The devil's own-Laura Goodman, college girl about Dinkytown-breezed into Dunn Brothers at two minutes after five. She waved at me, paused to speak to the counter guy-who was slavering like a beast, I couldn't help noticing-and then came over to me.
"I'm so sorry I'm late," she gasped by way of greeting, shaking my hand again. "I'm really, really sorry. Have you been waiting long? I'm sorry."
"It's fine, Laura. By my watch you're right on time." She seemed so contrite, so sincere, I found myself rushing to reassure her. "Have a seat."
"Thanks. My cocoa's coming."
"Don't like the hard stuff, huh?" I asked, indicating my own doublechocolattespressowithextrafoam.
"Oh, I try not to drink caffeine after lunchtime," she replied. "I have to get up early in the morning for work."
"You've got a job, too?"
"Too? Oh, that's right." She smiled at me. It wasn't a grin, it wasn't a smirk, she didn't raise an eyebrow knowingly. It was just a nice smile. "You were following me half the night yesterday."
"Well, yeah," I admitted. "I guess it's no good pretending I wasn't."
"My father says liars are fated to believe their own lies, so it's probably good you're coming clean."
"Yeah... your father. Uh, listen about that..."
She leaned forward and took my hand in hers, then dropped it. "Gosh, your hand is cold! You should have another hot drink."
"Sorry. I have bad circulation."
"No, I'm sorry. I hope I didn't make you feel bad. I shouldn't have just blurted it out like that."
"Don't worry about it, Laura." She was too good to be true! Minnesota nice was one thing, but Laura was in a class by herself. "Listen..."
She leaned forward, perfect gorgeous face lighting up. "This is about my family, isn't it? My birth family." She paused, then added, "Sorry about interrupting."
I blinked in surprise. "How'd you know?"
"Well." The counter guy brought her a white coffee cup the size of my head, absolutely brimming with whipped cream and swirled with chocolate syrup. She smiled up at him and cupped the biggest cocoa in the world in her hands. "I was thinking about you last night, after you left. And you're tall, like me-in fact you're about an inch taller. My whole life, I've never met a woman taller than me. And you're blond, and we both have light-colored eyes... and you were so mysterious, but so nice... it just got me thinking."
"Oh, so you know you're-that you were adopted?"
"Yes, of course. Mama and Dad told me all about it, about how of all the babies in the world, they chose me." She was still smiling, clearly happy at the memory. "God brought me to them."
"Right." God. Uh-huh. "Well, I recently-like, this Week-found out about you, and I did some detective Work." With vampires. And a certain dark book bound in human skin. No, not chemistry. "And I tracked you down and-I don't know." I really didn't know where I was going with this. "I just wanted to meet you and then I guess..."
"You're my sister, right?"
"Half sister," I hastened to correct. I did not have a single drop of blood in common with the Ant or the devil.
Biologically, Laura was the Ant's own blood daughter, but without the interference of Satan, she never would have been born. It was enough to make me want to lunge for the Advil. "We have the same father." And I'm so, so sorry about that, Laura.
"Well, I'm just so pleased to meet you!" Impulsively, she leaned over further and flung her arms around my neck. I almost broke her arms before I realized she was hugging me, not attacking me. "I really, really am," she gushed. She was so close I could smell-vanilla? I'd smelled it before, natch, but being in a coffee shop, I'd assumed...
"Well, thanks," I said, gently extricating myself. "It's nice to meet you, too. Has anyone ever told you, you smell like cookies?"
"I use vanilla extract instead of perfume. It's cheap, and they don't test it on bunnies," she told me soberly.
"Huh. That's kind of clever, actually."
"People tell me that a lot." She sipped her cocoa and continued, oblivious of her whipped cream mustache. "I'm at the U on scholarship. Hmm, what else should I tell you? What do you want to know?"
"What are your folks like?"
She wiped the cream away with the back of her hand, then wiped her hand on the napkin. "They're wonderful. Dad is the minister at the Presbyterian church in Inver Grove-"
"Your dad's a minister?" I tried to dial back my total amazement and shock. I thought the devil was supposed to be in the details. "That's-really cool."
"Uh-huh. And Mama takes care of the house, and me. She's in school now, too! Now that I'm out of the house, she thought it would be a good time to finish up her nursing degree. We're students together at the U! Oh, you have to come over! They would love to meet you."
"That would be"-extremely weird; incredibly uncomfortable; horribly inconvenient right now-"great."
"What about you, Betsy? What do you do?"
As God was my witness, I had no idea what to say. I just couldn't blurt it all out to her. She was such a sweetheart, I didn't want to wreck her evening. Day. Month. Life. I resolved to take it one step at a time. "I'm-I run the-a-nightclub. A bar, actually. It's called Scratch, and I own it."
