“Why are there no windows?”
“Because we’re five stories underground.”
Minutes passed.
“I don’t understand how Mom could be infected if you didn’t bite her.”
“I’ve been thinking on that.” Fulminating over it more like. “It has to be a member of your study group.”
John’s head whipped around. “What?”
“It can’t be anyone at her job. When bitten, she would’ve blacked out and not made it home. She would’ve woken up on the floor in the store’s back room or her car or somewhere she shouldn’t be and realized she’d lost time, that she couldn’t remember how she had gotten there.”
“Wouldn’t the same be true if one of my study partners had bitten her?”
“Not if he did it while she was sleeping. If he came over on a night I wasn’t there and she went to bed early or napped until I finished hunting, he could’ve asked to use your bathroom, snuck into her bedroom, and fed from her without her ever knowing she had been bitten.”
“Shit!”
“I’m guessing you had a study session right before she contracted food poisoning? She always bears your study partners’ scents from brushing shoulders with them and the like. The punctures heal swiftly and the effects of the GHB-like chemical she would’ve been exposed to don’t last long, so I wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss.”
“We thought it was the fast food the group ordered in. . . . Shit! This is my fault?”
“It’s the vampire’s fault. Not yours.”
“How do we figure out who it is?”
“We’ll take care of that after your mother is . . . better.”
After she finished turning. After she became a vampire.
There wasn’t going to be a better for her—not long-term—and Richart felt a part of himself die at the knowledge.
The elevator at the end of the hallway pinged. A moment later, the doors slid apart and a blond male about five foot eleven exited. The guards all greeted him with respect as he strolled toward Richart.
Richart didn’t even try to hide the hostility he felt toward him.
“I hear we have a visitor,” Chris Reordon said.
Richart took a menacing step forward. “Stay the hell away from her, Reordon.”
“What is it with you immortals?” he demanded with a scowl. “You keep trying to hide your mortal girlfriends from me even though you know I’m just trying to protect you. It’s my job.”
“And we all know how ruthless you can be in carrying out your job. I won’t have you strong-arming and intimidating her. And don’t ask Dr. Lipton her name because if you issue a single threat I’ll cast aside concerns about Seth’s wrath and—”
“I don’t have to ask her name. I already know it.”
“What?”
“Jenna McBride. Thirty-seven years old. Widowed mother of John.”
“How do you know that?”
“After you outed yourself, teleporting to her living room—and I can’t tell you what a brilliant move that was—I tagged you with a tracking device and followed you to her apartment. After that, the rest was easy.”
“If you give her even one moment of unease—”
“Ask me why it was so easy.”
Richart frowned. “What?”
“Ask me why the rest was easy.”
“I don’t have to. Everyone knows you’re good at what you do. It’s why you’re the highest ranking mortal on the East Coast.”
Chris smiled. “I am good, aren’t I?”
Richart grunted.
“But I didn’t even have to try with this one, because we already had Jenna on file. She’s a gifted one.”
The world went still.
“She came to our attention during her pregnancy,” Chris went on. “Her boyfriend’s parents insisted on a paternity test to prove John’s father really was his father before the two married. DNA samples were taken from both Jenna and Bobby.”
“And hers was different,” Richart murmured. “More advanced.”
“Much more advanced. Call-in-the-media-it’s-a-fucking-miracle advanced. Just like yours. We had to run damage control, alter medical records and quite a few memories. We’ve been keeping tabs on her ever since.”
“But she doesn’t have any special abilities.”
“She doesn’t get sick,” John said.
Chris nodded. “Exactly. You’re a gifted one, too, you know.”
John’s eyebrows flew up. “I am?”
Chris nodded. “You guessed something was wrong with your mother before Richart did, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a gifted one in Virginia who is uniquely accurate at diagnosing patients without running any tests. Considering how well you’re doing in school, I’m guessing you’ll be the same. You and your mother are probably descended from healers.”
“How do you know I’m doing well in school?”
“As I said, we keep tabs on all gifted ones who come to our attention, often orchestrating things to keep them close in case another incident should arise.” He looked at Richart. “Don’t tell the other immortals that. If they knew just how many gifted ones we’ve guided to this area, they’d try to turn the network into a dating service. And I can’t do my job with that kind of drama surrounding me.”
Richart’s heart began to pound. Elation flooded him, along with relief so great it practically lifted his feet off the floor. Spinning around, he burst through the door to the infirmary.
Still seated on the exam table, Jenna jumped.
Dr. Lipton smiled. “I heard. Congratulations.”
“Congratulations on what?” Jenna asked, fear and despair battling for dominance in her eyes. Dr. Lipton hadn’t softened her prognosis, and Jenna was clearly doing her damnedest to hold it together.
“You’re a gifted one.” Richart closed the distance between them and swept her into his arms.
She wrapped her arms around him and held him close. “No, I’m not. I can’t be. I don’t have any special abilities.”
“John said you never get sick.”
“I got food poisoning last month.”
“That wasn’t food poisoning. That was the virus beginning to go to work on you.”
“But—”
“Sweetheart”—Richart leaned back and grinned down at her—“you’re a gifted one. This is good news.”