Chapter 19
Richard and Maxine paid me a visit the next morning.
As Richard held the door open for Maxine, I thought how easy it would be to overpower these frail old people.
I’d probably end up breaking their hips in the process, which I’d be okay with if push came to shove, though it would also make me feel icky.
I imagined it would sound like silver balls cracking together on those tiny pendulums people kept on their desks, a sound I’d probably never forget.
Richard seemed to be reading my mind. “You can try to make a run for it, Olivia, but I assure you Jason is standing by.”
To confirm, Jason poked his head in and gave me a two-fingered wave. “Yo.”
“How did you sleep?” Maxine asked, as if I was a guest in their home.
She handed me an iced coffee in a plastic container. It didn’t go unnoticed that my drink wasn’t hot or in an actual mug. They probably worried that I’d throw scolding coffee in their faces or break the mug and shank them with the shards.
“I’d prefer to sleep in my own bed, thanks,” I snapped.
“Now, Great-Granddaughter, let’s not pretend this is anyone’s fault but your own,” Richard patronized.
“My fault? You’ve got to be kidding me!” I went to take a sip of the coffee and reconsidered. “Is this drugged? I only ask because I know how much you like drugging me.”
Richard sighed and furnished me with a look of forced patience. I took a defiant sip. What the hell. I was already miserable. No point in denying myself coffee. Besides, if I was drugged and passed out again, at least time would go by faster.
Jason came in with two folding chairs and set them up for Richard and Maxine to sit on. He left after, though he kept the door open, probably wanting to stay within earshot in case I attacked my charming abductors.
Richard waved a hand at my mattress. “Won’t you please sit down?”
I saw no point in arguing, figuring the sooner I allowed them to outline their list of demands, the sooner they’d leave me be.
I was feeling awfully rundown and looking forward to going back to sleep.
I flopped down on the bed, which put me about eye level with their legs.
It was weird sitting below them like that. I felt like a dog.
“Okay, so now what?” I asked.
“We began to tell you about Greta yesterday,” Maxine said. “But we were interrupted.”
Is that what they were calling my kidnapping, an “interruption?”
Richard said, “We’re hoping that if we finish explaining things from our perspective that—”
“I’ll be on-board with your plans of vampire genocide?”
Richard pursed his lips and gave Maxine a look: I simply cannot deal with this vulgar commoner.
Maxine gave me a brittle smile and rested her hand on her husband’s forearm. She seemed to be the more easygoing of the two.
I was being stubborn and foolish. It would behoove me to be nicer. Perhaps if I managed to play along with them convincingly enough, I could trick them into believing that I was on their side. Maybe, just maybe, they’d even let me go.
But I’d have to be sly about it. If I suddenly started going along with everything they said, they’d be on to me in a nanosecond.
I moved to the rear of the mattress so that my back was resting against the wall. “I would like to hear more about Tilly,” I said sweetly—but not too sweet. “Greta, I mean. Please, finish your story. I’m all ears.”
“Very well,” Richard said.
“You were at the part where you joined the hunting club,” I prompted. “And you were making lots of money.”
“Oh, yes.” Richard smiled wistfully. “I belonged to the club for a great many years. I’m still affiliated with them as a board member, but I no longer go out hunting. I’m afraid my bones are too weary for such shenanigans.”
Was I supposed to argue? The man looked as if he was made of tissue paper.
Patting his wife’s hand, he changed the subject. “I met Maxine one night after a show.”
“I was a chorus line dancer,” Maxine said proudly. “Best legs in the business.”
“It was love at first sight. I was older than Maxine by a few years—”
“Twenty-six years, dear,” she chimed in.
“—but we fell in love nonetheless.”
A beautiful dancer and a man twenty-six years her senior. Richard was no looker, so having money probably helped grease the wheels of love.
“Through my associates at the club, I’d made many savvy investments,” Richard said. “I’d gone legitimate by that time.”
“Or else I would have had nothing to do with him,” Maxine said, which almost made me snort, given that she had no problem holding me hostage.
Richard said, “Around the time Greta was a teenager, offering entertainment at dinner parties was standard. It was, at least, in our circle.” He meant rich people, I assumed. “Sometimes, the host would hire an opera singer or magician to keep guests occupied while dinner was being prepared.”
I nodded in understanding, though I was wondering when he was going to get to the point of the story.
