Page 77 of Discovery of the Vampire
She stepped into the dim light of the living room, giving Killian a smile as she greeted him. Alice was always kind to everyone. Now I knew it was only her way of tricking everyone.
"Alice. How are ye?"
"I'm scared," she told him with a shaky smile. Her words rang with honesty. Seeing me standing off to the side by the windows, she asked, "Is Esme upstairs? Is she ready?"
Killian and I exchanged a glance. I crossed my arms over my chest, not quite ready to set aside my apprehensions about her yet. "Ready for what?" I asked.
A look of confusion passed over her delicate features. "She didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
Instead of answering, she gave me another confused look. "Is she not here?"
Killian answered before I could try to get more information from her. "Esme never came back to the house after sneaking out in the wee hours of the morning."
She hesitated for a moment before responding. “She should’ve come back here this morning," her eyes moved from Killian to me, "right after you did."
God, I was a fucking idiot. Of course, she’d known I was there. Which meant Alice showing up here, alone, was how they intended to cover their asses. Another shock of pain hit me hard, making my eyes water. “So you changed your plans.”
The look Alice gave me would’ve been downright comical if I wasn’t so disgusted at what a great liar she was. Who would’ve thought innocent, sweet Alice was such a great actress? I’dheardthem last night. I’d felt Esme’s betrayal.
The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I’d been wrong about her all along.
Or she would’ve answered her fucking phone.
“Brogan.” Killian’s voice carried a warning. “Let me handle this.”
I ripped my cell phone out of my pocket and hit redial. To Alice, I said, “Maybe you should stop trying to turn this around on me and tell us the truth about why you two were at the cemetery.”
“BROGAN.”
Turning my back, I listened to Esme’s voicemail for the hundredth time that day. I threw the phone across the room, but the damage it did to the wall gave me no satisfaction.
“Did she mention going somewhere else, perhaps?” Killian asked.
Alice’s brow furrowed in worry even as she nervously eyed me. “No. She was coming straight here. She wanted to get back before you woke up,” she told me.
“I followed her there, like you did,” she told me. Her gaze whipped back to Killian. “Wait. You’re saying you don’t know where she is?” Her voice was laced with panic.
Panic that didn’t sound faked.
Had I gotten it all wrong?
“I take it ye and Esme had some sort of plan?”
"Yes," Alice said, her voice high with worry. "We were supposed to meet tonight. All of us. I told her I wanted to help."
"Help with Marcus." Killian confirmed.
"Yes." Alice twisted her hands nervously, glancing at me. "She didn't want to worry you…"
"Get to the point, Alice. Please," I begged. My head was throbbing.
“We planned to meet here tonight to come up with a different way to get rid of Marcus." She glanced back and forth between us. “See for yourself if you don’t believe me. Go on,” she insisted.
“I don’t think that’s necessary…” Killian started.
“Do it,” she told him. “If something happened to Esme, we don’t have time to sit around here with him glaring at me all night.” She gestured to me.
