Vampires on the Run: A Quinnie Boyd Mystery (Quinnie Boyd Mysteries)

by C. M. Surrisi

  “Like the Count bailing on his assistants!” cries the FBI man.

  “Yes,” says Edgar. “We used the premise in our latest book.”

  “But with a blood bank!” The FBI man sounds delighted with himself for figuring this out.

  “The trouble came when we went on Celebrity Dish with Buddy Denton and revealed that we were the authors behind Victoria Kensington,” says Ceil. “Apparently, these thugs saw the show and heard us talking about a heist involving a cat-napping and, well, they must have thought that we were in league with this Gordo person. Silent partners, embezzlers—I don’t know.”

  “That’s when we started getting the notes.”

  Mom’s more interested in the real crime: “Did you hear anything about where Gordo might have gone or where they had planned to meet him?”

  “Sure,” says Ceil. “Gordo was in prison upstate. They were trying to figure out where he’d hidden the loot.”

  “What did the letters say?” the FBI agent asks. “Do you still have them?”

  “Oh, yes,” says Edgar.

  “It was funny at first. Then it became frightening, then terrifying,” says Ceil.

  It’s not funny, but I want to giggle in relief. Truth is stranger than fiction.

  Mom and the FBI man excuse themselves and step outside, leaving the Coast Guard officer to sit with the authors. Ella and I watch them talking intensely for a few minutes before they go back in.

  Mom says to Edgar and Ceil, “To be clear, you do not personally associate with this Gordo?”

  Edgar and Ceil laugh. “No!” they say together. “We don’t know anyone named Gordo. And we don’t know where any loot is.”

  Ceil continues: “And we wish like heaven that we’d used the other idea we had. The story begins in Monte Carlo, where a gambler has been plotting to steal the Count’s gold . . .”

  37

  This is the second time that I have had to have a super-serious sit-down with my parents while they’re struggling not to pull their hair out. The first was last autumn, after the whole Ms. Stillford thing. Once again, I am contrite. Really! But the once again part makes things awkward.

  “I don’t understand why you can’t stop yourself from jumping into risky situations.”

  “I can’t explain it either.”

  “This whole high seas episode might not have happened if you had just told me what Ceil and Edgar told you.”

  “They wouldn’t let me, Mom. I tried.”

  “It should not have been their choice, Quinnette. Not entirely. Other people were in danger.”

  “And if I hadn’t tried to help them, they could have been captured by Lardy and Snooks and be dead now.”

  I can tell that even Mom wants to concede that last part’s true. Still, I admit I could have done a couple things differently. Mom says it’s hard to help people who don’t want help.

  Dad says he’ll make a deal with me: if I stay out of detective trouble until I’m fifteen, I can work at Gusty’s as a hostess starting on that birthday. Though even then, he says, I don’t get to operate the espresso maker. It’s too dangerous. I think he’s exaggerating, but I don’t argue. This is progress.

  38

  “I can’t believe they’re leaving tomorrow,” Ella says.

  She’s hanging out on my back porch with me, Dominic, and Ben, watching the waves—and the arrival of the newest crop of summer people—and waiting for my mom to do something she promised to do. Poor summer people, they have no idea that a pair of bank robbers stalked this little strip of beach a mere week ago.

  While Ella dangles her feet (adorned with Coral Ember Fire toenail polish) over the railing, I practice tossing Dominic’s new hat on his head. He’s kindly ducking, bobbing, and swaying to make my efforts more successful. Ben is eating an entire bag of Oreos, even though we’re meeting Edgar and Ceil at Gusty’s for a good-bye lunch in less than an hour.

  “Hey, look.” Ella points to a lanky boy in shorts and a soccer jersey; he’s kicking sand at someone who must be his little sister. “I bet he’s fourteen.”

  “Agree,” I say, then motion up the beach. “How old do you think she is?”

  “Oh, fifteen, easy,” Ella says.

  Dominic and Ben stand up as the girl with short, curly red hair begins talking to the boy in the shorts.

  Mom opens the door behind us and says, “Ready?”

  I take a deep breath. “Are we ready?” I ask my friends.

  They practically run me over on the way to Mom’s office.

  “I guess they’re ready,” I tell Mom.

  Rescue footage, here we come.

  Mom slips into her sheriff’s chair and tilts her computer screen so we can all see it. Ella claps.

  “Don’t celebrate yet,” Mom says and laughs. “It’s not exactly an Academy Award–winning production.”

  She clicks a few times, and a recording springs to life. It’s me, the day Mom first got her body cam. I’m squealing and covering my face while Mom calls after me, I’m watching you.

  Mom fast-forwards through hours of boring shoulder-cam viewing. “Let me see where we are,” she says, halting the fast-forward and hitting play. We all stare at the screen and squint. Onscreen Mom is running through bushes and trees in the dark with a flashlight. Then we hear Ben’s uncle John: Over here, Margaret.

