"No trouble. I'll carry your things."

"I hate goodbyes. I'd rather you just went. Please. You've got all the other stuff to take care of. I'll get a porter or one of those carts. It's easier this way."

She got her way. The black Daimler purred away and Dixie pushed a luggage cart with a squeaky wheel into the confusion of the terminal.

Chapter Twelve.

"You're serious. She's really going, saying goodbye?"

"That's what she said last night," Emily insisted from the other end of the phone. "I was in the conservatory at the back. She never saw me but I heard it plain as day. There she was with some man. Doesn't miss a chance, that one. She replaced Marlowe easily enough."

Sebastian tapped his nails against the desktop. "We scared her. She's gone. That's something, but for what we paid, she should be dead. Bomb expert! Pah!" He scowled. A big pity he'd paid for that in advance. "If she goes, she can't screw any of us for money but she could make a small fortune with what she's sitting on. Maybe she's waiting it out."

"Of course she's scared! I was! I heard the blast across the Green. You went too far on that, Sebby. Someone got killed."

Previous Top Next"The wrong b.l.o.o.d.y person. You know the flight she's taking?"

"You can't blow up a plane!"

"Squeal louder, Emily. That way the whole street can hear."

"Sebby..." The whisper became a whine.

"Still watching her bank account for me, are you, Emily?"

"I can't. That one time was one thing, but I can't keep on-"

"I need to know every check she writes. Every deposit, every credit card charge. That way, we'll know if she really gets on that plane or just holes up somewhere."

"Sebby, I can't..."

"You can, Emily. Don't let me down." He hung up and cut off her protests about risks to her silly job. He wasn't interested. He had work to do, and now Valerie was poking her head around the door and blithering on about someone wanting to see him.

"Without an appointment? Tell him to come back tomorrow," Sebastian snapped, keeping his eyes on the papers littered over his desk. He had too much on his mind to take on clients who just strolled in on the off chance he'd be available.

"It's the doctor who's been staying with LePage." His head snapped up. "Dr. Corvus," she said, placing a pristine white business card on the heap of papers, "wants to discuss Miss LePage's affairs."

"He can take a running jump off a..." Sebastian broke off, staring at the man behind Valerie's shoulder.

"Forgive the intrusion; I thought your secretary might not understand. I'd best explain myself." The quiet voice wouldn't be denied.

"I can't give you much time." Sebastian waved his hands over the desk. The chaos didn't suggest a thriving practice, even to Sebastian.

"Ten minutes," the man suggested, drawing up a chair without invitation. "I know we won't need to detain your secretary. We can settle things between us."

Valerie disappeared at Sebastian's nod. He picked up the card in one hand, read it slowly and then tapped his fingers against the smooth card. Expensive. "How can I help you, Dr. Corvus?"

"Very easily. I'm an old friend of Dixie LePage. She went home and asked me to watch over her affairs." He smiled. No, the man smirked.

"I can't possibly discuss a client's affairs." Sebastian rose, placing his palms flat on the desk in front of him. "I'm sorry, I can't help you."

A folded doc.u.ment appeared on the desk between his fingers. "My power of attorney."

He unfolded the paper then sat down as he read it. Dated Monday and issued by a firm with a Curzon Street address, it gave Dr. Justin Corvus limited powers of attorney, but enough to control her money, her investments and the sale of the house.

"If you care to contact my solicitors..."

d.a.m.n the man, he'd like to see him choke on his smug courtesy. "I think I will. I'm sure you understand."He inclined his head. "Dixie would appreciate your caution over her affairs."

Like h.e.l.l. She'd probably done this on purpose as a parting shot. He dialed directory enquiries, not entirely trusting the printed paper. Why the h.e.l.l isn't Valerie doing this? he thought, as he connected to the London number and got put on hold while the system played melodies from fifties musicals. At last a law clerk took the call. A clerk!

"h.e.l.lo," a thin reedy female voice said. "You had a question about one of our powers of attorney?" She made it sound like an impertinence on his part.

