Except, she had too many things to plan.
Before going to snoop around the mansion, she needed to find a place to stay and a car. Rentals were problematic because they were too easy to trace, but until she found a car to buy for cash, she could use an Uber. A new burner phone and one of her fake identities would be good enough for making her Uber trips anonymous.
But if she wanted to capture several paranormals, she couldn’t do that using an Uber or a Lyft. She needed her own car, maybe even a van.
But that was for later. First, she was going to do some reconnaissance. If what Simmons and Roberts had suspected was true, she would move to stage two and get the supplies needed for transporting her victims. If she couldn’t deliver them straight to the Chinese, she would need tranquilizers and handcuffs for when she had to leave them alone in the house.
As she’d found out in the program, some people reacted to compulsion like others did to alcohol. They shook it off quickly and required another dose. If she could find a house with a basement, that would be great. She could lock them up in there while she negotiated with the buyers.
With her plan solidifying, Eleanor couldn’t wait to go snooping. Nothing too ambitious, just drive by the mansion to assess the location and check for exterior surveillance cameras. The easiest way to do that was to rent a car at the airport and make a circuit or two. Later, she could return it and take a taxi to a hotel in town.
After a proper night of sleep, she would check the Airbnb listings for houses that suited her particular needs.
Closing her eyes, she tried to doze off, but the thoughts swirling in her head kept her awake.
“Would you like something to drink?” asked the flight attendant.
“Coffee, please.”
If she couldn’t sleep anyway, she might as well start her house hunting on the plane.
The guy sitting next to her ordered a drink, and five minutes later started snoring.
She patted his arm. “Please stop that.”
He cracked one eye open. “Stop what?”
“Don’t snore,” she said, imbuing her voice with compulsion. “Go back to sleep, but no snoring.”
Up until now, she’d never tried to compel someone to stop doing something that was not under their control, but it had worked, and the guy went back to sleep sans the snoring.
Fascinating. Evidently, compulsion worked on the subconscious mind as well as it did on the conscious one.
An hour later, Eleanor had a house secured in San Mateo, only fifteen minutes away from the mansion. The place was a dump, but it had one feature that made it perfect. The house used to be a restaurant, and it had a spacious walk-in fridge that locked from the outside. The cooling didn’t work, and the only reason the fridge appeared on the listing was because of a disclaimer that guests were responsible for their own safety.
48
Vlad
“What would you like for lunch?” Wendy sat next to Richard on the couch.
“Nothing.”
That was atypical. The guy was always happy to eat. Perhaps he was transitioning?
Vlad walked over to him. “You are always hungry. Are you feeling sick?”
Richard shook his head. “I’m depressed. Nothing is happening even with Kian’s venom. I have to accept that I’m not a Dormant, and that I’m not going to live forever, and it’s damn depressing.”
“Don’t give up yet,” Wendy said. “I didn’t transition overnight either. It takes time for the venom to work.”
He cast her a sad glance. “No offense, Wendy, but it’s not the same. This was the fourth attempt, and I had to beg Kian for it. I also asked him to allow me to stay in the village as a human, but it doesn’t look as if he’s going to grant my request.”
Vlad put a hand on his shoulder. “As long as he didn’t say no, there is still hope.”
Wendy shook her head. “If you don’t turn, why would you want to stay? Isn’t it better to have your memories of immortals wiped so you don’t walk around sad and disappointed about not transitioning?”
He cast her an incredulous look. “Would you have liked your memories wiped?”
“I wouldn’t want to lose my memories of Vlad, but I wouldn’t have cared about everything else. If I weren’t in love, I would have preferred to forget about immortality and live a normal life.” She grimaced. “Or as normal as it was possible for me. I wasn’t in a good place before I met Vlad.”
Richard patted her arm. “I’m really happy for you, Wendy. Compared to how you were in the program, you are a different person now. I’d never noticed how beautiful your smile was because you hardly ever smiled. Now you are smiling all of the time.”
Even though Richard's comments were harmless, Vlad didn’t like him complimenting Wendy, or noticing how beautiful she was. But it made her happy, so he could live with it.
Wendy was glowing and becoming more and more beautiful by the day, and it wasn’t just because he was watching her through love-tinted glasses.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have asked Roni to dig into what had happened to her mom. Why ruin all that progress by dragging out misery that was best forgotten?
“But that’s the thing,” Wendy said. “I’m in love with Vlad, so if I had faced the same dilemma as you do, I would have probably wanted to stay on as a human even though it would have been selfish to put Vlad through watching me get old and die. But you are not in love with anyone here, so you are better off forgetting all this.” She waved a hand around.
“I’m not in love, that’s true. And no one is in love with me either. But I have good friends here, and I feel like I belong. I never felt like that in the human world.”
Wendy arched a brow. “Really? I remember you being quite the player in the program, and I even thought that you were a jerk with an overinflated ego. You’ve never been a wallflower.”
Vlad would have loved to hear Richard’s response, but his phone rang right as the guy opened his mouth, and Roni’s face was on the display.
“I’ll take it outside.”
Hopefully, they would think that he was being considerate, but the truth was that he didn’t want Wendy to hear him talking with Roni.
Out on the porch, he accepted the call and sat on the bench. “Hi, Roni. What’s up?”
“After what you told me about Wendy’s father, I couldn’t wait until Monday to do some digging. I found out stuff that you’ll find interesting.”
“Where are you?”
“At the lab. Can you come down here?”
“Right now?”
“I’m not going to stay long. I promised Sylvia to be back by lunchtime.”
“Can’t you tell me over the phone?”
“I can. But if you want to keep this investigation a secret from Wendy, you will need time to calm down after you see this.”
The guy knew him well. Just imagining what Roni wanted to show him was enough of a trigger for Vlad’s fangs to elongate.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Bring a six-pack. William is here too.”
“Okay.”
That was actually a pretty decent excuse he could give Wendy for going to see Roni. He was just doing a favor for a friend, delivering beers to the guys working in the lab on a Sunday.