“What did you do to him?” Vivi demanded. “He’s famously unapproachable! No one’s ever been able to date him! And now I hear that he’s completely smitten with my best friend and she hasn’t even told me about it!”
“I don’t know about smitten,” I said, blushing. “And I’m sure he’s had a girlfriend before.”
“Not in this town, he hasn’t,” she said. “Ruby’s been trying to get his attention for two years with no luck.”
Bet she never tried falling in a pool, I thought. “I’m just lucky, I guess.”
“Lucky and hot,” Vivi said. “At this rate, you’re going to have all the girls in school dyeing their hair green. Whatever it takes to get your luck with boys.”
I found the page Milo had been doodling on. He’d written Kira loves Milo and Mrs. Kira Sparks and his phone number with a heart around it, as if I were a sixth-grader with a crush and had written all that myself. I laughed.
“So which one do you like better?” Vivi demanded.
“Well, Daniel is smoldering-sexy-hot,” I said. “He has that whole ‘man of mystery’ thing happening. But Milo is cute, and he’s really funny.”
“Can I have whichever one you don’t want?” she asked wistfully.
“Aw, what about Alejandro?” Her boyfriend wasn’t exactly terrible-looking himself.
“Oh, he’s in a mood because he doesn’t understand why I needed to take three days off to mourn Tex. It’s like he has no idea how sensitive and delicate I am. Hey, are you going to the memorial service tomorrow?”
“Memorial service?” I echoed. “Didn’t they do that at school?”
“Well, this is the real one,” she said. “It’s tomorrow night at seven, at the football field. I think practically the whole town is going to be there. I heard his mom and dad are going to dedicate something to him, like a tree or a trophy case or something. And then the whole town is invited back to their house for a wake on Sunday.”
I perked up. “The whole town?” That would seem to encompass any vampires in town, wouldn’t it?
“Yeah, it’s in the paper,” she said. “Open invitation. So you want to go?”
“Oh,” I said. “No, I think I probably won’t—I mean, I didn’t really know him, and it’s kind of weird, you know?” Plus if everyone will be at the football field…and I suddenly have an open invitation to their house…then that would be the perfect time to sneak into Tex’s room and search for clues.
“Oh, man,” Vivi said. “Are you sure? We could go out for milkshakes afterward or something. I mean, like, sad, appropriately somber milkshakes. Oooh, maybe you could bring Zach.”
I made a face. “I’m sorry. I can’t,” I said. “I kind of…have a date.”
“I knew it!” she shrieked. “I leave you alone for two days and suddenly you have this crazy love life! It’s not fair! Okay, who’s it with? Where are you going? And most important, what are you going to wear?”
See, that’s why I like Vivi. She can take a date with a possible bloodthirsty vampire and focus on what’s really important. We spent the next two hours talking about outfits and boys, and by the time I hung up, all the spooky emotional cobwebs left over from my encounter with Rowan’s family had been swept away.
Not only that, but now I had a plan. While the town was busy at Tex’s memorial service, I’d be climbing into his bedroom window and snooping around for clues. I figured two hours before my date with Daniel was plenty of time.
Just to be safe, though, I dressed for the date ahead of time. Which is how I found myself standing in Tex’s backyard at seven thirty on Saturday night, trying to figure out how to get through a prickly hedge thicket without ripping my tights. Enormous hemlocks blocked the windows all the way around the house, which if you asked me was downright unfriendly. Although perhaps I should have known that breaking into a house in a dark green crushed velvet minidress wasn’t exactly the best idea.
I put my hands on my hips and glared at the windows. There must be another way in. I’d checked the garage door, but it had a number touch pad to open it, so that didn’t help me.
I lifted the mat under the back door. Nothing. I jumped up and ran my hand along the top of the door frame, which was both fruitless and dirty. Wiping off the dirt, I checked any might-be-fake-looking rocks around the door, but none of them had keys hidden inside. Of course, I could pull the door open with my vampire strength, but I didn’t want to be all obvious about it. Wilhelm would definitely not be pleased about any more suspiciously vampire-like criminal scenes.
