Runaway Vampire (6 page)

“No good,” he muttered and moved back between the seats.

A glance showed her that he was now eyeing the passenger side window with interest. Even as she noted that, he settled in the passenger seat and then opened his window. The screen followed, sliding smoothly to the side.

Mary considered the hole it left and thought that he might very well fit through it. She just had no idea why he'd want to. Where did he want to go? He was safer inside than out . . . at least until his kidnappers broke in and shot them full of darts.

“How far until the gas station?” Dante asked suddenly.

Mary glanced to the GPS and frowned. “Maybe five minutes.”

Dante nodded and then turned to lean out the window and peer up.

“What are you thinking?” she asked with concern.

Dante settled back in his seat and glanced around to explain, “If they
are
feigning their lack of interest and do suddenly appear when we stop for gas, they could shoot me with their darts as soon as I opened the door,” he pointed out. “We would not have a chance.”

Mary bit her lip at his words, knowing he was probably right.

“However, they would not expect me to be on the roof of the RV,” he pointed out.

“The roof?” she squawked with amazement.

“
Si
. If I slip up on the roof now, I can watch for them while you get the gas. Then if they do suddenly appear, I can—”

“You are not getting up on the damned roof,” Mary interrupted with dismay.

“Mary,” he said solemnly. “We need to stop for gas, and for us to do so, I must get up on the roof.”

“How the hell is your being on the roof going to help us get gas?” she asked with disbelief.

He hesitated, but then sighed and explained, “If I can see them, I can take control of their minds and make them keep their distance or perhaps even capture them. But I must do so without their seeing me, else they will shoot me with one of their darts and all will be lost.” He glanced to the side mirror again and added, “It should be all right. They cannot possibly see me in
the dark from as far back as they are now, and they will not be expecting this so I should have the time I need to slip into their minds and take control before they spot me and shoot.”

Mary tore her gaze from him and back to the road ahead, her mind filled with disbelief. After a moment, she heaved a sad sigh and shook her head. Of course, she'd run over the crazy guy. Gorgeous, but completely bonkers was her diagnosis. Such a shame.

Clearing her throat, she finally spoke in soothing tones. “Dante, I think maybe you hit your head when I ran you over. Why don't we—Dante!” Mary gasped as she looked over to see his head and bare chest disappearing out of the window. The rest of his nakedness was following.

Mary reached instinctively toward him, but stopped and straightened the wheel when the RV swerved with her. Cursing, she shifted her gaze from the road, to each of the mirrors and then the rear camera view, but of course, none of them showed a view of the roof of the RV. Fortunately, none of them showed a naked-ass man rolling away from the RV after tumbling from the roof either, she thought and tossed a scowl toward the colorful afghan that was now pooled on the floor in front of the passenger seat.

“Down Bailey,” she ordered firmly when the dog jumped up onto the seat to peer curiously out the window after their absent guest. The dog jumped down at once to sit on the afghan and Mary shook her head, thinking with irritation that she really should have made him put on some damned clothes. He was ob
viously crazy and incapable of looking after himself. Why hadn't she insisted he go to the bedroom and get some of her husband's clothes and put them on, she asked herself grimly. But knew the answer was that she'd been reluctant to see anyone in her Joe's clothes. She hadn't even been ready to remove them from the RV and give them to charity, as she should have. It had been a year, and she still hadn't removed a single item of his from either their home or the RV. She'd clung on to them as if keeping them meant he wasn't really gone and that he would walk through the door one day with hugs and kisses and flowers.

Her gaze lifted to the ceiling of the RV as the sounds of movement overhead reached her ears. Dante was moving along the roof of the RV. Dear God, she had a naked-ass man on her roof! That thought kept screaming through her head as her gaze continually shot from road, to mirror, to mirror, to camera screen, but it went suddenly silent when she spotted the lights of the gas station ahead.

“D
amn,” Mary breathed, knowing there was nothing else but for her to pull into the damned station. She couldn't afford not to unless she wanted to be stuck on the side of the highway, as helpless as Jonah in—what in this case would be—a beached whale. So she
had
to stop, and with a naked-ass man on her roof.

Mary muttered under her breath and slowed the RV to turn in. She was more than relieved when she saw that there were presently no other vehicles in the station. She would only have a shocked and probably hysterical attendant to deal with then, she thought with a grimace.

“My apologies, Mary. You will have to pump the gas. I must remain up here to watch for our hunters so that I may control them if they pull in after us.”

Mary rolled her eyes as that announcement floated through her open window. Not because she had to
pump gas. She'd pumped her own gas all the way south and had intended to all the way back. What caused the eye rolling was his claim that he had to control their hunters. Really? Did he believe he could? Or that she'd believe he could? Dante was pretty but crazy and that was just sad, she decided, maneuvering the RV as close to the pumps as she could get. It seemed a terrible shame that God had made such a perfect specimen and forgotten to ensure his brain worked properly as well.

“Dear God, I have a naked-ass man on my roof,” Mary muttered the thought aloud this time as she put the RV in park and turned it off. Saying it aloud did not help. Shaking her head, she slid out of her seat and moved to the door. Bailey immediately tried to follow, but Mary gave her a firm, “Stay,” and managed to slide out without the dog escaping.

