by Krista Davis
“What was that?” Jen gazed up the stairs.
“I don’t know. Put on your jackets.” I buckled harnesses on Mochie and Daisy. I wasn’t about to leave them behind. Although Mochie knew how to walk on a leash, he gladly rode on my shoulder, which I preferred at the moment in case we had to run.
The girls beat me out to the sidewalk.
“It’s at my house!” Vegas ran across the street with Jen on her heels.
“Girls, wait!” There was no stopping them.
Fortunately, all the police cars had slowed traffic to a standstill. A golden glow spread in the air in back of Natasha and Mars’s home. Harder to see was a plume of inky black, darker than the night sky, that rose in terrifying billows.
The crowd in front of Natasha’s house had retreated into the street. Maggie stood by herself, staring at the house in shock.
I hurried to her. “Where are Mars and Wolf?” Hopefully they hadn’t gone into the house.
She pointed to the street that ran along the side of the house. I jogged in that direction, trying not to jostle Mochie too much. Sirens filled the air. I moved to the opposite sidewalk to clear the way for fire trucks. From my vantage point, I could see that Natasha’s kitchen was on fire. Amid the flames, part of the wall appeared to have been blown out. Firemen and police ushered us out of the way, blocking me from returning the way I had come.
Bernie watched from a spot a little farther along the street. He wore a cat on each shoulder.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I have no idea.”
Bernie lived in an apartment over Natasha and Mars’s detached garage. “Must have been loud at your place. Have you seen Vegas or Jen? They got away from me.”
“Haven’t seen anyone. I was in my apartment when I heard the explosion. I could hear glass from the windows shatter as it hit the street, so I grabbed the kittens and ran outside—just to be on the safe side.”
The flames began to subside, but the clouds of dark smoke continued. I searched faces for Vegas, Jen, Mars, Wolf, and yes, Natasha. With the firefighters blocking the side street, I would have to walk along the alley and cut through Nina’s yard to go around to the other side of the house.
Talking fast, I filled Bernie in on Patrick’s death.
“Do you think the explosion is related to that? Someone set the kitchen on fire to hide evidence or distract everyone so he could escape?” he asked.
That idea hadn’t even crossed my mind. “It is awfully coincidental.”
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Wolf standing among the firefighters. He made his way over to us. “What a night. Are you two all right?”
“I’m worried about Mars and Natasha. It’s a lucky break that so many people had gone outside to see what was going on with Patrick. I hope no one was hurt.” Daisy strained at the leash to be petted by Wolf.
He rubbed the scruff of her neck. “They’re fine. I saw them on the other side of the house with Vegas and Jen. The firefighters say it should be under control shortly. It’s in the renovated section of the house, so it’s not a tinderbox like some of these old buildings.”
As though his words were magic, the flames tapered off significantly.
“Crikey, look at that.” Bernie adjusted an increasingly restless cat and motioned toward a jagged hole gaping in the second story of the house. “Reminds me of those pictures from war-torn countries where a bomb hit a house.”
“Except for one big difference.” Wolf studied the damage. “This bomb went off inside the house. It blew the wall and the glass in the windows outward.”
“So Bernie might be right? The killer could have set it up as a distraction.” I set Mochie on the ground to let him sniff around a bit.
“If that was the case,” said Wolf, “he didn’t plan well. Seems like he would have wanted the explosion to distract people closer to the time of the murder. On the other hand, bombs are tricky business. A lot of them detonate at the wrong time.”
“Then there could be more! I have to find Vegas and Jen and get them out of here.” I whisked Mochie up onto my shoulder again to leave. “Bernie, do you want to bring the kittens and stay with me tonight?”
“Thanks. I think we’ll be all right here. But I’ll keep it in mind if anything else untoward happens.”
Wolf kindly offered to escort me along the sidewalk so I wouldn’t have to go the long way around. Carefully avoiding the areas of shattered glass, we walked fast, lest another explosion shower us with debris.
