He checked the ropes at his wrists, flexing imperceptibly, testing their strength.
He definitely wasn"t under arrest. Things might be different in Louisiana, but so far it wasn"t legal for the cops to crack your skull and tether you to a chair at a remote location.
He straightened, opening his eyes.
Canady was in a chair, facing him. A very attractive woman with brilliant eyes and dark auburn hair was standing by his side, her hand resting on his shoulder. Canady was wearing a tailored shirt and light jacket; the woman looked as if she had just returned from the gym.
He stared at Canady for a moment, then looked around.
Attic. They were in an attic. A big attic-they were in a big house. He recognized the architecture; his own home had been built in a similar style. They were out on plantation row somewhere, he decided, and this house was at least two-hundred years old.
He arched a brow slowly at Canady and the woman. "I take it I"m not exactly under arrest," he said.
"Not officially. Not yet."
He waited, doing his best to hide his movements as he worked at the rope binding his wrists. Of course, Canady had a gun.
Canady, he was certain, just about always carried a gun. Glock? Smith and Wesson? Whatever the cop was packing, his jacket covered it.
Mark, however, was certain that the gun was there.
"Your home?" he inquired.
Canady nodded. He didn"t look particularly angry. He was more wary. And speculative.
"h.e.l.lo," the woman said. "I"m Maggie."
"Maggie...Canady."
"Yes."
"I"d thank you for having me in, but..."
"What are you up to here in town," Canady asked.
Mark lowered his head for a moment, stunned to find a half-smile on his lips. He felt almost as if he had walked into an old Western, and the sheriff was about to tell him to be on his horse, skedaddling, by sunset."I went to see you, if you recall," Mark said.
"To tell me there are vampires in New Orleans," Canady replied.
"I know who your murderer is. Trust me, if he"s not doing the killing himself, he"s responsible for it," Mark told him.
His hands were almost free.
"This man, Stephan," Canady said.
"Yes," Mark agreed.
"So you"re saying there are real vampires in New Orleans," Canady said.
"Sean," Maggie murmured.
"Maggie, let him spell it out."
Mark shook his head and stared at the two of them. He let out a sigh. "Yes, I"m saying there are real vampires in New Orleans.
There"s real danger out there. And I"m not it."
Mark frowned. Maggie Canady was staring at him as if she believed every word he was saying, even if her husband remained skeptical.
"You"ve got to let me go," Mark said. "I went to you to warn you."
"Where were you last night?" Canady asked skeptically.
Mark let out a sigh. "Battling a vampire." He decided to lay all his cards on the table. "Stephan is here. He"s after Lauren Crow.
I"m not sure if it"s because he wants to torment me, or if he has some deep-seated psychological need to find Katie again."
"Katie?" Canady repeated.
"She was a woman he and I once knew," Mark said quietly. "I didn"t know anything about vampires then. I would have laughed at the very suggestion-until I went to Kiev with Katie. I met her here in New Orleans, but she was from Kiev, and she wanted to be married in one of the castles there. She had known Stephan...before. I believe he followed her here, and then back to Kiev.
He tried to lure her away from me, but she came back."
"Where is this Katie now?" Sean asked.
"Dead."
Maggie and her husband exchanged looks.
"I"ve been trailing Stephan since I got here, but I know he"s been close ever since. I ran into Lauren Crow in a bar. I thought I"d seen a ghost, she"s so much like Katie," he told them.
"Deanna"s the one who was attacked," Canady said.
Mark frowned, and a new sense of urgency raced through his veins. He was free of the ropes, but he didn"t want to fight if he didn"t have to.
"I"m telling you..." He hesitated, taking in a deep breath, then letting it go. "Vampires exist, and Stephan is one of the most evil of them. Not only that, I believe he has a small army with him. I"ve tangled with a few of them. If you don"t listen to me, if you don"t help me, we"re in for a serious slaughter."
"Let him go, Sean," Maggie said softly.
"You believe me?" he asked.
"Of course we believe you. Don"t we, Sean?"
He stared at the woman. It was a miracle.
"You...you"re willing to believe in vampires?"
She tossed back a length of deep auburn hair. "Of course I believe in them. I once was one. And we have several friends who are vampires right now. There are ways to survive with killing and turning innocents...." She sighed. "Sean has convinced your friends to move to Montresse House, by the way. It"s owned by a vampire named Jessica, but she and some of the others have gone overseas to deal with a situation in Africa. Sean, please let him go." She gently touched her husband"s arm. "We know he"s telling the truth."
Lauren felt sorry and a little bit guilty checking out of their bed and breakfast, and she didn"t say that they were moving on; she let their hostess think they had simply decided to go home early.
And it was time to go home. Past time. But they couldn"t leave until Deanna could travel.
Packing up their things to move was a pain-both Deanna and Heidi were the type to throw everything everywhere. She actually tried to work on being annoyed; it kept her mind off the strange events happening around her.
When she had everything together, she lugged it all out to the curb and called for a taxi.
The driver, who mostly spoke an unidentifiable foreign language, was definitely not happy that he had to pack his car with so much stuff just so one person could travel a few blocks.
She impatiently promised him a big tip.
The address on the card she had been given went with a house on Bourbon Street, one she had never seen before. There was a lawn, along with a pool in back; there were trees, flowers and a winding path. The gate was wrought iron.
