Vampires Are Foreve(70)

“Thankfully we’ll never know if that’s true because you came up with it,” he said, pushing the speed dial button for Bastien and raising the phone to his ear.

Inez began to eat as he talked to his cousin and told him what she’d come up with and Thomas found himself watching. His eyes followed every movement as she lifted the food to her mouth and slipped it in and he marveled at how dainty and sexy she was about it. As tidy as a cat, he thought and smiled to himself, then forced his attention back to Bastien’s words. The man was both excited by the suggestion, and full of self-disgust that he hadn’t thought it up himself and saved them this wasted time.

Thomas told him not to beat himself up, pointing out what Inez had said; that they were too close to the situation and their worry had clouded their thoughts somewhat.

“Does he have a way to trace Notte’s credit card?” Inez asked as he slipped his phone into his pocket.

Thomas nodded. “We have friends everywhere. And if we don’t, we can send someone in to make new friends.”

“You mean control them,” she said dryly.

Thomas nodded in acknowledgment, but they had both stopped smiling. He was thinking about the fact that she’d been controlled and had her memory wiped, and knew she was too.

“If Marguerite isn’t even here in Amsterdam, why control me and erase my memory?” Inez asked suddenly.

Thomas frowned as he tried to reason it out. “Herb said the location turned up the same the second time he checked it while you were on the way to the park. He said you should have found Aunt Marguerite there.”

“But it wasn’t your aunt,” Inez said quietly, picking up on his train of thought and then added, “It was that mugger who had the phone in the park. He couldn’t have controlled me or wiped my memory.”

“No,” Thomas agreed.

“So who did and why?” she asked. They were both silent for a minute, and then Inez said, “You don’t suppose someone was trying to keep me from discovering that the mugger had the phone, and not Marguerite.”

Thomas was so startled by the suggestion, that he dropped his fork. “Someone here in Amsterdam?”

Inez nodded.

He frowned at the idea and then said slowly, “But that would suggest that—I mean it was all just bad luck that the phone was here. Happenstance. The mortal mugged Marguerite and we followed the phone here.”

“And so long as we’re chasing the phone here in Amsterdam, we were on the wrong track,” she pointed out.

“Yes,” Thomas agreed, his own frown returning. “But if that’s why you were controlled and your memory wiped…”

“Then someone doesn’t want us to find your aunt,” Inez finished quietly.

Eleven





“Here we are.” The bellhop pushed the door open and held it with one extended arm for Inez and Thomas to precede him.

Despite the sudden nerves claiming her, Inez smiled at the man and led the way inside. She set her purse on the end table beside the sofa and moved restlessly to the row of windows, tugging the curtain open, and then peered blindly out over the twinkling lights of London at night. Her attention, however, was on the sounds behind her as the bellhop wheeled her suitcase with Thomas’s knapsack on top into the room. She heard Thomas thank the man and guessed by the bellhop’s cheerful response that he’d probably tipped him well for escorting them up, and then she heard the door close.

Inez didn’t turn around, but stood stiffly where she was, feeling like a virgin on her wedding night. They were back at the Dorchester.

Thomas and Inez had been relaxing in Schiphol airport, waiting to board their flight out of Amsterdam, when Bastien had called with the news that he’d not only traced Notte’s credit cards, but had called Christian Notte’s apartment, and when he’d received an answering machine, had then tried the Notte Construction offices. It was the business where the immortal worked in Italy, fortunately, a family-run organization despite it being a multinational company. His aunt Vita had answered the phone and Bastien had learned from her that Christian was in England as was his father, though she wasn’t sure exactly where the two men were. She also had no idea when they planned to return and hadn’t sounded pleased about it.

Bastien had then arranged to have both men’s credit cards tracked in England. He’d found a charge for two suites at the Claridge’s hotel here in London the night after Marguerite had checked out of the Dorchester. He’d also found a charge for five train tickets to York, where several charges had subsequently been made, the last of them occurring just the day before.