I studied the door again and finally spotted the cat flap.
Oh, universe. Why do you make me do these things?
Yes, I actually am that small, luckily—although for the sake of my dress and tights, it would have been nice to be a few inches smaller in every direction. I wriggled and shoved and squeezed and held my breath, and finally I popped out the other side and sprawled onto the Harrisons’ cold kitchen floor.
The house was really still. I could hear a grandfather clock tick-tocking in the hall. Dishes were sitting in the sink like nobody had the energy to even stack them in the dishwasher. I crawled to my feet and headed for the stairs, peeking into each room as I went by. A spacious white living room, tasteful and austere in comparison to ours. An elegant dining room that looked like it was rarely used. A small room with brown leather couches arranged around a TV—no doubt this was where Tex and his dad were exiled to watch football, while his mom and older sister genteelly ruled over the clean living room. I’d read about his sister, Caprice, in the paper; she’d come home from college for the funeral.
I padded up the stairs and opened doors until I found the bedroom that was unmistakably Tex’s. Everything screamed sports: cheerleader calendars, Patriots bedsheets, Red Sox banners and lampshades and rug. I stepped in and closed the door behind me with a quiet snick.
It was obvious that his parents hadn’t touched anything in here since the day he died. His bedsheets were thrown back like he’d just gotten up; a basketball lay discarded on the floor next to a pair of sneakers. A screensaver of Angelina Jolie pictures kept shifting across his desktop computer monitor. Classy.
A thought struck me: Why hadn’t the police been here yet? Or if they had, they’d been very careful not to move anything. Maybe they were waiting until after the funeral to disturb the family. I don’t know; I’m not the police. I was just doing their job for them.
In case you’re wondering, by the way, I wasn’t being a total idiot. I had on elbow-length black gloves and my hair was clipped back, so I was at least making some effort not to leave any stray DNA lying around. Although if they did find anything to put in their system, the result would come back as a dead girl named Phoebe Tanaka, so my guess is they’d figure there was a glitch in their technology and throw it out anyway.
I sat down at Tex’s desk and moved the mouse on the Red Sox mouse pad. His email inbox popped onto the screen. It was creepy to see a couple of new messages at the top, clearly from people who hadn’t heard the news yet. There was also one from Ruby, Vivi’s friend. I didn’t open it, but I could see the message in the preview box: I miss you, Tex. I didn’t open any of the new emails; I figured that would be pretty suspicious, too.
At the bottom of the screen I saw a couple of other tabs: an English essay and the beginning of a blog entry. Curious, I clicked on the blog.
It was dated the evening of the murder, around seven thirty, but had not yet been posted. I guess he’d started it, and then the call from whoever was at the school had interrupted him. Although I could also see from his email that he’d last checked his messages at around eleven o’clock, so he hadn’t left for the school until late at night, which fit with the official report in the paper that he’d died around midnight.
I scanned the unposted blog, and my blood ran cold.
He knew. Tex knew.
The blog entry said:
Guys, you’re never going to believe what I saw today! Prepare for your minds to
be blown. THERE IS A VAMPIRE IN OUR TOWN! Seriously! I caught him today. I know! Yeah, me! I saw a vampire! I know you’re like, Whoa, what? Tex is crazy! but it’s true. I saw him in the mirror–actually, I didn’t see him in the mirror. He was standing right in front of it BUT THERE WAS NOTHING THERE! Total vampire, dudes! I bet if I wanted to, I could get him to make me a vampire, too, but then Notre Dame might take back that football scholarship, am I right? Ha ha! So what do I do? Do you all want to know who it is? Should I reveal his identity? Post a comment and tell me what you think!
I was glad I was sitting down. Now here was a motive for murder. Forget getting shoved into a locker; if a vampire thought Tex was about to expose him, it wasn’t entirely surprising he’d throw the guy out a window. Not that that made it okay, of course.
