Before continuing, Frey sucks in a noisy breath, as if the outburst forced all the air from his lungs. "Tracey said David was supposed to meet her at the office on Friday. In fact, she said you were supposed to meet her at the office on Friday, too. When neither of you showed up, she waited. While she was there, the phone rang. It was David's girlfriend. She wanted to know if you were all right. David got a call Thursday evening saying you had been in an accident. He left her in San Francisco and came right back. No one's seen him or heard from him since."

He runs out of air again, stopping abruptly to inhale. "Was there an accident? Are you all right?"

A click over the line and the pilot's voice interrupts. "Ms. Strong, we'll be on the ground about forty-five minutes. Bangor has cleared us for takeoff after fueling at oh six hundred hours. ETA for San Diego is thirteen hundred Pacific daylight time. Do you want to deplane at the fueling station?"

I press the intercom button. "No. I'll stay on board. Get us off the ground as soon as possible."

Frey cuts in as the pilot clicks off. "Bangor? As in Maine? What are you doing in Maine?"

I rub a hand across my eyes. "You don't want to know. I'll fill you in later. Right now, I'm more concerned about David. Christ, I don't even know what questions to ask. This could be a skip we turned in. Or a supernatural. Someone out to get me because of Williams." I sit up straight in the seat. "What did you say about Mrs. Williams? She killed a host?"

I can almost see him nodding as he says, "Drained her. Culebra was there, but she lost control. Swatted him away as if he were a fly on the wall. Knocked him cold. She's incredibly strong for a new vamp. Culebra should have been able to stop her."

Culebra should have been able to stop her. Did she get her strength from being sired by a two-hundred-year-old vamp? Or is it something else?

Concentrate on the problem at hand.

"What happened then?"

"She took off. When Culebra came to, she was gone. Along with another human, according to the barkeep. Carried him off. Culebra is beside himself with worry. She's behaving like a rogue, which puts the entire supernatural community in danger."

God.

Frey hesitates, as if waiting for me to say something. I don't know what to say. I'm trembling. For David. For the thoughts swirling around in my head.

If Mrs. Williams blames me for her husband's death, what better way to exact revenge than by taking David?

"Anna? Are you there?"

I rouse myself out of the miasma. "Frey, do you know where Avery lived?"

"Avery?" He repeats the name in a voice reflecting bewilderment and surprise. "What does Avery have to do with anything?"

"Maybe nothing. But Warren Williams and Avery were friends for two hundred years. He blamed me for Avery's death. Now Mrs. Williams blames me for her husband's death. I think there's a good chance she took David. And the logical place to take him would be where my connection to the three of them began."

Frey is silent for a moment. When he speaks, his words are reflective and deliberate. "You may be right. Do you want me to go out there, take a look around?"

"Not in your human form. She'll be looking for someone to come snooping. And she knows you're my friend."

"What about as panther?"

"During the day? How would you pull that off?"

I do the arithmetic. If we're in San Diego about one p.m., I'll have time to see Culebra and get back to meet Frey before dark. "Wait for me to call you. We can't do anything before dark. She's not going to hurt David until she makes sure I'm around to watch."

He's silent, and I know the idea of waiting for eight or nine hours is chafing. I know because I'm feeling the same thing.

"Don't try to go on your own, Frey," I warn. "Wait for me. You will wait for me, right?"

"Of course."

Too quick. But Frey is not stupid. He won't take unnecessary risks if David's life is in jeopardy.

I'm ready to thank him and hang up when something else he said bubbles to the surface of my consciousness. "You said Lance called? When?"

"Two hours ago. Said you were on your way home. Could be reached on the plane if I needed to get in touch with you. He sounded strange, Anna. Gave no reason for calling except for that. Rang off before I could ask how he knew I was trying to get in touch with you. Is there something going on? Did you two have a fight?"

Fight? I feel the bloodlust stir in anticipation.

No. Not yet. But it's certainly coming.

I thrust the vampire back into her box. "It's not important."

"Is that the reason you left town? Because you were fighting with Lance?"

"No. Let it go."

"Then was it to be away for the anniversary of your becoming? Because if it was, there's something else you should know."

I don't like the way that sounds. "What?"

A moment of silence, as if Frey is choosing his words carefully. "I've been doing some checking. We were wrong in thinking the anniversary date was the date you and Donaldson exchanged blood. It isn't. It's actually the first time you fed as a vampire. The ingesting of blood marked the conclusion of the physiological change. From that point on, you were no longer human but vampire. That is the true anniversary date of your becoming. And it is on that date that you will become what is destined to be."

For a moment, he sounds so much like Julian Underwood spouting his goddess of the Sorginak garbage that I'm tempted to laugh.

But what they wanted to do to me in that cave wasn't funny. What they did to me in that cave wasn't funny.

Why should I assume this would be any better?

I thought it was over-the craziness about being the Chosen One. Now I'm not so sure.

If Mrs. Williams intends to carry the banner for her husband, I'm right back where I started. She seemed clueless about vampire ways, but she must have spent hours listening to her husband talk about how he might win me to the cause. He might have mentioned David and how I fought Avery to save him. She may see David as the key to fulfilling her husband's mission.

I think back to the dark days of my becoming. I was attacked on a Friday night. I was in the hospital for what? One or two days. Then Avery came to my house and told me that I was no longer human. That I was vampire. Two days later, I fed from him. If what Frey says is true, four days after I was bitten would be Tuesday. When whatever is supposed to happen, will.

Unless I can stop it.

I ask Frey to do one more thing before we ring off. Well, two things actually. The first is to call David's girlfriend and tell her something-anything-to keep her from reporting David missing. Police involvement we don't need. The second is to call Tracey and do the same. Make up a story that David and I went out of town on a job. Assure them both the accident thing was a false alarm. That we'll be in touch with them by the end of the week.

In touch, I think ironically, or dead.

Either way, it won't matter.

After hanging up, I cross the cabin, head directly for the bar. Pour two drinks. Scotch, neat. One I down in a single gulp standing up at the teak counter, enjoying the burn as it scalds a trail down my throat and bursts with the impact of a fireball in my gut.

The other I take back with me to nurse in my seat.

The thing I have to figure out now is what Mrs. Williams is up to. She has David. There's not even a glimmer of doubt in my head about that. Why she has David is the question. Is it simply a way to get back at me for her husband's death? Or is there something more?

Warren Williams was adamant and vocal about my destiny. I'm sure he shared those feelings with his wife. As a mortal, she probably listened with bored indifference to his rants about me. How ignorant I was, how ineffectual as a vampire, how uninterested I was in learning the ways. She knows more about what being the "Chosen One" means than I do. Hell, I don't know anything about what it means and I seriously wish now I had taken the time to learn. My gut, however, says that power goes along with that title. It has to. Williams and Avery were all about power-having it, controlling it, hoarding it.

And that may be the problem.

As I see it, there are two possibilities. Either Mrs. Williams means to see that I fulfill that mysterious destiny and assume the crown as a tribute to her husband.

Or she means to wear that crown herself.

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