Page 25 of Just Dare Me
“‘Not the same.’ Sorry, those are his words, not mine.” Nora listens intently, and then she gets a delighted smile. “Oh, yeah, I totally hear that now. She’s absolutely right.”
“Right about what?”
“Oh, he’s just saying how when you first heard Oliver Harrington’s voice, you thought it reminded you of Matt’s. I agree, they do sound alike.”
Charlotte rips her arm away and jerks her sleeve down over her hand. “I’m sorry, I know I told you to do it, but please don’t touch me again.” She turns away from us, but not before I spy two tears streak down her cheeks below the sunglasses.
Nora looks crushed. I grab her hand and in my mind I say,It’s not you, Nora.Charlotte’s pissed because it’s getting harder and harder for her to stay in denial about Matt.She needs to let him go.He’s practically begging for it.
I’m watching her decipher my thoughts when Hillerman suddenly announces, “It must be eight o’clock.”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because we’re surrounded.”
I turn around in my chair. Tall, dark figures in hoodies stand in a semicircle around us. One of them steps forward and commands with a calm voice, “All eyes on me, please. Keep them on me until I say otherwise.”
Muppet lets out a single, sharp bark. “What an amazing guard dog,” I mutter. He barks again.
“Will you silence him, or shall I?” the vampire asks.
“Muppet, shut it!” He lowers his head to the ground with a pathetic whine.
“Thank you,” the vampire says. “Now, who has the keys to the truck?”
“It’s mine,” Hillerman answers.
“If you please, use the key fob to unlock the doors.”
“Why? What is this?”
“Eyes on me, please. Unlock the doors.”
I hear the rustle of keys in her pocket, and then the chirp of the truck’s horn.
“Thank you.”
There is a short silence, and then I hear the truck’s passenger door open, then close.
“Who the hell’s getting in my truck?”
The vampire bows his head. “Her Lady Dominique, monarch of the night, Windsor’s Queen of the Damned, will now see you. Miss Davies?”
“That’s me.”
“You, and you alone, will enter on the driver side, behind the wheel. The rest of you may resume as you were.”
“Hold up. Why just me? I thought she wanted to meet with my people?”
“One at a time,” he says. “You go first.”
I shoot looks at Nora and Charlotte, who seem like they don’t like this any more than I do. Charlotte stands up. “She’s not going anywhere without us. Tell your little queen to get her ass out of my truck, and we can do this thing all together, or not at all.”
“‘Not at all’ was my suggestion from the beginning,” he says. “If I were master, we would not be here, and you all would be dead, along with your East Side horde and the Cleveland clan. But my queen is in possession of inside information to which I am not privy. Information which, for reasons known only to Her Darkness, requires this little meeting in your dirty little city.”
“Y’all want a hot dog or something?” Russo asks. The hooded faces only stare blankly at him.
I pull myself to my feet. “Okay, I guess I’ve been summoned to Her Royal Highness.”
