La Vida Vampire

I froze. My little voice screaming, Nonononono was rewarded when Saber shook his head.

“I doubt the county keeps safe houses fit for a vampire.” He grabbed a cookie and took a healthy bite of it.

“Then how about this.” Neil turned his hand to clasp Maggie’s. “I have to teach a graduate seminar all day on Saturday in Tallahassee. You said you wanted to check out some warehouses there, Mags. You could come with me. Make a weekend of it, and give the cops time to track down Stony while you’re safe out of town.”

“No. I won’t leave Cesca alone.”

“She won’t be alone. Not if Saber moves into the penthouse to guard his suspect.”





TEN


“What?” Maggie and I yelped together while Saber coughed a fine spray of Fig Newton on the table. I pounded Saber’s back, the pulse in my throat doing triple time. Was Neil nuts?

“Are you nuts?” Maggie snapped. “You want to go off and leave Cesca alone with a vampire killer?”

“He’s a consultant, Mags,” Neil countered, unperturbed. “You said that yourself, and he’s a law officer. He’s equipped to protect her.”

“He could shoot her!”

“Wait a minute,” I said, but for naught. Neil and Maggie went right on quibbling.

“He’s not going to shoot an innocent citizen,” Neil argued. “Besides, Cesca could break him in two without turning a hair. And with her hair, that’s saying a lot.”

Saber coughed again, but I caught his eyes laughing and crossed my arms to keep from punching him.

“Cesca is nonviolent, and she’s as vulnerable as anyone when she’s asleep.”

“Safe room, Mags,” he said referring to a reinforced space at the end of the hall. Maggie had it built in case she couldn ’t evacuate in a hurricane. “She can rack out in the safe room.”

“After all the time she was buried, you want to stick her in a closet?”

“Hey, she’ll be dead to the world in there. She can lock herself in and get out whenever she wants.”

I cleared my throat. “May I interrupt?”

“No,” they said in unison and went back to wrangling.

Saber leaned sideways toward me. “They do this often?”

“It’s the Neil and Maggie show.”

“I’ll get that page about the tow truck soon.”

I nodded. He needed to go, and I needed to convince Maggie Neil was right. Partly so, anyway. I put two fingers to my mouth and whistled. Dogs probably howled a mile away, but it did the trick.

“Maggie,” I said, “Neil’s right about your safety. It’s fine if you go away for the weekend. You’ve done it before.”

“Not when you were being threatened.”

“I can take care of myself. I’ll skip dance class, call work to reschedule, and lie low while you’re gone.”

“You will not. You say that, but you’ll do as you please.”

“No, I promise. And,” I added, suddenly inspired, “I can ask Janie to stay with me.”

“I still think Saber should do it,” Neil put in.

“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “He can’t bodyguard and investigate me. It’s a conflict of interest.”

“See?” Maggie triumphantly shot at Neil.

“It’s not procedure,” Saber drawled, setting his mug on the table, “but I can get around that. Look, I don’t think you’re stupid enough to kill a woman and then bite her, even if you had a motive. ” He paused a beat. “The thing I can’t figure out is why the killer would bother to implicate you.”

“Simple misdirection?” I suggested. When he looked surprised, I added, “I read a lot of mysteries.”

“Which leads to the next question. What do you know that you haven ’t told us yet? Not because you mean to withhold information,” he hurried on when I frowned, “but because we haven’t asked the right questions.”

“What’s left to tell you?” Maggie demanded. “Stony did it. He hates vampires. He’d implicate Cesca in a heartbeat. Leaving her alone with you won’t find him any faster.”

Saber blew out a breath and leaned back in the chair. “What makes you all so sure it’s Stony?”

“Who else could it be?” Maggie asked impatiently.

“The guy Cesca calls Gomer,” Saber threw out. “We haven’t located him yet.”

I frowned. “You haven’t found Holland Peters?”

Saber shook his head. “And tonight those women connected to the Daytona vampires showed up.”

“What women?” Neil asked.

“These four weirdo women who hang out with the Daytona Beach vamps were on my tour tonight, ” I said to Neil, then grinned at Maggie. “They wore these leather getups—you should’ve seen them.”

“Could they have vandalized the truck?” Neil asked Saber.

“Doubtful, but the timing of their visit is suspicious. There was a similar murder in Daytona last Friday. We ’re looking into connections between them.”

Interesting that he didn’t say the other victim was a vampire, but I stayed focused.

“Who else do you suspect? I assume you’ve checked out Yolette’s husband?”

“Still checking, as a matter of fact, but there’s also Mick.”