  Mom pauses the video and then presses fast-forward again.

  “Stop. Stop,” we all yell at Mom. “Go back. What was that?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “A night in the life of a sheriff.”

  “Mom, please.” I tug at her shoulder. “Why were you running in the woods?”

  “Oh, man, were you and my uncle chasing the coyote?” Ben asks.

  “Can we see it?” Dominic adds.

  Mom reverses the video to the point of her running in the woods. “It’s a little heart-wrenching,” she says.

  The four of us crowd together to watch from the Mom’s-eye view as she thrashes through brush, crashes past trees, and cuts a zigzag path through Becker’s Woods—all the time calling back and forth with John Denby, whose flashlight beam is cutting in front of her at crazy angles.

  Over here, Margaret, yells John Denby. I think I hit something.

  Mom pushes through branches.

  Here, John Denby says from somewhere in the dark.

  Coming, Mom calls back.

  Crash, crash, smash. Heavy breathing.

  The flashlights of Mom and John Denby come together to create a pool of brightness over a full-grown coyote lying on its side, breathing heavily.

  Here, John Denby says. He waves his rifle. Looks like I nicked her ear.

  Look, look! Mom angles her light. Near the coyote are five little pups. She’s a mama.

  “What happened?” Ella asks Mom. “Is she okay? Are they okay?”

  “They’re all fine,” Mom says. “We took them to the cat rescue. The sisters’re nursing the mama’s ear and finding a home for them all at a nature preserve.”

  “Keep going, okay?” Ben says. “I mean, please keep going, Mrs. Boyd.”

  That Ben. He’s a softy down deep.

  Mom fast-forwards again. Now we’re getting to the night of nights. She stops at a scene in Gusty’s: she’s positioned herself so that she can record John and Bob alone at a table. The John and Bob she’s recording are not bumbling, jolly, chowder-loving jokers. They don’t seem to realize they’re being watched, so they slip into rougher postures, jowlier expressions, and occasional sneers when a Mainah walks by.

  “You’ve been watching them?” asks Dominic.

  “I’ve been watching them,” says Mom.

  “How long?” I ask.

  “For a while,” she says.

  She fast-forwards to a whole series of clips of John and Bob: on the beach, driving around, going into the B&B, stopped by Mom for going a little too fast.

  “You’ve really been watching them.”

  “Indeed.”

  I’m starting to realize tha
t Mom was curious about John and Bob before I was.

  The next clip is the one we’ve all been waiting for. Mom’s patrol car races up to Loney’s Lobster Pound. She jumps out and runs inside to where Owen Loney is hosing down lobster tanks.

  Owen, fire up the Blythe Spirit. We’re on a mission!

  Without asking a question, he turns off the hose, pulls off his big rubber apron, and heads to the boat. A few minutes later, the boat lurches up and down, headed into the channel.

  Mom is on the radio SOS-ing the Coast Guard with locations and descriptions of two dangerous characters. The Blythe Spirit’s radio crackles and a voice comes through. Broadcast your position, Blythe Spirit, cutter is on the way.

  Mom’s body-cam footage is dark and noisy for several minutes. Water beads splash on the lens as Mom rolls and pitches with the boat. Suddenly, two small craft come into view. We faintly hear Dominic and Ben, then Mom’s arms pulling them onto the Blythe Spirit. The Coast Guard cutter looms into the camera’s frame, dwarfing the lobster boat and casting a massive shadow. “Over here! Easy as you go!” Mom calls. “Small craft ahead.” The cutter’s searchlights pierce the sky, one of them blasting directly into the camera’s lens. A brilliant white fills Mom’s computer screen—Hey!

  Mom shuts off the footage.

  Dominic groans. “I thought I was going to visit that friend of yours in Scotland, Quinnie.”

  “I thought you were going to visit some lobsters in their natural habitat,” says Ben.

  “That was scary,” I say.

  “It was,” Mom says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I know,” she says.

  “It was horrible,” says Ella.

  “I agree with that too,” Mom says, “and now it’s evidence against the L.L.Bean boys, just like the statements you gave the FBI.” She shuts off the computer and pushes away from her desk. “Okay, my young, incorrigible detectives—let’s go to Gusty’s and enjoy this time with Edgar and Ceil.”

  * * *

  “You guys are lucky,” Dominic says to the rest of us while we take Mile Stretch Road toward Gusty’s.

  “Why’s that?” I ask.

  “My parents were so mad about our Edgar and Ceil escape plan, they threatened to end our time in Maiden Rock early and take me away from this craziness.”

  “Aww, we aren’t that lucky.” Ben tries to knock Dominic’s hat off, but Dominic ducks.

  “No way. You have things to do here.” I bump him with my shoulder. “Like community service at the Pidgin Beach Cat Rescue with the rest of us.”

  “Wonder where your old hat is,” says Ella.