I spotted Vegas and Jen with Natasha and Mars. Although a lot of their guests still lingered outside, their little group stood alone.
“What don’t you understand about no?” Natasha hissed her words, but everyone within a few yards could probably hear them. “I will not act like a homeless person. There are plenty of hotels in this town.”
“Staying with my mother for one night is hardly the equivalent of being homeless.” Mars was using his diplomatic voice. The one generally reserved for reporters who criticized Mars’s political clients. Natasha had crossed a line.
“I’m not staying with that woman!”
Ouch.
Vegas appeared to be unfazed by the argument, which worried me because it might mean she heard this kind of squabble too often and had grown used to them.
Jen tugged on my sleeve. “I invited Uncle Mars and Natasha to stay with us tonight.”
I confess my breath caught in my throat. It was the right thing to do, of course, but my ex-husband and his lover sleeping in a bedroom across the way from mine didn’t appeal to me much.
“Good heavens. You can’t expect me to stay at Sophie’s house. It’s so . . . primitive.”
Primitive? That was a new one to me. I only had one and a half bathrooms, but at least I didn’t have a big hole in the wall of my kitchen. I wasn’t about to pressure her, though.
“You know, this is why you don’t have friends.” Mars ambled off.
“What? Sophie knows her house is primitive.” She threw me a nasty look, as if Mars’s comment was all my fault. “I hate it when he does this. We’re going to end up at his mother’s house, and I won’t be able to sleep a wink.” Natasha chased after him.
“Come on, girls. Let’s go home.” We walked back to my house with Vegas worrying aloud about her “stuff” that might have been destroyed in the fire. Losing her mom and having her dad away were hard enough. I hated to think how awful it would be if she lost her material possessions, too. A person could only tolerate so many blows, and Vegas had already suffered more than her fair share.
There wasn’t anything I could do about it, except try to distract her. Fortunately, as soon as the leashes and jackets had been removed, Jen seized my hand. “Come see what we made while we were babysitting Gabriel. It’s so cool!”
They led the way to my den and proudly showed me a large sign. The top line, Bubble and Trouble, arched in a semicircle. Underneath, in a smaller, dripping, scary Halloween font, it said, A Coffin & Cauldron for Otherworldly Travelers.
It was adorable and I said so.
Vegas beamed. “We made a bunch of them. Do you think Bernie could attach one over the Ye Olde Candle Shoppe sign that hangs over the sidewalk?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Jen sank into the sofa. “I’m beat, but I’m so relieved we finally have a great story about our haunted house. All thanks to June.”
I shared her feeling and sat down next to her. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
Vegas perched on the arm of the sofa, her face ashen. “About the fire?”
“No.” I didn’t know how to soften the blow for them, and Vegas had already had too many horrible experiences in her young life. “The pirate we saw tonight is dead.”
Jen sat up straight. “I knew it! From the vampire bite!”
“I don’t know what killed him, but I seriously doubt he died from anything related to a vampire.”
“But, Sophie,” Vegas protested, “you saw the vampir
e run away.”
“We were there, too, but we didn’t kill him. Let’s see what the medical examiner says first, okay? It might have been a heart attack or something.”
“Yeah,” said Vegas, “brought on by a vampire bite!”
“I’m afraid the really bad news is that the pirate was Patrick Starski.”
“The guy dating Blake’s mom,” said Vegas.
“The very same. I guess Blake won’t be around to help with the haunted house. We’ll have to find a substitute for him. What was he supposed to do?”
Jen’s eyes met mine. “He wanted to fill in for Frank as the vampire in the casket room upstairs.”
Life was full of irony. “Do you want to talk about this?” I had no idea how much reassurance they needed. They didn’t say anything, so I moved on, trying to open them up a bit. “So, what’s with the socks around your necks? Do they keep you from getting sore throats or something?”
Jen confessed. “The socks protect our throats from vampire bites. We saw those bite marks on the pirate’s neck and thought we should take precautions.”
