Night Of The Living Dandelion Part 21

"We need to find a better suspect fast."

"Are you prepared for your meeting with Holloway?"

"Got my outfit all picked out."

"You'd better prepare more than that. Once Holloway finds out you don't have a heart problem, Gabriella, you'd better have a really good reason for being there."

Oops. I hadn't thought past getting through the door. "I'll work on it later. Clay is on his way over here, and somehow we've got to get Jillian to swallow a pill."

"Will I see you at the bar at five o'clock?"

"If you're a good boy. Actually, make that a bad boy."

I hung up and wheeled to the landing to listen. When I didn't hear any sounds coming from below, I called, "Jillian?"

Silence.

"Jillian, could you cough so I know you're alive?"

"Am I alive?" came a faint reply. "Or am I now one of the undead?"

With a sigh, I went out to find Lottie. But by the time I got to the front, Claymore had arrived with two giant Neiman Marcus shopping bags.

"What did you bring?" I asked.

He began to disgorge the contents onto the table. "Chinese meditation CD and portable player, Italian red satin pj's, Scottish cashmere socks, Swiss skin caviar, Icelandic cloud face cream, French rose water mist-"

The United Nations would be proud.

"-retainer-"

Jillian still wore a retainer? I'd have to store that away for future ammunition.

"-white silk sheets, and, of course, one of Jillian's special pillows. She's very picky about where she puts her head."

"Right now, I'd guess her head is resting on a pot, so don't be too sure about that."

After he repacked the bags, I led the way to the back stairs. "She's down there."

Claymore carried the bags down the steps, calling, "Jillian? Darling? It's me, your beloved husband. I brought your accoutrements de nuit." At the bottom, he called, "Abby, where's the light switch?"

"It's an old bas.e.m.e.nt, Claymore. It doesn't have switches. You have to pull the chain hanging from the ceiling."

He grumbled until he found it. I heard footsteps as he moved about the dusty concrete floor; then he said, "Darling, here are your-Jillian! What are you doing back there?"

What was she doing? Darned sprained ankle! I wanted to go downstairs, too.

I heard a faint raspy voice; then Claymore came up gnawing his lower lip. Already the jittery type, he now looked positively distraught by his wife's latest antics. "She made a fort out of bags of potting soil and big clay pots and barricaded herself inside. I can't get to her without taking down a wall, and she said if I try to come near her, she'll chuck a pot at my head. What should I do?"

"I don't know, but she shouldn't stay down there. It's damp."

"Tell her that. She insists she's going to stay until her transformation is complete."

Oh, brother. How were we going to get her upstairs and talk her into taking a pill before that infection raging through her body did some real harm? Could I use a lure? The old Jillian would have run barefoot through the snow to see the latest pair of Jimmy Choos. Not that I could have afforded a pair anyway, but I doubted such a ploy would interest Vampira in the least now. All she was interested in was red meat.

"Claymore, did you bring her medicine?"

He held out an amber-colored plastic pill bottle with a pharmacy label on it.

"Good. I have an idea. Will you go to Adagio and get a takeout order for me?"

"You want to eat first?"

"It's for Jillian. Adagio is the only restaurant in town that serves steak carpaccio. It's sliced thin, so we can roll up a sus.h.i.+-sized bite and hide a pill inside."

"I'll be back as soon as I can." Claymore gave me a hug. "You're brilliant!"

Huh. Claymore's brother had pretty much decided the opposite was true. I felt the diamond ring on the chain beneath my s.h.i.+rt and smiled. Being dumped by Pryce Osborne had been the second-best thing that had ever happened to me. Meeting Marco was the first.

Once Claymore was gone, the workroom was quiet again, so I returned to the flower arrangement I'd started before Jillian showed up. Then I heard what sounded like chirping birds and tinkling chimes, with a waterfall in the background. I paused to listen. It was coming from the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Jillian's meditation CD. Strangely enough, I found myself inhaling and exhaling slowly, feeling the tension drain out of my body. Ah. That was actually quite relaxing.

"Yoo-hoo! Abigail!" I heard my mom call.

