Harsh afternoon sunlight was peeking around the edges of the blackout curtains over the bedroom windows when Eshe woke up. A glance at the clock showed that it was just past three in the afternoon. It had been early when she'd gone to bed, but not when she'd gone to sleep. She'd lain awake in bed for hours, exhausted, but her mind fretting over her worries. It had been three A.M. when she'd last looked at the clock before dropping off to sleep last night. She'd slept twelve hours. It was a long time for her, and that alone would have left her well rested. However, she'd also enjoyed some of those shared erotic dreams that life mates were said to experience, her mind merging with Armand's as they slept and the two of them living out in their dreams what they really wanted to do in reality, which had come down to a lot of very hot sex. It was a bit embarrassing to think about now that she was awake, but Eshe was definitely better for the relief it offered from her sexual tensions. She'd even woken up with a plan on how to prove Armand had told her the truth about the deaths of his wives.
Sitting up in bed, Eshe tossed the blankets aside and got to her feet. She was even actually humming under her breath as she crossed the room to the bag she'd brought with her. While she had jeans and T-shirts now that she could have worn, leather was better for riding the motorcycle, so she pulled out the second pair of leather pants she'd brought, as well as the almost corsetlike matching black leather top, and took them with her into the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, she was showered and dressed and heading out of her room.
Eshe got as far as the top of the stairs and then stopped. The long sleep had done her good, but now she needed blood and there wasn't any in the refrigerator downstairs.
She swung back around to peer up the hall toward Armand's room, but shook her head at once. If she went in there and got anywhere near the sleepy-eyed, bed-headed Argeneau tiger, she wouldn't get a damned thing done today. Her clothes would be on the floor and she'd be in his bed with him before he'd finished blinking his eyes open. And despite the fact that he'd turned his back on her last night, she didn't think he'd push her out of his bed this afternoon. She'd be living out the dreams they'd shared in living color.
Sighing, Eshe started to turn back toward the stairs, but paused as her gaze landed on the only other closed door in the hallway. Obviously that was the room Bricker had taken for his own. It was the one across from hers. Eshe narrowed her gaze on the door and then nodded and strode toward it with determination.
She suspected Bricker had been up until sunrise. It was the usual sleeping pattern for most immortals; in bed by dawn, up by sunset. Of course, some immortals got up earlier or kept more regular hours. They didn't have to sleep in the day if they didn't like. They didn't even need to avoid sunlight, really. It just saved them on having to consume extra blood to combat the damage sunlight did to the skin, so most at least stayed inside during daylight.
Unfortunately for Bricker, Eshe didn't much care if he usually slept later. He was young, and she needed his help. If she knew Lucian Argeneau, he'd sent extra blood with Bricker, and she wanted some of it. And then she wanted his help asking questions of Susanna's brother and sister, and Althea's parents if they were still in the area. A quick call to Lucian should tell her where the two pairs lived.
Bricker's door wasn't locked, but then she hadn't expected it to be. As far as she could tell, none of the bedrooms had locks on them. Eshe eased the door open and moved silently inside, her eyes examining a sleeping Bricker. The boy was built like a wrestler, lots of defined muscle and flat stomach, but fortunately without the unattractive thick neck. Eshe admired his buff chest above the sheet that had been pushed down low at his waist as she settled to sit on the side of his bed, then reached out and tugged gently on a length of his hair.
Bricker's eyes opened at once.
"Eshe," he said with blank surprise.
"I need you," she whispered, not sure how thick the walls were and not wanting to wake up Armand.
A slow smile immediately curved his lips. "I knew you couldn't resist me. I'm a hottie."
"Ha ha," Eshe said, knowing he was teasing. "Did Lucian send blood with you?"
"It's down in the fridge in the kitchen. I put it there after you went to bed. Armand said we have to move it to the refrigerator in his room tonight, though, so his housekeeper doesn't see it when she comes in tomorrow."
"Good," she said, standing up. "Now get up. You're going to help me."
"Help you with what?" he asked in a whisper, sitting up on the bed.
"With finding out what really happened to Armand's wives."
"Sleep did help clear your mind then?" he said with satisfaction.
"Yes. And as long as I keep my distance from Armand it will stay clear. Now get up and get dressed. I'll be in the kitchen." She was at the door before she added, "And wear your leathers, we're going out."
Eshe didn't wait to see if he followed her orders, but the rustle of sheets behind her as she opened the bedroom door suggested he was. As the senior enforcer there, she wouldn't have expected anything less than prompt obedience, and she got it. Eshe was on only her third bag of blood when Bricker sauntered into the kitchen in a T-shirt, leather pants, and jacket, and with his hair still wet from a very fast shower.