So who was it? It must have been someone Tex saw on Tuesday. Did that mean I could cross Daniel off the suspect list? But it was possible they’d met somehow…. I couldn’t exactly take Daniel’s word on the matter. On the other hand, Rowan had mentioned that he had gym class with Tex; maybe Tex had noticed his lack of a reflection in the locker room.
Far be it from me to tamper with a police investigation under normal circumstances, but in this case, tampering was a case of life or death (at least, I was pretty sure Wilhelm would think so). I deleted the blog entry, and then I went into the computer’s history and deleted any traces of it I could find. Probably not the most foolproof method, but hopefully if it wasn’t sitting there staring the police in the face when they checked the computer, then they wouldn’t pay much attention to it if they ever did find it.
I was about to go back through Tex’s emails again when suddenly I heard a noise.
It wasn’t a loud noise—human hearing wouldn’t have picked it up at all. But to my vampire ears, it was crystal clear.
Footsteps were coming up the stairs.
Someone else was in the house.
Chapter 15
I dove into the closet, which I realized right away was a mistake because (a) what a totally obvious place to hide, and (b) boys’ clothes smell something awful. I guessed I was knee-deep in dirty laundry, but I didn’t have time to find a better spot. I could hear the footsteps coming down the hall, straight toward Tex’s room.
I crouched down and pulled the closet door almost all the way shut, leaving myself only a tiny crack to peer out of.
The bedroom door opened. A figure stood silhouetted in the light from the hall for a brief moment. Then whoever it was stepped into the room and shut the door. Like me, he or she didn’t turn on the light. Like me, the newcomer stood there for a long moment, staring around the room. I could see only a faint outline of the person’s shape in the glow from the computer monitor.
The computer! I’d forgotten to turn the screensaver back on! That would have taken too long anyway. Did this person know that there should be sexy Angelina Jolie pictures spinning across the screen right now?
There was an excruciatingly long pause. I was very glad I didn’t have a heartbeat, because I was sure it would be hammering fit to wake the dead. As it was, I had to clutch my hands together to keep from shaking.
Was it someone who lived here? His mom or dad? How would I ever explain what I was doing in their son’s bedroom? I wondered what happened to vampires in prison. Was there an underground blood network to keep me alive?
Or was it Tex’s killer, come to erase evidence like I had just done? What would he do if he found me in here…and knew that I’d seen him?
The figure took a step forward. The pale blue light from the computer illuminated his face.
I couldn’t help it. I gasped.
He whipped around with a startled expression as I threw open the closet door.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Me?” Daniel said indignantly. “What are you doing here?”
“I am solving a murder,” I said. “You are obviously up to no good.”
“No, I’m solving a murder,” he said. “And this is looking very fishy for you, young lady.”
“Nuh-uh!” I cried. “You’re the fishy one! Skulking about, giving people heart attacks!”
“Well, if you weren’t lurking in the dark where you’re not supposed to be, then you wouldn’t be so easily frightened, would you?” he said. “And I wasn’t skulking.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t lurking.”
We glared at each other for a moment, nose to nose…well, technically nose to really nice pecs, since he was substantially taller than me. I was pleased to see he was wearing another button-down shirt with most of the buttons undone. I don’t know a lot of guys who wander around dressed like that, but on Daniel it was a look I didn’t mind. At all.
Distracted? Who, me?
I stared up into his perfect, dark brown eyes, which were flashing with anger. His breathing was quick and shallow, and his hands were trembling a little bit. What was he thinking? Did he suspect I was the murderer? Or was he really the murderer, and he’d realized he was busted? Was he about to pop out a pair of fangs and try to bite me?
I decided the best way to distract him was to kiss him. Or maybe I just really wanted to.
Perhaps he had the same idea at the same time, because it seemed like he grabbed my arms and pulled me to him just as I was leaning up toward his lips.