The house itself stood back from the street and resembled a Southern plantation with its handsome porch.
The taxi driver deposited Lauren and her bags on the sidewalk.
When she tried to explain that she needed help getting to the door, he pretended not to understand English at all, just took his money and drove off.
But no sooner had he disappeared than she saw the front door to the house open. A slim woman of about five-foot-three appeared on the porch and hurried down the walkway.
She was followed by a cop. Lauren had seen him before; he was the officer who had been with Lieutenant Canady in the alleyway behind the bar.
He in turn was followed by Big Jim the sax player.
"Hey!" the woman called cheerfully. "I"m Stacey Lacroix. Lauren, right? Sean called about you. Come in. Come in. We"ll grab all this stuff." She might have been tiny, but she seemed like a small whirlwind of energy. "Oh, and this is Bobby Munro," she said, introducing the cop.
"We"ve kind of met," Bobby said with a lopsided smile.
"In the alley," Lauren said. "h.e.l.lo, again. I"m Lauren Crow."
"And this is Big Jim Dixon, best jazz sax player in all fifty states," Stacey interjected.
"That"s an exaggeration," Jim Dixon said, taking her hand. "And we"ve kind of met, too."
"At the bar," she said. "And I think I saw you playing in a funeral procession the other day," she said.
"That was me," he agreed, and easily lifted one of the heaviest bags.
Despite the welcoming tone in Stacey"s voice and the ease of her introductions, she looked around uneasily as she grabbed the canvas tote bag that was Deanna"s carry-on.
So much for it being difficult getting everything up to the house; with the four of them, it would only take one trip.
But before heading up the walk, Lauren found herself pausing, looking around as Stacey had done.
The sky seemed to have taken on an ashen color, and clouds suddenly billowed darkly and menacingly overhead.
Birds suddenly took flight over the house.
"Let"s go in," Stacey urged.
Lauren sensed a sudden urgency in the air, though it was unspoken. Big Jim was already halfway to the house. She followed quickly.
The place was wonderful. She fell in love with it the minute she stepped inside. She thought that it must be very old, which wasn"t unusual for the area, but it had been meticulously maintained and restored. The bannister was polished and gleaming. Woven rugs lay over the hardwood floors. A grandfather clock chimed as they entered, and a crystal chandelier cast a warm glow over the entry.
"My desk is back there in the hall," Stacey explained. "I"ll have you sign in after you"ve seen your rooms. The owner is out of the country right now, but I think you"ll be happy with your accommodations. We hadn"t actually planned to have guests right now, but when Sean called...well, I could hardly say no. At least you"ll have lots of room."
Bobby Munro and Big Jim were already heading up the elegant stairway. Stacey locked the front door and followed. Lauren trailed behind her.
The stairs led to a long hallway that stretched in either direction. "Guest rooms to your left," Stacey advised, looking back.
"There"s a balcony that extends across the back, with a wonderful view of the pool. There"s only one rule here. You don"t ask anyone in, anyone at all-ever-unless you check with me first. It"s Jessica"s rule-she"s the owner-and we all abide by it."
Stacey was looking back at her with a smile, but there was something strange about the way she spoke. As if it the rule, if broken, could cause dire consequences. Like a carriage turning back into a pumpkin. Or worse.
"It"s a beautiful house," she said politely.
"Yes, it is, isn"t it?"
Big Jim and Bobby were just emerging from one of the guest rooms. "Don"t know where you want what, exactly," Big Jim said.
"We just put it all in the one room." "I understand that there are three of you," Stacey said, "but one friend is in the hospital and the other-Heidi, is it?-will also need a place tonight. Anyway, this is you, Heidi is right there, and if and when you need a room for your other friend, she"ll be right across the hall."
"I"m not sure we need quite so much room," Lauren murmured. The door to the bedroom she"d been a.s.signed was still open, and the room was huge. There was a ma.s.sive bed, a desk, French doors that led to the balcony, a wardrobe twice her size, and lots of s.p.a.ce in between.
Stacey shrugged. "It"s a big house. We make use of it when we can."
"Downstairs," Bobby offered, "you"ll find the kitchen toward the back." He smiled, watching her closely. "I"m here most of the time when I"m not working." He took Stacey"s hand. "We"re engaged."
"Congratulations," Lauren said.
"I live in the caretaker"s cottage out back. I don"t really take care of anything, though, I just live there," Big Jim said.
"And Bobby is a cop, you know," Stacey said.
"Yes, I do."
Were the cops here sane? Lauren wondered.
The ones she had met so far had all seemed to study her as if she weren"t quite right in the head. Then again, at least, they took her reasonably seriously, seriously enough to station an officer outside Deanna"s door at the hospital.
"I really think you"ll love the room," Stacey said, gesturing for Lauren to step inside. Her pride in the house was evident.
Lauren did love it. It was exquisite, from the polished wood of the nineteenth-century dresser and bed posts, to the cherrywood desk and antique floral pattern on the bedspread. She hesitated, wondering if, no matter how highly Lieutenant Canady thought of the safety of the place, she could afford it. But before she could mention her reserves, Stacey mentioned a price per room per night that was absurdly low.
"How on earth can you afford to do business that way?" Lauren couldn"t help asking.