"So, what are we doing today?" he asked cheerfully as he opened the refrigerator door to retrieve a bag of blood.
Eshe pulled the empty bag from her teeth and answered, "I'm calling Lucian to find out where Susanna's brother and sister and Althea's parents live and then we're going to go question them. They should help verify whether Armand was around when Susanna and Althea died."
"Sweet," Bricker crowed, straightening from the fridge with two bags in hand. He tossed her one, saying, "See, I told you a night's sleep would make a difference."
Eshe merely grunted around the bag she slapped to her teeth. She hated I-told-you-sos.
The moment she'd finished feeding, Eshe pulled her cell phone from her pocket and punched in the number for Lucian's home. It was early still, but Lucian was a man who never seemed to sleep. Besides, she couldn't just sit around waiting. She wanted to be out of the house and on the move before Armand woke up and her brain went south.
"Speak" was Lucian's barked greeting when he answered the phone. It made Eshe roll her eyes. There was really no reason the man couldn't try at least a little common courtesy.
"It's Eshe," she announced. "And good afternoon to you too, Lucian."
"I'm not assigning someone else to-" he began firmly, and she interrupted.
"I'm not calling about that."
"Oh." She could actually hear his frown over the line. He didn't ask what she was calling for, but simply waited for her to speak.
"I need the address of Agnes and John Maunsell and Althea's parents," she announced.
"William and Mary Harcourt," he murmured, giving her their last name, and then he asked bluntly, "Why?"
"Armand says he was away at court when Susanna died in a stable fire, and that he was home on the farm when Althea died in the hotel fire in Toronto. I want to talk to them to see if they can verify that for me," she explained, and then added, "It would get him off the hook for at least two of the deaths, which would pretty much clear him altogether, don't you think?"
Lucian was silent for a minute and then she heard a rustling sound as if he was covering the phone. It was followed by a muffled conversation she couldn't make out. When it ended, there was another rustle as the phone was uncovered and then a female voice spoke, "Hello, Eshe. This is Marguerite Argeneau."
"Marguerite," she murmured with a half smile. Eshe had always liked Lucian's sister-in-law through his now-deceased twin, Jean Claude. "Hello. How are you?"
"Very well. Listen, Lucian is getting the addresses for you, but I think I can help with at least Susanna's death. We lived not far from Armand at the time and Jean Claude and I traveled to visit when we heard the baby was born. We missed Armand, he'd apparently left the day after the birth and we didn't arrive until four days later. We stayed a couple of days and then left early in the evening on the night of the fire to head home. From what I heard afterward, it apparently happened a couple hours after we left. Armand was not home when we left, so unless he arrived after we rode out..." She didn't bother finishing the sentence, but instead asked, "Does that help at all?"
"Yes," Eshe murmured, trying to ignore the relief sliding through her that at least she knew that Armand probably hadn't been there when Susanna died.
"I read Marguerite's mind," Lucian announced, apparently taking the phone. "She's telling the truth."
Eshe rolled her eyes at the rather rude and abrupt announcement, but smiled reluctantly when she heard Marguerite laughing with amusement in the background. Apparently she wasn't upset by his reading her to verify that she was telling the truth.
"Here are the addresses," Lucian announced abruptly, and Eshe glanced around a bit wildly for a pen and paper to scribble the information down.
"Here." Bricker snatched a magnetized notepad off the refrigerator and slid it in front of her, along with a pen he found after a quick search of the drawer beside the fridge.
Eshe mouthed, "Thank you" to him and listened as Lucian rattled off each address.
"They're both in the area," she murmured with relief as she wrote down the addresses. Armand had said that Althea's parents had moved to Europe after her death. She'd been worried they might still be there. But it seemed they'd moved back to the area since then.
"Do you need anything else?" Lucian asked abruptly.
"No. That was-" Eshe didn't bother to finish. Lucian had hung up the moment she'd said no. Rolling her eyes, she muttered, "And good-bye to you too."
"So?" Bricker asked, hefting himself up to sit on the island. "Where are we going?"
Eshe tore off the sheet of notepaper with the addresses and walked over to hand it to him.
"Susanna's brother and sister live closest," he commented, and then glanced at her in question. "What about breakfast?"
Eshe considered the question. She was rather peck-ish herself, but really wanted to get on the road. This eating business could be a bit inconvenient.
"Can you cook?" she asked finally.
Bricker pursed his lips, and then said slowly, "Yeah...but I passed a diner on the way out here. It would be faster."
"Good thinking," she decided, turning toward the door. "The diner it is then."
Bricker was off the counter at once and slipping past her. "I'll race you."
