Page 15 of Hunting My Vampire

“Let me make myself clear,” I said in a low, and bitingly cold voice.

“Unless you tell me the truth right now, I will be informing the other board members that you lied to me, the chief executive officer on a matter of vital business pertaining to the Topaz Group. I will call for an emergency vote and you will be removed as chairperson.”

The fire in the room went out, just like that.

The air was cold and dangerous.

I stood up and assumed a position of strength.

“Tell me the truth now or suffer the consequences.”

There was a moment of tension before Marcello bowed his head and motioned for me to sit down.

“Please, calma,” he tried to assure me.

“The whole business was so unfortunate. We, your father and I, had hoped you would never find out. But, alas, you have and of course, I will tell you.”

I sat down and the whole sordid story came out.

Chapter 7

Kaya

I went back to work the next day.

Roberto was delighted to see me. I thought he was going to give me a hug but he came up to me and stopped, awkwardly shifting his weight.

“Hey…” he said, rolling his hands and grinning like a madman. “I’m so glad you’re back! Some seriously banged up cars in here! I’ve been rackin’ my brains but this calls for your expertise!”

I looked at the workshop and he was right, it was filled with cars. I couldn’t remember the last time this had happened. “What brought this on?!” I asked.

“Some kind of accident in town,” said Roberto. “Bozo jumped the light, crashed into Mrs. Faber’s Ford and then two other cars got banged up too. They towed them here.”

“Has Fuzz taken a look?” The cars would need to be appraised and the seriously damaged would probably be totaled. The insurance guys would be round as well, inspecting and making their sums.

Focusing on engines and cars was right up my alley. It gave me no time to think about Jack and our conversation the other day. But as soon as there was a break in the routine or when I straightened up to take a breath, he would pop straight back into my head, as if he had never been gone.

I hadn’t heard from him at all since he’d been to my house two nights ago. No texts. No calls.

But something told me he wasn’t gone at all.

Didn’t I want him gone? It seemed not. I would never have admitted it out loud to anyone but I wanted him to find something to prove that he wasn’t lying about the whole Caribbean murder thing. Unless he couldn’t and that was why I hadn’t heard from him again.

Enough.

I forced myself to think of something else, like my visit to Pearl. I had decided to stay over at hers and since she was in her own little cabin, I could. I’d slept on the couch and we’d gone for long walks and talked a lot. She had said to me that maybe there was a reason that I was so attracted to a vampire.

“I mean, maybe your body knows something your mind is not aware of yet.”

This was all a bit over my head to be honest.

“Maybe my head is still messed up after the accident,” I said.

But Pearl shook her head. “You know, when I ran away to New York as a teenager, I did a lot of weird stuff, hung out with a wild crowd. One of them was a vampire, he went by the name of Fire, we saw a bit of each other. I was known in the club because of this dance I did? They called it the hurricane.” She laughed and I was surprised to hear this story.

“It wasn’t a particularly good dance but I sort of whirled around the pole and it was different and a little wacky, I guess. People would come to the club to see me.”

“So… wait… you were dating a vampire?” I was shocked. “You never told me this!”

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