Ella carefully opens my door and listens. Her dad’s still here, but he and my mom have reached our front hallway.
“Let me know, Jack,” Mom says. “I’d like to stop by at about nine tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, Margaret. I’ll confirm with you.”
Ella and I venture into sight so she can say good-bye. Her dad peers up over his glasses at us and says, “Do you need anything for tonight?”
Ella says, “No, I can borrow whatever from Quinnie.”
“Well, stay in the house, El, and call me before you go to sleep.” Mr. Philpotts is normally a pretty serious-looking man, but now his face is even stiffer.
“Okay, Dad,” Ella says. “You be safe too.”
The front door hasn’t quite closed behind Mr. Philpotts when Mom turns to us. “Come on down, girls.”
Ella and I don’t groan out loud, but it feels like we’re marching to our sentencing. But—surprise, surprise—when we reach Mom’s office, she wants more details. She even wants us to show her where John and Bob fished, where they drove, and what houses they looked in, and she wants the video of them picking in the trash. She takes notes and presses the button on her body camera.
It worked. She might not believe that Ceil and Edgar are vampires, but I can tell she’ll be monitoring these two suspicious guys. That could be enough to crack this wide open and keep everybody safe. But before we’re completely finished downloading our evidence for her, she gets a call that clearly annoys her.
She stuffs the phone in her pocket without even swiping it off. “I have to go to Rook River. There’s a ten car pileup south of town on Highway 72A.”
Ella and I look at each other and try to control the yay! we are feeling. Our investigation just got easier. Then I think, yikes, accident. “Anybody hurt?” I ask.
“Doesn’t look too bad, but they need people to assess the scene and take reports. You guys go to the café for dinner and then come right back here. No frolic and detour. Got it?”
“Got it,” I say.
Ella looks at me like, What the heck is a frolic and detour? I half-wave like I’ll explain it later.
We start hustling to the café, but before we set foot in the parking lot, John and Bob come out and head for their green Honda. We pause on the side of the road and watch them. Bob opens the driver’s-side door, burps into his fist, and adjusts his cap before he climbs in. John runs his thumbs around his belt like he’s trying to make more room, then throws his body into the passenger seat and struggles with the seat belt. I have to admit: this . . . does not seem quite like vampire-slayer behavior.
The Honda engine turns over, and Bob yanks the wheel to the right. Ella and I watch as the car passes us and cruises down Mile Stretch Road, rolls through the stop sign in front of my house, and turns to head out of town.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ella says.
“If we’re gonna do it, we better get going.”
I check the Gusty’s parking lot. It’s almost full. And Clooney Wickham’s car is in its usual spot. This means only Miss Wickham would be at the bed-and-breakfast. And who knows, maybe she’s not even there. With so many people to serve, Dad won’t notice if I’m thirty minutes late.
I start to run. Ella is on my heels. We’re almost at Circle Lane when we hear a car approaching from behind us. We dive into the nearest bushes.
“Oh, no,” Ella moans. “They’re back.”
I crouch down and look at the car coming. “Can’t be, unless they forgot something or changed their minds.”
The car slows at the entrance to the lane and turns slowly toward the yacht club. Whew—it’s Ms. Stillford’s old Volvo.
Ella pulls at my arm. “Let’s go.”
We thrash through the wooded area and come out the other side, facing the B&B.
Lights are on in the lobby, the front door is open, and through the screen door, we can see Miss Wickham sorting papers at the front desk. Ella darts to the outer edge of the porch, and I follow. She points to two windows on the second floor.
“I think that’s their room.”
“We can’t climb two stories,” I say. There’s nothing but a narrow ledge about ten feet up.
“But the second window is open!”
“Hello? What would we climb on?”
Ella ignores my last question, scanning the side yard for something like a ladder. I decide to crawl across the front porch and sneak a peek at the front desk. My head is about a foot off the floor when I look inside.
