Topaz saved the message. "I"m glad they"re okay. And especially glad they lost whoever was following them. That was creepy."
"Anything having to do with the CIA is likely to be creepy," he said with a smile. "At least, it seems that way to me."
Jack nodded at the phone. "Why don"t you call this Rebecca person now?"
She nodded and placed the call.
Rebecca Murphy agreed to see them that evening and gave them directions to her home, a small brick structure in an upscale suburb of Beverly Hills. It was a half-hour drive, and a surprisingly pleasant one. The Porsche was fabulous, and Jack drove it the same way he did everything else. Perfectly.
Rebecca answered her door wearing a kaftan with huge pink flowers all over it, a pair of fur-trimmed high-heeled slippers, and diamonds dripping from her wrist, throat and earlobes. Her snowy hair was cut close to her head on the sides and in the back, while the top was longer, giving her the look of some exotic bird. Topaz suspected she weighed in at about ninety pounds, if that.
The kaftan was too big, so she thought maybe the weight loss was recent. The woman had an aura of physical frailty, perhaps even illness, about her, but it was nearly overpowered by the sense of mental power and emotional stability that exuded from her like perfume.
"Thank you for seeing us, Ms. Murphy. I realize it"s after hours."
The woman waved a hand, glancing at Topaz, then, her attention arrested, staring at her.
"This is my friend Jack. I"m-"
"Tanya," the woman whispered. "My G.o.d, you"re Tanya, aren"t you?"
"I"m sorry?" "Everyone thinks you"re dead...or worse."
Topaz lifted her eyebrows. "What"s worse than dead?"
"Oh, child, there are plenty of things." Rebecca took Topaz by the arm, leading her into her house, a one-story brick ranch with brown shutters and trim to offset its stark look. "I can"t believe you"re here. After all this time."
"I"m sorry, Ms. Murphy, but-"
"Rebecca. And don"t even try to tell me you"re not her. I"d recognize you anywhere. You look exactly as you did before you vanished, ten years ago. G.o.d, you look so much like your mother." She shook her head as if to snap herself out of her reverie, and led them through her small, neat home, all the way to the rear. Topaz glimpsed a huge brown overstuffed sofa and chair, thick green carpeting, an aquarium and a ton of plants, and then they were being hustled through sliding gla.s.s doors onto a redwood deck in the back.
"Sit. Can I get you a cold drink? A snack?"
"No, thank you, we"re fine," Topaz told her.
At Topaz"s "we," Rebecca looked at Jack as if she had forgotten he was even there. Then she shook her head again. "I"m sorry, young man. I"ve already forgotten your name."
"Jack," he said, not adding a last name. She narrowed her eyes a little, but didn"t ask. And then Jack pulled out a chair for her, and she forgot her suspicions as she smiled and took it, apparently pleased by the show of good manners.
He could charm the spots off a leopard, Topaz thought. Especially if the leopard was female.
"It"s good to see you, Tanya. I kept tabs on you as much as I could until you disappeared-hard to believe it was ten years ago.
No one knew what happened to you, but most of the speculation was that you died."
Topaz licked her lips. Admitting who she was had not been a part of her plan. But clearly this woman wasn"t going to be talked out of believing it now.
Rebecca studied her, then tilted her head to one side. "You want to keep it that way, don"t you?"
Topaz met her eyes. "For reasons I can"t go into, yes. I would prefer to stay dead as far as the rest of the world is concerned."
"Well, I still have my law license. Give me a dollar."
"Excuse me?"
"Give me a dollar."
Frowning, Topaz set her tiny Coach handbag onto the gla.s.s-topped patio table and fished out a dollar bill. She handed it to the older woman.
"There," Rebecca said, folding it, and tucking it down the front of the kaftan. "You"ve just retained me. Anything we discuss now is privileged and completely confidential."
Smiling, Topaz said, "I get it now."
"So tell me why it is you"ve come to see me."
"You can probably guess," Topaz said. "I want to know who killed my mother." The other woman sat back, blinking in stunned surprise. Then, her jaw firming, she nodded. "Well, I suppose that makes sense."
She sat in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, and studied Topaz. "Why now? Why after all these years?"
Topaz lowered her head, darting a glance Jack"s way as she did. He was sitting in silence, just observing, listening. Probably looking for any weakness he could use later to con her, she thought with a rush of anger.
"I just need to know, that"s all. I"ve never...I"ve never understood who she was, or how she felt about me. I want to know everything about her. But especially who took her life."
The older woman nodded slowly, her gaze turning inward. "Your mother was the most beautiful woman I have ever known," she said softly. "She wasn"t a great actress. But she had this energy, this spirit, that just emanated from her and drew people to her.
Everyone who met her fell in love with her. Everyone."
"Well, maybe not quite everyone," Topaz said softly. "Someone killed her, after all."
Rebecca didn"t let the comment sidetrack her. "She was a free spirit. Couldn"t be tied to one man. She fell in love at the drop of a hat. I think it was the excitement of new love that thrilled her most. Once it got old-well, men pretty much fell into a predictable pattern with Mirabella. Once they had her, they wanted to own her. I mean, you couldn"t blame them. Anyone could see how attractive she was, how many men wanted her. So whichever one she was with tended to feel threatened by that, and inevitably, he"d start trying to control her, manage her, you know? She couldn"t tolerate that."
Topaz nodded. "Having a baby must have been the last thing she wanted. I mean, nothing is more controlling than-"
"Having a baby was the best thing that ever happened to her."
Topaz looked up slowly, trying hard to read the other woman"s face, and then her thoughts, in search of a lie.
