With the daylight lingering into the evening hours, Edward and his bloodsucking kind wouldn’t even be moving until after nine p.m., so he wouldn’t be much put out by my arrival at ten. And I wanted to see just how desperate he was.

“I can arrange that,” Carol replied. I could hear her keyboard clicking in the background as she spoke. “The plane will be waiting for you at the executive terminal on Clybourn Avenue. I’ll have a car meet you at Boeing Field when you land and bring you to the meeting.”

Either Edward was very sure of himself and had already arranged the flight—somehow already aware of where I was—or his secretary had carte blanche to make it happen. Either way, I was impressed and a little worried.

My mother was glancing at me with suspicion as I hung up.

“Are you really leaving, just like that?”

“I have to. And I’m pretty well done here, anyway.”

“But you just got here!”

“And I never meant to stay very long. I think I have most of what I wanted.”

“I don’t understand what it is you needed to know.”

“I told you. I wanted to know if there was anything weird about my past—”

“It’s not that weird,” my mother objected.

“Oh, come on, Mother. Surely it’s not normal to have a father who killed himself and a cousin who drowned with you, as well as a boyfriend who was killed in an accident and a near-death experience of your own in the first thirty years of your life. That’s just a little too much death and devastation for one woman who isn’t in the military or a Tennessee Williams play.”

She heaved a dramatic sigh. “If you must dwell on the negative, I suppose it would seem that way.”

I closed my eyes and breathed slowly before responding. “Yes, it does seem that way. Thanks for your help and understanding, Mother. It’s not my choice, but I need to leave tonight. Let’s finish up with these photos, all right?”

She stood up and flapped her hands over the table covered with pictures. “No, no. Don’t worry about that. I’ll finish them up. It’s already five. If you have to go, you should get moving. Go, go, go.”

Ah, the guilt trip. I guess my mother hadn’t learned that I’d become immune. I took a few of the photos and tucked them in with my father’s journals and the puzzle. Then I let my mother chivvy me toward the door. She was mad, but she’d be damned if she’d show it.

At the blue-painted front door—less conveniently located for the carport under which my rental was parked—we paused and stared at each other, already turning back into strangers as we stood. I bent down and kissed my mother’s powdered cheek. She was so tiny I felt like a giant.

“Congratulations, Mom. Take care of yourself, OK? And gain some weight.”

She bit her lip and smacked my arm. “Don’t be fresh.” I could see moisture gathering in her eyes. “I’ll send you an invitation. And I’ll be very upset if you don’t come to this one.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course! We’re not best friends, but. I’m still your mother!”

“Undeniably.” I nodded, reluctant, but feeling I had to. “I’ll come if I can.”

She didn’t try to hug or kiss me. She just waved me away and watched me go.

CHAPTER 15

I had a hell of a time arranging to return the car at Bob Hope Airport, rather than the larger rental stand at LA International, but the company finally agreed to let me leave the car at the smaller airport if I paid an additional fee. Getting out of LA was worth it. I packed up, checked out, and headed for Burbank by way of some more substantial food, since I wouldn’t have any time for or interest in eating once I was in Edward’s presence.

Sitting in a restaurant in Burbank, I paged Quinton again with a code that requested an immediate callback. I wanted to let him know I was heading back to Seattle as well as the how and why. In a few minutes, my phone rang from an unidentifiable number.

“Hi,” I answered.

“Hey,” Quinton replied. “What’s up?”

“I’m on my way back. Edward’s sending a plane for me.”

Quinton was silent.

“Yeah,” I said, filling in his thoughts. “I don’t like that much, either.”

“Be careful, Harper.”

“I plan to. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything, like where this meeting he’s dragging me to is going to take place.”

“How much time do you have before the plane?”

“An hour or so. ”

“All right then, I doubt it’s about me, but you should know before you go in that Edward is probably not my biggest fan right now.”

“He’s not your fan at the best of times. What happened?”

“Remember I said there’d been more vampire activity in the underground.?”

“Yeah. And.?”

“One of the vamps got a stunner.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know. And I’m not sure it’s one of mine. I mean, it looked odd, but it was slagged when I got to it, so that might account for why it looked funny.”

I marshaled a calming breath before saying, “Give me details. I need to know, in case Edward brings it up.”

“Well. I’ve been working on the ghost detector, right? So I was down in the underground with the ferret and the prototype, trying to measure changes wherever Chaos got excited and started doing that weird chasing-around thing she does. Last night the vampires were pretty quiet so I figured it was safe down there, but I heard one of the undergrounders freaking out, so I went that way. And you remember we wondered what happened if you electrocute a vampire with one of the stunners?”

“Yeah,” I replied. Quinton had speculated that at a higher voltage the device might be capable of taking a vampire out permanently, but he’d been reluctant to incur Edward’s wrath by trying it. “What happened?”

“They combust. Violently enough to suck the air out of a small room. It wasn’t a problem for the bloodsucker who used it, since they don’t need air, but I do. I thought I was next, but the discharge melted the device, and fangface wasn’t interested in hanging around after that. I passed out for a minute until the bastard opened the door and let the air back in. But here’s the freaky bit: There was no one else there. No undergrounder. Only the remains of the vamp who got shocked—they turn into piles of nasty, wet ash stuff that’s pretty disgusting. I think I was lured there so I’d be found with the burned bloodsucker.”

“You didn’t mention this last night.”

“You said you didn’t want to talk about ghosts and that stuff and you seemed down, so I figured it could wait.”

I thought about it. “You’re right. Last night was a rough one for both of us and it can’t matter that you didn’t tell me then. I know about it now and that’s good enough. Did you recognize either of the. guys?”

“I’m not so sure about the dirt pile, but the zapmeister looked like one of the uptown floaters—the guys from Queen Anne, not the ones who usually hang out down in the Square.”

There were several factions within the Seattle vampire society, small as it was. Technically they all bowed to Edward, but there were always groups trying to undermine him or one of his favorites. The factions shifted constantly, but they tended to congregate by neighborhoods: Pioneer Square; lower Queen Anne near Seattle Center and the Space Needle; the University District; and over in the Central District and southern Capitol Hill.

By agreement, the downtown core was a free zone in which vampires were supposed to keep a low profile. If one of the Queen Anne faction was doing dirty deeds below Pioneer Square, Edward would not be pleased. He wasn’t particular about his punishments or upon whom they fell, but he was swift—recently he’d learned to make retribution quickly rather than let situations fester into more trouble. Or give the appearance of weakness.

“What did Edward do about it?” I asked.

“Nothing. He’d love to say I did it and put the arm on me, but he hasn’t. He’s been very quiet.”