Dark Carousel (Dark 26)

They were staying in the restroom far too long. "We don't run. That's what we promised each other," Charlotte reminded her. "We're never going to be free if we don't find out who murdered the ones we loved. Lourdes won't ever be free. You were right, Genevieve. I was the one trying to hide. Being responsible for a child threw me, but we're strong. We've stuck together through everything so far, and we can do this."

"They aren't going to get away with it, are they?" Genevieve said, trying to pour steel into her voice. "We'll find out who took our families, and we'll do it together."

Charlotte looked up at her friend's beautiful face. There was determination there. Fear, but courage. She nodded. "Damn right we will. Let's get out there and take back control. They think they have it, but we're good at what we do."

Genevieve glanced at herself in the mirror. "Charlie?" She hesitated. Long lashes veiled her eyes. "What if there is such a thing as a vampire? What if these men are killing them?"

Charlotte opened her mouth and then closed it. Genevieve didn't deserve a derisive response. She needed to think about what she said carefully. Logically. "First, honey, if there were vampires, after all this time, wouldn't the world know about them? And secondly, the man they killed was no vampire. I saw his death. I saw him. I felt him. He was just as human as the two of us. Maybe they believe they're killing vampires, but I don't see how. And driving a stake through someone's heart, vampire or human, while they're alive and conscious, is just plain sadistic. We can't take any chances with these men. We have to find out what they want, and we need to be very careful. If they've targeted us, we need to know why."

Genevieve took a deep breath and then nodded. She'd been the one to insist they come out of hiding and act like they were alive again, but it was Charlotte who was more the warrior woman. When it came down to facing danger, it was Charlotte who stood in front of her.

The two of them made their way back to the table, threading through the crowd. All three men waited for them, eyes examining them carefully as they approached.

"Why is there always a line for the ladies' room and not for the men's?" Charlotte asked, and threw herself into the chair beside Daniel. "Every time. It's crazy and makes me tempted to march into the men's room and do a takeover with a bunch of like-minded women."

"What happened to you?" Daniel asked. He sounded charming. Solicitous. Worried, even. But he couldn't hide the cold alertness in his eyes. The suspicion.

She had to touch that glass again without a reaction. Charlotte flashed an embarrassed smile. Deliberately she inched her fingers toward the glass from which he'd drunk. "I'm violently allergic to something they put in some of the alcohols. I should have been more careful." She wrapped her palm around the glass right where she thought his prints were and began to slowly push it away from her, making a show out of it.

Much more prepared this time, when the jolt came, she rode it out, seeking to go deeper into the tunnel to find more memories. To see if these men had murdered her brother. She caught images of Daniel following Genevieve and Grace from a store. That was how he found their home. The three men had changed places frequently while following the two women so that no one car had been close to them for any length of time, which explained how Genevieve, always so careful, hadn't spotted a tail. It also explained how they had come to follow Grace.

There, in the tunnel, Charlotte found that there were two older murders, both committed by driving a stake through a man's heart. All three men were present. She didn't feel anything but a grim hatred emanating from them. Her brother wasn't one of the victims. Still, one of the murders took place in France. She recognized the gardens where Daniel had staked his victim.

The three men were serial killers. The bodies couldn't have been found, or the murders would have been splashed across every news station imaginable. She knew she couldn't keep her hand around the glass much longer and maintain her embarrassed smile. Genevieve looked so anxious, her face pale, her gaze studiously avoiding the three men but centering on Charlotte as if her life depended on it.

As if she knew the men would see her desperate fear, Genevieve leaned toward Charlotte. "Are you certain we shouldn't leave? The last time you drank anything that affected you so adversely, I had to take you to the hospital."

Charlotte was very proud of her. Genevieve might by terrified, but she was thinking all the time. She'd said the perfect thing to reinforce Charlotte's explanation. Slowly, she let go of the glass, having pushed it halfway across the table.

"I'm all right, Vi. I just took a little sip and knew instantly something was wrong." She shrugged. "I should have spit it out, but I didn't want Daniel to think I was spitting all over him."

The men laughed, although she could tell it was forced. She wasn't certain they were buying her little charade. She leaned back in her seat. It was time to change the subject and do a little digging. "Vi and I met in France and have been best friends ever since. Where did the three of you meet? You obviously have been friends for a long time."

"School," Vince answered immediately, turning his attention to Genevieve. He ran his finger from her bare shoulder to her wrist. "Grammar school. I love that sexy little French accent you have."

Bruce nodded and leaned toward Genevieve. "How long have you been in the States?"

Charlotte was grateful for Genevieve's French accent. It always managed to be a conversation changer. As a distraction, it worked very well.

"We met while working on art projects in Paris," Genevieve supplied, deliberately taking the attention away from Charlotte. "Charlie was interning, learning art restoration from some of the greatest in the world, and I was painting. We became great friends."

Charlotte casually reached for the napkin in front of Daniel, the one he'd been resting his hand on. She crumpled it up slowly, finger by finger, dragging it into her palm as if doing so absently, smiling and nodding to indicate the introduction in France was a good moment for them both.

It was difficult to keep her smile in place and she welcomed the opportunity to shift her attention from Daniel to Genevieve, because even with the object being new and fresh rather than older, as her talent preferred, she was getting enough images to know that Daniel and his friends had been stalking Genevieve and her for a long while. And they'd definitely been in France.

Her heart pounded hard. She saw flashes of the building where she'd gone to test her psychic abilities. Genevieve and she had gone in laughing, determined to have fun. It never occurred to either of them that they might be in danger or that the danger would follow them and possibly hurt others they loved.

Daniel and Vince had followed them back to the little studio they were renting tog

ether. She didn't see them anywhere near where Genevieve's grandmother lived, nor were there even the faintest memories of standing over the body after or during the time of the murder. She didn't see them near her brother or his home, either.

Taking a deep breath she let go of the napkin. The three men had been in France, followed them from the Morrison Center, where Genevieve and Charlotte had done the psychic testing, and now had followed the two women to the United States. They were Americans, but from where, she wasn't certain. She was frustrated with the fact that she didn't get clear, detailed information like she did on older objects.

Vince continued his conversation with Genevieve, all about her painting and what she liked to paint, volunteering to be her next male model if she was looking for one. Daniel and Bruce seemed to be concentrating on her, and Charlotte was afraid for a moment that they might have asked her something while she was trying to gather information.

"You restore art?" Daniel asked, hitching closer to her, extending his arm along the back of her chair, fingers gliding along her bare skin, tracing the spaghetti straps on her blouse.

She forced herself not to pull away, instead flashing him a small smile. "Yes. I specialize in restoring very old carousel horses, the wooden chariots and entire carousels. I can restore American carousels, but the ones I'm most interested in are from Europe. There isn't a lot of call for that sort of thing outside of museums or private collections, and there's even less here in the States, but it's my first love."

Daniel looked puzzled, as most people did. She couldn't explain to them why she liked touching the old wood and feeling every groove in it, every carving. She loved knowing everything there was to know about the carver, long gone from the world, but so familiar to her once she'd touched the carver's art piece.

She laughed softly at his expression. "I can see you don't get it. The horses are unique, each one carved differently, some more than three hundred years ago. How cool is that? I was able to work on one that was carved during medieval times. For young knights to prepare for the jousting competitions, a rotating platform was used with legless wooden horses so they could practice their skills." She couldn't help the enthusiasm pouring into her voice in spite of the situation. She loved the fact that the carousel could be traced back all the way to the twelfth century, when the Arabs and Turks played a game on horseback with a scented ball. Italians and Spanish had observed the competition and referred to the game as "little war": carosella, or garosello.