His dark eyes narrow to tiny black orbs. “What are you referring to? I wasn’t notified of any murders.”
So I tell him what I witnessed, and I explain about the intruder and his threat. “I’m the only one who thinks they’re vamp wannabes, and I’m the only target—”
“You could be the only target because you are the only eyewitness,” he points out.
“Yes, but the vamp wannabe who threatened me isn’t the same one who killed Jane Doe. Why would he bother unless he was invested? Because he’s in cahoots with the murderer.”
“So now you think there is a gang of vampire wannabes.” The mayor hooks his thumbs through his belt loops. “I can’t have this. Vampire wannabes or not, this must be dealt with. I assume that if you’re coming to talk to me about this, that you’re leading the investigation? When did you switch out of vice? I know you’ve wanted that for a little while now. Good for you.”
I’m flattered he remembers, but the flush his words bring on isn’t because of adulation. “Actually…”
“Please keep me updated.” Martin glances at his cheap watch. He’s been mayor here for five years now, and the people love him. He’s down to earth and talks to them, cares about them. He’s the perfect ally for the police. “If you’ll excuse me.” He moves to walk around me.
I slide to the right to block him. If word gets back to the lieutenant… Gotta come clean.
“Actually, I’m still in vice, and neither the detective sergeant nor the lieutenant know I spoke with you.”
The mayor halts, holding unnaturally still, which for him, is unnerving. He’s always talking with his hands or tapping his foot, something.
“I see,” he says quietly. “So the lieutenant doesn’t agree with your vampire wannabe theory.”
“Not exactly.”
“Was the woman bitten or not?”
“She was. I’m sure of it.”
“Wasn’t there a bite mark?”
“He dragged his teeth across her skin to disguise it.”
Okay, maybe this is a stretch, but my gut tells me I’m right. And I learned a long time ago to not ignore my gut.
“Very well. I’ll be sure to call the station. Muchas gracias. Adiós.” Martin leaves me in his office feeling like I’m isolated, all alone in this.
There’s one place I love to go to when I’m upset.
The shooting range.
I have to borrow a gun, of course, but I shoot until my fingers grow sore and my hands cramp. My target has a huge hole right in the center, and I even had the target pushed back farther than normal.
Time’s getting away from me. I rush back home, shower, change, and manage to get to Fiamma Italian Grill before my best friend. Samantha pulls up and parks beside me.
“How are…” Samantha trails off and cocks her head. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer.”
“You got that right.”
We hook arms and enter. The hostess directs us to sit in a booth. I automatically slide into the one that gives me a direct line of sight to the door. The black seat is soft and cushiony, but I’m on edge, uncomfortable, paranoid. Ever since the first murder, I haven’t felt like myself, and it’s almost impossible to relax.
The waitress comes over immediately. Although the place is packed, it’s prime dinner time, after all, she smiles and jokes with us. I order a non-alcoholic raspberry breeze soda but then change my mind and opt for the raspberry vodka after all.
Samantha gapes at me after the waitress walks away with our drink and food order. “What’s goin’ on? Don’t tell me that Marlon’s finally fallen for the witch.”
I scowl. “No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Well then? Out with it.”
“I… I’m kinda suspended.”
“What! Why?”
“It’s a long story.” I put my napkin on my lap and fiddle with my fork. “Hey, Samantha? Do you think vampires are real?”
“If they are, I’m sure they don’t sparkle.” She giggles. “I wonder if they would be super muscular, all buff and everything. Aren’t they supposed to be super good looking so they can lure their prey? Or maybe they’re really sickly and scrawny. How well can a body operate on blood alone?”
That right there is one of the reasons why we’ve been friends for so long. I can just throw out a seemingly random topic like vampires, and she’ll roll along with it, no questions asked.
The waitress deposits our drinks. “Your salads will be out shortly.”
