“I told you, they’re from Brooklyn.”
“This isn’t about Brooklyn. It’s about Edgar and Ceil Waterman—people you love.”
Ella’s shoulders drop.
“You have to admit, they dress like vampires. With all the black and the pale skin and the red lips and the creepy-ish fingernails.”
Ella starts to object, but I give her an aw-come-on look.
“Fine.”
“And they stay in the house in the dark during the day . . . and Ceil walks the beach at night . . . and there is the huge coincidence of Ceil on the beach and Esmeralda and the—”
“There was a wolf,” Ella says. “You saw it.”
“I saw a wolf at the same time that Ceil was on the beach. I didn’t see Ceil.”
She gets up and starts tossing things around her room like she’s looking for a lost shoe. “There are no such things as vampires. No such thing as drinking blood. Nobody sleeps all day in dark rooms. Nobody sneaks out at night. Nobody turns into a wolf. Nobody kills Esmeralda.”
“Ella—the next morning, Ceil looked wonderful, healthy, full of life.”
Ella crumples to the floor in tears.
I run to her and hug her. “Ella, I hate to say this, but I think Ceil’s a vampire, and probably Edgar too.”
“It’s not possible,” she chokes out through her sobs.
“I’m so sorry.”
When she lifts her face from her hands, her cheeks are smeared with Auvergne Mist eye shadow.
“This is crazy. I’m so afraid,” she whispers.
“Me too. But don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll do something. We’ll take care of it.”
“Take care of it!” Ella wails. “What are you saying? Do you want me to put a stake through Aunt Ceil’s heart?”
“Ohmygosh, no! I didn’t mean that!”
Ella wipes her face with her hands, making a bigger mess. “Well, what then?”
“I just meant we need to get evidence and show it to my mom, and she’ll know what to do.”
“What can she do?”
I don’t know. What will she do? Arrest them for being vampires? Is that a crime? Just being a vampire? Arrest them for Esmeralda? “I don’t know. I don’t know if she’d even believe us.”
“I’m not sure we should say anything.”
“I know,” I start, “but . . . what if you’re not safe . . . or your dad?”
A sound comes out of Ella like a squeak and she starts crying again.
“Shhh.” I pat her shoulder. “Let’s go to my house.”
Ella struggles up and trudges to the bathroom, where she washes her face and yanks a brush through her hair. When she comes back, she looks pale and thin and—with no eye makeup or lipstick—remarkably like Ceil.
As we walk downstairs, we pass Ella’s dad’s study. An intense conversation between Mr. Philpotts and Edgar reaches us from behind the closed door. I hesitate and try to make out the words, but Ella pulls me forward, shaking her head like it’s too risky to stand there listening. I ease my ear away from the door and run down the stairs after her.
19
I text Dominic to meet us at my house, and Ella texts Ben to do the same. We’re a couple doors from home when the L.L.Bean boys’ dusty green Honda passes us, going the other way. John and Bob smile and wave.
“Where are those guys headed?” Ella asks me.
“Heck if I know,” I answer.
We stop and watch them cruise all the way down to the end of the road near Ella’s house. They’re moving like a snail.
“Must be looking at real estate,” Ella says.
“Mom probably sent them on a house tour. Great.”
“I don’t know,” Ella says. “They’re not so bad.”
I just groan.
* * *
We’re a solemn gang of four, gathered on my back porch. I’m teetering on the porch rail, looking toward the beach. Ella’s sitting in a faded blue Adirondack chair with her feet curled up under her. Ben’s slouched in the comfortable wicker chair with his leg slung over the arm. Dominic was the last one here, so he’s in the rattan chair with the pokey spring in the seat cushion.
“We need a plan,” I say.
“What’s the objective?” asks Ben.
“To find out, once and for all, if Ceil and Edgar are vampires,” I say.
Ella pulls the neck of her hoodie up over her nose and whimpers.
“You can watch them all day and night, and you’ll never prove it,” says Ben.
“You can watch them all day and night, and you’ll never prove they’re not,” says Dominic.
