Page 46 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

She couldn’t help it. It bothered her. She’dalmostforgotten about that part, that Callum had sent this man to follow Esther. It more than bothered her, actually. It made her mad.

He sighed heavily. “I’ve always been good at finding things. People too. And I’ve been a donor since I was eighteen. I’ve lived in twenty-three states and worked every job from bartender to line cook to road construction to exotic dancer and about a dozen other things. I know a lot of people. And people talk. So when one of my contacts told me that Esther was here, Boss sent me to check it out.”

“Were you ever going to threaten her?”

“I was never going to talk to her at all. My job was to watch her.”

“Stalk her.”

He shrugged. “I guess you could call it that.” Robbie looked at his feet and sighed. “Look, Jory, I know how it looked. And if it were anyone else, I wouldn’t believe me either. I’d-a told you to call the cops. Or whatever. But Boss wasn’t never gonna hurt her.”

“You couldn’t have known that,” Jory protested, wondering why she had agreed to eat breakfast here anyway, the eggs suddenly sitting like a rock in her stomach.

He looked up at Jory. “I did know that. I don’t know what you’ve told yourself about him, but it isn’t true.”

Jory snorted and shook her head, but Robbie wasn’t about to let that go.

“You don’t know him, Jory.”

“I do know him, Robbie.”

“Not anymore,” was his simple, gutting reply.

It stopped Jory in her tracks. Because godsdamnit, he was right. She didn’t know Callum anymore. She only knew what had led him to what he had become. She knew absolutely nothing about what had come after that. She didn’t know how he’d spent his centuries, what he’d done with his immortality.

Once, she could have drawn his body from memory. Every mole. Every scar. She knew his tastes, his likes, his dislikes, his moods. She had known him so well that she could feel a fight coming days ahead, could soothe him with dizzying efficiency. It had been a point of pride for her. But now?

“He takes real good care of his people, Jory. Even people who never even heard of him. Who never will hear of him.”

She leaned in, waiting. Damn the time. Damn the store. Damn changing her clothes. “Enlighten me.”

“Well, take the nightclubs.”

“You mean his blood trafficking operation?” Jory muttered.

“Is that what you think?” Robbie asked, reeling back, his face twisted in horror.

“Aren’t they? He coerces people to the club to become food for his members.”

“Let me ask you a question, Jory. How do you think most vampires feed?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“Because you do know. How do they feed?”

She took a deep breath and said, “They find humans, take them by surprise, and drain them.”

“And do the humans usually survive?”

Her silence was an answer.

“Right,” Robbie said, his eyebrows pinched. So serious. All evidence of playfulness gone. “What do your friends do when they go on a date?”

“What does that have to do with the clubs?”

“Just answer the question. What do your friends do when they go on a date?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really have many friends.”