Authors: Lynn Viehl
Since Kirchner wasn’t providing her with any new opportunities to get what she wanted, it was time for her to switch to her backup plan. After she visited the restroom to prepare, she took the elevator down to the security section.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Hoff,” the receptionist greeted her. “How may I help you?”
“I need to speak with Mr. Delaporte, if he can spare a few moments,” Nella said, glancing at the closed door of his office. “It’s in regard to some security measures in the lab.”
“Just a moment.” The receptionist picked up her phone, pressed an intercom button, and repeated what Nella had told her. Then she said, “Yes, sir. Thank you.” She hung up and smiled as she collected her purse out of her desk drawer. “Go right in, Dr. Hoff.”
Nella watched the receptionist leave, and then went to Delaporte’s door. She took a moment to fluff her hair before she went in.
“Dr. Hoff.” The chief of security stood up behind his desk. He indicated the chair across from him. “Please, have a seat.”
Nella smiled her thanks as she sat in the chair, allowing her skirt to ride up over her knees as she positioned herself. She pretended not to notice in order to give Delaporte an excellent view of her legs up to mid-thigh, where her stockings ended and her garter belt straps began.
Don Delaporte was one of Jonah Genaro’s most devoted sycophants, and normally Nella would never have trifled with him. He was overweight, mug- faced, and had the personality of a cardboard box. But on her first day at GenHance, when Kirchner had introduced her to him, she noticed a minor shift in his body language. The cues were subtle—slight tension in the shoulders, the droop of his eyelids, the not-too-firm grip he used for their handshake—but they told her he was attracted to her. Later, after some discreet chats with other female employees, she learned that the security chief had a thing for petite women—the smaller, the better.
“His last girlfriend was this little Asian girl,” one of the secretaries from accounting told Nella over lunch. “We thought she was his stepdaughter or something until Dave over in distribution found out she was divorced and had a kid and everything. Do you know what she called him, even in front of other people?” She snickered. “Big Daddy Don.”
A background check revealed more about Don Delaporte’s predilection for tiny women. The security chief had spent a considerable amount of time of his younger days in the military, and after being discharged had graduated to mercenary work. While his military and civil records were spotless, some of his former colleagues had attested to his fondness for spending his off-duty hours with the very young prostitutes. When he had served in Thailand for a year, he had even installed a teenage whore in his household, telling the other men that she cooked and cleaned for him.
It seemed “Big Daddy Don” Delaporte liked women whose bodies reminded him of the good old days, when he could buy a night with a tweenie for twenty bucks.
It sickened Nella to think that the only reason the security chief was drawn to her was because of her girlish build, but it had given her an advantage with him that she might otherwise not have. Now that she had gotten nowhere with Kirchner, she would have to use it.
“I told your assistant a little white lie,” Nella said, ducking her chin and twisting her fingers together in a nervous fashion. “I’m not here about the security of the lab. I need to report something I saw.” She deftly altered the pitch of her voice so that it sounded younger, more uncertain. “Something I don’t think I was supposed to see.”
Delaporte flipped open a notebook and picked up his pen. “Go ahead.”
“Do you have to write this down?” She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m very conflicted about this. You see, I’ve had some disagreements with the way Dr. Kirchner runs the analysis section. Reporting this, well, it might seem like sour grapes on my part.”
“The chairman expects us to do the right thing for the project and the company,” Delaporte told her in a distinctly paternal tone. “If you’ve seen something that in any way violates the rules or poses a threat to our security, you have to report it, Nella.”
Now she was Nella instead of Dr. Hoff. Appealing to him like some adolescent twit was working.
“All right.” She exhaled slowly, tremulously. “The other night I stayed late to monitor the simulations that were running. I could have checked them in the morning, of course, but with the project at such a crucial stage in development I feel I need to monitor everything closely. I don’t want anything to go wrong.”
He nodded his approval. “Go on.”
“I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but Dr. Kirchner was also working late in another part of the lab. I went to get a soda from the lounge and saw him come out of the specimen storage unit.” She bit her lower lip and then released it slowly. “He had a mobile phone in his hand. He was talking into it to someone.”
Delaporte’s eyes narrowed. He knew about the new rule against bringing any mobile phones into the building; he had written the memo about it himself. “Do you know who he was speaking to?”
She shook her head. “As soon as I saw what he was doing, I stepped behind a cabinet. I don’t know why, exactly. I think I was afraid. I’ve never been very good at confrontations.” She produced a weak chuckle. “I couldn’t make out much of what he was saying, but he mentioned the transerum and the dominant female Kyndred Mr. Genaro is searching for.” She waited until he finished writing his notes and looked up at her. “I did hear one thing clearly. He said they would be arriving within twelve hours. Mr. Delaporte, he must have been talking about the team that was sent to New York to retrieve that girl.”
