“Much better,” she replied. “It must have been one of those twelve-hour bugs or maybe food poisoning.”
Clint chewed on his gum as he eyed her skeptically. “Never heard of a twelve-hour bug before. Don’t need you puking on the customers.”
“I’ll make sure to take it outside again,” she assured him.
“Fine,” he relented. He’d turned away from her when Julian stepped into the bar with Chris and Melissa. “I hope you’re not the one who got her sick, Hulk Hogan,” Clint said as he walked by Julian.
Julian did a double take before a thunderous expression crossed his face, and he glared at Clint’s retreating back. Melissa and Chris burst into laughter; Quinn had to bite her lip to keep from laughing aloud.
“One of these days,” Julian growled.
“You’ll what?” Quinn asked as she grabbed her tray from the table.
Julian shook his head. “I might flash my fangs and go all red-eyed on him in order to make him piss himself.”
“He’d probably just shoot you,” Chris choked out. “And then I’d laugh more.”
Julian gave him the finger before walking over to kiss her cheek. “Are you okay?”
“As okay as I was the last six times you asked me,” she assured him as she rested her hand on the black stubble lining his jaw. “I have no regrets.”
He settled his hands on her hips and shook them a little. “Just checking.”
She gave him a quick kiss before reluctantly stepping away from him. The place was already beginning to fill up. Quinn kept her attention on the front door as she took orders and worked her way through the crowd with ease. She didn’t think the vamp would return so soon, but she hadn’t expected him to appear last night either. After work, she planned to search the surrounding desert for him, but until then, she had rent to pay.
The laughter of the barroom, the smell of alcohol, and the clink of the pool balls were all familiar sounds that comforted her as she worked. She stopped at the table where Julian, Melissa, and Chris were sitting. Luther, Lou, and Zach had recently joined them. “What can I get for you?” she asked as she pulled her pen from behind her ear.
Before they could respond, a wash of red and blue lights spilling through the plate glass window at the front of the bar drew her attention to the road. Everyone in the bar quieted as first one and then another police cruiser sped by. Their sirens echoed through the night, shaking the glass with their forlorn wails.
Quinn stepped closer to the window and craned her head to peer out. All the patrons who had seen the cruisers go by approached the window to see where they were going. Ed and Beverly Johnson were the only two full-time cops in town. They rarely worked nights, and the married couple was most often in the same cruiser when they were at work. The last time she’d seen them go to a call at the same time was when the bar was shot up and Angie had been killed.
The five part-time deputies on the force mostly drove one of the three police motorcycles at the station. Occasionally, they would be in one of the cruisers. It could be one of the part-timers, instead of the Johnson’s, driving one of those patrol cars now, but for some reason, Quinn didn’t think so.
The ghostly hand of impending doom slid over her back, causing the hair on her nape to rise. Someone opened the bar door and stepped onto the porch outside. The splash of red and blue lights continued to play over the street and window, but she couldn’t see the cars anymore.
Murmurs ran through the crowd. Shoving her pad into her pocket, Quinn walked over to the open door and stepped outside. At the end of the road, both of the cruisers were parked.
She frowned as she watched the Johnson’s approach the house with their guns at the ready. Most of the calls in this town were bar fights that couldn’t be handled by the bar employees themselves, some cats in trees, and the rare domestic abuse. She’d never seen Bev or Ed with their hands near their weapons before.
A middle-aged woman stood on the porch of the house; she gestured frantically for the couple to hurry up. With her superior hearing, Quinn heard the woman talking, but she was sobbing too hard for her to be able to make out the words. People pressed closer around her, and some made their way down the steps toward the dirt parking lot.
“They’re at the Kemp’s place,” someone behind her commented.
“That can’t be good.” Quinn hadn’t realized Hawtie stood beside her until she’d spoken.
In the flashing lights, Hawtie’s deep-auburn hair was a vibrant shade of red. Her red lips were pursed, her creamy complexion illuminated.
“No, it can’t,” Clint said from beside Hawtie. With Clint’s barely five-five height and Hawtie standing at six-foot, the top of Clint’s head just made it past Hawtie’s breasts as he wrapped his arm around her waist.
The whispers of the crowd picked up. More people filed into the parking lot and a few made their way down the road as Bev and Ed disappeared inside the house. Ed reemerged a minute later. He grabbed hold of the porch railing and threw up over the side. Such a spectacle probably would have brought laughter from the patrons of the bar on any other occasion; now it only increased the concerned voices surrounding her.
Bev strode past Ed. She jogged down the steps of the house and over to the police cruiser. She sat in the driver’s seat, talking with someone over the microphone before grabbing something and heading back toward the house. Her husband wiped his mouth before joining her to spread out the yellow crime scene tape around the perimeter of the home.
“Oh God,” Quinn breathed. She pressed her palm against her mouth as she watched the home being taped off.
She felt the pulse of Julian’s power before he stepped against her back. Her stomach turned sickly, but even though Melissa had told Clint she’d gotten sick last night, as a vampire, she didn’t throw up. Right now, she really wished she did; it might make her feel a little better. Tilting her head back, she looked at Julian. No emotion flickered over his features as he watched the scene unfold.