Closing the door with a firm snap, she glanced toward the gas station, expecting to see the attendant either plastered to the plate glass window, gaping like a fish out of water, or on the phone to the police. But the young man inside the building was looking down at something on the counter and didn't seem to have even noticed their arrival.

Grateful for small mercies, Mary walked hopefully to the pump, but of course it was prepay. The pumps were prepay in Canada too. You either paid at the pump with a credit or debit card, or you prepaid. At home she would have just used her credit card, but Mary never used them in the States. She'd get soaked when it came to charges and exchange by her credit card company.
Despite that, she almost used her credit card anyway this time, but in the end, headed for the building.

Mary glanced toward the highway as she walked, searching for the van. But it hadn't made an appearance. Yet. Her gaze then slid to the RV and she saw that Dante was lying on the roof at the rear end of the vehicle, his bare ass shining under the glare of the station lights like some kind of beacon. Closing her eyes, she shook her head and then turned and slid into the station to pay for the gas. It didn't take more than a moment. The attendant was busy reading an auto magazine and barely glanced up to ring up her request and take her money. He wasn't even interested enough to look out the window to see what kind of vehicle might need so much gas.

Beginning to think they might make it out of there without causing the scene she'd feared, Mary headed back out to the RV, her gaze steadfastly avoiding Dante on her roof and shifting to the passing vehicles. If anyone was taking note of a naked man lying on his belly on the roof of an RV, you couldn't tell. The cars were just cruising by, none of them with any sign that he'd even been noticed.

Marveling over that, Mary set about the business of pumping gas into her vehicle, her attention shifting between the pump and the oncoming traffic.

“There is no need to fret. I will control them if they come.”

Mary glanced up at that announcement to see Dante peering over the back of the roof at her. Nodding, she said wryly, “Good to know.”

His eyes narrowed, but Dante didn't comment and merely ducked back out of sight, presumably to continue watching for the kidnappers, so he could
control
them. She shook her head at the thought. As if anyone could control another human being with his or her thoughts.

Muttering under her breath, she glanced from the spinning numbers on the pump to the passing traffic and back. The van had dropped back in traffic, which when she thought about it was weird. It wasn't like the RV had been speeding down the highway. It simply wasn't capable of speeding. She'd been driving the speed limit, maybe even a little under it, yet the van had backed off, going under the speed limit to do so. What were they up to? she wondered with a little concern and then glanced to the pump with surprise when it clicked and stopped pumping. She'd reached the amount for which she'd prepaid, which should just about fill it up, by her guess.

Removing the handle, she set it back in the pump, then quickly screwed the gas cap back on and closed the cover.

“Go ahead and start out.”

Mary glanced up at that instruction. Dante was peering down at her again.

“I'll climb in once we're on the road again,” he said and then pulled back out of sight before she could comment. Mary glanced to the building, and then shook her head and walked around the RV to the door.

Bailey was waiting by the door when she opened it and Mary had to urge the dog back to get in. Locking
the door, she then sat in the driver's seat, started the engine and pulled away from the pumps. She eased up to the road and paused to wait for traffic to clear. It wasn't as busy as earlier in the day, but there were still a good number of cars passing . . . and then a pickup passed with a dark van behind it.

Mary narrowed her eyes on the two vehicles, but they flew past without slowing and didn't pull over farther down the highway that she could see. Once they were out of sight in the distance, she started to turn her gaze back to the oncoming traffic, only to whip her head around in surprise as Dante came swinging in through the passenger window. Her timing could not have been worse; she got an eyeful of the man's junk as his hips were framed in the opening before he dropped into the seat.

“They've driven past,” he announced. “But they went by too fast for me to take control.”

Mary simply gaped at him.

“They may be planning to ambush us further up the highway. Maybe I should drive now,” he suggested. Dante had landed sideways in the seat with his knees pointed her way and his lap fully exposed.

He shifted forward on the seat now to get up and Mary snapped, “No, you're not driving. You're going to sit there and cover up that dangler you keep waving in my face before I cut it off.”

Dante's eyebrows rose, and then he calmly leaned to the side to pull the afghan out from under Bailey who had again settled on it. He pulled it across his lap, started to spread it out as he had before, then seemed to
realize how ineffective that made it and left it in a pile over his groin.

“Seat belt,” she said more calmly now.

Dante hesitated and she suspected he was considering insisting on driving, but then he simply turned in the seat to face front and did up his seat belt.

Satisfied, Mary glanced out to see that there was an opening in traffic, and hit the gas harder than she should have, sending the RV careening out onto the highway at a speedy 10 mph. Apparently the opening wasn't as big as she'd thought, that or the approaching car was far exceeding the speed limit. Whatever the case, the driver laid on the horn in protest.

Mary sighed to herself and ignored it to concentrate on driving. That was difficult to do with Dante seated beside her. Honestly, she'd never seen a man so comfortable being naked. She'd always considered her husband a confident man, but even Joe hadn't wandered around and swung through windows with his Johnson out. Hell, he wouldn't have stepped out the door of the RV naked, let alone climb around on the roof like some hairless monkey . . . a very buff and handsome hairless monkey.