Miss Wickham is talking to herself while she scribbles on a pad and turns pages over and over. She looks up. I duck. She goes back to scribbling. I lean in again. She grabs the all papers and straightens them with a tap on the bottom, a tap on the side, then on the bottom again. Then she walks around the desk and down the hall to the dining room. I want to scream, “Ella!” but instead I jump up, run to the side, and wave my arms like windmills trying to get her attention.
A second later, we are inside the B&B, straight through the front door and bolting for the stairway. It eeks and squeaks, but we streak up to the second floor, barely touching the steps.
23
The glass lamps in the upstairs hallway cast an eerie light. The wooden floor is so warped, we go up and down like we’re walking on a wave. The blistered rose wallpaper smells of mildew.
Ella grabs for the first doorknob on the right—the one she is convinced Miss Wickham rented to the L.L.Bean guys. A Do Not Disturb sign hangs around the handle. Her hand twists the knob, without success. I run down the hall, trying the other knobs. Locked. Locked. Locked. The next one I grab turns to the right. I pull on the door, and it opens to reveal a cleaning closet, complete with an old-timey maid’s cart and feather duster.
My eyes catch the glint of metal.
“Ella,” I whisper hoarsely. “Look.” I hold up a ring filled with classic-looking curlicued keys.
The keys jingle as I run to Ella.
“Hurry,” she whispers. It takes us three tries to find the right one.
Snap. Click. The keyhole says yes to us.
Ella turns the doorknob and pushes against the old paneled wood. At first it sticks, then suddenly it gives way, revealing a large guest room. I run on my tiptoes to return the keys to the cart.
We slip in the guys’ guest room, leaving the door ajar so we can hear if anyone comes up the stairs.
The bed, the dresser, the braid rug are all vintage—I mean the rug is seriously vintage, as in a gazillion years old and threadbare. Flowered curtains sag over the windows and pitchers bursting with artificial flowers sit on the nightstands.
I tiptoe my way around the room. Shirts are crumpled on the top of the dresser, shoes scattered around the floor. A film of whisker hair mars the bathroom sink.
“One suspicion confirmed,” Ella says as she holds up two large, empty L.L.Bean shopping bags.
Next, she opens the closet door and points inside. A leather jacket’s dangling, one shoulder on the hanger and one off. It almost looks like it’s trying to make a getaway.
“Another non-surprise: slobs,” I tell Ella. I’ve spotted a stack of Gusty’s take-out boxes on the radiator. The top one is flipped open, and a crab cake sandwich inside is growing green hair. In a wastebasket next to the radiator lies a plastic shopping bag. For some reason, the handles are tied into a knot. I lift it, untie the top, and look in. The bag’s filled with wadded tissues, used dental floss, a hairbrush with a broken handle, and an empty bottle of Cobalt Cabana Blue nail polish. I can barely get the word out. “Look!”
Ella rushes over and picks out the polish bottle—with fingertips of the same color. Her voice cracks. “What do they want with this?”
“Maybe they sell celebrity garbage. Like on eBay.”
“This isn’t Aunt Ceil’s trash,” Ella says. “It’s mine!”
“They may have figured that out, and that’s why it’s in the wastebasket.”
Ella picks the bag up and walks across the room.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“It’s my trash, and I’m taking it back.”
I’m just about ready to conclude—for good—that these slobs are unscrupulous dealers in celebrity mementos, when Ella says, “Check this out.” She’s leaning over a small oak table. “They’ve definitely been tracking somebody. It has to be Edgar and Ceil.”
Spread out on the tablecloth is a map of New England, with red circles around certain towns. The circled towns form a bunch of lines, like the spokes on a bike wheel, jutting out from New York City in several northerly directions. One trail of towns leads to Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire; one to Otisville, New York; one to Montpelier, Vermont; and one to Rook River, Maine.
“Maybe they’ve been following four different people,” I say.
“Maybe they went in each of those directions before they came here,” Ella says.
“Don’t touch the map,” I whisper. “It’s evidence.”