"You own it?"
"Well, it was left to me. By someone-" Who I staked. "Anyway, that's really my thing. I mean, that's what I do." That didn't sound suspicious, right?
"I'd love to see it sometime."
"Well, maybe I'll bring you by." Ha! The devil's daughter, checking out my undead nightclub. "You seem to be-I mean, you seem kind of together about all this."
I had to admit, this was so not what I expected. I expected threats, mustache-twirling death threats. Not a pleasant coffee in Dinkytown. The Book had warned me about her but hadn't mentioned what an innocent she'd be.
"Mama and Dad were very open about my background," she was explaining.
Not that open, honey. "Yeah?"
"And now that I'm out of the house, I was going to do some detective work of my own. I love Mama and Dad-of course!-but I was curious, you know? I had a lot of questions, but I didn't want to be disrespectful."
"Sure, I can totally get behind that."
She smiled at me gratefully. "Anyway, you just saved me a whole lot of work." She seemed so nice, so grateful, that I couldn't help returning her smile.
"It's just so nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you, too."
"I've always hoped for a sister."
"Actually, me, too. My folks split up when I was a kid-"
"I'm really sorry."
"Thanks. Anyway, I was pretty lonesome, and if it wasn't for my friend Jess, I don't know what-" Talking about Jessica made me feel like choking up. How could I tell Laura the truth... about anything? About what I was, how I'd been such an asshole, how she was supposed to be an asshole, too, and by the way, please don't take over the world. "We're kind of in a fight right now," I finished lamely.
"If I can ask... Betsy, I hope you're not offended..."
"Go ahead. I've butted into your life."
"Well... when your folks split up... was it because of me?"
"Oh no no no," I assured her. Then, "Well, maybe. A little. It wasn't your fault. I mean, you were just a fetus. But I guess when my mom had proof my dad was cheating ... things sort of went downhill."
"Oh." She looked down at her lap. "I guess I don't really know how to feel about that. I'm sorry my birth father was faithless, but if he hadn't been..."
"Don't beat yourself up," I advised, in big sister mode. "Trust me, you'll screw up in your life enough without taking the blame for something that isn't your fault."
She looked up from her hands and smiled again. "I really-oh golly, who is that?"
I looked. Eric Sinclair, walking in... but not to order coffee, I bet. I realized the sun had fallen down while Laura and I were chatting.
"That's my-" I took another look at Laura's perfect beauty, the way she was goggling at Eric, remembered (like I could forget) his recent disinterest in me, and said it. "My boyfriend." Except that wasn't right, either. According to the Book, he was my consort, my husband, my king. I'd always felt just the opposite, that he wasn't anything to me-just another vampire in a city full of the darn things.
"He's your boyfriend?"
"Yep, that's my steady sweetie." I was digging myself quite the hole with my big fat mouth. But no matter how nice Laura was, I did not want the devil's daughter to know the king of the vampires was available. And vice versa.
"Elizabeth." Suddenly, Eric was right there, standing beside our little table by the window. I jumped and nearly threw my coffee into the window. He was holding a large foam cup with a straw sticking out of the cover, a cup that smelled like strawberries. The man was a nut for his smoothies.
"Hi, Sin-Eric. Ah, Eric, this is my sister, Laura. Laura, this is..."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Eric," I finally said. That wasn't a horrible weird awkward pause, was it?
"Charmed," he said.
"Hiya," she replied, dazzled. She shook his hand and gasped again. "Boy, you both have freezing cold hands! I guess you two are a pretty good match."
"Right!" I said. "That's what made us perfect for each other: clammy extremities. Laura and I were just catching up with each other."
"Pull up a chair," she invited. "Have you been dating long?"
Sinclair lifted the other eyebrow at "dating." I couldn't blame him. We had done quite a few things together, none of which could be classified as a date. "Six months," he said, sitting down. Then he paused, and added, "You smell like sugar cookies."
"She uses vanilla extract for perfume," I explained. "It's better for our animal friends."
"Oh, yes, our animal friends." He barely seemed to notice my explanation. "My, my, Laura Goodman. I must say, that is a charming name for a charming young lady."
"Eric's old," I broke in. "Really really old."
"Er-really?" Laura asked. "Gosh, you don't look even out of your thirties."
"Tons of face-lifts. He's a surgical addict. I'm trying to get him help," I added defensively when they both gave me strange looks.
"I was just telling Betsy that my parents would love to meet her, and you must come, too."
"I would be delighted, Laura."
"Yeah," I said, watching the two of them stare at each other over foam cups. "That'd be swell."