Vegas looked at me with the honest, clear eyes of youth. “Do you think Viktor Luca could be back?”
NINE
Dear Sophie,
My thirteen-year-old daughter is too old to trick-or-treat, so she’s having a sleepover. Now that she’s a teen, there’s a fine line between corny and cool. My husband says we should play creepy music and come up with a scary prank to spook them. I think that won’t be cool enough.
—Carol Brady in Screamer, Alabama
Dear Carol,
Buy a few bottles of bright red nail polish and begin with a bloody nail-painting session, complete with Bloody Mary Mocktails. After that, fill big bowls with kettle corn, cheesy popcorn, and buttery popcorn and host a devilish black-and-white movie horror-a-thon.
—Sophie
“Of course not, Vegas. Whoever that man was, he was just a regular person wearing a vampire cape. That hardly makes him a vampire.”
Jen and Vegas migrated into my family room and pulled out the sofa bed. I tidied up the kitchen, arranged some iced bat-shaped cookies on a platter, and made Jen’s favorite cinnamon and nutmeg herbal tea. A chilling black-and-white Vincent Price movie was playing on the TV when I delivered their snack.
“Are you sure you want to sleep down here?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. It would be more fun for them to watch TV late into the night and squeal and run around. Bedrooms were boring.
I left them to their horror show, shrugged on a warm jacket, and stepped outside with Daisy. While she snuffled around the backyard, I opened the service gate that faced the street and took a few steps toward the sidewalk. Down the block, I could see lights and hear voices. I shivered and crossed my arms to stay warm. Wolf and the forensic team would have to work well into the night. Poor Maggie. She had to cope with the loss of someone so close to her and break the news to her son, Blake. I felt certain she would have a sleepless night.
I watched as someone dressed in black crossed the street in a stealthy manner a few houses down. The streetlights didn’t do much to help illuminate him. I squinted into the dark, then chided myself for being suspicious of everyone.
But when I heard a dry leaf crunch behind me, my suspicion radar perked up again. I whirled around, but before I could raise my hands, someone cast a huge cloth that smelled of licorice over my head. A scream rose from my throat, and I flailed my arms in panic, but my short arms were no match for my assailant. While I wrestled to tear the cloth off, he pressed something against my nose and mouth with such pressure that I could hardly move. I tried to suck in air, but something was wrong. I couldn’t breathe. Desperate, I kicked at him but only succeeded in losing my balance. I tried to scream again, but I couldn’t get air. Wishing I’d worn daggerlike heels or at least heavy shoes of some type instead of sneakers, I slammed my foot onto his. A groan suggested I’d made contact in a painful way.
Loud barking gave me hope. Daisy! Oh no! Why had I latched the gate?
“Stop that! Help!” I recognized the voice of my best friend, Nina Reid Norwood.
The next thing I knew, my assailant grunted and shoved into me. We fell as a unit, and someone lay on top of me. I floundered, fighting the cloth over my head. He’d released his grip when we fell, and I gulped air like a drowning victim. I could hear Daisy snarling and Nina yelling for help. In panic, I tried to kick my pinned legs and scramble backward. As I struggled, the cloth pulled away, and Daisy, Nina, and I found ourselves sitting on the cold brick sidewalk with a person in a vampire costume.
“Get his mask!” I shouted, trying to lunge at him from a seated position. He scrambled to his feet, and ran across the street and around the corner, a huge cape billowing from his arm as he disappeared into the night.
My heart pounded.
Nina touched my shoulder gently. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and stumbled to my feet to prove it. “Where did you come from?”
“I’m trying to catch a cat. I was about to go home to warm up for a bit when I heard Daisy barking. I opened your gate, and the two of us jumped that creep.”
I hugged her. “You and Daisy just saved my life.”
“Nonsense! Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll walk you inside and make you some tea.”
“What? You know how to heat water in the kettle?” It was a silly thing to say, but I needed to lighten up the situation. Or at least pretend that I wasn’t scared out of my mind.