This wasn’t the sweet, elegant kiss he’d given me in the school hallway. This was passion and fire. I ran my hands up his back under his shirt, and he made a tiny sound deep in his throat.
For a moment I thought about throwing him down on the bed and having my way with him right there, but then I was like, Wow, that would be inappropriate. Plus who knows when was the last time Tex changed the sheets, and just imagine his parents walking in on that, and surely there’s somewhere more romantic we could—
Daniel pushed me away from him. “This is a dangerous game,” he said, pointing at me. No fangs had magically appeared, I was disappointed to note. Of course, I was much better at controlling mine by this point, so my face also gave nothing away. If he was a vampire, that just meant he’d had experience with this—but I didn’t like that thought either.
“What game?” I said, adjusting my dress. That motion seemed to get his attention in a different way. He blinked at my tall boots like he was trying hard not to look at my cleavage. “I’m not playing any games,” I continued. “All I see here is you messing up my murder investigation.”
“What?” he exploded. “You’re the one who’s messing up my—” He stopped and pressed his fingers to his forehead. “Why are you trying to solve this?” he asked slowly.
Yeah, right. You can tell me the truth first, mister. “Because I’m plucky?” I tried with a winning smile. “I’m just a crime-fighting kind of gal?”
He glared at me.
“Okay, I’ll be honest,” I said. “It’s because I’ve watched every episode of Veronica Mars, like, three hundred times, and I totally want to be her.”
He looked at his watch. “We don’t have time for this. We have to get out of here soon.”
“How did you get in?” I asked curiously.
“The back door was unlocked,” he said. He tilted his head at me. “Isn’t that how you got in?”
This conversation sounded familiar. Only this time I felt a lot more silly. I hadn’t even tried the doorknob. I was an absolute moron.
“Er…no,” I admitted. “I went through the cat flap.”
Daniel hid a smile.
“Don’t you dare say, ‘That explains the hair,’” I said fiercely.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, and glanced around. “Well, did you find anything?”
“No,” I lied. “I’d only been here a couple minutes when I heard you.” I nodded at the computer screen. Daniel sat down in the chair and studied Tex’s inbox. I watched over his shoulder as he tapped a couple of keys.
A box popped up with Tex’s last IM conversation in it.
“Hmmm,” Daniel said. “Do you know who
Pire-O-Maniac66 is?”
“No,” I said, leaning in to read the chat. It seemed pretty innocuous.
Tex had written: Hey, man. I’m bored. You?
Pire-O-Maniac66: Same.
Tex: Want to play basketball?
Pire-O-Maniac66: Yeah, sure.
Tex: Awesome. Meet me at the school in thirty.
“Riveting,” I said. “The life of Tex Harrison was full of novelty and excitement.”
“But that was the afternoon before the murder,” Daniel pointed out. “Maybe he had a fight with the guy while they were playing basketball.”
Or maybe they were both standing in front of a mirror afterward…in the guys’ locker room?
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “Although you’d have to be pretty psycho to kill a guy for scoring more goals than you.”
Daniel just looked at me.
“What?” I said. “Is that not the phrase? Scoring more hoops?”
Daniel shook his head and closed the chat window. “I don’t see anything else,” he said. “We’d better go.”
I wondered if he planned to sneak back again sometime without me, but I didn’t care. I’d already found a way better clue than he would. Take that, Mr. Amateur Detective.
We hurried down the stairs and slipped out the back door, checking that the coast was clear before we darted around to the sidewalk in front of the house.
As we walked away down the street, I saw a car drive past with three people in it—people I recognized from the photos in Tex’s house.
“Whew,” Daniel said as he spotted them, too. He pulled out a handkerchief—a real handkerchief!—and dabbed at his forehead, just like a guy in a Jane Austen movie. “That was close.”
“So,” I said, patting my hair into place and smiling up at him, “does this date still include dinner?”
Never Bite a Boy on the First Date Page 10