Let Them Eat Stake: A Vampire Chef Novel (27 page)

“Because you fell in love?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“So, what were the big plans?” Reese flipped a pancake onto Deanna’s plate and then another onto mine. “Karina’s, I mean.”

Deanna shrugged and used her fork to push the fresh pancake into the center of the plate where it could soak up syrup and melted butter. “Don’t even remember now. Something with a weapons contract or the NIH or something for antivamp perfume. Something stupid like that.”

“Antivamp perfume?” If there was a touch of incredulity to those words, it was because I hadn’t had enough coffee yet, I’m sure.

Deanna just grimaced. “Karina likes to think she’s going to be the Bill Gates of the fragrance world. Got Dad
to front the money for the labs and the office. I’ll bet he thought she’d just go away and play. But oh no, not Karina. She’s got
ambition
. She’s got to think
big
.” Deanna waved her knife, and caught a glimpse of the kitchen clock. “Crap, I’m late. Gotta meet the girls. Great pancakes. Don’t tell Dad anything I said about Karina, will you? He’d hit the roof. Or Mom. Thanks. ‘Bye.”

Deanna grabbed keys and purse and was out the door before I could get my mouth shut.

“Antivamp perfume?” I said. “A weapons contract for
perfume
?” The words came out as a croak. Because in my head I was seeing that little wrinkled scrap of a clue in Brendan’s fingers. The one that looked like part of a recipe, or a formula. I’d thought it was for a celebrity-branded perfume and Oscar had stolen it because he was a cheap bastard. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a weapons formula, and he’d stolen it because it was worth millions?

“Guess they figure the platoon won’t mind smelling like garlic,” said Reese.

“It can’t be that easy.” I swallowed and coughed. “It can’t be. Somebody’d have done it a long time ago.”

“Which would be why there’s a contract out for it.” Reese flipped some more pancakes off the grill to a clean plate and pushed them to me. “It’s not all that easy.”

“And maybe Karina got the idea to go for some defense money after Brendan signed his security contract with the city.” I looked down at my pancakes and tried to remember I’d been starving a minute ago. I poured on a dollop of fresh syrup, hoping it would help.

“Maybe she’s working with him,” suggested Reese.

“Can’t be. Brendan would have told me.” I thought about that bitter, distinctly unperfumy smell Karina carried with her as we walked past all those closed laboratory doors. It was also distinctly ungarlicky. “But if Karina’s working on an antivamp contract, what’s that got to do with introducing her sister to Gabriel?”

“Got
me, boss.” Reese turned off the burners under the griddle pan and started untying his apron. He’d already moved on from the rich folks and their mysteries, and I envied him, deeply. “Can you cover here for a while? I gotta go make sure we’re good to go into production.” Like restaurant work, nine-tenths of catering is in the pre-prep.

There was, however, one thing my sous and I needed to go over first.

“Reesey-Peesy?” I drew the nickname out slowly, layering the syllables with import and relish. “There’s really somebody out there who calls you Reesey-Peesy?”

Reese paused by the side door. “Yeah, well, there’s somebody out there who calls you, and I’m quoting here, ‘sweetie, darling, lamb chop chefy.’”

I winced. “Okay. Okay. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Deal.”

I waved Reese away, ignoring his chuckles as I set about the important business of finishing my pancakes and coffee. The pancakes were perfect—sweet and fluffy, with lovely, crispy edges. The coffee was gorgeously strong. I began to feel less sorry about having woken up this morning. Unfortunately, my returning optimism encouraged my brain to try to shunt what I’d just heard from Deanna into the ever-shifting puzzle that was the Alden family. I mean, siblings always saw things differently, especially when it came to who got whom into trouble. But Karina’s insistence that Deanna was always pushing boundaries, and Deanna’s insistence that Karina was the one who was pulling her into trouble—this was something beyond the ordinary sibling double-vision. Then there was the fact that the little bit of list had taken on a whole new meaning.

The house was so quiet, I could hear Mr. Alden rustling his papers out in the dining room. I wondered where Trudy was, and that got me thinking about her and Mrs. Alden, and Mrs. Alden reminding Trudy so sharply she was supposed to “take care of” the guest rooms. Then I remembered
that some of those guest rooms held vampires, out cold for the day. These were vampires Karina Alden was really anxious to introduce to the family, according to Deanna, anyway. And Karina was maybe working on antivamp weapons contracts.