No rest for the wicked.

Mom swept back the curtain and came into the room, followed by a young woman who couldn't have been a day over twenty. "Here you are," Mom said. "I want you to meet my new student teacher, Chelsea Dunaway. Chelsea, this is Abigail."

"Just Abby," I said with a smile.

"Nice to meet you, Abby," Chelsea said, shaking my hand. "Your mom brags about you all the time."

Really?

Chelsea had long honey brown hair caught up in a low ponytail, then twisted and fastened on the back of her head, so the tips of her hair fanned out at the crown. She had straight bangs and long pieces of hair that fell in front of her ears, making her look both cute and s.e.xy at the same time. She also had big blue eyes and a pretty smile, and she appeared quite stylish in her black peacoat, tan wool pants, and black boots. Hmm. Was she single?

I glanced at her hand as she pushed a strand of hair away from her face. No ring, pretty, polite, smart, and single. Possibly the perfect girl to mend Rafe's broken heart.

"How is your ankle, honey?" Mom asked.

Not much different from when she'd questioned me that morning. Luckily, I was spared having to answer when she turned to Chelsea and said, "Abigail fell off a spike heel and suffered a nasty sprain." She added in a whisper, "I think she learned her lesson."

Yes, I did. If I ever sprained my ankle again, I wouldn't tell Mom how it happened. "Did Lottie give you the news about your bat mobile?"

"No, Lottie is helping a customer."

"It sold!"

Mom's face flushed with joy. "So soon? You only had it, what, six hours? That has to be a new record. Oh, Chelsea, I'm so sorry you didn't get to see it. It was something, wasn't it, Abigail?"

"Yes, it was." Something.

"The way you described it, Mrs. Knight, I can imagine it would sell quickly," Chelsea gushed, clearly knowing how to get on Mom's good side. No one could hear a true description of that mobile and think it would sell in a million years.

"It's probably already hanging over some lucky child's bed," Mom said, pressing a hand to her heart.

I could hear the screams now.

"I'll just have to get the next one finished tonight," Mom said.

Wait. What? The next one?

"Nothing succeeds like success, as Grace always says." Mom gave me a hug. "We're off, honey. I promised I'd show Chelsea around town. This is her first year in New Chapel and she never gets off campus except to come to my school."

"I adore your flower shop," Chelsea called, following Mom through the curtain.

"Wait, Chelsea," I said. "How old are you?"

She stuck her head through the curtain. "Twenty-one, why?"

"Seeing anyone?"

She shook her head.

"Then there's someone I'd like you to meet. Are you free for dinner tonight?"

Twenty minutes later, Claymore returned with a white cardboard carryout carton. We removed one of the rare beef slices from the box, cut it into strips, placed antibiotic capsules inside two of them, then rolled them up and fastened them with floral picks. We rolled up a few more strips to make it look authentic, put them back in the box, and then I called downstairs, "Jillian! I've got raw steak for you. It's from your favorite restaurant, Adagio."

I heard sc.r.a.ping sounds, as though clay pots were being moved, but there was no answer. "Jillian?" I called.

Still no answer. "You'd better go check on her, Clay."

He crept down the steps. "Jillian? Sweetheart?"

Moments later Claymore came pounding up the steps. "Her accoutrements are there, but she's not."

"She has to be there. She didn't turn into a bat and fly away, did she?"

Claymore stared at me in horror, as if such a thing were possible.

"Stop it, Clay! Did that spider bite you, too? There are plenty of places to hide in that old bas.e.m.e.nt. She probably found one of them." I glanced at my watch. It was nearly closing time. "Why don't you go home and let me work on her? And leave the bottle of pills. I'll call you as soon as I have news, okay?"

"Are you sure she'll be safe down there?"

"What's the worst that can happen? She's already been bitten by a spider. Now go!"

After he left, I called downstairs, "Jillian, Clay is gone now. You can come up."

From far away I heard, "No."

Fine. If she was going to be difficult, then she could just cool her heels in that dank old bas.e.m.e.nt all evening. "Jill, I have to leave in a little while to meet Marco at the bar. I'm going to put your food in the fridge. I'll be back after dinner to see how you're doing."