"I'll win," Eshe warned, following him out of the kitchen.
They served an all-day breakfast at the diner that turned out to be delicious. It was also on the table in front of them pretty fast. Eshe and Bricker were equally quick about consuming it, paying the bill and getting out of there. Aside from the fact that she wanted to get to business on the task of questioning the families of Armand's first two wives, she was also incredibly uncomfortable in the diner. It was full of locals, and every one of them seemed to be watching her and Bricker and, when not offering them wide friendly smiles, whispering wildly among themselves.
It seemed Mrs. Ramsey had been faithful in spreading Eshe's description around and everyone knew who she was, but there was a lot of wild speculation passed among the tables by the waitresses as to who Bricker might be. Some had pegged him as her lover and suspected a love triangle had developed at the farm. Others thought perhaps he was a relative. Eshe had just shaken her head at that one. As it happened she did have two white siblings who had taken on their father's coloring, but Bricker looked nothing like anyone in her family.
Eshe was uncomfortable being the center of attention and glad when they finished eating and she could hustle Bricker out of the diner.
Agnes and John Maunsell lived two towns over, a twenty-minute drive. At least it was twenty minutes with Eshe and Bricker racing each other there. The house they arrived at was a large, modern brick ranch house set back a good distance from the road, with several bright red outbuildings around it and white fencing everywhere. In truth, it looked brand-spanking-new and was obviously the latest of the six farms Armand had mentioned John accumulating.
"Nice," Bricker commented once they had both turned off their bikes and she could hear him.
"Yes," Eshe agreed as she got off her motorcycle, and it was attractive. But she preferred Armand's place. There, a line of trees along the road and around the house itself offered privacy and made the house feel cozy and almost secluded. Here, there were no trees at all, simply the buildings set in the middle of fields as if dropped there.
"I wonder how many acres he has here?" Bricker murmured as they moved together toward the house.
Eshe merely shrugged, her gaze sliding over a small yellow sports car and a larger black van parked side by side in the driveway. "They're home."
"Yeah," Bricker murmured, reaching out to press the doorbell as they reached the door. "Now the question is whether they're awake or not."
Eshe merely grunted at the comment, but frowned as she realized they probably wouldn't be. It was still light out and a lot of older immortals slept all day, an old habit hard to break after centuries of doing so by necessity.
As they waited for the door to be answered, Eshe glanced around their surroundings again. It was late afternoon without a cloud in the sky. The sun was baking down on them, and hot though it was, she was glad she had her leathers on to prevent the sun from baking and damaging her skin. They hadn't thought to bring any extra blood with them, which was why she and Bricker both still had their helmets on with the visors down. They wouldn't remove them until they were inside, safely out of the sun.
If they got inside, Eshe thought as the wait lengthened. She tapped her fingers against her thigh as they waited, but when Bricker reached for the doorbell again, she caught his arm to stop him. "Don't bother. Most of the older immortals have soundproofed bedrooms without phones to avoid pesky calls and door-to-door salesmen." She gestured for him to follow and turned to head back to their motorcycles. "We'll go over to the Harcourts' and stop in here again on the way back."
Eshe led him back to their bikes and got on her own, but glanced to Bricker in question when he paused and peered back at the house with his head cocked. "What is it?"
Bricker hesitated, and then shook his head. Moving to his own motorcycle, he muttered, "Nothing."
Eshe glanced back to the house, but didn't see anything. Shrugging, she repeated, "We'll stop on the way back. Let's go."
Bricker hesitated another moment, but then nodded and got on his own machine, asking, "Do we know the way to the Harcourts'?"
"I punched it into my GPS," she answered. "According to it, the Harcourts' place is about fifteen minutes from here."
They made it to the Harcourts' in fourteen minutes, but then they weren't racing as they had on the way to John and Agnes's place. William and Mary Harcourt lived in a home not dissimilar to the Maunsell farm. It was a more modern ranch with outbuildings, only here trees lined the property as well as the long driveway leading up to the house.
Eshe turned onto the driveway and slowed as she spotted the car coming toward her. The car slowed as well, the woman behind the wheel peering out at them curiously as she passed. She didn't stop, however, but continued on to the road.
"So I'm guessing that was Mary Harcourt," Bricker commented as they stopped their motorcycles on the paved drive in front of the house. "I didn't see Mr. Harcourt though."
"I'm betting that's him," Eshe murmured, nodding toward the dark-haired man peering at them from the open door of the closest barn. He looked about twenty-six or -seven, but then adult immortals all did. However, this man looked grim and unwelcoming as he watched them approach.
Eshe left Bricker to make the introductions, her gaze moving over Althea's father and then shifting to glance around the interior of the barn they were in as she removed her helmet.
