Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

At this point, I’d pretty much lost my qualms about looking through sensitive paperwork—though I will say that the sheer redness of the folder made me pause for just a second. The top sheet of the file was marked “Ophelia Lambert—Rehabilitation Progress.”

The report was pretty bland, discussing Ophelia’s progress on UK’s campus and her “lack of proven murders.” Who the hell wrote this? Did Ophelia have some sort of social worker she had to report to every week? I tried to imagine that vampire paper pusher. And it made me laugh.

Wait a minute.

I opened my “mystery drawer” full of loose papers that I had not yet figured out how to file. Most of them were reports that had fallen out of file folders when they were tossed into the giant laundry cart. I remembered a two-page printed e-mail with Ophelia’s name at the bottom, an e-mail that included a lot of cursing. Maybe that was supposed to go in this file? I shuffled through the papers until the all-caps cuss words jumped out at me.

I set the e-mail aside, just in case Jane wanted me to add it to Ophelia’s file. As I was shuffling Ophelia’s papers around, another monthly expense report from Tina slid out onto my desk. This one listed even more vampire students than the last. That didn’t make any sense. Students weren’t allowed to change their room assignments at this point in the year, so why was Tina requesting more money?

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was underestimating the number of students in my building. I mean, I’d been pretty busy with classes and having a life. Was this the sort of thing I should even be worrying about right now?

I frowned at the report and its overwhelming numbers, blinking out at my keen eyes like they were written in red neon.

It was either that or think about Ben and what he’d meant by “This was a bad idea.”

“Right.” I picked up my receiver and dialed Keagan’s cell, taking advantage of Jane’s absence to make a not completely kosher phone call. My suite mate worked evening shifts at the front desk at New Dawn to earn a student stipend—a whopping hundred dollars per month. It was enough to cover Keagan’s cell-phone bill and keep her dad off her back about our generation’s “poor work ethic.”

Keagan’s voice growled into the phone. “If this is a telemarketer or that creep from my Psych class, I swear to God, I’m going to hang up.”

And that was when I remembered that the Council phones had a “ghost” area code that wouldn’t allow Keagan to see that I was calling from inside the state.

“Keagan, is that how you normally greet people on the phone? You were such a nice girl when I lived in your suite. Maybe I should move back.”

“Meagan! Are you allowed to call me right now? Are you OK? Wait, are you calling me from a landline?” she said. “Ew. Just because you’re working for moldy old vampires doesn’t mean that you have to use their technology.”

“I am calling you for a semiofficial reason, so I don’t think I’m violating the spirit of Jane’s rules. And also, I’m pretty sure you just used vampire hate speech. Like if we weren’t friends, I would file a complaint with the campus Anti-Deadism League and get you fired from your little front-desk job.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re friends, then,” she drawled. “I would hate to lose my lucrative future in customer service.”

“Sweetie, you hate customers. And service. You’re just too Southern to say anything about it,” I said, laughing, even when I saw Ben and Gigi come walking down the hall.

Ben caught sight of my wide grin and smiled back, like it was a reflex. And then he seemed to remember his sudden departure from our thrusty high jinks, and his face fell into a mask of detached politeness.

Gigi, on the other hand, was still waving and grinning. Honestly, that girl’s friendliness was starting to freak me out. I gave her a little waggle of the fingers and pointed to my phone receiver. Ben got no waggle. We would both have to get used to disappointment.

And because my vampire quickness allowed me to multitask like a boss, I balanced the receiver under my chin, opened my e-mail program, and started a new message to Ophelia. I made it short, something that wouldn’t ping on the Council’s “keywords sensors” on my communications.

Hey Ophelia,

I have a quick question for you about some paperwork. Can you give me a call? I’m sure that Jane gave you the number for my KidPhone.

—Meagan

OK. That should have satisfied my curiosity, right? That should have settled this growing sense of unease in my chest. But it didn’t. Something just short of anxiety gnawed away at me, making me feel like I was squirming inside my skin. So I pressed forward with my somewhat underhanded questioning of my friend.

“That is true. You would be doing me a favor.” Keagan sighed. “I’m assuming you’re calling me for some reason other than just distracting me from my very important mail-sorting duties?”

“Yes. Does Tina still make you run daily census reports?” I asked, picking up a stack of Post-its and my favorite red pen.

Keagan snorted. “Yes, at the end of every shift, I e-mail Tina a list of residents, sorted into living and undead columns on an Excel spreadsheet. Because there’s a huge chance of that number suddenly changing overnight . . . except for that day a few weeks ago when we suddenly had one kid jump into the vampire column. Sorry, that was insensitive.”

“Eh, coming from you, kinda borderline.”

“Thanks. Is there some reason you’re grilling me about random tasks from my job description?” she asked.

“I was hoping you might be able to do one for me?”

“What? A census report?”

“Yes, and I need you not to ask me any questions about it.” I winced, waiting for my friend to blast me for putting her in an awkward position and asking too much of her.

“OK.”

“Really?” I took the phone away from my face and gave it a skeptical brow lift.

“Yeah, it’s not like you’re asking me for names and social security numbers here, Meg. I’ve got to do this tonight anyway. You’re just preventing me from procrastinating.” I heard her clicking the keys on her desktop keyboard. “OK, we have one hundred eighty-three vampire students on the roster. And one hundred twenty-one human students.”

I wrote the number on my Post-it and glanced back at Tina’s most recent report. Tina was padding both columns by about thirty students. “You’re sure about that?”

“Nope, I just picked those numbers out of a hat. Because that’s how I make my own fun.”

“Fair enough, smartass.”

“And my work here is done.” I could practically hear Keagan raising her arms in a V of sarcastic victory.

“Can you do me a favor? Don’t tell anyone that I called and asked about this?”

“Yes, I can do this very vague and mysterious thing you’re asking me to do. Mostly because I don’t think anyone will be all that interested.”

“I’m serious, Keagan.”

“I know. I can tell. Are you OK, Meg?”

“I’m sure it’s just a problem with paperwork, but it’s part of my job to track these things down, so . . .”