Sunset Rising (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 5) (28 page)

“
Mm. You do realize this
is a very important meeting?” she asked.

“
Yes, I do,” I said. “But
this is important, too.”

Her eyebrows arched as Marla quietly closed
her office door.

I stared into Kat’s penetrating gaze. “The
man you’re meeting with, I’ve heard his voice before.”

“
That’s not likely,” she
said. “He wasn’t even at the Slovene conference. In fact, his
faction was sitting on the fence to see what happened
afterward.”

“
Fine,” I said. “Maybe
I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard his voice.”

“
Caleb, I know that you
want to feel useful—”

“
Fine,” I said, throwing
my hands up. “Ignore me then. Just forget I said anything at all.
Go back to your meeting.”

She paused, completely still and saying
nothing.

“
Where and when?” she
asked.

Well, at least she was taking me
seriously.

“
On the phone with
Chance,” I said. “It was when I called her a few weeks
ago.”

She stared at me. “Chance? Why was she
talking to him?”

“
No, it wasn’t Chance,” I
said. “The guy was talking in the background to her
father.”

“
In the background?” she
asked. “Was it over a cellular phone call?”

“
Yes, in the
background.”

“
Caleb, do you realize how
easily a person’s voice can sound distorted via digital
communications? And more so during a bad cell phone
connection.”

“
Yeah, sure,” I said.
“You’re probably right, and I misheard everything. Never
mind.”

She growled at me.

“
Hey,” I said. “Don’t be
all growly at me just because I wanted to help out.”

I looked up at Marla, who was holding her
hand over her mouth, trying to contain a smirk.

“
Caleb—”

“
Look, I heard the guy’s
voice in the background,” I insisted. “That New York accent is
unmistakable.”

Kat appeared deep in thought.

“
Wait, where precisely was
Chance when she was talking to you?” she asked.

“
Like I said, she was on
her mobile phone,” I said.

She gave me a wan look.
“I
know
that.
Where specifically was she located at the time that she talked to
you?”

“
Oh,” I said. “At her
parents’ home.”

She gave me a long look.

“
In Philadelphia,” I
said.

She frowned.

“
Pennsylvania,” I
added.

Marla stifled a chuckle.

Kat narrowed her eyes at
me. “I
know
where
Philadelphia is.”

I folded my arms before me. “I was just
being specific like you wanted.”

She gave one of her infamous
don’t-get-me-started looks.

“
What?” I
asked.

She slowly reached out and tapped me on the
chin.

“
Remember I love him,
remember I love him,” she quietly chanted.

I swatted at her finger, but found only
empty air.

“
What did the man say in
the background?” she asked. “Think back and remember as
specifically as possible. Don’t try to manufacture any words that
you don’t actually recall him saying.”

I closed my eyes and thought back on my
conversation with Chance. Admittedly, I hadn’t been paying that
close of attention.

“
He wanted to know what he
was supposed to do about something,” I said. “And he said that it
wasn’t part of a deal they had apparently made.”

When I opened my eyes again, Kat was
watching me closely.

“
Anything else?” she
asked.

I shook my head. “Honestly, I wasn’t
listening that closely at the time, and it sort of caught me
off-guard. I mean, I was more worried about if Chance was okay or
not.”

“
Was she in trouble?” she
asked.

“
Nah, her father—I think
his name is Nick—just wanted her to get off the phone,” I
said.

Then I recalled something else.

“
Chance and I had dinner
after that,” I said. “And when I asked her about it, she said that
the guy and her dad were grilling her about her time on campus. She
thinks that it had something to do with her father stalking her or
something.”

“
Stalking her?” she asked.
“Why would he do that?”

“
I don’t know,” I replied.
“She’s told me a few times that he’s a major control
freak.”

“
More importantly, if
you’re correct, why would Chance’s father have anything to do with
a vampire?” she asked.

“
Ms. Rawlings,” Marla
quietly prompted. “Shall I interrupt Mr. Rutherford to inform him
about this?”

“
No,” she said. “But he
should hear this. I’ll return to the meeting and tell him that he
needs to check with you on something. Then Caleb can recount what
he told me.”

“
Very good,” she said,
opening her office door.

Kat gave me a reassuring look and a quick
kiss on the lips. “Whatever you may think, I don’t casually
discount what you confide to me,” she said before disappearing
amidst a flurry of air.

Moments later, I heard heavy footsteps down
the hallway and Alton appeared in the door.

“
What’s going on?” he
asked.

“
That would be for me to
explain,” I said, holding up my right forefinger.

He closed the office door behind him and
turned toward me, folding his arms before him.

“
Why do I get the
impression that I’m not going to like what you’re about to tell
me?” he asked.

“
I dunno. Recent history?”
I asked.

His steady gaze fell upon me. “Start
talking.”

* * *

Once Alton had finished speaking with me, he
returned to his meeting, but not before giving me an
assignment.

“
Marla will get you a
blank writing tablet,” he said. “I want you to write down
everything you can remember about what you overheard, as well as
everything you have ever learned about Chance’s father.”

Well, there went my day.

Midday gave way to late afternoon and, by
the time I finished writing down everything that I could recall,
what should have been a brief meeting with a guest vampire had
turned into a marathon meeting.

“
Do you think they’ll be
much longer?” I asked.

“
I’m not sure,” Marla
replied. “Perhaps you should go eat an early dinner or
something.”

It was true that I had grown somewhat hungry
over the ensuing hours.

“
I’ll be back later,” I
said. “Maybe have Kat text me when the meeting’s over?”

“
I will,” she
said.