“Emergencies call for drastic heroics—like cooking.”
“Don’t worry about me. Daisy will protect me. Right, girl?”
Daisy’s tail wagged, and I could have sworn that she was smiling at me. I planted a quick kiss on her head.
Nina pointed across the street. “There’s the cat. Hurry up now. I need to catch that rascally fellow for his own good, but I’m not leaving you out here to be attacked again. Are you sure you don’t need help?”
I waved her off.
“Well, go on then, before that kitty disappears!”
I staggered to the house, wishing I could walk more sprightly, but each step revealed a new ache where bruises were undoubtedly springing to life.
When I looked back, Nina, moving as stealthily as a jaguar, prowled toward the black cat sitting under the streetlight.
I wasn’t going to hang around outside for even one minute longer. Daisy and I bolted into the sunroom, and I locked the door behind us. Just to be on the safe side, I wedged a chair underneath the handle. No one was coming in that way.
“Aunt Sophie?” Jen’s voice came from the family room. “Is that you?”
“It’s just Daisy and me.” I hurried to the kitchen, called Wolf’s cell phone, and told him what happened. When I hung up, I hugged Daisy like I would never let her go. I’m not much of a crier, but tears trickled down my face, wetting her fur. So much for Natasha’s theory about Daisy. If it hadn’t been for Nina and Daisy, who knows what might have happened?
She barked at the sound of Wolf approaching the front door. I whisked it open and flew into his arms, my breath still ragged. He shuffled inside, kicked the door closed, and held me.
Jen’s voice behind me asked, “What’s going on?”
I forced myself to let go of Wolf, tried to smile reassuringly at Jen and Vegas, and ushered them all into the kitchen. I collapsed into a fireside chair, and Daisy planted herself beside me. While I relayed the story, Jen put on a pot of tea, and Vegas listened with her mouth open.
“We heard barking.” Vegas nervously twisted the hem of her pajama top. “It never occurred to me that you could be in danger.”
Jen handed me a cup of steaming tea with milk. When I took it, I was shocked to find my hands still trembled. “It’s all behind us now. Daisy and Nina are my heroines.” I bent toward Daisy. “Steak is on your menu tomorrow.”
She wagged her feathery tail across the floor
.
People could say what they liked about dog intelligence, but I was certain Daisy understood she had helped rescue me tonight.
Wolf leaned against the kitchen island, his face troubled. “Show me where this happened.”
I nodded. “Give me a minute.” I asked Jen and Vegas to turn on lights in the dining and living rooms. Meanwhile, I switched on the lights in the sunroom. If the assailant was lurking around, I wanted the house to be fully lit while we were outside. I clipped a leash on Daisy, and we trekked out to the sidewalk.
“Right about here,” I said.
We all stared at the sidewalk as though it might hold a secret. If it did, it wasn’t giving it up.
Wolf didn’t say much. He glanced toward Natasha’s house and asked in which direction the person had run.
I pointed at the corner on the opposite end of the block from Natasha’s.
“We have a bulletin out for people in vampire costumes, but if he’s not wearing the cape, there’s not much hope he’ll be noticed.”
“Do you think it was the same vampire we saw earlier?” asked Vegas.
“I think he was wearing the same mask,” I said as we walked back to my house. But it dawned on me that I had a clue to his identity after all. I glanced at the girls. Maybe it was an overabundance of caution, but I thought it prudent not to say anything to them, lest it end up on Facebook or Twitter.
Putting on as brave and cheerful a face as I could manage, I shooed the girls back to their movie and motioned to Wolf to join me in the living room. I turned off the extra lights, and we settled on the sofa.
Before I could begin, Wolf asked, “What’s your connection to Patrick?”
“None, other than the fact that his girlfriend’s son, Blake, is working at the haunted house. I only met Patrick once. He threatened me, but I didn’t take it seriously. It seemed like a lot of hot air—empty bullying.” I eyed him. “So you think the person who attacked me was the same guy who killed Patrick?”