Haunted

Another loud sigh. This one of impatience and fury. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you are safe. I’m sorry about your friend, Max. I hope he recovers and I hope things work out for you.”

“Work out? You hope what works out?”

“You and Max. That was an interesting human-interest element of the story. Two former lovers reunite to battle against the forces of evil. Nice touch.”

Now it’s my turn to breathe fire into the phone. “There is no Max and I. Goddamn it, I don’t know where the papers got this shit. But that’s what it is. Shit.”

“Yeah. Well, whatever. Nice knowing you, A

“Stephen, you are not giving me a chance to explain—”

But he’s gone. The click of his disco

I’m left staring at the phone, emotions ru

Relief.

CHAPTER 61

RELIEF?

Stephen broke up with me. I didn’t have to break up with him. I didn’t have to come up with the thousand reasons I couldn’t make the move with him to Washington.

I don’t have to feel guilt. I don’t have to feel remorse.

When I realize what I am feeling, that I’m off the hook, another emotion wells up.

Alarm. Because I must be crazy. Certifiable. I just lost one of the most wonderful men I’ve ever known and all I want to do is breathe a huge sigh of relief.

And celebrate.

I am seriously deranged. Or am I in shock?

I push myself up from the table and start back to Max’s room. On the way through the hospital lobby, I stop at the gift shop to check out the newspaper headlines. There it is on the front page of the Monitor. Two days and the battle against Pablo’s men and his subsequent arrest is still front-page news.

Along with a photo of me sitting at Max’s bedside in the hospital.

I stomp to the elevator. Fucking cell phone cameras. Anyone could have taken that picture of me with Max and I’d never have known it. I didn’t know it. It could have been someone on the staff, one of Max’s DEA buddies, a reporter.

Anyone.

No wonder Stephen was so pissed. The expression on my face, the way I’m bending toward Max. It would be easy to misinterpret concern for something else.

And yet . . . Why am I getting angry?

I’m halfway down the hall when my phone rings. I’d forgotten to turn it back off. I duck into a waiting room and check the caller ID. It’s David with a text message.

It’s simple. Sorry to hear about Max. Take as much time as you need. Call if you need anything.

Good old David. At least he’s one man I don’t have to worry about disappointing.

We’re way past disappointment.

IT’S BEEN THREE MORE DAYS AND MAX STILL HAS NOT regained consciousness. I’m going crazy from the anxiety, the boredom, the hopelessness.

My own wounds have healed, the bullets working their way to the surface of my skin as I expected and pushing their way out. It hurt like hell when they erupted like pieces of shrapnel. I have them in a little glass jar. Macabre, but I figure Max will get a kick out of seeing them when he recovers.

Once he gets over being pissed because my wounds healed so much easier than his.

If his wounds heal . . .

An a

But at what cost? If I could be sure he would not condemn me for turning him into a creature he once ran away from, I would do it.

When I try to ask him, to whisper the question in his ear, I get no response.

I have never turned another human. I realize I am not ready to take the responsibility without his consent. I am too much of a coward.

And so I sit and watch and hope I’ve made the right decision.

On the sixth day, Max’s doctor tells me to go home. That Max’s condition is not likely to change soon—if at all. The damage to his internal organs is severe. The loss of blood, the trauma, has led to pneumonia. The fact that he is unconscious is really a blessing. At such time as they deem it safe to move him, he will be transported to a hospital in San Diego. I can check in every day by telephone and if his condition does change, they will notify me.

I hate to leave. I don’t want Max to wake up and be alone. His DEA buddies assure me that someone will visit every day. The same agent who embarrassed himself by telling me how crazy in love Max had been with me promises to keep in close touch with the hospital and with me.

I’m bone weary and homesick so I agree to leave. I call my pilot from the hotel, but as luck would have it, my plane is in for its a

I pack the few things I’ve acquired since coming to McAllen, stop one last time at the hospital, board the commuter jet for the first part of the trip and settle in for the flight.

I have a window seat so I buckle in, sit back and close my eyes. The same themes that plagued me for the last five days slide into my consciousness.

Max. Stephen. Vampire.

Nothing I can do about Max now, or Stephen. Vampire is content and quiet for the time being so any control issue is moot.

Another person worms his way into my consciousness.

Two people, actually.

Daniel Frey and his son.

I realize I want to see them. I realize I need to see them.

And I’m suddenly flooded with warmth.

CHAPTER 62

WHEN I UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR TO MY COTTAGE, I find I have to push at it to get inside. Something’s jamming it. At first, vampire instincts kick in and I think, shit, someone broke in. I drop my carry-on and brace myself to face an intruder.

But I detect no strange smells nor do I hear anything except the ticking of a clock and the chirping of my telephone alerting me that I have voice mail.

Allowing my shoulders to relax, I shove the door inward. As soon as I’m inside, I see what’s wedged against it.

My things from Stephen’s apartment. The clothes I’d left there, some toiletries, a toothbrush. All deposited neatly inside a paper bag. At some point, the bag had fallen over, which explained the jam.

There’s a note, too. From his sister, Susan.

Stephen didn’t have time to return these things before packing his apartment and leaving for Washington. I told him I’d do it. You’ll find your key under the doormat. Not very original, but then, neither are you.

Susan

Whoa. She’s really pissed at me. The only thing missing is “bitch” at the end of the last line. I suppose it never occurred to her how difficult it would have been for me to leave San Diego.

Then again, Stephen is her brother. She may have seen those pictures of me with Max at the hospital, too. She was here to experience Stephen’s hurt and anger and sense of betrayal firsthand.

It doesn’t matter that there was no betrayal.

No intentional betrayal anyway.

I crumple the note and toss it into a wastebasket on my way upstairs, drop the bag and carry-on on the floor in my bedroom and throw myself across the bed. My bed.

Feels good.

SUDDENLY, MAX IS STANDING AT THE FOOT OF MY BED.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes. Did I fall asleep?