“If they go into the sun, maybe,” Ben snaps. “Or you wave a crucifix in their faces.”
“Whatever,” I say. “One way or the other, we are going to watch them. All day and night.”
“We need shifts,” says Dominic.
“I can watch inside the house at night,” Ella volunteers. “And text when they go out.”
“I can be outside maybe every other night,” says Dominic.
“I’ll take the alternate nights,” says Ben.
They all look at me.
“What? I’m grounded from dusk until dawn.” I give it some thought. “But I’ll watch my mother so no one posted outside gets caught. If she makes a move in your direction, I’ll send a text. What should I text?”
“Text: SOS. For ‘Sheriff on the Snoop,’” says Ella.
“If any of us gets in any trouble, like with, you know, vampires or anything,” says Dominic, “text MAYDAY. And everybody better come running to help.”
Ben gets up and stretches. “So when does this vampire chasing operation begin?”
“Tonight,” I say. “Tonight at nine.” I hold up my phone and we all check the time. “Take pictures.”
“I’ll have my D5500,” says Dominic.
As they walk out the door, I hear Ben say to Dominic, “Whoa, you have a D5500?”
I hug Ella and tell her, “Text me constantly. Blow by blow.”
* * *
By six a.m., Ella, Dominic, and I have been on the job for nine hours straight. Okay, I admit I slept from one to four, but Mom was snoring away when I fell asleep and still sawing logs when I woke up. To my dismay, and a little bit to my relief, absolutely nothing had happened except for Dominic getting a lot of hilarious shots of the L.L. Bean boys trying to fish in the surf at about five a.m. I wanted to tell him to go out there and explain to those doofuses that they had the wrong rods—and real Mainahs would be digging for clams, not trying to fish—but he would have also had to explain why he was out near the coast at that time of the morning himself. Plus, he knows squat about fishing.
Anyway, the L.L.Bean boys must have been looking at real estate at the same time, because Dominic said they walked really slowly up the beach and back, pointing at houses—kind of like a couple of old aunties, looking at curtains in the windows.
At seven, Ella, Dominic, and I converge outside my house, then trudge up to the café for breakfast before we head to Ms. Stillford’s. As we reach the parking lot, we spot Ella’s dad. He arrived before his daughter, and he’s loading his car with the coffee jugs and a bag of food.
“Have a good last day at school, kids,” he says before he reaches into the bag and pulls out a blueberry muffin and takes a bite. “Ella, I told Gus to save you one of these. They are stupendous.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Ella sounds like the last thing she wants is a blueberry muffin.
We open the café door to a wave of great smells. As tired as I am, I know immediately that Dad is working the waffle iron, and I can already taste a buttermilk waffle, extra crispy, with Maine maple syrup.
He holds up the plate for me. “Morning, honey. Here’s your favorite.”
It is definitely my favorite. I sweep the plate out of his hand and take it to our table.
Dominic’s night on the beach has him sniffing the air like a hungry hound. He waits at the counter while Dad stacks three waffles on a plate for h
im and smothers them with cranberry syrup.
We’re chowing down on the waffles when Dad slides a dish of banana slices and fresh blueberries on our table. “Get some fruit on those waffles.” A second later, he looks toward the door, waves to the people coming in, and says, “Morning, fellas.”
I look up and groan. “They’re here.”
Dominic snickers. “They’re everywhere.”
“There’s nothing to do in this town,” says Ella. “Where else are they going to go?”
Mom comes in after them, and the guys wave to her excitedly. She slides into a seat next to them at the counter, and Dad pours coffee for all three. “I don’t get it,” I say to Dominic and Ella. “They’re wearing the same clothes they’ve been wearing since the first day they got here. How gross is that?”
“Forget them,” Ella says. “Concentrate on what we’re going to do after school to solve our problem.”
Dominic starts to explain to Ella how low light video works, but I’m only half listening. The rest of my attention is focused on the conversation at the counter. Mom is saying things like, “Real estate values are the lowest they’ve been in twenty years.” And “taxes are the most favorable in the state.” And “the Noonan place is a heck of a buy.”