"She finally had someone in her life who loved her, without giving two hoots what she looked like or how well her career was going."
"Or how much money she had," Topaz murmured.
"She adored you, Tanya. She so wanted to make everything perfect for you. And she tried, she did. But her life was snuffed out before she had the chance." Rebecca dabbed at her eyes. "I really loved Mirabella, you know. She was my friend."
Topaz believed the woman. There was nothing in her mind to contradict what she was saying aloud. But there was something.
"Do you know who killed her?"
"No."
"But...?" Topaz prompted, fully aware that there was something else, something Rebecca wasn"t saying.
"There...was a lot going on in your mother"s life before she died. Let me dig into my files, so I can get my facts straight. My memory isn"t what it used to be. I"ll phone you in a day or two, and we can meet again. If you"re going to be in town that long?"
"I am," Topaz said.
"Good." Rebecca nodded. "Good."
It was, Topaz sensed, the end of the conversation. She would get no more information from Rebecca tonight. She got to her feet, and Jack rose with her. "Thank you," she said simply.
"It was a pleasure meeting you," Jack added. He reached out to take Topaz"s arm, then stopped himself, she noted, just before making contact. He really was trying to live up to his end of their bargain. It was slightly amazing to her. He was actually trying to keep his word.
They walked around the house, through the backyard and out to the front, where Jack had parked the Porsche. Topaz didn"t say a thing until they got in. And then she said disbelievingly, "I can"t believe she knew who I was just by looking at me."
He started the engine but didn"t put the car in gear. Instead, he turned in his seat to look at her. "Well, her eyesight clearly hasn"t gone the way of her memory."
"But I don"t look anything like Mirabella."
He laughed. Just a soft sound, very short and more surprised than amused.
"What?"
"You look a lot like her, Topaz. You have the same bone structure, the same high cheekbones and delicate, angular jaw. The same little nose, the same full, s.e.xy lips. Same milk-chocolate-brown eyes and thick lashes. Her skin tone was a little darker, her hair, too, but beyond that..."
"That"s ridiculous. My mother was called the most beautiful woman alive."
"Yeah," Jack said with a firm nod, then put the car into gear and began to drive. "Exactly."
She shot him a look, but his face was unreadable. He focused on the road, not looking at her, intent on his driving, as if it were some challenging task that took every bit of his concentration.
"What are you trying to pull, Jack?" she asked softly.
He frowned, sending her a quick glance. "What do you mean?"
"Do you think flattering me is going to get you back into my good graces? Or my wallet?"
"I"d settle for back into your bed, but-"
"You never said s.h.i.t like that when we were dating."
He shrugged. "I didn"t want you to get a swollen head. And maybe I was thinking like those men of your mother"s. If you knew how beautiful you were, why wouldn"t you go out and find someone a h.e.l.l of a lot better than me? I sure didn"t want to encourage that."
"No. At least not until you got what you were after."
He sighed, his head falling forward briefly. If she hadn"t known better, she might have thought she"d hurt him, just a little.
But that was impossible, of course.
You couldn"t hurt someone unless they cared, and she knew all too well that Jack didn"t. He never had.
That thought hurt a little too much, so she distracted herself by picking up her phone, glancing at the time and dialing Reaper"s cell.
He picked up on the first ring. "Topaz?"
"Yeah, it"s me," she said. "How is it going? Are you still in Virginia Beach?"
"No, we"re already moving on. Still heading north. I"ll let you know where we decide to hole up next when we get there. How are things with you?" "Fine. Everything"s fine. The others?"
"Roxy and Ilyana are at Roxy"s place."
"Really? Interesting. You think Ilyana will open up to her at all?"
"If anyone can get her talking, it"ll be Roxy."
"She has secrets, that one," Topaz said. "How about Seth and Vixen?"
"They haven"t checked in yet," Reaper told her. "Have you, um...Have you heard from Jack?"
She hesitated and glanced Jack"s way. She got the immediate impression that he was listening closely to her conversation. He wouldn"t have any trouble hearing Reaper"s end, given all vampires" heightened senses. "Actually, he"s here with me."
"Tell him I said hi," Jack said.
She didn"t. Reaper could hear the greeting for himself. He sighed, and said, "Be careful, Topaz."
"Believe me, I am."
4.
"Oh, h.e.l.l."
Jack rejoined Topaz at the checkout counter of the 7-Eleven, having ditched her just long enough to place a call of his own. She was handing the cashier a wad of bills to pay for her shampoo, conditioner and the dozen other beauty supplies she"d insisted she couldn"t get along without for one more night, things she hadn"t packed because it was "so much easier to just buy them here."
At Jack"s muttered curse, Topaz shot him a quick look over her shoulder. "Anything wrong?" she asked.
He didn"t speak out loud, because he didn"t think the checker had made the connection just yet and he certainly didn"t want to encourage her to. Take a look at the tabloid in the rack-upper left slot, he told Topaz mentally.
Frowning, she glanced at the rack of magazines and newspapers standing beside the cashier. Jack had no doubt that the banner headline and side-by-side photos of Topaz, back in her mortal days, and her mother, caught her eye just as quickly as they had caught his. When her eyes widened, he knew for sure.
DAUGHTER OF LEGENDARY ACTRESS RETURNS FROM THE GRAVE TO AVENGE HER MOTHER"S MURDER.
She blinked in shock and quickly grabbed the issue, folded it over the sensationalistic front-page headline and dropped it onto the counter. "This, too," she said. He thought her voice seemed to quiver. Not so much that a mortal would detect it. Maybe not even another vampire. But he was more attuned to her than most-than anyone alive, he imagined. And that realization bore some further thought, but not right then.