"I just wanted to check. My client has quite considerable holdings."

"I know," the voice continued, "she mentioned them on Monday. Rest a.s.sured they're in good hands with Dr. Corvus. His investments are impressive. I wish he'd take care of mine," she added as an unprofessional afterthought.

"It seems in order," Sebastian said, looking up at Corvus and wis.h.i.+ng him on the dark side of the moon.

He smiled, amus.e.m.e.nt lightening his dark eyes. "Good. If you would get together the necessary doc.u.ments, I'll be back in a few minutes after I stop by the bank to see Mark Flynn. Dixie said he is the manager."

He left, leaving the door open and Sebastian struggling to make sense of his collapsing plans.

"Where to then?" the taxi driver asked, glancing at Dixie in the rearview mirror as he pulled out into the traffic.

"I need to get to Yorks.h.i.+re."

"Yorks.h.i.+re?" he repeated, giving the "shur" sound to the "ire." Would she ever master the knack of swallowing second syllables the way the English did? "That's way out of the area. You said London."

"I mean London. I need a train to Yorks.h.i.+re."

"You need Kings Cross," he muttered.

Dixie fancied she caught a "crazy American" under his breath. He was probably right. But she was certain about Yorks.h.i.+re.

Certain enough to lay her credit card on the line for a first cla.s.s rail ticket. She just wasn't sure what to do when she got there.

Last night she'd slept as little as Justin. While he hunted, she scoured the book room and pieced snippets of information together. A tattered road atlas showed Havering to be a village on the North Yorks.h.i.+re moors, a few miles from Whitby, a seaside resort and fis.h.i.+ng port on the Yorks.h.i.+re coast. Aside from the fis.h.i.+ng industry and historical connections with Captain Cook, Whitby once had a thriving jet mining industry, and jet jewelry was still produced on a small scale. Dixie's fingers closed over the chain she always wore. Bingo! Whitby, where the Demeter brought Dracula from Varna. Was the connection between Whitby, Dracula, Justin, her jet pendant, and Christopher a coincidence? She thought not.

The 1924 encyclopedia had a long entry on Druids, mentioned strong resistance to the Romans, particularly in the North of England, and placed a Roman signal station in what was now the modern port of Whitby. She read about the last mission of the Ninth Hispania and how an entire legion disappeared with scarce a trace. She also discovered that Eburac.u.m was the Roman York-county town of Yorks.h.i.+re and the largest English county. Just her luck to pick the largest, but then, how large could a county be? She wasn't talking Texas here. It was in the north of England and Christopher had flown due north.

There were just too many connections to be ignored.Dixie vowed to scour Whitby and the surrounding countryside. Part of her told her to get on that plane as Justin and Christopher had urged, and try to forget. But reading her great-aunts' journal changed that. If Faith's words were to be believed, the pair of them had been scared to death-by Sebastian. She wondered why they hadn't just found another solicitor, confronted him, or reported him to the law but they were Gran's much older sisters. They'd been well into their nineties by the time they died.

If Sebastian had killed twice, was he responsible for Vernon and the attempt on Christopher? She darned well wanted to know. Was this why Christopher and Justin wanted her gone? Why Christopher had warned her off Sebastian? She wanted some answers and a bit of justice thrown in.

She had to talk it over with someone and Justin had refused to discuss anything but her immediate departure. She just knew Christopher had the answers, and she'd have more chance of learning the truth from him than Justin.

She couldn't do much in a village where someone wanted to kill her, but going north, she figured she was safe. The whole world thought her on her way to South Carolina. All she needed were a few hours with Christopher. Besides, if you had vampire friends, it made sense to use them over mere mortals.

Getting out of York was like changing planets. Used to the fast patter of southern England, the slow, Yorks.h.i.+re speech, with its unaccustomed vowels, demanded concentration. And then the girl in the car rental place commented on Dixie's accent! Dixie choked back a sharp reply. She was the visitor, even if the speech around her was as hard to follow as Low Country Gullah.