  “Probably in Greenland by now,” I say.

  “You know, Greenland’s ice sheets are melting at an alarming rate,” Ben says. “The glaciers are shifting and dissolving and contributing to the overall global rise in sea level.”

  “Did you hear that, girls?” says Dominic. “Now, that’s a fact for you.”

  I look at the two of them, and it makes me smile. I never in a million years guessed they would become such good friends. It’s kind of like me and Mariella Philpotts.

  Ella grabs Ben’s arm and squeezes, and he puts her in an affectionate headlock. They wander on ahead of us.

  Dominic bumps me back and says, “Are you glad I’m not leaving?”

  I nod and smile, even though I’m getting a big embarrassment lump in my throat.

  He puts his hand on my arm and I lag, then he lags. Turning around slowly, he adjusts his hat. His lips are sealed.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask.

  His neck is turning red like he’s blushing. He grabs my shoulder, almost stumbling in the process. At first, it feels like he’s steadying himself, but his head is zooming toward mine, and I realize he’s going to kiss me. And with the angle he’s using for his approach, he’s going to miss.

  I try to get my lips in line with his lips, but he moves to the side. I’m thinking this is going to be a disaster. Then he parts his lips and plastic fangs appear. He’s attempting to fake-bite me on the neck!

  I get a mushy pretend nip before Dominic stands up, pops his fangs out, and jams them into his pocket. It’s not technically a first kiss, but I’ll count it as one. I lean against him to get my balance. His eyes are blinking like he’s recovering from it too. My instinct is to reach up and give him a peck on the check, but I don’t.

  There’s the whole summer ahead for that.

  * * *

  By the time we get to Gusty’s, Ella and Ben have already arrived, but our regular table is full up. The place is crowded with summer people, drawn in by the new sign in the window that says, Now serving Italian coffees. Steam billows from behind the counter, and Clooney Wickham is tapping out grounds and flipping levers like an experienced barista.

  I don’t mind so much that our table has been occupied, once I realize the seats belong to Edgar, Ceil, Sister Ethel, and Sister Rosie. Ceil is cradling a “double e” in her good hand and watching over Edgar’s shoulder as he writes a check. His pupils seem to loop along with the zeros he pens on the small line.

  Sister Ethel sits next to Ceil, her veil draped over her arm and spilling onto Ceil’s wrist. She’s watching the zeros just as closely as Edgar.

  Ella, the guys, and I pull chairs up to the table as Edgar puts the final zero on the check, rips it out of the book, and hands it over.

  Sister Ethel takes the authors’ donation into her outstretched hands. “Thank you so very, very much for this generous contribution to the Pidgin Beach Cat Rescue. We can do so much with it. The archdiocese thanks you, and God thanks you too.”

  “And all the kitties thank you,” says Sister Rosie.

  “You are very welcome, Sisters—”

  “And the coyote mama and the pups thank you too.” Sister Rosie is not going to forget anyone.

  “The pups!” Ella coos.

  “They play with the cats so well,” Sister Rosie says.

  “What about the mama?” I say. “I mean, is she allowed by the cats? Didn’t she . . . ?” I don’t want to finish saying it, but really, I mean . . . Esmeralda!

  “The mama is sequestered,” Sister Ethel says firmly. “She is not allowed by the cats, despite the short memory of a certain someone who thinks all God’s creatures can get along.”

  Sister Rosie leans back in her chair, and her face falls. “I haven’t forgotten, Ethel,” she says. “It’s all so . . . complicated. I just can’t stop myself. I have to help.”

  I pat Sister Rosie’s arm. “I know how you feel.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my entire family, and especially to Chuck Hanebuth and Magda Surrisi, who support me in every possible way, and to Ellie and Michael, who have been waiting eagerly for this next Quinine Boyd book. To the entire VCFA tribe and especially the Magic Ifs and Magic Sevens. To the SCBWI gang. To all my dearest writing buddies in Hawaii, North Carolina, and around the world—you know who you are. To our new Asheville family, including Cindy and Cosby Morgan, who hosted us at the Cane Creek cottage where I wrote this book; the Harts who embody everything wonderful and welcoming about Asheville (especially my willing beta-reader, Will Hart); the Bakers, who hugged-us-up; the Walls, who were pilgrims like us and became instant and true friends; and the Weiners, who are kindred spirits in airplanes, books, and life.

  Thanks to all the great people at Lerner, who make beautiful books, and especially my incomparable editor, Greg Hunter, who has perfect instincts. And my agent, Linda Pratt—I am honored to be your friend and client. And to Elizabeth Baddeley, for putting perfect faces on a couple of preternatural characters.

  About the Author

  C. M. Surrisi lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband Chuck, two rascal Cavalier King Charles Spaniels named Sunny and Milo, and Harry, the Prince of Cats. She is a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

  Vampires on the Run

  Cover

 
Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover