Page 7 of Kept 4
“Yes.”
“It’s Josephine.”
There is a moment, a long moment before he says anything, a moment where I am second guessing calling him and wishing I hadn’t, but that is all swept away with his next words.
“Josephine, bloody good to hear your voice, old girl.”
I would have laughed, but I still felt so guilty.
“Daniel I’m so sorry about Ricardo, I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner, I.” I furiously try to think up a good excuse and fail miserably. I’m not a terrific liar, I’ve had a bit of practice in restaurants, of course, pretending to be people I am not, but those were strangers. Lying to someone I considered a friend, that was different, that was not something I was comfortable with. And yet, if I don’t…
“Look,” I say quietly, “if I told you the truth about where I’ve been, well, you wouldn’t believe me. But I’m so sorry, so terribly, terribly sorry about Ricardo. It’s all my fault. You need to lose my number. I’m not safe to be around. I wish, I’m just so sorry.”
“Josephine stop,” he says, interrupting me before I can continue my stream of apologies, “you couldn’t have done anything to prevent Ricardo’s death, it was a gas leak. The authorities thoroughly investigated. Look, I am saddened by his death it is true, but if you knew him as I did, then you knew he lived life to the fullest, and he might have even found it funny, actually, to think he went out with a bang.”
“Oh, Daniel,” I can’t help but let out a rueful laugh, “I know, but..”
“But nothing, it wasn’t your fault. I just wished I knew who it was that perished with him after the police released their details. The woman was older and quite a deal shorter than you, but was never identified. I understand her bones were interred in the local cemetery in a pauper’s grave.”
I say nothing. I don’t know why James or his family had not claimed Lucy’s remains. It must be some kind of Hunter precaution. But I can’t tell Daniel this. The Hunters knew she was dead, so clearly they didn’t want anyone else to know by identifying her body. Obviously then, I can’t tell him her name. I decide to take the easy route.
“Ricardo was a very popular man with the ladies,” I say quietly, “it could have been anyone. Look, I’ve been unable to communicate with the outside world for some time. Otherwise, I would have phoned you the moment I heard about Ricardo. I only stayed a few months, and then I had to move on.”
“Spy work,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“Uh, something like that.”
“So where are you now?”
I feel my shoulders relax in relief that the conversation has steered towards a safer topic.
“I’m on a train, but I’m about to board a plane, probably in a few hours.”
“Where are you going to be? England? The continent? I’d love to meet up. I’m on a short break at the moment, let’s catch up for old time’s sake.”
I widen my eyes and wrinkle my nose, trying to think of a reason, any reason, that would make sense as to why I can’t do exactly that. I want a fresh start, and I’d like to see him, to talk to someone normal, human; but I don’t want anyone else I know getting killed. Elsbeth is still out there somewhere, and now that I am technically Nicholas’ Kept he believes she won’t touch me, something about ‘vampire lore.’ In theory, this gives him time to find her and stake her, but I’d seen the look in her eyes before she tried to kill me last time. She is ‘cray-cray’ as Margarita says, crazy as a fucking coconut. I think she will kill me if she can find me.
But that was where Nicholas said I also had an advantage.
“You fly under the radar, I’m not sure how you do it, but even my security team couldn’t find you the last time you were on the run. So, keep doing whatever it is that you did when you were hiding from me,” he had said during our last supper when I had voiced my concerns about Elsbeth, “and leave the vampire bitch to me.”
“But, Nicholas,” I’d frowned, “you still haven’t explained why she didn’t kill me. She ripped James apart, sucked me almost dry, but she didn’t kill me, why?”
“Don’t worry,” he said, meeting my eyes across the vast expanse of the dining table, “don’t worry about Elsbeth.”
“Worry? Of course, I’m fucking worried,” I slammed down my fork, “I think she’s playing with me, just like Lucy said vampires enjoy doing, she’s letting me think I’m getting away, like a cat lets a mouse think it has a chance, then she’s going to bloody eat me.”
“She’s not playing with you,” he had growled then, rising and walking to the sideboard to pour himself a whiskey, and downing it in one gulp, “she’s playing withme. But not for long.”
“Well, that makes me feel a hell of a lot better,” I snarled sarcastically. Knowing I was a pawn in some macabre game Nicholas had been playing with his psychopathic ex-lover for more than 500 years didn’t at all make me feel like I had nothing to worry about.
It had been about then that the butler had announced Margarita and Gerald’s arrival, and our conversation had switched to lighter topics.
Now though, speaking to Daniel, I’m wondering if I do have some kind of ability to evade detection, or if I was just fluky in managing to evade Nicholas for so long, or if meeting Daniel had been the most serendipitous stroke of luck in my life to date. And if that was the case, the last thing I want to do is endanger him.
“I can’t, Daniel. I’m actually going to Asia, Thailand.”
“Blast it,” he says good-naturally, “that is a little too far for me at this point. I only have a few weeks home, and then I’m due in Mexico.”
