Page 19 of Tell Me Why
“Okay,” Tina said.
Tell was already digging.
“He’d sell out his own mother if the price was right,” Tell said. “But Isabella…” He glanced at her. “She’srealin a way you won’t recognize in a lot of other vampires. Believes inreal. And if she was actuallywithhim, if the rumors were true, it wasn’t just a convenient fling.”
“Eightyyearsago, and… You think they had something serious enough for her to rely on him to get her out of Europe?” Tina asked.
“Both bigger and more trivial than you think,” Tell said. “I’ve got him. Nashville. Show me the pictures from Nashville.”
Tina pulled the folder up, sorted by date, and went over to kneel next to him. He browsed through the thumbnails quickly, almost impatiently, then pointed at the back of a head.
“I would laygoodmoney that this is her.”
“What’s in Nashville?” Tina asked, and he shook his head.
“I have no idea,” he said. “Daryll has a partial ownership in a few businesses there under a name that I remember. Whichmeans that either I’m wrong, that’snother, and I’ve simply foundDaryll, or they don’t expect Keon to make the connection, either.”
“So… should I book tickets to Nashville?” she asked, and Tell closed his laptop and bit his lower lip.
“Oh, no,” he said. “Now you learn howItravel.”
Tina had beento the train yards twice in her life, before, both because of work for Tell.
She had never before been on a train.
And even if she had, she suspected she never would have been on a trainlike this.
The box might have actually been based on the infrastructure of a shipping container, and from the outside it was completely inauspicious, but stepping inside of it, Tina found that the luxury jet that Hunter had arranged for her to get to London had been a poor facsimile ofthis.
A technology that vampires had apparently been innovating for alongtime, the room inside was quiet and soft and beautiful, full of dark colors and the impression of privacy. There were no windows at all, and the walls had a feeling of solidity that she could sense in herskin. She’d come to assume it, at Viella, but it was different to find it somewhere else.
There were four fountains on board, and a linked passage to another car where there were reputedly bedrooms, but for now, Tina was reading a book while Tell sat at a table and continued working, one of the fountains tending bar while the other three listened to music and talked quietly or danced, as they felt like it.
They were normal fountains, not handpicked like the ones that Hunter had hired for crossing the Atlantic, but they were unobtrusive, and Tina didn’t mind them being there.
“I’ve never been to Nashville before,” one of them said to Tina as they were getting ready to leave. “Have you?”
“No,” Tina admitted. Many of the fountains knew that Tina was new and treated her differently for it, not assuming she’d seen and doneeverything, but these didn’t know her, and they had the same sense of scope and awe when it came to Tina that they did with Tell. Even theexperiencedfountains would ask him about things from history or from the scope of the world, unable to get over howmuchhe might have taken in, in his life.
“They say it’s a good time to go,” the girl said. “The hiking is supposed to be beautiful, and the bars… well, they’re better than here.”
Tina had smiled, letting that be the end of the conversation, and had gone back to her book.
They’d eaten a meal that a caterer had brought on board at a stop, and then Tell had taken a pair of them back into the other car to feed, giving Tina firm instructions that she ought to feed twice this trip, as well.
The fountains were obliging, if disappointed they’d been left with Tina rather than going with Tell, then Tina went to go sit at the table where Tell’s laptop remained, going back to her party pictures and trying to get herself familiarized with the faces, in case any of them were useful.
Tell came back out near dawn, lifting his chin.
“You should get ready for sleep,” he said. “It’s better than most anything else, but it won’t be as comfortable as home.”
Tina nodded.
“Any new leads on what she’s doing there?” she asked, and he shook his head, sending his eyes sideways at the fountains,indicating that he wouldn’t answer her even if hedidknow something, because he didn’t want an audience.
Four miles from June’s before he’d speak to her about it.
This was still a major secret.
