Unfortunately, he didn't take the bait. "Quid pro quo.
Dinner first, then details."
I sighed, knowing I'd been beaten. "Fine. But I want the truth."
"Oh, you'l get the truth, Merit. You'l get the truth."
Somehow, that didn't make me feel any better.
The Thai Mansion was stuck in the middle of a squatty strip mal , a dry cleaner on one side and take-out pizza chain on the other.
A bel on the door rang when we walked in. "El Paso" by Marty Robbins played on a smal radio perched on the glass counter beside a golden Buddha, an ancient cash register and a plastic bucket of peppermints.
The interior of the restaurant wasn't much to look at. The wal s were painted concrete blocks and bore a random mix of 1970s B-movie posters. These were mingled with handwritten signs warning patrons not to park in the spaces owned by the dry cleaner or attempt to pay with anything but cash. Plastic was not the new black at the Thai Mansion.
"This is the best Thai food in Chicago?" I wondered.
"Trust me," Jonah said, then nodded to a petite, dark-haired waitress who smiled back pleasantly, then nodded when he pointed to an empty table.
We took seats, and I scanned the plastic-covered, handwritten menu. There were a few sloppy translations, but most of the words weren't in English, which I figured was a good thing in a Thai restaurant. "You come here a lot?"
"More than I should admit," he said. "I'm not knocking the Grey House cafeteria, but Scott's big on convenience foods. We've had entire meals that were beige."
I imagined a plate of bread, mashed potatoes, tater tots, stuffing, and pound cake. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"On occasion, no. But a vamp with a taste for life likes a little more variety."
"And you're a vamp with a taste for life?"
He shrugged modestly. "The world has a lot to offer.
There's a lot to explore. I like to take advantage of that."
"So immortality's come in handy, then?"
"You might say that."
A waitress with long, dark hair scuffled over the restaurant's green carpet in white sneakers. "You ready?"
Jonah glanced at me, and when I nodded, offered his order. "Pad thai with shrimp."
"How spicy tonight?"
"Nine," he said, then handed over his menu. Their transaction complete, she looked at me.
I assumed that nine was on a scale of one to ten. I liked spicy food, but I wasn't about to order a nine at a restaurant I'd never vetted. God only knew how hot their nine might be.
"Same for me. How about a seven?" I requested, KI rd.
God onbut the waitress looked dul y at me.
"You been here before?"
I glanced between her and Jonah. "Um, no."
Shaking her head, she plucked away my menu. "No seven. You can have two."
With that pronouncement, she turned and disappeared through the curtain into the backroom.
"A two? I'm not sure how not to be insulted by that."
He chuckled low in his throat. "That's only because you haven't had a two yet."
I was doubtful, but didn't have much evidence to go on.
And speaking of missing evidence . . .
"Al right, quid pro quo time. How do you know my grandfather? I know you were friends with Charlotte. You told me that before. Is that the connection?" Charlotte is my older sister. I also have a brother, Robert, who was fol owing in my father's property-grubbing footsteps.
"I did and do know Charlotte," Jonah said. "I knew you, too."
I was drawing a complete blank. "How did you know me?"
"I took Charlotte to prom."
I froze in my seat. "You did what now?"
"I took Charlotte to her senior col ege formal."
I closed my eyes, trying to remember. I'd been home for spring break and had been witness to Charlotte's meltdown when she'd had a fight with her then-boyfriend and now-husband, Major Corkburger (yes, seriously). She'd gone with a guy named Joe to the formal instead.
The lightbulb lit.
"Oh, my God," I exclaimed, pointing at him. "You were
'Joe'! I didn't even recognize you."
Joe had been a very short-lived rebel ious phase. I saw him only a couple of times after prom. A month later, Charlotte and Major were back together, and Joe had disappeared.
"You had a perm," I reminded him. "And you took her to the formal in one of those hoodies made of rugs."
"I'd just gotten here from Kansas City." He'd said it like that explained his ensemble, like Kansas City was a foreign country with a completely different culture. "The pace was different down there, even for vampires. A little slower."
"And Charlotte introduced you to my grandfather?"
I could see Jonah's blush even in the dark. "Yeah. To piss off Major, I think. I was finishing up one of my degrees. This gorgeous girl approached me on campus one day and asked me out." He shrugged. "It's not like I was going to say no. And when we met with Noah, you had no idea who I was."
That explained why Jonah had copped such an attitude the first night we'd met near the lake. "That's why you were irritated with me," I said. "Not because you thought I was like Charlotte, but because you thought I'd forgotten you."
"You had forgotten me, and you aren't as unlike Charlotte as you'd like to believe."
I started to protest, thinking he meant to tease me about society soirees or luxury brands or winters in Palm Beach, none of which I was interested in. But instead of assuming, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked the question.
"Why am I like Charlotte?"
He smiled. "Because you're loyal. Because you both value your families, even if you define them differently. Her children and Major are hers. Your House is yours."
It hadn't always been that way, but I couldn't disagree with him. "I see."
A few minutes later, our waitress returned with two steaming piles of noodles.
"Nine," she said, placing a plate in front of Jonah. "And two," she said, dropping an identical plate in front of me.
I removed the wrapper from a pair of chopsticks and glanced up at Jonah in anticipation. "You ready?"
"Are you?" he asked with amusement.
"I'l be fine," I assured him, plucking up a tangle of noodles and bean sprouts. My first bite was huge . . . and I regretted it immediately.
"Two" was apparently a euphemism for "Flaming Inferno."
My eyes watered, the heat building from a slow burn at the back of my throat to a firestorm along the tip of my tongue. I would have sworn flames were actual y shooting from my ears.