Page 33 of The Dancer and the Dark
Tenzin walked over to the map, grabbed Ben’s marker, and quickly drew dots in front of three more locations. “The vehicle headed west, then north.”
Ben sighed. “Right for the 210 freeway. They could be anywhere.”
“Have the list from Ernesto’s people.” Audra walked over, carrying a stack of papers. “They copied me and Raj too.” She handed one to Raj and one to Gavin.
Raj scanned the list, shaking his head. “I don’t recognize any—”
“I do.” Gavin spotted her name immediately, and his fangs dropped. “Not French, Belgian.” He was already walking toward the french doors that led to the backyard balcony. “Tenzin?”
“We’re with you.” Tenzin and Ben followed him, taking to the air a second behind him.
Gavin was hunting now.
She closedher eyes and sighed. “I don’t know how many times I can tell you: I have no idea what you’re talking about. I am not… some top secret new employee. And I don’t know anything about Gavin’s businesses. I am abartender.”
“Haven’t we treated you well?” The elegant man sitting across from her was human, like her. Black like her, though he spoke with an elegant French accent. “How is your headache, Miss Reardon?”
“My headache is fine.” She stood and paced around the small room. “Listen, none of your questions make sense. I am not telling stories. I’m not trying to hide who I am.”
Which was a lie.
“We know you are employed by Wallace’s organization. We wish you no harm, Miss Reardon, I promise. Think of this as an opportunity.”
“An opportunity?” She leaned on the table. “I am a bartender at the Dancing Bear in Brooklyn. I’m not special. I don’t know any secrets.”
Except the ones his girlfriend would know, but Chloe was pretty sure it was safer to go with the bartender story, and no one needed to know about Gavin’s collection of plaid underwear but her.
“We are not trying to intimidate you, Miss Reardon, but—”
“You’re not trying to intimidate me?” she yelled. “You kidnapped me from my mother’s house on the day of my father’s funeral!”
“After you expressed that you would be leaving Los Angeles far sooner than my employer anticipated,” the man said. “Truly, all this unpleasantness—”
“What’s going to be unpleasant” —Chloe’s eyes went wide— “is when Gavin finds you. Because he will, and it is not going to go well for you. You need to let me go. Blindfold me and drop me off in the middle of nowhere with a burner phone if you want to stay alive. I promise I am shit at describing people, so you’re safe on that front, but if he finds me here and you’re still holding me—”
“But why would an important immortal like Gavin Wallace care so much about a simple bartender, Miss Reardon?” The man’s eyebrow rose. “If you are what you say you are, why does he have so many of his people guarding you?”
Fuck.
She tried another tack and sat across the table from the man. She was being held in a small room with a bed, a sofa, a small dining table, and a private bathroom with no windows. It was far nicer than her first apartment in Queens, and if she hadn’t remembered the pinching pain in her neck and waking up with strangers, she could have fooled herself she was in a very generic hotel room or studio apartment.
“Listen, Mr.…?”
“You may call me Mr. Chopel.”
“Mr. Chopel, I am a bartender, but I’m also a friend. My father passed away and Gavin knew I was upset, so he sent Audra with me. Zain isn’t even Gavin’s employee—he’s just a friend in Los Angeles who works for a family friend of mine, Giovanni Vecchio.”
The man’s pleasant gaze faltered. “The man guarding you…?”
“He wasn’t a guard, he’s a friend of mine, and yes, he works for the Vecchio clan.” Chloe could tell she’d thrown them off. “For your sake, I really hope Zain is okay.”
Mr. Chopel turned to the thin man in the corner with the ascetic face and said something in a language that reminded Chloe of French but wasn’t. She’d taken more than two years of French, but it had been a while since she practiced.
The man in the corner was human as well, white, with narrow lips and thinning sandy-brown hair. He hadn’t said a word since Chloe had woken up. Now he answered the man in a low voice in a language that sounded more German than French.
What the hell?
“We’re not going to talk about Giovanni Vecchio right now,” the man questioning her said. “Tell us about the telecommunications project. Tell us about your programming work. Whatever he is paying you, our employer will pay double.”