Armed with a map, directions, and a rental car, Dixie set off, and nearly got sideswiped by a behemoth of a bus as she pulled out of the station. She thought Bringham High Street congested, but York traffic at 5:30 made Charleston rush hour seem like a Sunday drive. The road circled the city and skirted a wall that Justin probably saw built. Caught in the wrong lane, Dixie found herself heading for the city center down a narrow street intended for farm carts, not two lanes of fast moving traffic. As she approached a roundabout that rea.s.sembled Hyde Park Corner, she was tempted to shut her eyes and scream but she gripped the steering wheel and reminded herself she'd survived a bomb and consorted with vampires-she could drive in rush hour traffic.

She did. She also found a shopping center an hour later, bought herself a backpack, walking shoes and a few essentials, and took the Whitby road. She slipped a new tape into the player and let Vivaldi relax her as her rented car sped northeast. The sunset behind her, Christopher was ahead, towards the sea.

"Why the h.e.l.l would she go there?" Sebastian was snapping and didn't care. He was sick of Emily's panicky phone calls.

"What's in York?"

"The Minster, the Shambles, and there's the Viking thing, Jorvik or something they call it."

He didn't want a shopping list of tourist attractions. "Stow it, Emily. I can't think over your babbling."

Now he had her heavy breathing to contend with. Why York? He wasn't surprised to find Dixie's "departure" a fabrication- she had too much to gain by staying around. But Emily's anxious call, telling of a ticket charged at Kings Cross and a car rental in York, didn't make sense. It would by the time he'd finished.

"Wait, wait!" she said. "There's another. Just came up."

"What?" It wasn't hard to imagine her pale eyes goggling at the moving lines on her monitor as her fat fingers punched the keys.

"She's bought something. Two hundred eighty-seven pounds at a Friendlymart in Clifton Moor."

He saw no reason to keep the swearing under his breath. "Keep watching, Emily. Anything else comes up, use my mobile. And call at once.""I can't stay here all night."

"Tell them the tills don't balance, that you suspect a cas.h.i.+er of monkey business. Say anything. Just keep watching. I need to know exactly where she is. Sooner or later she has to stop for the night."

He didn't stop to pack, just grabbed his emergency fund from the safe and left, stopping only to fill up his car. Road works on the M25 had him cursing every car on the road, but he got through. At Watford, he joined the Ml and headed north. This time there would be no misses or mistakes. He'd take care of her himself.

Dixie made Whitby just before dark and now she faced another maze of narrow streets. Country lanes seemed easy by comparison-they were at least half-empty. It was getting late; she'd traveled the length of England on a hunch, and she didn't have a bed to sleep in tonight. Was she crazy? No. Somewhere in this town Christopher slept. She'd find him.

Driving into the fog was like hitting a white wall. She slowed to a crawl as her headlights barely pierced the mist. She took a left turn, for no other reason than she could see that curb, and nearly hit a parked car.

She'd be lucky if she didn't drive into the harbor, but she seemed to be going uphill and figured the sea lay in the opposite direction. In a gap in the fog, her headlights caught a hanging board that read "Bed and Breakfast." Taking this as a sign from heaven, Dixie turned. The gravel scrunched under her tires and she crawled the few yards to the big brick house, parked beside a battered Range Rover and little compact even smaller than hers, and walked up to the front door.

"A single room? Yes. We weren't expecting anyone this late. It's not quite the season yet, you know."

Mrs. Thirlwood led Dixie up a wide staircase to a pretty room that had, or so Mrs. Thirlwood claimed, a nice view of East Cliff and the Abbey. Dixie took the view on faith, and the room for its soft-looking bed.