I hear hinges creak downstairs, and I freeze—that’d be the screen door to the B&B. Voices drift upstairs. It’s the Morgans and their grandkids. Mrs. Morgan is asking about six rooms for a family reunion. I look at Ella. She’s not moving either. I try to take a gentle step, but the floorboard underneath my flip-flop groans like it has a toothache. We’re stuck like statues until they leave.
Leave. Leave. Please, please leave.
The sound of a car pulling up comes next. I can’t even see outside to know whether the car is here at the B&B or over at the pound, or if the car is Mom’s. Her mom antennae can practically find me anywhere. Worse, what if the car is John and Bob’s? They may have forgotten something and turned around.
The door to the B&B opens again.
“Hi, George. When’d you get here?”
“Merle, buddy! Good to see you.”
It’s more summer people. They fall into a conversation with Mr. Morgan, while their grandkids squeal and run around. I consider whether the talking downstairs will mask any noise we might make walking upstairs.
The grandkids’ voices get closer. Oh, no. One of them is on the stairway.
“Pop Pop, what’s up here?”
The window to the B&B’s side yard is open. I consider running across the room and diving out of it, but that would put me in the garden with a broken neck.
“Here, here,” says Mr. Morgan. “Come down. That’s not your business. Carol, we need to get these kids to the beach.”
“The beach, the beach,” they yell over each other.
Someone, probably Mr. Morgan, opens the screen door, and the voices fade.
The knot in my throat slowly relaxes, and after a few much-needed breaths, I wave to Ella that we should go. But she turns and starts digging wildly through the duffel bags. When she pushes back the clothes inside them, there, in the bottom of one bag, face up, is the familiar cover of Transylvanian Drip. Ella lifts it out and opens the cover. Inside is a hand-scratched note that says: Buddy Denton Show—Victoria Kensington is Edgar Waterman and Ceil Waterman. We look at each other and nod like, Okay, now we’re on to something!
Ella stuffs the book back in the bag, but not before she sees a scrap of paper tucked deep into the pages. She pulls it out. “OMG! This is Aunt Ceil’s handwriting.”
She sticks the paper in my face, so close that I can’t read it. I push her hand away and scan the scrawl of purple ink across the scrap paper. It looks like a signature, or at least part of a signature, that ends in –aterman.
“Why do they have her signature?” Ella says. “Did she write to them? Does she know them?”
I try not to yell. “Put the book back! Just like it was!”
Now Ella’s fingerprints are on the book and the note! Mom is going to kill me. But at this second, that’s the least of my worries.
We have only one way out. Old buddy Merle is still downstairs. Now he’s talking to Miss Wickham about the weather—which can take an hour, around these parts. So we don’t have a choice. We’ll have to climb out the window, onto the narrow ledge, drop down to the ground, and run for it.
By the time my brain processes this, Ella is half out the window already. The bright blue of her nail polish atop the window frame is the last thing I see before she hisses, “Come on.”
The B&B door creaks below, and John and Bob’s voices ring through the lobby as they say hello to Miss Wickham. I’m up and out the window in a split second.
“Back so soon?” Miss Wickham says.
“Forgot my wallet,” John says.
I look down. Whoa. It’s only the second story, I tell myself.
Ella bark-whispers, “Help.”
She’s hovering to my right, balanced on the ledge with her belly flat against the building. Her right hand’s grasping the thin grooves between the clapboard siding, and her other hand’s holding the plastic trash bag. I inch next to her. My senses sharpen. I can hear my clothes brushing against the wall. Feel the salty air on my face. Hear the squirrel scurrying up the tree ten feet in front of us.
Ella might have been the first one outside, but she’s turned pale as an eggshell. We stare in each other’s eyes, neither of us wanting to look down again.
And then John and Bob’s voices float out of the window next to us. I may be standing on a ledge, about to do a backward swan dive, but I’m not going to pass up a chance to gather more intel. So I mouth to Ella, Hold still.
24
“What the . . . ?”
“What?”
“Somebody’s been in here.”
“Who?”
“Probably the witch who owns this place.”
“Did she take anything?”
“I’m looking.”
“We should make a report to the lady sheriff.”
