They got him.
They didn’t kill him.
They dragged him out of her condo in the pouring rain. He was hissing like a rattlesnake, his fangs protruding, hands cuffed, manacles and chains around his ankles, but otherwise he looked like Peter. Handsome, not evil, not a supernatural creature. MIT, red wine, and reading, and with a little cheating on the side.
“Murderer,” Claire said, keeping to the shadows beneath an eave as they fitted a hockey mask over his face and forced him into a van. The growing neighborhood crowd was being held back, prevented from seeing anything. Acting as a curtain, the rain aided and abetted. She was sick, and livid, and a tiny bit ashamed. It was because of her feelings for Jackson that he had been triggered. Triggered this time, Jackson had reminded her. They’d translated his entire diary. She was only one of many wives, and he had wound up murdering most of them.
“I’m sorry I had to lie to you,” Jackson said.
—
Half an hour later, when they brought Peter into an interview room at the Boston field office, Claire insisted on standing behind the one-way mirror as Jackson and Nash interrogated him. DeWitt was with the team. Jackson had asked to be there, and Nash and DeWitt had thought it was a good idea. See if they could shake up the enraged, jealous, psychotic husband.
Peter was no longer wearing his hockey mask. Claire was alarmed. She didn’t know why they’d removed it. Jackson had taken off his wet FBI raid jacket. Raindrops clung to his silvery blond hair.
Claire stood beside Lisa Shiflett, the undercover cop who had posed as Peter’s winsome Thanksgiving feast. Shiflett was trying very hard to appear unfazed, but it was clear her near-miss of dying at the hands of a vampire had unnerved her.
“Crosses don’t work on them,” she said quietly to Claire. “At least, they didn’t work on him.”
Claire remembered the iron cross in the ceiling above Vampire Number Two. Peter’s father. Maybe in the old days they had worked. When people had faith.
“Why were you planting evidence to frame your wife for murder?” Jackson asked Claire’s husband as Nash looked on, seemingly oblivious to the one-way mirror where Shiflett and Claire observed. Jackson leaned across the table and glared at Peter. Peter was still cuffed, his ankles still manacled.
“I want a lawyer,” Peter said to Nash. Ignoring Jackson.
“Dream on,” Nash said, moving toward him. “You’re not even human. You have no rights.”
“Escalation is consistent with serial murder,” Jackson said, still looming over the perp. “I would assume you were building up to killing Claire.”
Peter—the vampire—looked up at Jackson and smiled thinly, and Shiflett caught her breath.
“I can’t believe it’s the same guy,” she said. “He was so . . . elegant, you know. He just charmed me. Like in those Stookie Stackhouse books.”
“Sookie,” Claire said faintly, her eyes riveted on Jackson as he gazed levelly at Peter. He was too close. Being in the same room with Peter was too close.
“Maybe you were going to make it look like a suicide,” Jackson continued. Knowing him as well as she did, Claire detected the tremor of fury in his voice as it crackled through the interview room speaker. “She murders all those girls out of, say, jealousy, then takes her own life.”
Peter just chuckled. Then he said, “I could rip out your throat right now, if I wanted to.” He looked at Nash. “Both of you. You’d be dead before you knew I’d done it.”
Shiflett took an involuntary step backward, but Claire moved protectively toward the mirror.
“I don’t think you can,” Jackson retorted, remaining where he was. “I think that vampire super-strength thing is just a myth.”
“One way to find out,” Peter said, and Claire thought about her weapon. Nash and Jackson were unarmed. For obvious reasons, you didn’t take guns into interview rooms. But she could shoot Peter through the mirror.
And if it came to that, she would.
“Maybe younger vampires are stronger than older vampires,” Jackson said, still not backing down. Claire wanted to press the speaker button and tell him to move away. “You were pretty young when you staked your father. But it’s been a few centuries since then. Since you’re so old now yourself . . . maybe you don’t have it anymore, Count Dracula.”
Peter shifted in his chair, guilt and rage pouring off him. That was the crime he was upset about—killing his father. “My father? I don’t know what you’re—”
“We read your diary, scumbag,” Jackson said, holding up a photograph of the cover of a plain brown leather journal.
Peter quietly stared at the picture in Jackson’s hand. Claire considered that Peter’s prints on it probably glowed after an application of Luminol. The thought made her tremble.
“And we’ve got custody of Daddy Dearest in the Salem crypt,” Jackson said.
Peter visibly reacted, looking frightened.
“I’m so freaked out,” Shiflett muttered. She looked at Claire. “Not meaning to be rude, but was anything different . . . anatomically? I mean, was there anything about him that struck you as odd?”
Claire shook her head. That answered one question: The cop hadn’t slept with Peter. Claire was glad . . . for Shiflett’s sake.
“So the stake, Peter. If we pull it out, does your dad come back to life?” Nash asked, walking toward him. Adding a little pressure.
And Claire cracked a little smile. Because the question coming as it did after the cop’s question, plus Peter’s name, made it a doozy of a triple entendre.
“Why should I tell you?” Peter asked.
“Because we’re going to shove one into you,” Jackson said. “As big as a goddamn turkey baster.”
Claire snickered. Shiflett looked at her with astonishment. Claire shrugged.
“FBI humor,” Claire said.
“But how can you laugh? You’re married to him,” Shiflett said. “You lived with him, and had sex with him, and all that time, he was a vampire. And he was murdering girls. Sucking out their blood.”
“You don’t need to remind me,” Claire said. “Anyway, we hardly ever had sex.”
“Good.” The cop blanched. “If anything like that ever happened to me, I don’t think I’d come out of it okay.”
“Then you’d better not ever get married,” Claire said, and this time she chuckled.
“Ha-ha,” the cop said weakly. “Wow.” Then, “So, you want to go out for coffee once this is done?”
“Sure, but I need to make it a quickie.” Claire actually winked.
This time the cop smiled back, just a little. A little was good.
“I’ve already made calls,” Peter said. He lifted his chin and looked straight at the mirror. “I have relatives, Claire,” he said. “I have brothers.”
“Love the flaccid posturing,” Jackson said.
“Bring it, sucker,” Claire said back at Peter, wondering if he had super hearing or eyesight. Maybe he could see her standing there. She hoped he could. “I’ve got eleven VSI agents backing me up.”
And as soon as Peter was history, and forensics school was over, damn straight they were all moving to Washington, D.C., to work in the basement of the Hoover building. Laughter and all.
And somehow . . . Jackson.