It’s kind of a snooze until I hear the spongier L.L.Bean boy say, “I hear you have some celebrities in town.”
I immediately tense up. I’m looking for Mom to do the same, but she doesn’t. “It’s been known to happen here in Maiden Rock.”
“Oh, yeah?” says the skinnier L.L.Bean boy. “Who?”
I’m nearly off my chair, leaning to hear Mom’s response. “I wish I could tell ya, Bob, but we respect our residents’ privacy. That’s one of the great things about living here.”
Yay, Mom.
But Bob presses her. “That’s a helluva good quality for a town. Still, I heard that those famous vampire writers might be vacationing around here. Any chance we can get an autograph?”
“Where’d you hear that?” Mom says.
“Oh, don’t go getting mad at Miss Wickham. We were just walking down the stairs from our room, and we heard her talking to Blythe Stillford about it. They sure want to meet them. And, hey, we would too.”
“You’ve read Transylvanian Drip?” Mom asks them.
And John says, “Who hasn’t?”
* * *
All the way to Ms. Stillford’s, I’m imagining Edgar plunging his fangs into the L.L.Bean boys’ necks. Shiver. Those guys might be goofballs, but I still hope they don’t get their blood sucked.
The last thing I want to do during our last lesson is talk about vampire novels, and I think Ms. Stillford senses it. Ella’s turned cranky and answers all questions with one or two words. I think she’s a little mad at Ms. Stillford for letting John and Bob know about Edgar and Ceil. I get it. They may be vampires, but they’re her vampires.
At the end of the day, we give Ms. Stillford big hugs—even Ella—and then Ella and Dominic head to his house. I offer to stop at Gusty’s and pick up whoopie pies, and before I’m two steps in the door, ugh. Déjà vu. The L.L.Bean boys are there stuffing their faces, with blueberry pie and espressos this time.
When I go up to the counter, the big one, John, says, “Hey, you live around here?”
I think, Hellooo, I’m Gusty’s daughter, but I say, “Yes.”
“You heard anything about those famous vampire writers visiting?”
“No,” I say. And I try to make it look like I am giving it some thought. Inside, I’m thinking, If you’ve got any sense at all, guys, you’ll keep away from them.
He shrugs, turns away, and opens his big trap for a forkful of pie.
When I get to Dominic’s room, I tell them what L.L.Bean John asked me.
“He asked you about Aunt Ceil and Uncle Edgar?” Ella practically screams. “After what your mom told him! What did you say?”
“I said no, of course.”
“Let’s get down to business. We need to plan tonight’s surveillance,” says Dominic. His timing is perfect. Ben arrives a second later, and soon we’re deep in conversation over camera placement.
20
Ben and Dominic decide they’ll stake out Ella’s house as a duo, in the event Ceil transforms herself into something extra-nasty, so they set out with Ella for her place. I leave Dominic’s and head home.
Back at home, I walk past Mom’s office door, and soon I’m worrying twice as hard about the guys’ night watch. Mom’s on the phone. I can’t tell if it’s the mayor’s phone or the sheriff’s phone. I know it’s not the real estate lady’s phone.
“The Pearly farm? Yes . . . the dog . . . mm-hmm. Oh, dear. Well, I’ll go out there tomorrow morning, John. Can you get over there tonight and check it out? Right. We’re going to have to get this thing sorted soon.”
Oh, no! Ceil is at it again. I want to barge in and ask Mom what happened, but I don’t need to. She opens the door and nearly knocks me over.
“Quinnie! What are you doing?”
“I was . . . I was . . .”
“You were listening?”
“I guess. The Pearly’s dog?”
She walks into the kitchen with me on her heels. She’s still wearing her sheriff’s uniform, and the radio on her belt crackles static off and on. She turns down the volume.
“Gus, we may have had another coyote attack.”
Dad stops at the dishwasher, mid-bend. “Where?”
“The Pearlys’ black lab is missing.” Mom pours a cup of coffee and slumps into a chair at the table.
“How long has it been gone?” I ask.