I also remembered Jacques coming and going all on his own, and how he was supposed to be spending his days in this house, but maybe wasn’t.

I looked up at the ceiling. I looked at the Peg-Board by the coat hooks, with its neatly labeled keys, including the bulky ring marked
HOUSEKEEPING
. I forced my gaze back down to my pancakes—my warm, fluffy, syrup-soaked pancakes. There was no reason whatsoever to rush away from a good plate of pancakes, especially not to tiptoe upstairs and root around in somebody else’s guest bedrooms, and especially when that somebody else could fire my ass, and probably should, for even considering that idea.

I stacked used plates and silverware and dumped the whole clattering pile into the sink. I would clean. I would not think about guest rooms anymore. I had done all the breaking and entering I needed to do. I would think about lunch, and snacks; about confirming my catering staff and my orders with my suppliers.

“Chef Caine?”

I turned, reluctantly. Scott Alden came in through the door from the dining room, a stainless travel mug in his hand. “Would you tell my wife I won’t be back for dinner?” he said, refilling the mug from the thermos of coffee on the counter. “I have to get ready for the working group meeting. She’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“I’ll tell her.” I paused. “Is Trudy still here?”

“She’s gone over to her sister’s. One of the kids has come down with strep or something, and she’s helping out.”

Mr. Alden covered his mug and walked out the side door to the porch, leaving me alone in the kitchen, and in the house, because the house was empty now, except for
me and whatever unconscious vampires had taken shelter in the guest rooms.

I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling again. “You’re tempting me, aren’t you?” I asked whatever deity looked down on fools, chefs, and women named Charlotte. “This is what temptation looks like.”

Of course it was a bad idea. Of course I did it anyway—like you wouldn’t have.

This was the first time I’d ventured onto the third floor of the Aldens’ house, and it was beautiful. Even more than the rest of the house, though, this was the close, heavy beauty of another era. To waist height, intricately carved walnut paneling covered the corridor’s walls. Above that, figured red wallpaper gleamed like silk and maybe
was
silk. If I’d pushed one of the button switches at the top  of the stairs, I’d’ve gotten some extra light from curving brass lamps that looked as though they had been converted from gas to electric back in the day—way, way back in the day. The air hung thick and humid in that narrow hall and smelled of the rain falling outside. It was so quiet, I could hear the crunch of the Persian carpet fibers under my clogs.

There were six doors total. I stood in front of the first door on the right for a long time, waiting for a noise, or anything, to send me running back to the kitchen where I belonged. But no noise came. I pulled out Trudy’s key ring, which I’d appropriated from the Peg-Board. I’d figured the nightblood guests might reasonably be expected to lock themselves in for the day. On the third try, I found the right key, and the cool, glass knob turned easily under my hand. Thick curtains covered the window on the other side, allowing through only the smallest slivers of sunlight. I stepped through and closed the door softly behind myself, then turned the lock again.

The room smelled of fresh air and lemon furniture polish, indicating Trudy had been at work in there recently. As my eyes adjusted, I could see the furniture was a match for the corridor—thick and heavy and distinctly Victorian. Twin beds took up most of the space to my right. Matching dressers stood to the left. The beds, with clean white spreads on them, looked as pristine and innocent as if they’d just come off the set of a fifties sitcom. They were also totally unoccupied. In fact, the whole room looked unoccupied.

I drifted over to the nearest dresser and pulled open the top drawer. It was empty. So was the drawer under it, and the one under that. I checked the second dresser, and the closet—all empty. I turned slowly, fingering the keys in my pocket. So, okay, the Aldens had a lot of spare bedrooms, and they weren’t using this one. Except, I kept remembering Mrs. Alden ordering Trudy to “take care” of the bedrooms and breathed in the chemical tang of fresh fake-lemon polish. Trudy had been in there, taking care of something. It might have been only the dust bunnies, but somehow I didn’t think so.

Did Mrs. Alden want something destroyed or hidden? And just from whom was she hiding it?