Delaporte watched her until he realized he was staring, and then returned to his note taking. “Have you seen Dr. Kirchner use this unauthorized mobile phone since that night?”
“No,” she conceded in a small, ashamed tone. “But if he were using it to pass sensitive information to a party outside the company, wouldn’t he have it with him, or keep it someplace safe, like in his office? In the event something important came up and he had to make contact quickly?”
She’d pushed the girlishness a little too hard; Delaporte’s gaze turned harder, less sympathetic. “I wouldn’t know, Dr. Hoff. The only way to check would be to search him and his office. I couldn’t do that without Mr. Genaro’s approval. I doubt he would give it based solely on a verbal report from a single witness.”
He would need more of an incentive to do something on his own, Nella thought, resigned to what would have to come next. She got up from her chair to walk over to the row of eight monitors showing ever-changing views of the interior of the building. “Can you check the security videos for that night? Maybe one of them shows him using the phone.”
Delaporte joined her, and stood just a little too close for professional courtesy. “We don’t use cameras in certain portions of the lab. There aren’t any by the specimen storage unit.”
Nella turned to him, making sure the front of her body brushed his before she put one hand on his chest. “I’m so worried about the project, Mr. Delaporte.” She lowered her chin and continued in a strained whisper. “It’s been so difficult for me. You don’t know how cruel and vicious Dr. Kirchner has been. The things he says to me when we’re alone.” She thought of what would happen to her if she failed to get rid of Elliot, and lifted her face so that Delaporte would see the very real fear in her watery eyes. “I feel so powerless, and scared. I don’t know what to do.”
His arms came up to support her as she collapsed against him. After several wet sobs into his shoulder, she lifted her face to press her cheek against his, and breathed through her mouth so he would feel it against his ear.
“Nella.” Delaporte’s hands shifted, pressing her close instead of simply holding her. The front of his trousers were tented over his erection. “It’s all right. You don’t have to deal with this alone anymore.”
“I knew I could depend on you.” She turned her head to give him a kiss on his cheek, and then gasped as he turned his so that their mouths met.
“Mr. Delaporte.”
“Don.” He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of you.” Then he kissed her again.
She deliberately stiffened before relaxing against him and opening to the wet, hard push of his tongue.
Nella faked the moans, the trembling, and the limpness as he moved her over to the couch. She had to keep her eyes closed to endure the groping and sucking that followed, and fantasized about her last lover to stay wet enough to be convincing. But when Delaporte mounted her she discovered the stout, homely looking man sported a beautiful cock the size of a small club, and what he did while he kept her pinned down and impaled on it was better than the efforts of her last five lovers.
“You’re so big,” she gasped out, not having to fake the tremors of shock she felt every time he thrust. When he finally seated himself to the hairy root, she cried out. “Oh, no. No, please, I can’t take it, I can’t.” She thrashed her head from side to side, whimpering as she pushed at his chest. “Please it’s too big, please stop.”
Her whining and pleading only spurred him on, as she suspected it would, and he began to grunt with satisfaction as he plowed into her. He was like a screwing machine, she thought, and perspired like a pig, but for some reason his endless, unimaginative pistoning of her and the smack of his sweat-slick body were getting her hot. Then with a genuine squeal of astonishment she had a gushing orgasm, and when she finished he pulled out and ejaculated into a handkerchief he had produced like a magician.
Nella would never admit it, but she wasn’t entirely faking the tears she burst into a moment later.
Delaporte tucked in his shirt, zipped up his trousers, and disposed of the handkerchief before he came to kneel beside her. His big, hot hand on her exposed breast made Nella curl over toward him.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said quietly. “But you knew what you were doing.”
Nella shook her head, still trying to play the innocent. Her heart wasn’t in it, however, and she fought a terrible urge to tell him the truth about her and Kirchner and everything she’d done.
Suicide
, she thought.
I might as well stick a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.
“Nella, look at me.” He waited until she did. “You’re going to leave early today. Go home, and get some rest.”
“I can’t leave.” She sat up, pulling her blouse over her breasts. He’d left suck marks all over them, and seeing the dark pink love bites made her sex clench. She looked up at him. “What did you do to me?”
“I took good care of you, baby.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Just like I will when I come to your place tonight.”
Nella pressed her lips together. Having sex with him in the office was a necessary task, but if he came to her apartment, he’d expect to stay. The prospect of being subjected to his battering ram of a penis for an entire night scared the hell out of her. It also thrilled her down to her heels.
I can work on him
, she thought, not caring that she was lying to herself.
By tomorrow he’ll do whatever I want.