I proceeded to Shakespeare’s, with two
vampire bodyguards in tow, for a quick bite to eat and then
returned to our hotel room to take a nap.

When I awoke, it was early evening and I
felt both refreshed and pensive.

On a whim, I grabbed my smartphone and
searched for something that had piqued my interest.

I exited the hotel room and headed
downstairs to the lobby. One of Alton’s vampires, a lady wearing
smart business attire who I remembered seeing around the office,
looked up from where she sat reading a magazine in a lobby
chair.

As I approached the hotel’s front exit, she
rose from her seat.

“
Mr. Taylor,” she called.
“Going out?”

“
Yeah, just headed out for
a walk,” I said.

“
Very good,” she said.
“I’ll arrange for your escort.”

Oh, yes…my escort; whomever that might
be.

I missed the days when I was pleasantly of
no interest to the world at large.

Dane and Lyra soon appeared through the
doors of the hotel’s entrance. In particular, he looked wholly
displeased while she appeared merely less than enthused.

“
I hear that somebody
needs a keeper,” Dane said.

“
Hey, guys,” I said. “I
hope that I’m not interrupting anything.”

“
Well, you are,” he said.
“Still, it’s my job.”

I just couldn’t win with these two.

“
Yeah,” I said, turning to
lead the way back outside.

I led the way, occasionally glancing at my
smartphone to make sure I was following the proper route from the
Internet mapping app. Dane and Lyra remained a couple of steps
behind me.

“
So, where are we headed?”
Dane asked.

“
I need some exercise,” I
said.

“
You know, I’m told that
the hotel has a lovely workout room, complete with treadmills,” he
said.

“
And a sauna,” Lyra
added.

Not used to her saying much of anything, I
glanced back over my shoulder at her.

“
Oh, well of course, let’s
not forget the sauna,” Dane said.

“
Shut up,” she
said.

“
Sitting about in a steamy
room with all sorts of strangers,” he said. “Who wouldn’t flock to
that?”

“
Hey, it’s no worse than
you and your hot tub tarts,” she said.

“
Now, now, hot tubs are
quite chummy,” he said. “Particularly when shared with some lovely
ladies with whom I’m trying to socialize.”

“
Or as I call them,
strangers. My brother, the cheeky monkey,” she said. “And ladies?
Slappers, the lot of them.”

“
To each his own, I say,”
he said. “You just don’t know them like I do.”

“
Happy to say I won’t,”
she said. “I prefer a different sort.”

“
Oh, real men’s men, as I
recall,” he said. “Pity that few of them have seen the proper end
of a deodorant stick.”

“
Don’t start,” she
said.

I smiled.

We walked for a few blocks before I stopped
to double-check my smartphone for further directions.

“
Listen, Caleb, I like a
walk just as much as any other bloke,” Dane said. “But do you have
any idea where you’re going?”

“
Yes,” I replied. “And
we’re almost there.”

Minutes later, we stood before the
rustic-looking property of Saint James the Less Church.

“
What? You’ve brought me
to a bloody parish church?!” Dane demanded. “Look, mate, you’re
daft if you think I’m going in there.”

“
Not that you’ve seen the
insides of one to know what you’re missing,” Lyra
murmured.

“
Spare me, Mother
Theresa,” he said.

He gave her a long look before returning his
attention to me.

“
Burst into flames when
you pass beyond the doors?” I asked.

“
Oh, sod off,” he said.
“Look, I just don’t fancy hanging about with that pious lot. Bunch
of worthless old duffers for the most part.”

“
What are duffers?” I
asked, noting Lyra’s sardonic expression. “Listen, I shouldn’t be
very long.”

“
Funny, I didn’t take you
for the worshipping sort,” he said.

“
I just heard about it and
wanted to check it out,” I said.

“
Do you want one of us to
go inside with you?” Lyra asked.

I looked at her and noticed a tentative look
of sincerity.

“
No,” I said. “But thank
you.”

Her expression turned bored again. “Have a
nice chin wag then,” she said. “We’ll wait out here for you.”

I walked through the main gates and up to
the historic-looking church doors.

Inside, I felt as if I was
walking into a bastion of antiquity, peppered here and there with
modern accents. A bingo signup sheet sat atop an old oak table
while a locked wooden box beside it stated
Food Drive Donations
.

Above that, a message
board hung against a section of the church’s original brick wall. A
prominent message cautioned
Please Silence
All Mobile Devices
.

The interior was lit in subdued fashion, but
it felt welcoming, if not a bit dated.

I proceeded into the main sanctuary and
immediately noted the beautiful stained glass that was inlaid along
the brick walls of the sanctuary. Rows of worn wooden pews
proceeded along a central aisle leading to the raised front
dais.

“
I’ll be with you in a
moment,” said a nearby clergyman who was kneeling down to minister
to an older lady sitting in one of the pews.

“
Oh, no need,” I
said.

He gave me a peculiar look and returned to
the lady before him.

I stared again at the interior of stone and
brick buttresses. I wondered what history the old church had seen
over the decades. For the most part, it seemed eternal, as if
untouched by modern times.

That is, until I laid eyes upon the
projection screen hanging at the front of the chapel, just above
the pulpit.

My gaze returned to the line of nearly
medieval-looking stained glass images.

I wondered if Alton frequented the old
church. Somehow, much as Dane had noted about me, I didn’t envision
Alton as the worshipping type, though we had never discussed
religion at length.

A few minutes later, I was preparing to walk
out when the clergyman, a fellow who was a few years my senior,
approached me with a welcoming expression. The old woman to whom he
had been ministering walked up the central aisle toward the front
entrance area.