“You should let me drive,” Dante said quietly. “They may be planning to ambush us further up the highway.”

Mary opened her mouth, closed it, and then sighed to herself as she looked at her sandwich. She really should have let him drive, then she could be eating her sandwich, which really looked delicious. Fortunately they'd nearly reached her planned destination, and she did intend to stop. The question was, what she was going
to do about Dante once she did? Mary didn't have an easy answer to that. The man thought he could control people. It might be a result of his head injury, but she wasn't sure head injuries could lead to delusions. She'd have to research that once they'd stopped, she decided. In the meantime, she needed to see how deep his delusions ran.

“Dante, if you can control your kidnappers, how did they kidnap you?” she asked in a conversational tone.

He hesitated beside her and she suspected he wanted to continue to pester her about driving, but then he sighed and said, “We were taken by surprise. They must have been waiting. The first we knew of their presence was when the darts hit us.”

“Right,” she murmured, staring at the red rear lights of the cars ahead on the road. After a moment, she pointed out, “But when you woke up in the cage, you couldn't have been taken by surprise. Why didn't you just wait for them to enter the room and take control of them then?”

She felt him look her way, but kept her gaze on the road and after a moment he patiently explained, “There was a square panel in the metal door to the room at about eye level. We feared they might open it and shoot us without our getting a look at them and being able to control them.”

“I see,” she murmured. Mary considered that briefly, than commented, “So you have to see them to control them.”

“Of course,” he said as if that should be obvious.

Mary didn't comment, but her thoughts were now
spinning through her head as quickly as the numbers had spun on the gas pump. Dante had seemed so sane at first. Well, mostly, she thought with a frown as it occurred to her that perhaps the whole “I'm being chased by kidnappers” maybe sounded a little farfetched now, but it had seemed plausible at the time. The man had been running around naked, for heaven's sake. And that black van had seemed to be following them. Now though, she was beginning to wonder if anything he'd told her had been true. Had he really been kidnapped?

And what about that claim that he and his brother had volunteered to help an FBI task force? Mary had never heard of that before. Surely the agency wouldn't send civilians into such a dangerous situation?

The truth was, now that he was claiming to be able to control people, everything he'd told her was suspect. It could all be a lie, or some sort of delusion his mind had created. He could be an escapee from a mental ward or something. That was certainly more plausible than his being an escaped kidnap victim, volunteer for the FBI, and able to control people with his mind.

Biting her lip, she glanced to the GPS and was relieved to see that they were approaching the turn for the campground. There she could stop dividing her attention between driving and what to do about Dante. She'd also have help in dealing with him. She and Joe had used this campground every year since they'd started driving south for the winter, stopping on their way down and on the return journey. She knew the owners, Dave and Carol Bigelow, very well. They were originally from Winnipeg and had been friends to her
and Joe since long before the couple had retired, bought the campground, and moved here to Texas. Carol and Dave would help her if she needed it. Although, Mary wasn't that concerned that Dante might be dangerous. He might be a little deluded maybe, but she didn't think he was dangerous.

“Mary,” Dante said tentatively. “You seem a little agitated, and I hate to keep harping on this, but we need to be prepared in case they are planning to ambush us.”

“It won't be a problem,” she assured him.

“But—What are you doing?” he asked with surprise when she slowed.

“I'm turning, Dante,” she answered patiently.

“Why?”

“Because we're stopping for the night. I booked a spot at a campground just up this road.”

“But Lucian said to keep them chasing us,” he protested.

“Look in the rear camera view, Dante. Do you see anyone following us?” She shook her head. “That ship has sailed, and I'm tired. We're stopping. At least I am. You, of course, are free to get out any time.” Turning to glance at him, she added, “Now, please go into the bedroom and find some clothes to wear. The last thing I want is for my friends to see me pull in with a naked giant in the passenger seat. I'm going to have enough trouble explaining you as it is.”

Dante considered her solemnly for a moment, and then stood up, gathering the afghan in a ball in front of his groin. Before moving away he asked politely, “May I use your phone again?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, and he picked it up out of the holder and moved toward the back of the RV.

The moment she heard the door to the bedroom area slide closed, Mary felt herself relax. It was only then she realized how tense he made her. And it wasn't just his nudity that caused that tension, although that hadn't helped. She really should have sent him to put on clothes much sooner than this, she acknowledged and wondered what he would put on. Joe's jeans and dress pants probably wouldn't fit him. They'd probably be too big in the waist, although she supposed a belt would handle that issue. But there were joggers too. As for shirts, again Joe's dress shirts probably wouldn't fit, this time being too small, but there were T-shirts that might be a bit tight but should do.

Spotting the sign for Dave and Carol's campground, Mary pushed thoughts of Dante's fashion choices aside and concentrated on slowing for the turn. She pulled into the driveway, passing the stone columns with the sign overhead and stopped beside the office, then threw the RV into park and was about to shut her down, when a shout drew her attention out the window to see Carol rushing to the RV, waving.