I smile my thanks and take a long gulp. Ah. I don’t plan on drinking routinely, but I need to take the edge off. I’m still too amped up. The shooting range only fired me up instead of calming me down like it usually does.
Samantha sips her water. No lemon. I don’t know how she does it.
“My newest client doesn’t really need me,” she whispers as if it’s a big secret. “He’s already jacked, and he’s hoping to break into the cover model business, you know, book covers. And he has the face and body for it. He wants to try for an eight-pack. That’s where I come in.”
“An eight-pack? Is that even real?”
She shrugs as our waitress sets down our salads. “It’s super rare, and your diet has to be on point, but yeah, it’s possible. Whether or not he can obtain them, guess we’ll have to wait and find out!”
To me, her house salad looks pathetic next to my amazing wedge. I lift a big forkful in her direction and dig in. Mmm… The gorgonzola dressing is perfect, and that balsamic glaze…
“What’s the point of eating a salad if it has all of that crap in it?” she asks.
“What’s the point of eating a salad if you can taste the lettuce?” I counter.
She throws back her head. “I’m saving my calories for dinner.”
I do have to admit her blackened sea scallops look amazing, but nothing is as good as my chicken scarpariello. The hot and sweet sausage is especially exquisite.
After we empty our plates, we gab outside the restaurant for a long while. It feels so normal. I definitely needed this.
Eventually, Samantha notes the time. “I think I’ve digested enough. I’m gonna swing by Leading Edge and do a cage fitness class,” she announces confidently.
“Mind if I tag along?” I ask eagerly, wanting to let out some aggression.
“Sure!”
Punching the bag, push-ups, and the other moves take my mind off things and release more of my pent-up energy. But as we’re changing in the locker room after class, I can’t help wondering if I need wooden bullets.
And I also can’t help worrying that I’m going crazy.
Chapter 10
The next morning, I feel a little better. Maybe the exercise helped me sleep more soundly, but it’s definitely given me a clearer perspective. I’m going to let my obsession with the vamp wannabe go. My coworkers are great. If anyone can find the murderer, they can. Besides, the sooner I cooperate with the lieutenant, the sooner he’ll let me get back to work. If I stay on his bad side, he’ll never let me transfer, so my hands are tied.
For the next week, everything goes kinda smoothly. I spend more time with Samantha and even go to her gym. She offers to write me up a weight-lifting program. I decline. Each day, I pick a different body part, either chest, legs, back, shoulders, or arms, and work out by myself. That new client of hers really is good looking, and I have to laugh. Samantha is right. He doesn’t need her, but he has a major crush on her, and she just doesn’t see it. I wonder if things will work out for her and Ryan, the guy I can’t stand for no good reason. She hasn’t mentioned him lately, so maybe things have cooled off some. I never knew what she saw in him in the first place.
All week long, I don’t call anyone on the force, so I only get my updates from the news. Someone leaked about the murder, and Jane Doe finally has a name. She’s Jennifer Hamilton.
Now that I know who she is and see pictures of her grieving husband and her crying son, I can’t stand it. I don’t know if I can just let it g
o after all.
In the back of my mind, the threat replays, almost like a warning that I shouldn’t.
If you want to wear the badge another day, you’ll give up the hunt. If you want to wear the badge another day, you’ll give up the hunt. If you want…
The thing is, I have given up the hunt.
And now there’s peace to some extent. No new victims with bitten necks.
A coincidence, right?
In my line of work, a coincidence just means we haven’t located the evidence needed to prove a connection.
A correlation.
No. No, I need to stay out of this.
More accurately, I should stay out of this.
One short phone call can’t hurt. Besides, she hasn’t been picking up my calls anyhow.
Luckily, this time, she does.
“Henrietta Goldersnatch, Medical Examiner.”
I almost drop my cell. “Oh, hi. This is Clarissa Tempest.”
“Clarissa… you’re the one who discovered Jen, right?”
“Yes!” I breathe a sigh of relief. She seems willing to talk. Awesome! Finally, some of my supposed bad luck is turning around.