“We should find out what happened,” Luther said from beside Julian.
Quinn gestured at the crowd gathering in front of the Kemp’s house. “We’ll know soon enough. Word travels fast in this town.”
“Come on,” Clint said and nudged her elbow. “Whatever has happened, we can’t do anything about it. Best to get back to work.”
Quinn nodded, but she had a hard time tearing her attention away from the house at the end of the road.
CHAPTER 9
“They were murdered.”
Quinn lifted her head as Carlie Jean whispered this to her. C.J., as she preferred to be called, was a pretty redhead with deep-brown eyes and a freckled, round face that would forever make her look years younger than she was. Her five-foot height and slender figure also made her appear more like she was twelve than the actual twenty-two she was.
C.J. had worked at the bar part-time for a year now, but after Angie’s death, she’d been promoted to full-time. She was a friendly girl, but the fact she always had her eyes on Julian and had taken Angie’s position, made it difficult for Quinn to like her.
“They’re saying it was brutal too, sadistic. Well, I mean you saw Ed puke right?” C.J. continued with an enthusiasm that made Quinn wonder about her.
However, she supposed if someone hadn’t grown up around blood and death and hadn’t experienced a traumatic event of their own, it might all be a little fascinating, especially in this small town. It made Quinn’s skin crawl as memories of the night her family had been murdered swelled toward the surface.
“I did,” Quinn said. “Did they say how they were killed?”
C.J. shook her head. “Not sure if they know yet, but I’m sure they will soon.”
Quinn rubbed at the bridge of her nose. Her head throbbed. If there was ever a night she could go home sick, tonight was it.
“What is going on in this town? First Angie…” Quinn’s head shot up at C.J.’s words. “Oops, sorry,” she said hastily. “But we’ve had more murders in the pas
t month than in twenty years.”
“Yeah,” Quinn murmured, her eyes going back to the massive glass window. The red and blue strobes had been turned off. Three black, unmarked cars were also parked outside the Kemp’s now. The men inside had climbed out and joined Ed and Bev an hour ago. She assumed they were crime scene technicians or detectives from the state, but she wasn’t sure. She’d watched the new arrivals with the rest of the bar, but hadn’t gone outside again. “It’s horrible.”
Gathering her tray, she went to lift it, but her hand trembled too bad to get it off the counter. Quinn flexed her hand as she willed it to stop shaking. No matter how badly she tried, she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that her killer was also the one who’d killed the Kemps. That it was somehow her fault they were dead.
That poor family. She didn’t know them well, they didn’t come to Clint’s, but they’d seemed happy enough the few times she’d seen them.
She lifted the tray again, her hand was steadier, but she had to carry it with both hands. The bar had cleared out considerably since the first cruiser had gone by. A good chunk of the crowd was still outside the Kemp’s house; the rest had gone home.
Maybe one of them had been the killer. She doubted it, but what did she know anymore?
If the vampire who had killed her had done this to the Kemp’s, it meant he’d already started to take out his vengeance on the residents in town.
She didn’t know how to find out if it had been a vampire attack on the Kemp’s or not. Unless…
Her gaze slid to Julian sitting at the table with the others. An air of wariness surrounded him as he kept his head bent and his hands clasped around the mug before him. With his ability of psychometry, he’d be able to see what the police had seen at the crime scene. He would be able to tell what had caused the murders if he could touch something of the Kemps.
Or even better, she thought eagerly. He may be able to tell who did it!
The idea of forcing him to witness such a thing caused a pit to form in her stomach. What if it hadn’t been a vampire and he was forced to witness something terrible he never would have had to experience otherwise? Maybe it had been a murder-suicide type of thing over there. No, she decided, there was no way she would ask him to do such a thing.
She placed the tray on a table of subdued bikers and handed out their drinks. They gave her a brief nod of thanks before turning their attention back to the window. The men and women may not be able to see much from here, but they remained riveted.
Turning away, she walked over to where Julian and the others sat. “C.J. said the Kemp’s were murdered,” she said quietly.
Julian folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. His eyes glittered like ice shards as they slid to the window. She had no idea what he was thinking or what had him looking so exhausted with shadows lining his eyes. She rested her hand on his arm; his hand fell over the top of hers, but she couldn’t shake the feeling he didn’t really see her right then.
“I’m sure there will be a lot of rumors in the beginning,” Luther said. “That’s why we’re going to have to find out what really happened. If it was a vampire or human who caused the deaths.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” Zach inquired.
“Well, he plans to use me, Zachariah,” Julian replied as he released her hand and casually took a sip of his beer.
Zach shot him a look, but wisely refrained from the usual correction of his name. Julian had become completely still as he sat with his gaze pinned on Luther.
“It is the best chance we have,” Luther replied.
“I don’t see us being able to get anywhere near the bodies, so it will have to be something they touched while being murdered,” Julian continued.
“You can get memories from a dead body?” Melissa inquired.
“They are inanimate objects.”
