Free Deception (Absent Shadows Trilogy Book 3) by S.M. Spencer

explanation. I just needed to talk to him.
    We sat there for a few minutes, both of us staring into the middle of this quiet, darkened room. Eventually Crystal spoke.
    ‘I have to go into Northam tonight. Jenny’s husband is there.’
    It took me a moment to remember who Jenny was. Of course, the pregnant woman who I’d met at dinner. She was staying in the room I had each time I’d given birth.
    ‘Her husband?’
    ‘Yes. Mladen wants me to try to remove the vampire contagion from him. He’s at a bed & breakfast, in Northam.’
    ‘Oh.’ So she was going to try to do for him what she hadn’t wanted to do for Sam—return him to a normal human.
    I could tell she saw the look on my face when she replied, ‘He’s only just become a vampire, Lili. It’s only been a few months.’
    I didn’t say anything, but sat there recalling the reasons she hadn’t been able to do this for Sam. She’d felt it was too risky; her tears might not return him to a twenty-four year old human, but rather a hundred and seventy-something year old human. She was afraid he could turn to dust right before her eyes. Crystal had refused. I had agreed with her decision … but Sam had wanted to take that chance so we could be together, as humans. He’d loved me that much he was prepared to die for me … surely then, he must still love me, mustn’t he?
    ‘What should I do, Crystal? Should I just go home, and wait for him to come in and talk to me?’
    ‘Oh, Lili, you don’t know, do you?’ she asked, the slightest of frowns casting a shadow on her beautiful face.
    ‘Don’t know what?’ I asked, feeling like the knife had been shoved even deeper into my heart.
    ‘Sam moved out of the house—your house.’
    ‘He moved?’
    The knife was now being twisted. I felt betrayed. Couldn’t he at least have sent me a message to say he’d moved? I know I didn’t have many things there, but I had some. It had been my home too.
    ‘It’s only just happened. We were feeling a bit … nervous about being watched, so Michael and I moved. And Sam and Tom, well, they’re staying with us for a while. We’re very careful about how we come and go. We haven’t moved far, just into a little laneway back behind the markets. Since neither Sam nor Tom sleep, and barely even come in these days, it hasn’t been a problem at all, and it was meant to be just for a little while. I suppose you could stay with us as well.’
    ‘Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ll stay with Debs. It’s fine.’
    It wasn’t fine. That was just something you say. I was crushed. My husband had moved and not felt the need to even let me know. I felt like I was no longer even a small part of his life.
    ‘Please, don’t be upset,’ she said, placing one of her hands over mine. ‘Really, it hasn’t been that long ago. Both Tom and Sam have been so busy I don’t even think they’ve set up the computer.’
    So, maybe that explained the lack of emails. But they’d stopped quite some time ago … not just a few months ago.
    ‘When, exactly, was it?’ I asked, feeling the frown on my face as I tried to recall just when Sam’s emails had stopped completely.
    ‘Well, it wasn’t that long ago … a few months? Or … perhaps it’s been a bit longer than that … last winter I suppose, so that’s what, oh my, more like ten months ago … or it could be almost a year I suppose. But you know how time is for us … that seems like only moments ago.’
    Okay, so that could explain why he’d stopped replying to my emails. But it still didn’t explain the phone.
    ‘So, what were they planning to do? Is Sam going to find another house? Surely his things … furniture … are they in storage?’ It didn’t really matter—I was just jabbering while my mind continued to race.
    ‘Yes, Sam certainly intends to find another house. But I don’t know if he’s looked yet. As I said, all they seem to do is walk around patrolling … they don’t really need a home as you know. Not