“I’m glad you called. I wanted to talk to you. I’ve been swamped with so much lately. I swear, every time we turn around in this city, there’s another body. Which is great. I want to be busy. If I didn’t, I would move to Hellertown or some other boring small town where nothing happens.”
Ah, because murder and bodies are good things.
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I wanted to—why are you calling? You haven’t found another one for me, have you?”
Her excitement is a little creepy. I’m not gonna lie.
“No, no more bodies,” I say. “You haven’t come across another one like her, have you? Before, after… ever?”
“You mean with those marks on her neck? No. It’s distinct. A really sharp blade, that’s for sure.”
“You’re certain they’re from a weapon and not…”
“Teeth? Yeah, I talked to the lieutenant, and he told me your theory. I have to say… I don’t know.”
“The amount of blood on her clothes… How much blood was in her body? Did it match up, or was there blood you can’t account for?”
Her sigh is deep and troubling. “You know, I just can’t tell. When the lieutenant mentioned your thoughts, I tried to see if there was less than there should have been. She lost a lot of blood, a lot a lot. I can’t tell from the crime scene photos how much was on the ground. I can’t give you a definite answer one way or the other.”
“So it’s possible I’m right,” I press.
“Possibly, but inconclusive.”
Ugh. That’s not really helpful at all.
“You said you’re glad I called. What’s up?” I ask, not bothering to get my hopes up.
“I just wanted to try and put your mind at rest. Vampires aren’t real. The number of times they would need to eat… drink… They would need a lot of blood. They would need to feed a ton. They wouldn’t be able to hide.”
“You’re sure?”
“Well, no, but that’s what makes sense to me. For them to walk around and have energy requires sustenance. A wholly liquid diet would suggest they need a fair amount. Basically, my point is they would leave a trail of bodies in their wake, and we only have this one. Jennifer. She was killed, yes, but not by a vampire.”
“A vampire wannabe,” I correct.
She hesitates. “That’s possible. Some people are sick and twisted. There have been, years ago and not here, cases in which guys have been found drinking blood from victims. It’s… I see all kinds of stuff, and the thought of that makes me nauseated. And I can handle a dead body without anything to block the smell, so that’s saying something. Drinking blood… I can’t even stand to drink milk!”
“Are you lactose intolerant?”
“No. I just think the idea of drinking something that came out of a cow’s udder is disgusting. Tell me that’s not disgusting.”
Put that way, yeah, I can see her point of view. But you get cream, butter, and ice cream from milk, so it’s not enough to turn me off of it completely.
“Sorry I can’t help you more than that,” Henrietta says. “I gotta say, though, you’ve got me thinking a lot more about vampires than ever before.”
“You think they might be real?” I’m shocked. I don’t think they’re real. The guys, they’re just wannabes.
They have to be just wannabes.
“Anything is possible,” she says quietly. “People will behead each other, set each other on fire, cut off fingers, dismemberment… It’s horrific. And if humans can be monsters like that, who’s to say that monsters don’t exist?”
“Would they drink a lot or a little? Maybe they only need a little to survive. How else could they remain under the radar?”
She laughs. Laughs! Maybe my theory is that stupid. My cheeks flush.
But then she asks, “Are you sure you aren’t a scientist? Because maybe you’re right.”
I burst out laughing myself. “I’m definitely not a scientist. I had to get a tutor to get through bio and chem in high school.”
“You don’t have to be good at certain subjects to be a scientist. You just have to question the world around you.”
“Oh. Then I’m the smartest scientist in the world.”
Henrietta claps her hands. The sound is a little muffled. Maybe she’s wearing gloves. “I like you. Why haven’t we talked more? Oh, right. Vice. I’m gonna have to talk to the lieutenant. When you get back, he needs to give serious consideration to you being moved to homicide.”
Right. Like he’ll take orders from the M.E.