A quick wash, a clean blouse, a cup of instant coffee from the supplies provided, and Dixie found herself casting longing glances at the pink roses on the pillows and duvet cover. But it was barely eight and she'd eaten nothing but a sandwich on the train. She needed something to eat and might as well scout out the town. She'd come to find Christopher, and how else could she spend the evening? Watching TV and snipping price tags off her new clothes?

"Going out?" Mrs. Thirlwood asked as Dixie came down to the wide hall with its polished bra.s.s and dark paneling.

"If I can see to drive. The fog was thick as mashed potatoes when I came in."

"That wasn't fog, just a fret come in."

"A what?" If that wasn't fog, she didn't have ten toes.

"A fret. We get them often this time of year. All times of year, really. They rise off the sea. Come in quick and leave faster. You get used to them. You have to be careful walking on the cliffs, but other than that, well, look out the door. It's clearing already."

Dixie could see the roofs and upper windows of the houses opposite and the streetlights halfway down to the corner.

Dixie frowned at the now-thinning fret. If this was June, she didn't want to visit in November. She retraced the road downhill, and followed now-visible street signs down to the harbor. The full moon gleamed on the inky-black water that lapped around the hulls of a score or more boats. She then headed uphill, towards what she guessed was the main part of town. She drove slowly, searching for a parking place and a likely restaurant.

Halfway down on the left, a lighted shop front shone halfway across the road. The smell of frying wafted down to greet her, and over the open doorway, a neon sign offered "Fish and Chips." Dixie parked on a double yellow line, trusting to luck that traffic wardens had better things to do than hara.s.s hungry visitors.

"Cod, skate or rock salmon, love?" the bald man behind the counter asked. Except he p.r.o.nounced it "luv.""Cod," Dixie replied. She'd heard of cod. Taking the numbered purple plastic marker, she joined the waiting crowd.

A gray-haired man who'd preceded her offered her a seat. Dixie hesitated-he was three times her age and looked wobbly on his legs-but to refuse seemed churlish. "Thank you very much," she said with a smile, and having said that much, she answered the inevitable questions: Yes, she was American. No, she didn't live near Disney World. Yes, she had hoped for better weather.

She tried to follow the conversation, but broad Yorks.h.i.+re, after a long drive and a sleepless night, taxed her concentration. She smiled, nodded, and studied her surroundings.

Judging by the customers and the terraced houses outside, she'd wandered into a poorer, older neighborhood. Could Christopher be holed up somewhere here? It didn't match the comfort of Dial Cottage or Tom's elegant house in London, but if he only used it to rest...

"... vampire, he said it was."

Dixie caught the last words from a leather-jacketed young man. "What?" she asked. "What did you say about a vampire?"

"There you are!" a fat woman in a purple raincoat said. "All your talk. Scaring the visitors, you are."

"It's true," the young man replied. "It was in the paper."

"Can't believe everything what you read in the paper," a short man said.

"What happened?" Dixie asked, trying for the appearance of idle curiosity. "Did someone see a vampire? I know about Dracula and Whitby, and all that but surely..."

"Just a couple of drunks. Had a few too many Whitby Wobbles if you ask me," the fat woman said.

"Oh?" Dixie said, looking at the young man. She smiled at him and prayed he wouldn't take it as a come-on, but he seemed the most inclined to talk.

He was. "Two blokes camping out, up on the cliff. Just last week it was. Settling down for the night, and what happens? One of them sees this shape come out of the sky. Then, just as it gets close, it turns into a man. Only it's not a man. It's all fangs dripping blood, chalky skin and a big, black cape and a fancy dinner jacket-just like the movies. Scares the k.n.o.bs off him, it does, and he trips off the edge of the cliff."

The old man chuckled. "More like wandered too close to the edge and the path gave way."

"Where was this? Up on the cliffs?" Dixie tried very hard not to shout.

"Up near the Abbey. Wouldn't go there after dark if I was you," Leather Jacket advised.

Dixie attributed the theatrical details to imagination, alcohol, and fear, but she had no trouble believing the rest.

"Twenty-nine, ready, luv," the bald man called.