“Both Maxine and I were big fans of the occult, as were our friends. During one of our dinner parties, we thought it would be a hoot to hire a fortuneteller.”
“She was very extravagant,” Maxine said. “She wore the most beautiful scarves you’ve ever seen, Olivia! She even came with tarot cards and a crystal ball.”
Richard seemed annoyed by Maxine’s interruption.
“Greta, of course, being a typical teenager, didn’t want to hang around with a bunch of old fuddy-duddies.
We never included her in our dinner parties anyway, because we didn’t wish to subject our friends to her capriciousness.
Greta was chatty, and we knew she’d monopolize dinner conversation. ”
I, on the other hand, would have done just about anything to have five minutes with Tilly at the dinner table, even if it was only to chat about what had transpired on her favorite soap opera that day. I missed her so much.
Richard continued, “On the night we had the fortune teller over, Greta wandered into the room.”
“Richard thought the fortune teller was a charlatan,” Maxine said haughtily. “But I knew she was for real.”
“Anyhow,” Richard powered on with a curt look aimed at Maxine, “things changed when the fortune teller saw Greta.”
“Before that, she’d been joking around and telling our guests the sort of fortunes everyone wants to hear. You are greatly respected and have many riches coming your way—that sort of thing,” Maxine said with a wave of her bony little hand. “She grew very serious the instant she laid eyes on Greta.”
“She jumped up from the table and ran from the room so fast that she knocked over a guest’s drink.” Richard seemed particularly agitated by this fact.
“I caught up with her before she had a chance to leave,” Maxine said.
“I demanded to know why she was behaving so strangely. She claimed she was feeling ill and needed to go home. I knew she was lying, so I told her that I wouldn’t pay her until she explained herself.
She said I could keep her money, and she ran out. ”
I asked, “Why didn’t you stop her?”
“We couldn’t hold her prisoner, now could we?” Maxine answered, I assumed, ironically.
I could only blink at her in response.
“We tracked the fortune teller down a few days later and demanded an explanation,” Richard said. “She took some persuading, but eventually she talked.”
I could only imagine what they did to scare the truth out of her. “What did she tell you?”
Richard said, “She told us that our daughter was with child, which we just could not believe.”
“But she was,” I said. “With my mother.”
Richard nodded. “She also told us that the fetus was tainted, and that the father was supernatural—an abomination of nature.”
“Not of mortal origins but also not immortal either,” Maxine added. “She warned that Greta would be in danger if she further associated with the father.”
I studied their faces. From what I could tell, they believed what they were saying. “You don’t mean . . . like a vampire?”
Maxine smiled with coldness. “More like a half-breed.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense. Vampires are unable to procreate.” Also, if my mother’s father was a vampire, then that would mean that I was part vampire, which I plainly wasn’t. I was incapable of turning vampire.
Richard said, “The woman didn’t know what the father was specifically.”
“We went home right away to talk to Greta. After much hounding on our part, she admitted she was pregnant. Still, she swore that the only thing off about the boy was that he was from New Jersey,” Maxine said, pursing her lips in displeasure.
New Jersey, like it was on par with him being a serial killer.
I asked, “Did you track him down? The father?”
“No,” Richard answered. “He tracked me down while the sun was out, so that’s how I’m certain he wasn’t full vampire. He said he’d been watching us.”
“Who? You and Maxine?”
“Yes, and my hunting club. He knew we were hunting vampires. Falling in love with Greta was a byproduct of his stalking,” Richard said. “More unnerving was that he said he’d been following my hunting group since its inception, yet he couldn’t have been a day older than seventeen, maybe eighteen.”
I frowned. “When was your group founded?”
Richard paused for dramatic effect. “1780.”
“So, if he wasn’t a vampire, what was he?” And how could any of it possibly be true if he was related to me? There was absolutely nothing supernatural about me, unless the ability to plow through an entire pint of ice cream in a single sitting counted as magic.
“I never found out, but I gathered he was friendly with vampires because he made it clear that he wasn’t a supporter of our club and didn’t approve of our hunting.”
“Why didn’t you just take him out then and there?” I asked Richard. “You could have told one of your hunting buddies to take care of him, if you didn’t want to do it yourself.”
“Because of Greta,” he said simply. “I know you may find this hard to believe because of the way things turned out, Olivia, but we loved our daughter very much.”
He was right. I did find it hard to believe.