“Who could have done this?” I whispered, unable to tear my eyes away.
Hayes looked sideways at me, his jaw set, that muscle twitching again. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
I found myself stepping closer, examining the corpse. I pushed aside a crumple of torn, blood-soaked nightie and gasped.
There was a yawning, bloody hole just under the woman’s left breastbone—and her heart had been completely removed.
I wretched and clamped my hand over my mouth again, but the vomit didn’t come this time. My knees weakened, and before I knew it, Hayes was holding me up, his calm chest pressed against my heaving one, my head buried in the crook between his neck and shoulder. I felt his hands pressing against the small of my back, massaging in small circles softly, as I was sobbing, gasping, hiccupping. He led me into the hallway, shutting the door gently behind us. It didn’t help. The image of the woman’s bloodied nightgown and her naked, hollow chest burned in my pinched, closed eyes.
“Oh,” I mumbled, sinking down onto the top stair. “Oh, my God.” I leaned forward, my head between my knees. I tried to breathe deeply.
Hayes hunched down beside me and brushed a few stray locks of hair behind my ear, his fingertips lingering gently on my skin. The movement was so tender that I wanted to cry.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffled, looking up at him. “I guess I’m not a very good detective.”
“No one is supposed to be good at this, Lawson. No one should ever be good at this.” He stood up. “You stay here. Catch your breath. I’m going to go in and finalize things, and then we’ll head back to the station.”
I smiled weakly, and Hayes disappeared back into the bedroom.
Once the door clicked shut, I steadied myself enough to stand up and shakily followed Hayes through the bedroom door. Hayes had his back toward me, was hunched over, taking pictures of the body and writing in his little black leather notebook. He glanced over one shoulder at me, his blue eyes clear and focused.
“I think it’s vampires,” he said.
“No,” I said, my eyes following an arc around the body. “Do you see that?” I pointed, and Hayes’s eyes followed my finger. He frowned and shrugged.
“What am I looking at?”
I crouched down to the hardwood floor, my fingers brushing a smooth white powder. “There’s a pentagram drawn around the bed.”
Hayes wagged his head, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t see anything.”
“Veil,” I said, showing him my chalked fingers. “Someone was trying to cover their tracks—magically speaking.”
Hayes swallowed thickly. “So, pentagrams? That’s demonic, right? So, vampires.”
I looked at the destruction of the body, the dark red splatters of blood on the bottom sheet, the pool of red seeping into the mattress. “I don’t think so,” I said.
Hayes pointed to the woman’s pale arms lying palm up, the delicate skin on each wrist punctured by two tiny, perfect holes spaced equidistantly apart, the skin puckered as though it had been violently sucked.
“Aren’t those teeth marks? Fangs?”
I shook my head. “Vampires don’t leave this kind of destruction. They generally aren’t interested in being caught, in leaving any traces. And the blood—” I swallowed hard against a fresh wave of nausea. “That’s a lot of blood to leave behind. Human blood is a life force to a vampire. They aren’t going to leave that much—they can’t. It’s a survival instinct. And the heart …” I couldn’t finish, and Hayes wagged his head.
“Maybe the vamp was angry, sloppy. Maybe he wasn’t doing this to feed. Or maybe he didn’t care if he was found out. He certainly didn’t care the last time.”
“We don’t know that it was a vampire last time. Besides, there is no reason that a vampire would gouge out someone’s eyes. And if he didn’t care whether or not he was found out, why would he bother to put her back in her bed? To veil the pentagram? Why would he bother to make it look like nothing happened?” I found myself whispering the last part: “And why would a vampire take out her heart?”
Hayes blew out a long sigh. “I don’t know. But I know it’s a vampire. I know you’ve got a soft spot for whatever reason for the pointy-toothed bloodsuckers, but let’s face it: when you hear hoofbeats, you don’t go looking for zebras.”
I put my hands on my hips. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if there are teeth marks, I’m going to go looking for vampires.”
“Vampires. Crap!” I slapped my palm on my forehead and glanced at my watch.
“What?”
“I was supposed to pick up Nina’s nephew from the Caltrain station. He comes in in eight minutes.”
Hayes shrugged. “We’re done here and we’re not too far.”