"So you're Armand's new life mate."
Eshe turned to peer wide-eyed at William Harcourt at that comment.
He smiled with dry amusement at her expression. "Sweetheart, your thoughts are shrieking in my ears right now, a hazard of first finding a life mate. You'll slowly regain control of them again."
Eshe grimaced and nodded, but he wasn't done.
"Now what the hell was that I picked up about you fact-checking his alibis to be sure Armand couldn't have killed Susanna or Althea?"
Eshe cursed, but Bricker just started to laugh and said, "Well, that saves us having to ask questions."
"Maybe," Harcourt growled. "But you can damned well explain things. I've known Armand for seven hundred years. He didn't have anything to do with his wives' deaths. Hell, they were all accidents...weren't they?" he added, and frowned. "I know Althea's was."
Eshe peered at him closely. "You don't sound too sure."
William Harcourt avoided her eyes for a minute and then shook his head. "I don't know. I've often wondered..."
"What did you wonder?" Eshe asked, her body tensing.
William grimaced at her. "Oh, don't panic. I've never wondered about Armand. He didn't even know where we were. It was the busy season for us farmers, but I had a good manager, so when Mary pleaded with me to take her to see Althea and little Thomas, I agreed. We stayed a couple of days, but the girls wanted to spend more time visiting, and Mary suggested Althea come back home with us for a couple weeks. We'd bring her back after the harvest, when Armand wouldn't be so busy."
"And you agreed," Eshe guessed, bringing a wry twist to William's lips.
"I've always been a soft touch when it came to things Mary wanted, and I wasn't much better with Althea, so, yes, I agreed." He ran a weary hand through his hair. "If I hadn't, Althea might still be alive."
Eshe glanced away, giving him a moment to get past his emotion. When he cleared his throat, she glanced back to see that his expression was grim and determined.
"Anyway, Armand agreed to the visit and we left the next night. But I can guarantee you he didn't follow. When we left he had his arm shoulder-deep in a mare's womb trying to untangle her foal that had got caught in the umbilical cord. There is no way he followed."
Eshe nodded silently for him to go on.
"Even if he'd dropped everything, changed, and followed, he would never have caught up."
"Why is that?" Bricker asked.
"Because we'd barely left the farm when the women started talking about perhaps making the trip to Toronto while Althea was staying with us," he said, and then explained, "Armand was on another farm at that time as were we. His farm was at that time northeast of London, about halfway between our farm and Toronto. A much longer journey by carriage than it would be today. The idea of having to make the long journey there and home at a later date wasn't a thrilling one for me. I thought if we headed there from Armand's it would cut out half of the journey one way."
Eshe nodded at his reasoning. "So instead of heading south, you headed east, and Armand wouldn't have expected that so couldn't have followed unless he was directly on your heels."
"Exactly, and trust me, he wasn't directly behind us. Even if he'd given up on the mare as soon as I left the barn, it would have taken a good bit of cleanup and a change of clothes for him to follow. He wasn't on our heels," he repeated firmly.
"Then what did you wonder about?" Eshe asked quietly.
"At the time it was the fact that Althea was dead at all," he said grimly. "She was the only fatality in that hotel fire. Lots of mortals were injured. Hell, Mary and I even got a little singed, but Althea was the only person who died and she was immortal."
"How did Thomas get out?" Bricker asked suddenly. "He was only four, right? He must have been with her. How-"
"He was with us," William interrupted, telling him what Eshe already knew. "Althea said he tended to fuss through the day and Mary offered to take him in to sleep in our room with us so that she could sleep the day through without being disturbed."
"Was Althea in the room next to yours?" Eshe asked.
William shook his head, his expression tight. "The hotel was busy, the two rooms we were given were at opposite ends of the hotel; one in the front, and one at the back, away from the road and quieter. Althea asked for the one at the back of the hotel so she could sleep through the day without the annoyance of street traffic. Mary and I didn't mind which room we had so we agreed. We just wanted to get to bed. The journey back then was long and dusty. It had worn us out and we all went to bed early." William Harcourt paused, and she suspected he was looking into the past as he said, "It was a good couple of hours before dawn when we went to our rooms. It didn't take long to get Thomas settled and then Mary and I dropped right off."
