I was still hopped up on adrenaline, too restless to concentrate on the computer, so I burned worry energy by touring the Spartan but updated condo. Cherrywood floors stretched through every room save the tiled bathrooms, and the overall style was modern. A couch and two chairs in the living room took advantage of the view. A coffee table, a side table, and two lamps rounded out the furnishings.
The living room opened to a kitchen dominated by sleek black appliances and the same light brown countertop that Saber had in the bathrooms. A long bar separated the kitchen from the dining room, and there was room for a dining set, but Saber didn’t have one.
I found the second, smaller bedroom that Saber used for his office, where tall bookshelves lined one wall. A desk on the opposite wall held Saber’s laptop, a printer, and some loose papers.
The condo’s paint job seemed fresh, and everything was neat and relatively new, so the staging list I jotted on a pad from Saber’s desk was short. A dining set, some art, and a few more accessories, and the condo would be ready to show. Unless Saber’s Realtor wanted something else done. I’d check with Saber before I went shopping. I peeked in on Saber and smiled to find him lightly snoring. With a swift kiss on his forehead, I moved to the next order of business. Researching the VPA records.
Ice clinked in my glass of water as I went back to Saber’s office. Good thing I didn’t have a mouthful of anything because, as soon as I sat in his desk chair, my breath caught.
Three small picture frames with black trim sat to one side of the desk, partly hidden by the printer. One held a photo of me coming out of the ocean lugging my surfboard. He must’ve taken the picture during our first official date when we’d taken a picnic to the beach and Saber had insisted on watching me surf. That he had the photo on his desk made me go warm and mushy inside. Another frame displayed a photo of two couples standing side by side in their Sunday best. One couple looked to be in their fifties, the other in their twenties or thirties. The younger woman held a baby in her arms, and the photo had been taken outside a church with palm trees in the background. The two men were near clones, so I figured them for father and son. Was Saber the baby?
Nah. The ladies’ hats were from the 1940s.
The last photo made me smile. A boy, maybe three years old, was dressed in a cowboy outfit complete with a white hat, and a sixshooter like those I’d seen in old Westerns. The child stood in front of a Christmas tree, blond furniture I thought was from the 1940s showing in the edges of the shot. Little Deke Saber? I’d seen that fierce expression before. It was eerily similar to his cop face, in fact.
Something written at the bottom of the photo looked to be in Saber’s firm, slanted handwriting. I turned the frame toward the brightening light outside to read the script. Remember, 1951.
Nineteen fifty-one? If the little cowboy was Saber, and he was three in the picture, that would make Saber—
No. It couldn’t be. We’d celebrated his birthday on April fifth, and though I hadn’t asked his age because I didn’t want to feel like an ancient cradle-robbing hag, he couldn’t be much over thirty-six. Not with his washboard abs, tight butt, and a whole list of muscle groups that so were not sagging.
The photo must have been of Saber’s dad, and the other one of his grandparents and great grandparents. Had to be. Right?
I chewed on my lip as I replaced the frame. I considered going to the bedroom to look for Saber’s driver’s license, but a glance out the window at the growing day changed my mind. I had research to do, about two hours to do it, and I’d promised Saber printouts of all the data I could find.
I logged into the protected part of the VPA site with Saber’s user name and password and pulled up every file on everyone in Ike’s nest, starting with Ike himself.
Born in the late 1860s, Ike was reportedly the product of a black mother and Chinese father, and had resided in California until some point in his mid-twenties. The facts pretty well fizzled after that, other than to note Ike had been in Florida since 1955, and in Daytona by 1979.
Miranda and Charles were listed as being one hundred and twenty and twenty-one years old, respectively. Both had been born in Devonshire, England, had met while serving on an earl’s domestic staff. They’d been married and had one adult child at the time they were turned in their early forties.
Coach, the guy who looked thirty, was ninety in combined human and vampire years. He’d been turned in 1949, and had really been a football coach, though the records didn’t say where. Suzy was forty-five and had been turned at age nineteen while in college. Again, the records didn’t reveal where Suzy had gone to school, but her favorite food had been a Frito pie served with a Dr Pepper. Ooookay.