Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [25]
I sighed, knowing I’d been beaten. “Fine. But I want the truth.”
“Oh, you’ll get the truth, Merit. You’ll get the truth.”
Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.
The Thai Mansion was stuck in the middle of a squatty strip mall, a dry cleaner on one side and take-out pizza chain on the other.
A bell on the door rang when we walked in. “El Paso” by Marty Robbins played on a small radio perched on the glass counter beside a golden Buddha, an ancient cash register and a plastic bucket of peppermints.
The interior of the restaurant wasn’t much to look at. The walls were painted concrete blocks and bore a random mix of 1970s B-movie posters. These were mingled with handwritten signs warning patrons not to park in the spaces owned by the dry cleaner or attempt to pay with anything but cash. Plastic was not the new black at the Thai Mansion.
“This is the best Thai food in Chicago?” I wondered.
“Trust me,” Jonah said, then nodded to a petite, dark-haired waitress who smiled back pleasantly, then nodded when he pointed to an empty table.
We took seats, and I scanned the plastic-covered, handwritten menu. There were a few sloppy translations, but most of the words weren’t in English, which I figured was a good thing in a Thai restaurant. “You come here a lot?”
“More than I should admit,” he said. “I’m not knocking the Grey House cafeteria, but Scott’s big on convenience foods. We’ve had entire meals that were beige.”
I imagined a plate of bread, mashed potatoes, tater tots, stuffing, and pound cake. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“On occasion, no. But a vamp with a taste for life likes a little more variety.”
“And you’re a vamp with a taste for life?”
He shrugged modestly. “The world has a lot to offer. There’s a lot to explore. I like to take advantage of that.”
“So immortality’s come in handy, then?”
“You might say that.”
A waitress with long, dark hair scuffled over the restaurant’s green carpet in white sneakers. “You ready?”
Jonah glanced at me, and when I nodded, offered his order. “Pad thai with shrimp.”
“How spicy tonight?”
“Nine,” he said, then handed over his menu. Their transaction complete, she looked at me.
I assumed that nine was on a scale of one to ten. I liked spicy food, but I wasn’t about to order a nine at a restaurant I’d never vetted. God only knew how hot their nine might be.
“Same for me. How about a seven?” I requested, but the waitress looked dully at me.
“You been here before?”
I glanced between her and Jonah. “Um, no.”
Shaking her head, she plucked away my menu. “No seven. You can have two.”
With that pronouncement, she turned and disappeared through the curtain into the backroom.
“A two? I’m not sure how not to be insulted by that.”
He chuckled low in his throat. “That’s only because you haven’t had a two yet.”
I was doubtful, but didn’t have much evidence to go on. And speaking of missing evidence . . .
“All right, quid pro quo time. How do you know my grandfather? I know you were friends with Charlotte. You told me that before. Is that the connection?” Charlotte is my older sister. I also have a brother, Robert, who was following in my father’s property-grubbing footsteps.
“I did and do know Charlotte,” Jonah said. “I knew you, too.”
I was drawing a complete blank. “How did you know me?”
“I took Charlotte to prom.”
I froze in my seat. “You did what now?”
“I took Charlotte to her senior college formal.”
I closed my eyes, trying to remember. I’d been home for spring break and had been witness to Charlotte’s meltdown when she’d had a fight with her then-boyfriend and now-husband, Major Corkburger (yes, seriously). She’d gone with a guy named Joe to the formal instead.
The lightbulb lit.
“Oh, my God,” I exclaimed, pointing at him. “You were ‘Joe’! I didn’t even recognize you.”
Joe had been a very short-lived rebellious phase. I saw him only a couple of times after prom. A month later, Charlotte and Major were back together, and Joe had disappeared.
“You had a perm,” I reminded