“That’s too bad,” she said. Then she brightened. “Maybe some rich rock star will buy my apartment and theirs and knock the wall down between them, and then have the whole eleventh floor.”

Pradip just stared at her. She’d been trying to cheer them both up-having a rich rock star in the building would be a good thing.

And she could use the extra cash from the apartment sale to pay back what she owed David.

But Pradip didn’t seem to find the idea as appealing as she did.

“I don’t think the co-op board would approve a rock star,” he told her.

Why not? Meena wanted to ask. They’d approved a couple of vampires. Instead, she said, “You’re probably right. Well, okay. I’m going up.”

“Good night, Miss Harper,” Pradip said.

Meena managed a smile for him, then went to the elevator.

For the first time in ages, she took the ride to the eleventh floor alone. Mary Lou didn’t stop the doors just as they closed to snag a ride with her, as she always had in the past. No gushing conversation about some guy from Emil’s office who’d be just perfect for her. No suggestions as to how Meena might improve the plotlines of Insatiable…which was sad, since, with Fran, Stan, and Shoshona all missing-Paul had left a message on her cell phone that everyone was presuming they, along with Stefan Dominic, had been in an accident on the way to the Metzenbaums’ Hamptons retreat and that it was only a matter of time until their vehicle was recovered, with their bodies inside it-Meena was probably in line for that promotion to head writer she’d been wanting forever.

Why not? With Shoshona gone, there was no record of her “firing.” Who knew what was going to happen to ABN (and CDI) now that the CEO of its new owner was missing as well?

Then again…who cared?

All the tabloids were abuzz about the fact that Lust star Gregory Bane was missing, too. Half the women in America were in mourning.

Foul play was going to be suspected some time soon, Meena supposed.

Except that no bodies were ever going to turn up.

When the elevator reached the eleventh floor, Meena stepped out and looked around, beginning to feel the first tiny tingles of fear. Why had she thought this was such a good idea, again?

Sure, the Dracul were all supposed to be dead.

The ones who lived in Manhattan, anyway.

But what if a few of them who lived somewhere else had heard about what had happened at St. George’s and had decided to look her up to get revenge? Or had stopped by for a taste of her blood, which by now vampires all over the world must have heard rumors about.

Stop, she told herself. Alaric was right. You can’t spend the rest of your life in a windowless room, Meen.

She glanced around the hallway. Everything looked all right…normal, even.

The door to her apartment seemed okay, too. She swallowed, then walked up to it and inserted the key.

Whatever lay behind it, she told herself, she could take it. She’d been thrown across a church by a dragon, for God’s sake. She’d staked not one but two vampires, one of whom had actually played a vampire on TV.

She could handle whatever lay in store for her in Apt. 11B. She swung open the door, then reached for the light switch…

…and gasped.

She’d expected it to be bad.

But she hadn’t expected this.

Someone had already come through and…cleaned her apartment. Not just cleaned it but converted it…into a different place entirely. The walls had been completely scraped of the Dracul graffiti and repainted a crisp eggshell white. The broken furniture and spoiled electronics had been carted away. Her sodden books, her shredded clothes, her broken dishes…all of that was gone, too.

All new stainless steel appliances had been installed in the kitchen. Her parquet floors had been sanded and gleamed with fresh polish. Even the fireplace’s flues finally opened, though they never had before.

Her apartment looked better than it had at any time when she had ever lived there. It looked better than the day she and David had moved in.

Who had done all this?

Not Jon. She knew that. He had been at Leisha and Adam’s all week, working on the baby’s room, trying to get it done before Leisha and the baby came home from the hospital.

Not Alaric, obviously. How could he have done this while lying in bed with one leg in traction?

And Abraham Holtzman and Father Bernard and the others were missing the first layer of skin off their faces and hands.

Besides which, where would they have gotten the money?

There was only one other explanation.

And even as Meena was thinking to herself that it was impossible-impossible, because he was dead, he had to be dead (except for the fact that she could swear she felt someone’s gaze on her every night through the rectory kitchen window as she did the dishes); she had almost convinced herself she wanted him to be dead-she turned around, and there he was, coming in from the rain through the balcony door.

Chapter Sixty-two

8:30 P.M., Friday, April 23

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

New York, New York

Hello, Meena,” he said.

Drops of rain clung damply to his short dark hair.

She caught her breath, her heart giving a sudden painful thump. She was surprised her heart even remembered how to beat, since seeing him there, just walking into her bedroom like that, was such a shock, she would have thought it would have gone into cardiac arrest.

He looked incredible, of course, just like always, even casually dressed in a charcoal-gray cashmere sweater and black trousers. Tall, broad-shouldered, taking up so much space in that tiny room where they’d once made such riotous, crazy love, trying to be quiet so they wouldn’t arouse the suspicions of her brother and Alaric, right there in the next room…

He looked so dark and so handsome and so sure of himself.

He gave off no indication at all that, less than a week ago, he’d been…

…well, what he’d been.

Or done what he’d done.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, those dark brown eyes as melancholic as ever. Still, sad as those eyes might have looked, Meena didn’t miss the way his gaze raked her, making her feel, as he always did, that he knew exactly what she looked like beneath the dress she was wearing. Which, of course, he did. “I was hoping you’d come back. I know you haven’t wanted to see me. But I hope now we can talk-”

Abruptly, Meena’s knees buckled. Just gave out beneath her. She would have collapsed to the floor-there was no furniture left in the apartment for her to grab to keep herself from smacking into the hardwood that came swooping toward her so fast-if he hadn’t caught her in his strong arms, then sunk to the floor with her, cradling her body against him.

“I’m sorry, Meena,” he whispered into her hair. There was a world of remorse, of pain, of hurt in his rich, low voice. “I’m so, so sorry. You have to know that I-”

“You have no right,” she said. She was surprised her lips and tongue worked. She felt numb all over. That’s why her legs had stopped working. But apparently, though it was weak, she still had a voice. “After what you did-”

“I know,” he said. He was rocking her, his forehead pressed to hers. “I know.”

“You can’t just come in here,” Meena said. Her voice had begun to sound stronger. “And clean up my apartment like that’s going to make everything better. Because it isn’t. Lucien, people died.”

“I know,” he said. He looked-and sounded-as if he were carrying around the regret of a thousand vampires from a thousand years, not just a single five-hundred-year-old one. “More people than you even know, Meena. My brother was evil. He always was. I should have killed him long ago. This was all my fault. All of it. He’s gone now, though. He’ll never murder anyone again.”