“Do you really want to come over tonight?”
“Of course I do. You need me.” He tipped her chin up so that she looked into his eyes before he gave her a firm kiss. “Now be a good girl and go home.”
Nella straightened her clothes and after glancing one more time at Delaporte, slowly walked out. She went up to the lab to retrieve her purse before checking out.
On the ride back to her apartment, Nella used the mobile phone in her car to make a call. “I’ll be out of touch until the morning,” she told her employer. When he asked why, she answered honestly. “I have some personal business to attend to.”
“Why aren’t you bankrupt?” she demanded, aghast at the staggering sum he laid out for his employees.
“D’Anges does a good business,” was all he would tell her.
Later that night she asked Lonzo about just how well the restaurant did every week.
“On average we do nine hundred, maybe a thousand,” he said, referring to the number of meals served. “Customers tip well, too, so the waiters always clean up.”
She did some rapid calculations in her head. “Holy Hannah. Nine hundred, every week? You sure?”
He glowered at her. “You think I can’t count how many dinners I plate every night?”
“No, I just . . .” She shook her head. “That’s unbelievable. This place isn’t even that big. I mean, you’d have to sit every table every single night straight through from opening to close.”
He puffed up a little. “In case you haven’t noticed, kid, we do. That and we got the group room filled three, four times a week.” His gaze turned speculative. “You’re thinking how with the lousy economy, right? Maybe some other places are hurting, but it’s never made a difference to us. People keep coming because they know at D’Anges they’ll have the best meal they’ll eat all year. That’s why you won’t see any prices on the menu, Trick. We don’t need ’em. They don’t give a shit what we charge ’em.”
She glanced toward the back stairs. If Dansant was pulling in millions every year from the restaurant—which by her calculations he had to be, even after paying all of his employees and covering the cost of food—he probably didn’t care that she was occupying an apartment he could have rented out.
“It wasn’t like this in the beginning, though,” she said to Lonzo. “It couldn’t have been. He would have had to make a name for the place.”
“I was the first chef he hired,” Lonzo told her. “We had a full house opening night, and since then there hasn’t been an empty table in the place.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s the other reason I keep going to church,” the
garde-manger
said. “So I can thank God I didn’t take that other job I was offered at the chophouse over on Columbus. They closed a year after we opened.”
She decided to go to the public library, where she could use a free-access computer to do some research on her mysterious boss. There was something else she needed to do; she couldn’t remember what it was but she was sure once she was online it would come to her.
On her way to the library Rowan passed a few shops she remembered from the old days: a secondhand clothes store where she’d traded a couple of shirts for a warm jacket, an old-fashioned candy store that still sold penny candy (the only kind she could afford back then), and a florist that specialized in exotic orchids. She was happy to see that all three were still in business, and even browsed around at the consignment shop for a while. She didn’t precisely need the Mets baseball cap she bought, but it was only a couple of bucks and she was tired of wearing a bandanna at work.
She’d didn’t think Stallworth’s would still be in business, but when she came to the block where the old bookshop had been, the old black sign still hung from a bracket above the narrow door. With a grin she stepped inside.
The shop had originally served as a small printing press before the Civil War. While the original Mr. Stallworth had gone off to fight the Rebs, his wife and young son had kept the business going by buying and selling books. Losing a leg at Gettysburg had finally sent Stallworth back to civilian life, but by then the business had been doing so well he decided to abandon his racks of type and ink for the pleasures of the book trade.
Together with his son he renovated the shop, installing rows of cedar bookcases and building shelved tables to better display their growing collections. Mrs. Stallworth had already scandalized other neighborhood merchants by having some comfortable armchairs and settees brought from her home to the shop, but she convinced her husband that offering their patrons a place to sit and read would entice them to buy, as would the afternoon tea and cakes she offered for a modest price.
Over the decades the handmade tables had been replaced with modern display stands, and the antique furn ishings had been traded for more durable seating arrangements, but many of the old books remained where they had been shelved, waiting patiently to be taken home by their next owner.
“I don’t carry magazines,” a cranky voice said from the back. “Or cigarettes, gum, or beverages. You can get them at the CVS around the corner.”
“How about Patricia Briggs?” Rowan called back. “I could use a little magic in my life.”
A wrinkled face framed by a helmet of salt-and-pepper spikes popped into view. “I know you.” The old man wandered out, his arms filled with a stack of leather-bound Dickens volumes. He looked her up and down a few times. “Rosie. Rolanda. Roberta. No, that isn’t it.” He frowned, muttering to himself before triumph lit up his face. “Rowan.”
“That’s me.” She grinned. “Your shop is still the coolest place in the city, Mr. Stallworth.”
