The Vampire Affair. Livia Reasoner

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      “Maybe you should have showed up dressed like a hooker,” Ted suggested. “Guys like that are the type who’d send out for a call girl.”

      Jessie laughed. “You just want to see me all slutted up. No thanks. I’m a working girl, but not that kind.”

      Ted mumbled something she couldn’t make out, probably an apology. Then he pointed to the intercom mounted beside the front door and said, “I’m supposed to announce visitors. Technically, I should have called from the desk before I even brought you out here.”

      Jessie pressed the button on the intercom before he could back out. “Don’t worry, you’re doing fine.”

      A voice she recognized as Brandt’s crackled from the little speaker. “What is it?”

      Ted leaned closer to the intercom and said, “It’s Ted from the front desk, Mr. Chapman. There’s a lady here who says she has some legal papers to deliver to you.”

      “I’m not expecting any papers,” Brandt replied. “Send her away.”

      “I’m right here, sir,” Jessie said, raising the pitch of her voice so that Brandt wouldn’t be as likely to recognize it from their brief conversation that afternoon. “My boss will be very upset with me if I don’t follow his orders and deliver these papers. It won’t take but a second for you to sign for them.”

      “There’s been a mistake,” Brandt insisted. “Sorry.”

      “What am I supposed to tell Mr. Sterling?” Eddie Sterling was the biggest real estate mogul in town, and a former Super Bowl-winning quarterback to boot. It made perfect sense that if Brandt was in town to arrange some sort of deal, Sterling might be involved.

      Silence came from the speaker for a moment, then Brandt said, “Hang on. We’ll get this straightened out.”

      Jessie smiled. The ploy had worked. Either Brandt really did have something going with Eddie Sterling, or else he was intrigued by the idea that Sterling had something he wanted him to look at. Either way, Brandt was about to open that door.

      “What are they doing in there?” Ted asked as they waited. “Cooking the world’s biggest pizza?”

      “What are you talking about?” Jessie said.

      “Don’t you smell that garlic?”

      Now that he mentioned it, she did. In fact, the scent was pretty strong. She hadn’t noticed it before because she had been concentrating on getting in to see Brandt.

      Jessie didn’t have time to worry about smells. She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and took out the camera. She planned to get a shot of Brandt as soon as he opened the door, then maybe aim past him to catch the other two men in her lens, if luck was with her.

      Unfortunately, just as the door started to swing open, Ted gasped and disappeared from beside her. She had the vague impression, seen from the corner of her eye, that he had been jerked violently backward like a puppet on a string.

      She was about to turn to see what had happened to him when a bar of iron slammed across her throat, cutting off her air and making it impossible for her to speak or even breathe. Fear and surprise exploded in her brain, and for a second she couldn’t think. Then she realized that it wasn’t a bar of iron choking her, it was somebody’s arm. Her feet scrabbled on the flagstone walk as her attacker dragged her backward.

      But she was almost six feet tall, and she had learned to fight as a kid on the rez. With all the strength she could muster, she jabbed an elbow backward into the belly of the man who had grabbed her.

      The move didn’t do a bit of good. It was like hitting a brick wall.

      “Come on out, Brandt,” a voice like ten miles of bad road grated beside her ear. “Come on out where we can see you.”

      The door to the lodge gaped open. Brandt stood there, his muscular figure silhouetted by the light inside the building. Two men crowded up behind him and started to push past as if they intended to rush outside, but Brandt thrust his arms out to stop them. “Wait,” he said.

      Better not wait too long, Jessie thought, or it would be too late for her and Ted. She saw him a few feet to her right, being held from behind by a big guy dressed all in black. She had no doubt that the bastard hanging on to her was the same sort.

      The difference was that Ted was considerably shorter than her, and his captor had lifted him so that his feet were no longer on the ground. His legs kicked wildly. His face had turned blue and purple. He was strangling to death as surely as if there had been a rope around his neck.

      “What are you going to do, Brandt?” the man holding Jessie asked. “Are you going to let these two innocents die because you’re too much of a coward to face us?”

      This was a mob hit, Jessie thought. She had been right about Brandt being mixed up with gangsters. The two men who had grabbed her and Ted had come to the Chateaux to kill Brandt. For some reason they were trying to lure him out of the lodge before they got rid of him. But Brandt wasn’t biting on the bait.

      “I’m not the coward,” he said. “That would be you and your kind.”

      “All right.” A ghastly chuckle came from Jessie’s captor. “Have it your way.”

      Some sort of signal must have passed between the two killers. The one holding Ted suddenly flung him through the air with no more effort than if he had been tossing away a rag doll. Ted cried out in terror, a cry that was cut short when he crashed into the thick trunk of one of the trees that dotted the grounds. Jessie thought she heard bones snap. Ted bounced off the tree and landed in a limp sprawl. A tendril of blood leaked from his mouth. He was either unconscious…or dead.

      The scream Jessie felt welling up inside her was still trapped, unable to get past the iron-muscled barrier across her throat. The man holding her said, “How about it, Brandt? Are you coming out, or do I kill the woman?”

      In a rough growl that sounded as dangerous as the threats issuing from Jessie’s captor, Brandt said, “Don’t kill her.”

      “I thought that would do it. Well, come on. Step out here.”

      Brandt took a step forward, moving over the threshold. One of his companions suddenly grasped his arm. “Michael, wait.” Now he and the other man were the ones urging caution, where they had been ready to charge into battle before.

      “I don’t have any choice,” Brandt said. “You know he’ll do what he says. I won’t allow them to hurt anybody else.”

      The one who had slammed Ted against the tree laughed. “Oh, we’ll kill her, too,” he said, “once we’re through with you and your lapdogs.”

      He moved forward as Brandt took another step out of the lodge. Even to Jessie’s terror-fevered brain, it was obvious that this man intended to fight Brandt.

      “Max, Clifford, stay inside,” Brandt said to his friends. “I’ll take care of this.”

      “All you’ll take care of is dying.”

      And with that the black-garbed man lunged at Brandt, moving faster than it seemed СКАЧАТЬ