For a brief moment, I regretted I wasn’t really Nancy Drew. Especially with the dim light, this place looked perfect for hiding incriminating evidence. It ought to have secret panels or concealed compartments under the floorboards. But they didn’t cover finding hidden clues in culinary school, and I didn’t even know what I was looking for evidence
of
. The only genuine law-breaking I knew about for sure was the theft of that gun off the living room mantel. Maybe Little Linus had planted suspicions in my brain about Oscar’s death, but even if Oscar had been poisoned, I was hardly going to find an empty bottle under the bed with a label saying
DON’T DRINK ME
.

I did check under the bed, just in case. I didn’t find a bottle, or anything else—not so much as the smallest footprint
of a dust bunny. From this I concluded that however much the Aldens were paying Trudy, it wasn’t enough.

The knob on the next door I tried turned without the key. This had to be a family room. I told myself I should back away. It was one thing to be snooping on guests suspected of stealing. Snooping on the family was completely leveling up the whole plucky-girl-detective fetish.

No, I didn’t listen to this very good self-referential advice either.

The Victorian Age had been banished from this second room. When at home, the occupant went in for black iron frames, glass tables, and white gauze curtains, both on the queen-sized bed and the window. The carpet was modern beige, and my clogs sank in deep.

Either Trudy hadn’t had a chance to get in there yet today, or this room was off limits. Clothes draped over all the chairs and the bed; mostly designer jeans and brightly colored tops. The dressing table was a battlefield of cosmetics paraphernalia, perfumes, and used tissues. I couldn’t picture either Mrs. Alden or Karina making a mess like that, let alone leaving it behind them, so this had to be Deanna’s room.

This realization drove me to a moment of pure, girly curiosity. I opened the closet, and there, on a hook on the door, hung the wedding gown. It was a strapless sheath of pure white, trimmed around the waist and hem with silver filigree and clear sparkling stones that would match her engagement ring. Deanna would look like a million breezing down the aisle in that. The longer I looked at that lovely gown, the more depressed I felt, and I could not for the life of me figure out why. I should be angry, not sad. Add one more thing to the Makes No Sense pile.

I left Deanna’s room and in the hall stopped once more to listen. The quiet remained unbroken, except for my fishing the key ring back out. The next door on the left was also
locked, and the second key I tried opened it soundlessly.

This time, I’d found Gabriel’s room. I could tell, because he was lying on the bed, in a pair of dark pajamas.

When you see them on TV, vampires during the day just look asleep. When you see them in reality, they look like what they are—dead. The blue stone in the ring on Gabriel’s hand had more life than his open eyes. His jaw hung loose, and his hands and feet were completely limp. His skin had gone slack against his bones and had turned dull and waxy yellow. I knew from experience it wouldn’t matter how many times I told myself that body was going to get up and walk. Right now, it was a corpse, and I reacted to it as I would to a corpse—with fear, revulsion, sadness and an immediate desire to get the hell away from it. But I couldn’t, because I had to see what the corpse’s room had to tell me. Probably nothing. Hopefully nothing. Please, let there be nothing.

It is possible there are creepier ways to spend your time than searching a vampire’s bedroom while that vampire is staring at you with day-dead eyes. Cleaning out an Old Country werewolf den, for example, or going for a midnight row in the Black Lagoon. After a while, though, the whole enterprise started to feel more than a little silly. Honestly, nothing says overreaction like poking around through somebody else’s sock drawer. Gabriel owned several pairs of black and gray socks and a few matching black and gray silk handkerchiefs. I lifted the silk carefully aside, and found nothing. Going through the other drawers, I found shirts, and ties, and jeans, and nothing. I went through the bathroom and found men’s toiletries. I went through the closet and found slacks hanging up neatly and a classic black tux, all ready for the Big Day. The shoes were lined up underneath, and had nothing in them but arch supports.

But there was also a shoe box. With the feeling of
having nothing left to lose, I opened it. In a nest of tissue paper waited the black patent-leather footgear obviously meant to go with the tux. I closed the box again, and was about to put it back, but I moved a little too fast, and something went
clink
.

I shook the box.
Clink.
I tore off the lid, pulled out the black shoes, and a slither of gold spilled onto the closet floor, clattering loudly enough to wake the dead. I looked over my shoulder. The dead stayed still. So, thankfully, did the door.