“He’s my uncle. He might listen to me. He might not. I can’t promise anything, but we’ll see. You do want to be in homicide, right?”
“The gossip, for once, is right.”
Henrietta laughs again. She’s so easy to talk to. How can she be related to the lieutenant? Other than Travis, I’m not super close with a lot of my coworkers, but I can sense we can be friends.
“I do listen to gossip,” she confesses guiltily, “and then I’ll talk about it to my patients.”
“Your patients?” I’m confused.
“The bodies. It’s terrible of me, but I can’t help myself. It’s not easy, working by myself all the time. I have to have someone to talk to.”
“Aren’t you supposed to get an intern soon?” I hope I’m right. I can’t imagine being so eager to talk to someone that I would be willing to talk to dead bodies.
“Yeah. Thanks for reminding me. Something else to talk to Uncle about. Although I’ll mention it at a separate time from asking about you. Because… just trust me.”
“I do.”
“Good! Just don’t trust me with secrets.”
“Unless I want the dead to hear about them.”
“You got it!”
Almost optimistic for once, I can’t help grinning when we end the call a few minutes later.
My dream that night makes me wake up at two in the morning in a cold sweat. Anxious, almost terrified, I press my hand against my neck, fingers frantically tracing over every inch. The skin is smooth and unpunctured. I let out a sigh and try to calm my racing heart.
Vamps or vamp wannabes, they have to be stopped, for my own peace of mind.
Maybe they move on from city to city to prevent being discovered. And, maybe they haven’t moved on yet.
No way am I going to try and find vamps or vamps wannabes without any kind of weapon. I grab my aluminum bat, a Louisville Slugger. Quiet as a broken clock, I head out the back door so my “bodyguards” don’t see and can’t tail. I’ll never be able to convince them to tag along, and I can’t risk them ratting me out to the lieutenant. I’m in enough hot water that my pores have to be completely open.
Besides, there are patrols at night, so I should be as safe even without my guards.
The night is quiet, still.
The suburban area of the city is sleeping. I drive toward the busier section, the restaurants and bars since no shops are still open at this ungodly hour. People are laughing, talking. Couples are strolling arm-in-arm, and crowds of drunks are stumbling to the next bar. Everyone is having fun. Nothing seems out of place.
Maybe I’m just looking for trouble where there’s none to be had.
If the lieutenant knew what I was doing…
He won’t find out. I can relax. There’s nothing to be worried about.
Except up the street, I see a cop car. If I’m spotted, word could very well get back to him.
Luckily, there’s a spot to park. I parallel park perfectly if you ignore the fact that I bumped the curb. My nerves are that on edge. Man. I haven’t done that since I practiced for my driving test.
It feels kinda strange to be walking around Bethlehem holding a league regulation aluminum baseball bat when it’s football season.
One guy looks at me, blinks, and then grins. “Just need some barbed wire.”
I pat the top of the bat. “This isn’t Lucille. This is Fangs.”
His laugh is long and loud, and he gives me the once-over. I’m in jeans and a dark turtleneck, nothing fancy, but he seems to like what he sees. “You a big Walking Dead fan?”
“The comics.”
“Don’t you watch the show?”
“I watched until the second season. Killing Dale like that just ruined it for me. That’s so not his character arc.”
“You have got to keep watching! Jeffrey Dean Morgan kills it as Negan!”
“I did keep watching. What they did to Andrea’s character was even worse than what they did to Dale. They’ve butchered them. I’ll stick with the comics.”
“Wanna come back to my place and watch a few more episodes? I have all of the seasons and—”
“Sorry. Fangs and I have a date already.”
He holds up his hands. “Sorry. I just thought…”
“No worries. And don’t worry. I’m sure there are plenty of girls out there who prefer the show to the comics. I’m just not one of them.” Without waiting for him to respond, I continue on my way.
When Vamps Bite: A Mayhem of Magic World Story (Bedlam in Bethlehem Book 1) Page 7