“Since last night. George let him out and heard a howl. The dog started barking his head off and ran.”
Last night? Last night . . . Dominic was at Ella’s all night with the camera, and he didn’t see Ceil or Edgar slip out—unless he fell asleep, like I did.
“John Denby’s going over there to look around and planning to go out again later,” Mom says.
I want to shout, “It’s Ceil Waterman!” But I bite my fingernail instead.
Mom looks weary and worried. “More summer people are arriving every day. Got to solve this thing.” She’s talking more to herself than to us. She gets up and walks back toward her office.
“Don’t worry, Margaret. John Denby’ll deal with it,” Dad calls after her.
“He has to,” she calls back.
Then Dad shivers a bit. “The Pearlys’ lab was a good-size dog.”
* * *
I’m beginning to think I should talk to Mom about Ceil and Edgar.
She is the law in Maiden Rock. It’s her duty to protect us from dangerous elements. A debate rages as I get ready for bed: tell her they’re vampires, which she will not believe, or not tell her and let her find out when I have two puncture wounds in my neck. I go back and forth with every swish of my toothbrush.
She has expressly ordered me not to harass Edgar and Ceil. That’s one reason to tread lightly. And she has expressly told me not to get involved in an investigation of any kind, at any time, anymore. I have a dicey track record on this, but hey, I did find Ms. Stillford when she went missing. I mean, I figured out what was going on, and I helped capture the culprits.
Urgh! It’s so hard to be a natural-born investigator and a powerless thirteen year old.
I decide it’s all in the delivery.
I change from my pajamas back into clothes, to appear more serious, and head downstairs.
I find her in her office, searching the Internet for recent reports of missing pets.
“Mom?”
“You ready for bed, honey?”
“Can I ask you a question about investigations?”
She turns to me with an expression that says, Okay, what are you up to? “Sure. Go ahead.”
Remember, I think, delivery. I try to come at the topic from an angle. “If you were trying to convince someone of something that is difficult to believe . . .”
“Yes.”
&n
bsp; “I mean, what if it’s one of those things where if you believe it, you don’t need proof, but if you don’t believe, there’s no amount of proof that will make you change your mind?”
Her eyebrows go unibrow. “Talk sense, Quinnie.”
“I know you haven’t met Edgar and Ceil yet, but . . . I just want to tell you a few things about them.”
She leans back in her chair and the seat squeaks. “Go on.”
“So, you know they have the superexpensive car?”
“You said that the other day. They must sell a lot of vampire books.” I can see the real estate wheels in her head start turning.
“Mom.” I want to snap my fingers in her face but, of course, I don’t. “Did you read Transylvanian Drip?”
“Sure.”
“So what kind of car did Count Le Plasma drive?”
Her neck reddens. “Well, I . . .”
Busted. She didn’t read it either!
“I skimmed it,” she admits. “Okay?”
I laugh. “I skimmed it the first time too.” Good. I think this is going really well. “So, Mom.”
“Quinn.”
“They drive the same car their vampire drives.”
“Honey, that’s marketing. And they can afford it. So what?”
“Wait. Please.” I prepare to tick down my list of evidence. “They dress in black from head to toe, they have super-white skin, they have bloodred lips, they have long pointy fingernails . . . Oh, oh, and they have tinted windows on their car, and they wear sunglasses to hide from the sun. They go on the beach at night, especially Ceil. And Ceil covered up all the mirrors in the house, she puts bleach on her skin, and she looked healthier the morning after what happened to Esmeralda.”
I stop and wait for Mom to put the pieces together.
“And all these observations add up to . . . what?” she says. “Two New York writers are a little odd? They dress the part of writers of vampire books?”
“Maybe they’re more than just that. Like, Ceil closed all the drapes at one thirty in the afternoon and went to bed.”
I can tell Mom’s irritation level is rising. “Sometimes adults take naps in the afternoon.” Then something clicks in her head. “You’re not trying to tell me you think they’re vampires, are you?”
Vampires on the Run: A Quinnie Boyd Mystery (Quinnie Boyd Mysteries) Page 10