and took a bite of pizza, glaring at him the whole while. Nicholas grimaced and began to dry himself off under her glare, but then his lips began to twitch. The woman had thrown a gla.s.s of wine at him and was now glaring at him as if he was the one who"d done something wrong. Annie would have never done that. Annie had been like a soothing balm, a gentle angel. Jo was the opposite, a firecracker. Yet they"d both been his life mate and he could have lived happily with either, but he suspected life wouldn" t be anywhere near restful with Jo. Or it wouldn" t have been if he could have claimed her...
and if what she was suggesting was true, he might be able to claim her someday.
"Right," he said suddenly. Finishing with the towel, Nicholas tossed it on the coffee table and dropped onto the couch beside her. "Let"s do this."
Jo"s glare immediately disappeared. Placing the nasty cold pizza on one of their used plates on the table, she turned to face him on the couch and said, "You saw the pregnant woman who looked like Annie in the parking lot... and then what?"
Nicholas sought his memories, but there just weren"t any, which really was rather odd. Finally he said, "And then we were in my bas.e.m.e.nt and she was dead."
"How did you get her there?" Jo shot the question at him like a bullet.
"I must have driven," he said uncertainly.
"In a blinding rage?" she asked dryly, and then snapped, "What happened to the gift for Carol?"
"I... don"t know," Nicholas admitted with a frown.
"Okay, go back to what you do remember. You got out of the car and started across the parking lot. You saw the woman, she reminded you of Annie... Did she say or do anything ?
h.e.l.lo, or good evening?"
"I don"t recall her saying anything," he muttered, searching his memory. "I think she smiled and..." Nicholas frowned.
"What?" Jo asked eagerly. "You"re remembering something. What is it?"
"It"s not much," he said wearily. "I just... She was walking toward me, she glanced up, met my gaze and smiled, and then her eyes traveled past me to something else."
"Probably to whoever it was who drugged you," Jo said with certainty and in that moment, Nicholas knew he loved her. She was so certain of his innocence, believing in it even when he didn"t. Decker, his cousin and best friend, hadn"t doubted his guilt when he"d seen him there in the bas.e.m.e.nt. All of his family had accepted his guilt without hesitation. Even he himself hadn"t doubted it these fifty years, but Jo, who had known him for only a matter of a couple of days, hadn" t believed he was guilty for even a heartbeat... and he loved her for it...
for that, and her spirit of adventure, courage, and intelligence and perky nature. He loved this woman.
"Do you remember feeling any kind of jab or anything?" Jo asked, completely oblivious of his thoughts. "Maybe a sudden sharp pain in the neck or arm that might have been a needle? Or-Oh!" she interrupted herself suddenly, eyes widening. "It could have been a tranq gun. I bet an elephant tranquilizer would have taken you out for half an hour."
"It could have been," Nicholas agreed quietly.
Standing suddenly, Jo moved around the coffee table and began to pace the carpet, arms crossed under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and pushing them up. The woman was completely and utterly nude and apparently totally unselfconscious about it as she murmured, "How it was done doesn"t really matter. I mean we can supposition on that all we want. You were probably drugged, the woman was probably controlled. You were taken home, she was killed, placed in your lap, blood splashed on you and in your mouth, and all just in time for Decker to show up and witness it. But none of that really helps. We can" t prove it now. We need to figure out why it was done."
Nicholas nodded, his eyes drifting from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to her behind as she turned to pace back again. d.a.m.n, she had a killer figure. He doubted the nanos would have much work to do body wise when he turned her. The thought drew him up short, and Nicholas swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. For the first time in fifty years, he had hopes for a future. But it was a false hope if they couldn" t work this out.
"Did you have any enemies?" Jo asked suddenly, spinning to peer at him.
Nicholas shook his head. "No, not that I know of."
She clucked at that with disgust. "You were a rogue hunter, Nicholas. You probably had loads of rogues who weren" t happy with your capturing them."
He winced, but then sighed and explained, "Most rogues don" t live to be unhappy about it.
Mostly they"re staked and baked shortly after we bring them in."
"Staked and baked?" she asked.