Page 33 of Tell Me Why
“Of course,” Isabella said.
“Isabella, this is my friend Tina. Tina, this is Isabella.”
“I go by Crissy, here,” Isabella said. “But it is an honor to make a proper acquaintance of someone that Tell calls friend.”
“Same,” Tina answered.
“Very well,” Isabella said, straightening and looking at Tell. “What is it that Keon wants me to hear?”
“He sent Andrew to speak with me at one of the darkest of the dark bars,” Tell said. “And he wouldn’t give me the message. He said that he would get it to me after I found you.”
Isabella laughed.
“Is he feigningconcernfor me, then?” she asked. “After all this time.”
Tell shook his head.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “But I found you.”
Isabella sighed.
“You did,” she said. “Which is a shame. It should have been a celebration, to spend time together again.”
Tell nodded.
“You have men outside?” he asked, and she nodded, looking at Tina with pity.
Oh, whatever happened next was going to bebad.
“You’ve been sleepinghere?” she asked. “With all thisglass?”
“Everything here has too much glass,” Tell observed.
“Everything not made for us,” Isabella agreed. “You’ll come quietly?”
“So long as you’ll take all of our personal effects with us,” Tell said.
“Sequestered,” Isabella said.
“Naturally,” Tell answered.
“Very well,” Isabella said.
“What’s happening?” Tina asked.
“You’re being taken prisoner, dear,” Isabella said. “But you’ll finally get a good day’s sleep out of it, at least.”
“Oh,” Tina said.
“Oh,” Isabella echoed, amused, then indicated Tina ought to stand.
Apparently they were being taken prisoner, now.
The entire thingwas unsettlingly civil.
Isabella sent someone downstairs to collect their belongings, then they went out to a van that sounded much too heavy, for the sounds the doors made, and then drove with the same sort of preponderant bulk. There were no windows in the back, just the dimmed streetlights coming through the divider between the drivers and the benches in the back, and Tina sat between a pair of vampire men on her side while Tell sat between the same number on his side. Isabella rode in a different car, but she offered her apologies.
Tell didn’t have to signal her not to speak, and she didn’t, for the duration of about a forty-minute drive.