"Do we dare close up the shop with your ailing cousin down there?" Grace asked, startling me.

"When Claymore tried to get her to come up, she went deeper into hiding. I can't get down there unless I scoot down on my rear, so if you'd care to try to convince her, be my guest."

"In that case, I'm sure she'll be perfectly fine until you return." With a nod of affirmation, Grace said good night.

At five fifteen, as Chelsea and I headed up the sidewalk toward Down the Hatch, I gave her the important details on the Salvare brothers-important meaning nothing that might scare her away from Rafe, such as his ill-fated engagement to a nineteen-year-old Hooters waitress whose father owned a striptease club and whose mother had been a dancer there. Instead I focused on the Salvare men's positive qualities, of which there were many.

There was still a heavy police presence around the square, along with more people carrying antivampire signs and walking in a continuous loop. They weren't bothering anyone, simply exercising their const.i.tutional rights, which I'd done a number of times myself for animal rights causes. Plus, they were on public property, so the police couldn't chase them off. Still, their presence worried me.

The protesters didn't seem to faze Chelsea. "I can't wait to meet Rafe," she said, holding the door open. "Thank you so much for inviting me."

The first thing I did upon entering was to make sure Rafe was there. He was. My next task was to make sure Vlad had arrived without hara.s.sment from the protesters. He had. I spotted Marco already seated at our booth in the far back and paused to point him out to Chelsea. "That's Marco."

Marco lifted his hand in greeting. I'd already filled him in on my plan and surprisingly he'd agreed to it right away. We would order drinks and have Rafe deliver them to the table, at which point I'd introduce Chelsea. Then Marco would invite Rafe to take a short break to join us. Hopefully, sparks would ignite and the rest would fall into place.

"And there's Rafe," I told her. But Rafe chose that moment to duck behind the counter to get something from a lower shelf. "Correction, there was Rafe."

"Here's my girl," Marco said, standing up to give me a kiss. He offered his hand to my guest. "Chelsea, right? Marco Salvare."

She shook his hand and then we sat down. The Evil Ones were stowed; drinks were ordered; and the curtain on my little drama began to rise. As the orchestra struck up the overture, Chelsea exclaimed, "O-M-G!" and lifted herself up off the bench to watch as Gert carried our order up to the bar. "Is that him?"

Marco and I both followed the direction of her gaze. Rafe had popped up again and was mixing drinks, looking young and das.h.i.+ng. I saw Gert give him our orders, point at us, and pa.s.s along the message that he was to serve our drinks. He glanced our way, so I waved.

"Yes, that's him," I said. Let the play begin.

"I can't believe it," she squealed. "I'm actually seeing the vampire in person!"

What? I glanced at Marco and he shrugged, as though to say, Nice try.

"Everyone in my dorm is talking about Vlad." She pulled her cell phone out of her purse and slid out of the booth, her eyes wide with excitement. "The girls will not believe this. I have to get his picture. Thank you so much for inviting me!"

I watched in dismay as Chelsea surged into the crowd just as Rafe pushed through from the other side to deliver our beers. He set three bottles on the table, then gave Marco a vexed look. "I was busy. Why did I have to bring them over?"

Marco propped his chin on his hand and gazed at me. "Yes, Abby, why did Rafe have to bring them over?"

I pasted on a smile. "Because . . . I haven't had a chance to congratulate you, Rafe. Marco says you're doing a terrific job."

"Yeah, well, it kind of goes unnoticed when I'm working next to the superstar." He indicated Vlad with a nod of his head. "That reminds me, bro, while you were out this afternoon, Vlad's attorney stopped by. Dave Hammond, right? He said he couldn't reach Vlad by phone so he was hoping to find him here. I pa.s.sed the message to Vlad, just so you know."

"Is it me," I asked, "or does it seem like no one can reach Vlad during the day?"

Marco ignored my question to ask Rafe, "Did Dave say why he needed Vlad?"

"Nope. Just when I saw Vlad, to make sure he called ASAP because he had news."