He sighed. "The fire apparently started about three hours later, a little after dawn. We woke up to screams and shouts and smoke thick in the air. I went out in the hall to see what was happening, but it was mass chaos. The smoke was thick and hotel guests seemed to be panicking, scrambling to find loved ones and get out. I went back and got Mary and Thomas out of the hotel and then had to take the time to find somewhere out of the sunlight for them to wait. As soon as I had them somewhere sheltered, I went around to the back of the hotel to look for Althea. I spent quite a while searching for her among the guests stumbling around upset and confused. When I couldn't find her, I thought she must have got out and found shelter for herself. If that were the case, she could have been just about anywhere, so I took the time to go back to Mary and Thomas and move them to another hotel, then returned to continue searching."
"You didn't find her." Bricker stated the obvious.
William shook his head. "No, I kept looking until I heard some of the men saying the fire had started in the back corner room and they were bringing out remains."
"Althea's room?" Eshe asked.
William nodded. "And Althea's remains. All that was left was her charred head, but one of the ears was still mostly intact and I recognized the earring. It was one of a set we'd given her for her eighteenth birthday." He sighed and ran his hand through his hair again. "We packed up Thomas and headed straight to Armand to tell him what had happened."
William peered at her solemnly as he said, "Armand didn't kill her. I don't know if that fire was accidental and she was trapped, or what happened. But if it was set deliberately, it wasn't Armand who set it."
Eshe nodded and started to turn away, but paused when he added, "And he didn't kill Rosamund either."
She stopped and glanced back sharply. "Oh?"
"We moved back to England for a while after Althea's death. Mary didn't handle losing her that way very well and I thought a stay back in Europe would do her good. It didn't really make a difference, though, and we had moved back to the area just a couple weeks before Rosamund died. Armand was good enough to put Mary and me up at the farm until we bought a place of our own. We were there when Rosamund died. My Mary and Rosamund were in the house talking when Armand and I headed out to the fields. I was helping while we stayed with him. Didn't want to be a burden," he explained, and then continued, "I guess Rosamund went out about an hour after we left. Armand and I worked in the field most of the evening and were heading back to the house at around ten P.M. when Armand's neighbor came riding up with the news that he'd come across Rosamund's overturned wagon on the road and she was dead." His mouth twisted with dissatisfaction as he added, "They said the wagon landed on her badly and she was decapitated."
Eshe was silent, digesting that.
"I can't speak for where he was at the time of Nicholas's Annie's death," William said suddenly. "But I'm damned sure he didn't kill her either, and I know damned right well he didn't kill Susanna. No one kills their life mate," William said staunchly.
"Thank you," Eshe said sincerely, relieved by his revelations.
William nodded and then turned away, moving toward the back of the barn and leaving them to see themselves out of the building.
"I guess that gets Armand off the hook," Bricker commented as they headed for the open barn door.
"Yeah," Eshe said, breathing freely for the first time since she'd realized she couldn't read Armand Argeneau. She'd felt like a band had been tightened around her chest with that realization. Finding a life mate was an awesome thing...except when there was a chance he was a murdering bastard you might lose almost as quickly as you'd encountered him.
"So, have you and Armand never met before this?" Bricker asked, and then pointed out, "I mean, you've known Lucian how long?"
"All my life," she murmured.
"Right. So how come you've never met Armand?"
Eshe paused to put her helmet on as they reached the door of the barn. "Lucian was a friend of my father's and visited us once in a while. He usually came to Africa once every fifty years or so while my father lived, but it was less frequent after that and he was always alone. Then when I moved to Canada about a century ago..." She shrugged and started across the yard toward their motorcycles. "I haven't been very sociable since my first life mate, Orion, died. I mostly keep to myself. I've met Marguerite a time or two in passing, and a couple of her kids. Thomas delivered blood to me on occasion, and then I've met all of the family who are involved in rogue hunting, including Nicholas before he went rogue, but other than that..." She shrugged.
"Hmm," Bricker murmured, and shook his head. "So if Lucian hadn't sent you on this case you may never have met Armand. Life's weird, huh?"
"Yes," Eshe agreed quietly as she threw one leg over her motorcycle. "Very weird at times."
"The good news is, now you can seduce Armand without guilt or worrying that you're doing the hoochie-coo with a killer," Bricker said cheerfully.
"The hoochie-coo?" she asked with amazement. "Are you trying to get yourself knocked on your ass again, Bricker?"
He grinned and merely started his motorcycle, the roar of the engine making further conversation impossible.
Shaking her head, Eshe started her own machine, but his words were resounding in her head. She could seduce Armand now without guilt. That was the best news she'd had in a long time.
They drove past John and Agnes Maunsell's place on the way back to the farm, but while it was full dark out now, there were no lights on in the house and both the car and van were gone.
"Looks like we missed them," Bricker said over the roar of their engines as they paused on the road by the driveway.
"We'll try again later, or maybe tomorrow," she decided.
Bricker nodded and throttled his engine. "Race you back to the farm."