“If only more shared your opinion, my dear.” He set down the books and came to give her a hug. “It’s lovely to see you again.” He stepped back with a new frown. “What are you doing in New York? I thought you’d gone off for good.”
“I changed my mind. How’s the book biz?”
“At the moment, it’s all about the young vampires.” He sighed. “One is either Team Edward or Team Jacob, it seems. But I live in hope that chick lit will enjoy a revival.”
Rowan chatted with him for a few minutes, and admired wallet photos of his newest grandchildren. He was happy to learn that she was working at D’Anges, but not surprised.
“I still remember those ginger cookies you would bring for me from the bakery,” he said. “You were so proud of them, and rightfully so. You ruined me for every other cookie on the market, young woman.” His expression turned serious. “A few weeks after you left for the god-forsaken wilds of the South, some men came around the neighborhood. They were asking questions about a runaway girl. They said they were detectives but I did not get the impression they were working for the NYPD. And before you ask, no, I didn’t tell them about you.”
Rowan felt her stomach twist at this confirmation of her worst fears. “I appreciate that, Mr. Stallworth.” She glanced at one of the display tables, featuring stacks of books for young adults with vampiric-sounding titles. “I am interested in finding some books about vampires, but not the Twilight knockoff stuff. I’d like to see whatever you have that’s nonfiction. Older books.”
“Stephen King old, or Bram Stoker old?”
“Stoker.”
He waved for her to follow him into the back of the shop. Once there, he went to a locked, glass- fronted case and pulled out his keys.
“I had to install this after I caught a girl attempting to shoplift some of the newer volumes. I’m sure she intended to resell them across town; the poor child looked half-starved.” He unlocked the case, opened the doors, and began pointing out shelves. “Early twentieth century, late nineteenth, early nineteenth, and so on. The oldest volume I have dates back to 1820, but I think it’s utter rubbish so you can have that one half-price.”
Rowan took in some of the titles. “Wow.”
“One must strike while the trend is hot.” He smiled and patted her shoulder. “I have some shelving to do, but call if you need me.”
From the work she had done researching and compiling books for Matthias, Rowan had a good working knowledge of the subject matter. Most of the twentieth-century books were useless; they’d been inspired by Hollywood’s conception of the vampire. But the older books were more interesting, and ranged from scholarly studies of historic vampirism to histories of blood- rite cultures. She selected several to flip through and began setting aside the ones that looked the most promising.
It was the circa 1820 book of “rubbish” that intrigued her more than any of the others, however. The author had been chronicling the Romantic period in English poetry, and had obtained several letters that had been exchanged by some of the big names of the era. Among them he noticed a series of unusual metaphors and oblique references to a gifted young poet who had died of consumption before his talent had been fully realized, and opinions on later reports that his grave had been robbed.
We have ascertained through the authorities in Rome that remains were found in the grave
, one poet wrote,
but some of our friends were present at the exhumation, and they insist that the body was too fresh to belong to our friend. If he has indeed enjoyed the dark resurrection, would not the body in the grave be that of his first victim?
Rowan suppressed a shudder, added the book to the stack she had assembled, and carried them to the front of the shop. Stallworth joined her there and after casting a jaundiced eye at her selection rang up her purchases.
“I never imagined you would develop a fascination for the dark kyn,” he said as he bagged the books. “It’s a lot of superstitious nonsense, you know.”
“But interesting nonsense.” She handed over the cash. “Have you read much about them?”
“As much as I ever care to. The idea that plague victims in the Dark Ages rose from mass graves as vampires has been around as long as the legends of monsters in Loch Ness and animal attacks that result in one growing fur under the full moon.” He reached under the counter for a book and added it to the stack. “An advance reading copy of the new Patricia Briggs. No charge,” he added as she pulled out more money. “I’d have never pegged you for a lover of shape-shifter fiction.”
“She’s the only one who gets it right,” she murmured. She looked up quickly. “I mean, I love the way she writes it.”
“Well, if you come ’round again, I’ll introduce you to her new series about those of the moonstruck and fur persuasion.” He reached across the counter to take her hand. “Do take care, my dear.”
“I will. Thanks, Mr. Stallworth.” She felt an unwelcome but all-too-familiar sensation that had nothing to do with fur or the moon. With an effort she controlled the sudden urge to change. “Say hi to your wife for me.”
As she left the bookshop, Rowan felt an odd sensation, and looked over her shoulder. She didn’t see any familiar faces among the people walking around the shops, but that combined with the passage she’d read from the old book and what Stallworth had told her gave her the creeps. She gave up on the plan to visit the library and began walking back to the restaurant.
The man she hadn’t seen waited until she disappeared from view, and then walked up to the bookshop door and let himself in.