Линси Сэндс - Meant to Be Immortal [calibre]

“You started as a physician and switched to hematology,” she remembered, and then raised her eyebrows. “That’s a jump in profession.”

“Not really,” he assured her. “As a physician I tried to work out what was wrong with patients to heal them. As a hematologist I do the same, but just work more specifically with blood to try to heal people.” He pursed his lips briefly in thought, and then said, “When you think about it, both professions involve a certain amount of detective work too.”

CJ didn’t agree, instead asking, “But why would you switch out to hematology of all things? I mean, blood is . . .” She paused and shuddered as she made a face to show that she found it gross herself.

Mac chuckled at her antics and argued, “Blood is fascinating: the viscosity, shear rate, tissue perfusion. It’s all . . .”

He paused, searching for the right word to describe something when she hadn’t understood much of what he’d already mentioned, and CJ interrupted with, “All right, Dexter, I get the idea. You’re into blood.”

“Dexter?” he asked blankly.

CJ tilted her head and eyed him with disbelief. “Surely you know who Dexter is? The forensic guy who specialized in blood splatter?” When he continued to stare at her blankly, she added, “He was a serial killer on TV?” When that got no response, she tsked with exasperation. “I thought everyone in the world either watched or at least had heard of that show. Although it ended back in 2013 or something, and you were probably ten back then and not allowed to watch it,” she added dryly, her gaze sliding over his facial features. The man had skin as pure as a four-year-old girl’s. The pores were nonexistent. She’d originally thought he was probably around twenty-five, but she was now reassessing that.

“I am much older than I look,” Mac said, sounding a touch irritated. “I have two doctorates, for heaven’s sake. That takes a lot of schooling. Speaking of which,” he added before she could respond. “I need to call Bastien.”

CJ had no idea who Bastien was or what Mac’s doctorates had to do with the man, but waited with interest to see what would follow.

“My phone’s back at the house,” he pointed out when she just stared at him.

“It’s probably ruined, then,” she said mildly.

“Yes,” he agreed unhappily, and then glanced around the room, presumably in search of a landline. But there wasn’t one. She wasn’t at all surprised when he asked, “May I borrow your cell phone?”

The words had barely left his mouth before his eyes dropped to the phone she was already holding out.

“Oh. Thanks.” He accepted it with a smile and then stood and started toward the open double doors to the bedroom of the suite. At the threshold, he paused to explain, “I’m just going to make the call in here. I’ll be quick.”

“Take your time,” CJ said easily, her focus already on her computer as she closed her emails and opened Google instead. She had a pretty good memory and remembered pretty much everything Mac had told her back at the fire. She might as well check out what she could while stuck guarding the man, she thought, and typed in “Argentis Inc.”

While CJ had never heard the name before Mac had spoken it, there were several companies with Argentis in the title and it took her a minute to find the one she wanted. At least she thought it was the one she wanted. It had offices around the world, including Toronto, New York, and Europe, and seemed to be the mother company of a bunch of different enterprises: blood banks, courier services, transportation, construction, scientific exploration . . .

Good Lord, it was very diversified, she thought as she scrolled through the website. There wasn’t really very much to see at the site though. Any time she clicked on one of the sublevels on the menu, a box popped up asking for a membership number, and then said if you didn’t have membership to click here to enroll. Not wanting to enroll, she went to the bottom of the first page and clicked on the contact tab, then quickly wrote down the number to call in New York for information. She’d have to call and ask about Mac and his working history and so on. It wasn’t really her job. Simpson should be doing this, but she suspected he was probably sound asleep in his bed right now, and judging by his less than stellar performance at the fire tonight, she wasn’t counting on his following up on gathering information on Mac himself tomorrow.

That thought had her next typing “Macon Argeneau” into the search engine, but nothing much of interest came up there, just Macon, Georgia, and some fiction series that she’d never heard of that was apparently about a family named Argeneau. Next, she tried “Macon Argeneau, Hematologist,” and got a lot of hits for various hematology centers, so she started to go through the listings in case his name was farther down on the list of headings that popped up.

Six

“Yes, Bastien, I said fire. The house I just moved into burned down. The whole place went up in flames. And that would have included me if I hadn’t filled the tub with water and submerged myself until the firemen could get me out,” he announced, still a little shaken at how close he had come to becoming one dead immortal.

“And you are sure the fire was deliberate?” his cousin asked, concern in his voice.

“Yes. I read from the minds of a couple of the firemen while I fed off of them and I gather they think gasoline was splashed around the house and poured through the mail slot of the front door,” he said grimly.

“You fed off the hoof?” Bastien snapped with alarm.

“I did not have much choice,” Mac said stiffly. “My blood supply went up with everything else in the fire and the situation was desperate. I was boiled alive, Bastien,” he announced grimly. “It was a most unpleasant experience and left my skin a mottled mess of pussy blisters and—” He broke off, not wishing to recall the shape he’d been in when they’d finally dragged him out of the tub of boiling water and carried him from the house. He’d been conscious when they’d entered the bathroom, spraying their icy water everywhere. Mac had leapt to stand in the tub the moment the nearby flames were extinguished. But that was as far as he’d got before he’d started to lose consciousness.

Fortunately, two of the firemen had reached him before he’d passed out and fallen back into the boiling water in the tub. The pain their grasp on his blistered parboiled arms had caused had pushed him briefly back to full consciousness and he’d roared in pain and then the world had gone black.

“I fed from every one of the couple of dozen firemen there and it wasn’t enough to fully heal me,” he finished, rather than further describe the state he’d been in.

“All right. I get it. It was an emergency situation,” Bastien said suddenly, drawing Mac’s thoughts back to the conversation he was having with his cousin and the head of Argentis Inc.

“Yes,” Mac breathed unhappily.

“Are you all right now?” Bastien asked after a hesitation that told Mac it was only one of many questions the man had and he’d had to take a moment to prioritize them in his mind.

“A little low on blood still,” Mac admitted. “And not completely healed, but well enough I look fine on the outside. At least where my clothes aren’t covering me.”

“Right. I’ll have blood delivered to you right away. It should be there in an hour or so depending on how far you are from the nearest Argeneau blood bank.”

Mac licked his lips at the thought of it, but then breathed out with frustration and said, “That might be a problem.”

“Why?”

“Because . . .” He paused and turned to look toward the closed French doors to the salon, before continuing the turn until he was facing the window in the room. Walking to it, he checked to see that it would open, winced when it squealed in protest, and let it ease back down. He wasn’t surprised when there was a knock at the bedroom door and CJ asked, “Mac? Are you all right?”