Those last two words made Quinn rub at her arms when a chill ran through her. She had withheld from asking Julian to do this, but Luther had none of the same reservations that she did. She scowled at the Guardian, but Luther kept his attention focused on Julian as he pretended not to notice her.
“I don’t think they’ll be able to handle the bodies here. This town isn’t exactly set up for that kind of police work. They might take them over to Yuma,” Quinn said. “They’d be better equipped to handle it over there.”
“Which means I have to get into that house,” Julian said.
Quinn’s gaze went back to the door as more flashing lights sped down the street, ambulances this time, probably to carry the bodies wherever they’d be going. She turned away from the vehicles, unwilling to watch anymore.
Julian rose to his feet and walked stiffly toward the window. Watching his back, she began to think it was more than the murders and the arrival of her killer that had him so tense and distant, but she had no idea what else it could be.
***
“Shh!” Julian hissed from ahead of her when Chris kicked the side of a lawn chair on the back patio. The clinking sound of the metal chair legs skittering across the patio set her teeth on edge.
“Sorry,” Chris muttered.
Her gaze slid over the patio and neighboring homes. She scanned the houses, but all of their lights remained off and she didn’t see anyone amongst the sprawling desert behind the Kemp’s home. Everyone in this town had been on high alert after what had occurred last night. She’d half-expected them to all still be awake, afraid to go to sleep now that they knew a killer walked amongst them.
Multiple killers, if she included the group with her.
Julian had wanted to enter the house last night, while the memories were still fresh, but the police hadn’t finished doing whatever they had to do until mid-morning. Now at two o’clock in the morning, they were slinking through the shadows of the Kemp’s porch to their back door. She had no idea what possible excuse they could use if they were caught doing this, so she hoped someone else had one.
Julian stopped at the back door and rested his hand on the knob. He tried to turn it, but the knob remained unmoving beneath his hand, something Quinn didn’t find at all surprising. The police may have done everything they could for now, but the house was still taped off and an active crime scene, or at least that’s what she called it thanks to the TV show “Bones,” her newest Netflix addiction.
The muscles in Julian’s arm bunched and flexed as he leaned on the knob, breaking it away from the door. With his fingers, he shoved the remains of the doorknob away and pushed against the door. It remained locked.
“Deadbolt’s locked,” he muttered.
Judging by the shine of the deadbolt, Quinn guessed it was a brand new addition, probably added by the police. Julian pulled the palm of his hand back and smashed it into the lock located above the knob. Quinn cringed when the metal gave way and clattered onto the floor of the room beyond.
Her shoulders hunched up as she prepared herself for someone to start shouting at them, or a giant spotlight to beam down on them like the criminals they were. She glanced nervously around, but though she’d thought the sound had been as loud as fireworks, the night around them remained completely still. Julian pressed his shoulder against the door and nudged it open.
The door caught the broken lock that had fallen inside and sent it spiraling away in a dinging clatter across the tiled kitchen floor. Quinn winced at every rattling ting. “We’re about as stealthy as a bull,” Chris muttered.
Without a word, Julian retrieved the broken knob and lock and placed them on the green marble countertop near the kitchen sink. “Come on,” he said with a jerk of his head.
Quinn stepped hesitatingly across the threshold of the home. She felt like the worst form of life for breaking into the dead family’s home as she stood inside the doorway. The hush enveloping the house made her feel as if she’d stepped into a tomb. In some ways, she supposed she had. She wrapped her arms around herself and grasped hold of her elbows in an attempt to ward off the chill seeping into her
bones.
She couldn’t bring herself to look closely at the pictures and drawings stuck to the fridge with magnets. On the wall, beside the phone, was a whiteboard full of colorful doodles, notes, and pins stuck to it. She glimpsed a photo of two young girls hugging each other as they held up blue ribbons before she hastily looked away from the picture.
The warmth that had once filled this house, the love and laughter that had made it a home, was gone. The only thing remaining was this silence and the haunting echo of screams resonating in her head.
“They’ve already taken the fingerprints from this place too,” Julian said. “But just in case they decide to take more, don’t touch anything.”
“Should we wipe off what you touch?” Melissa asked.
“No one is going to have my fingerprints on file and no bars meant to hold a human will hold me. You two could spend a long time in prison though.”
“Don’t remind me,” Chris murmured as his eyes skipped over the things Quinn refused to focus on.
Julian didn’t bother to touch anything else in the kitchen but made his way down the dim hall. Quinn stood, unable to get her feet to move, when he disappeared from view. Finally, she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other as she followed him. No matter how hollow this house made her feel, she couldn’t let him face what he might see alone. Unwilling to look at the pictures lining the walls, she kept her eyes focused on her sneakers.
Shadows danced across the wood floor of the living room when she stepped into it. The scent of blood became more noticeable here; it tickled her nose and caused her fangs to tingle. She hated the part of her that reacted to the scent of blood. She loathed the part that made her a little excited, when what she really wanted was to weep for the lives lost here.
Julian had descended the two stairs to a sunken second living room and was making his way toward the dining room. Quinn stopped to watch as he walked across the hardwood floor and through the double doors of the dining room. Beyond the small dining room, she could see the kitchen again.
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