They both break into laughter, then one of them says, “Naw. We need to get what we came for and get outta this miserable, godforsaken lobstertown.”
For a second, I think I’m losing my footing, and I grab for Ella’s arm but it’s flailing in the air, and soon the ancient ledge is crumbling beneath our weight. We crash into the chokecherry bushes, scramble to our feet, and run frantically around Circle Lane toward Gusty’s.
“Did you hear what they said?” I’m breathing hard as I run. “‘We need to get what we came for and get outta this miserable, godforsaken lobstertown.’”
“What they came for?” Ella says. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know!” I veer toward the Gusty’s parking lot, but Ella pulls me forward with a look of determination on her face.
“Well, obviously they know Aunt Ceil.” She holds up the scrap of paper with Ceil’s signature on it.
“You took that?” I yelp. “That’s evidence!”
“Yes, I took it, and I’m going to show it to Aunt Ceil right now and demand to know exactly what’s going on here. Who these guys are, what she did to Esmeralda, all of it.”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “What if she gets angry, and . . .”—I can’t stop myself—“. . . the fangs come out?”
“That’s not going to happen. I’m safe with her,” Ella says. “I still believe that. She’ll talk to me.”
* * *
I don’t have time to think about the fact that Mom set up a meeting with Edgar and Ceil for tomorrow morning, and that I’m about to interfere with her investigation again. I just go-go-go. Along the way, Ella and I see Dominic sitting on his front porch.
We slow down only slightly as we pass him.
“Yo!” Dominic calls. “Anybody answer their texts anymore?”
I grab my phone from my pocket.
There are four texts from Dominic. They add up to: I got news!
He starts to rise, but Ella holds up her hand in traffic-cop position. “Not now, okay? Quinnie and I are on a mission. I promise we’ll text you when we’re done.”
He points to the trash bag in her hand. “What’s that?”
“This is my trash, which I have reclaimed. Now, we’ve got to go.”
His face drops, and he goes back to staring at passing cars. “Okay, but you’re going to be sorry.”
I come to a full stop. “Why?”
“Well,” he says with a cagey grin. “The minute we left your house, my parents made me go with them to the B&B to ask about rooms for my aunt and uncle and three cousins for the Fourth of July, and while Miss Wickham took them in the dining room to tell them all about her menu”—Dominic waves a piece of paper—“I managed to get these.”
I run over to him and grab the papers. They’re photocopies of John and Bob’s registration form and driver’s licenses. The B&B registration form is all in scribble writing. The first name looks like John Smith. The other one looks like Bob Jones. The address on the form looks like: 43 Sprofgjuld, Colbomush OH. No zip.
I want to hug him! “Oh, man, Dominic. This is great!”
Ella looks over my shoulder. “You’d only write like this if you were trying to hide your identity,” she says.
“Look at the other page,” Dominic says.
Ella and I put our heads together to study the second piece of paper, the one with photocopies of Indiana driver’s licenses. John Smith’s address is 123 Rosebud Lane, Greenfield IN, 46117. Bob Jones’s address is 124 Rosebud Lane, Greenfield IN, 46117.
“Fake IDs,” Ella and I say at the same time.
“Fake IDs,” Dominic agrees. He looks at me like, So, what’s up?
“Well, we went to the B&B too,” Ella hurries to say. “It must have been right after you were there.” She starts to walk, and I fall in step.
“What did you find out?” Dominic follows us.
“We got in their room and found a map of New England. It had a bunch of towns between here and New York circled in red,” I say.
We’re walking three abreast now.
“And other routes to other towns too,” Ella says. “One in upstate New York, one in New Hampshire, and one in Vermont.”
I butt in. “But the biggest thing we found was a copy of Transylvanian Drip in one of their duffel bags, and it had a scribbled note inside that said something about how Victoria Kensington is Edgar and Ceil.”
“And there was a scrap of paper with part of Aunt Ceil’s signature on it.” Ella closes her eyes like she’s picturing it.
Vampires on the Run: A Quinnie Boyd Mystery (Quinnie Boyd Mysteries) Page 12