What if…?
I push the thought away, glad I didn’t guzzle the blood. Unless it’s fresh from the source, I’ll stick to the bars.
My stomach knots and twists.
Nope, no blood. At all. It clouds my mind.
I force myself out of his room and keep exploring until I find a huge study.
It’s a room for show, and as I look around, I see it’s also for function.
The study has the same feel as his office downstairs on his floor at VMR, intimidating but practical.
I go to the computer, open it and turn it on, hoping there’s no password.
I sit shakily in the leather chair as the computer comes to life. This place up here has to be harder to get into than Fort Knox, I’m sure.
But to my surprise, the desktop flashes on the screen. The computer is seemingly an open book, and I go through it, poking into everything. The financial files, emails from other vampires—do they email each other?—or business people. There’s a whole business deal proposition from someone named Santiago Angelus who wants a merger between VMR and Sanguine, an online powerhouse that organically grew from short, succinct posts online.
They own, silently, movie studios, and online news feeds that look like rivals to VMR but complement instead. In fact, when I was first investigating VMR after Kayla disappeared, I had thought Sanguine was VMR under another name.
Is there another group of vampires out there running parts of the world under the noses of humans?
It makes my skin crawl.
As I continue my snooping, I find other offers, too. For instance, Heather McMannus in Scotland, a land I can see vampires loving, is looking for partnership for her newspaper empire.
But there’s no mention of my friend.
I switch gears. There’s an unopened email with the subject line “Diamond Hills,” and I recognize the suburb name of the deSantis compound. Shaking, I click it and look for info on the kid I wanted to eat, a feeling that now makes me roil greasily, but all I see is that the women and children have been moved to a new undisclosed location.
At least they’re alive and safe.
I move on.
I run my hand along the desk’s wood and pull open drawers. Blank notepads, pens, all the stuff you’d expect. It isn’t until my fingers brush against a rough notch on the underside of the deepest drawer that I pause.
I flick it and a secret tray pushes out.
My heartbeat jumps with excitement.
There’s a small square piece of paper inside, creased down the middle and worn at the corners. Fragile. It’s lying on top of black velvet, as if Lucian had been meticulous in wanting to preserve it exactly the way it is.
Carefully, I pick it up.
Four numbers are written in ink:1954
I turn it and come face to face with the image of a beautiful young woman.
It’s a photograph. The colors are muted, but her smile is bright, her hair curly, and she’s wearing a spotted bathing suit on a beach with the ocean behind her. She looks like one of those pinup models from old magazines or calendars. Something classic.
Why would Lucian have this?
Then I see the curved handwriting at the bottom corner.
Always Yours, Penelope
My chest clenches.
