"Oh. That's too bad. Because I thought that we...um...I...you know, the meeting...if you needed a ride or whatever.... Here's your juice."
She took the glass and sipped, and smiled at him. He didn't smile back, merely gulped his own juice thirstily.
He was nervous. She couldn't imagine why. She'd known him almost his entire life. He'd grown into a fine man, too. Tall...strong...responsible...if he was teased about being the quietest man in the state, what did she care? He was a good man. He took excellent care of his pets. As she got older, she realized the simple things really were the most important.
"It was kind of you to invite me inside," she said. And it was. Although she had been accepted by the townspeople years ago, she rarely received social invitations of any kind. She was sure that, deep down, the population of Embarrass, Minnesota, knew exactly what she was.
Accepting a vampire on her own terms and allowing her to take care of the pets and livestock was one thing. Inviting a creature of the night into your own home where you lived and slept and were vulnerable all the time was something else.
"I've, uh, been wanting...I mean, it's no big deal. You know, since you came out. To take care of Fred and all. It's, you know, the least I could do." He stared longingly at the bottle of vodka perched on top of the refrigerator. She wanted to suggest he pour himself a stiff shot, but felt that would be inappropriate.
"...the fourth such suicide in five months," the announcer said, and she jerked her head around. "Officials maintain that the deaths were self-inflicted, but the parents of the girls, particularly the latest victim, are not so sure."
Cut to a bereaved father, his eyes rimmed in red, wearing a yellow shirt that was jarringly bright for the circumstances. "Shawna would never have done something like that," he said hoarsely. "She was so happy. She was staring at the U of M next month. Friends...she had friends. She was popular, really popular. And...and she even had a new boyfriend. She never would have killed herself."
Cut back to the news announcer, who had been so heavily BOTOXed it was difficult for her to maintain the expression of vague sympathy. "Regardless, tonight in Babbitt, Minnesota, a town mourns."
Sophie set her empty glass down so hard, it broke on the table. Liam jumped, and Gladiator woke up. "I have to go," she said abruptly. "Thank you for the juice. I must..." She fumbled in her bag for her cell phone, and quickly punched in Dr. Hayward's number.
"What's the matter?" Liam asked, staring at the broken glass. "Are you okay?"
"I'm--yes, Matt? It's Sophie. I'm sorry to bother you this late, but I must leave...yes, right now. Tonight...yes. It's a...family matter...don't laugh, I'm quite serious. Yes...yes, if you please...no, I have no idea. I beg your pardon...yes, I appreciate that, Matt. Good night."
She punched the OFF button and dropped it in her purse, and turned to go. To her surprise, Liam's hand closed over her arm, just above the elbow. "What's going on?"
Despite her alarm, she was surprised; she couldn't recall him ever touching her. She gestured vaguely toward the television. "It's something I must look into. And...I have to find someone. It's nothing for you to--"
"Is it a vampire thing?"
She nearly fell down. It was one thing to instinctively understand the townspeople knew what she was and tolerated it. And another thing to discuss it obliquely with a child, such as Tommy. But for someone to come right out and ask her...she was so surprised she answered him. "Yes, it's a vampire thing. In fact, I believe a vampire is killing those girls."
"So, you're gonna stop it?"
"Well, I'm going to try. And really, I must go. I--"
"Well..." he said, letting go of her arm and walking over to a kitchen chair and picking up his denim jacket--even though it was August, it was quite chilly in the evenings. "I'll go with you."
"Really, Liam, you--"
"I guess I should be more, you know, specific," he said slowly, in his careful way. "I guess that sounded like a question. Like, can I go with you? But it wasn't. I'm going with you. Besides," he added reasonably, "you're gonna need someone who can look after you during the daytime."
She was so amazed by this turn of events, she let him escort her out to the truck.
4
THEY had each agreed to pack a bag and meet back at Liam's farm in half an hour. Sophie raced to her houseboat, packed quickly but carefully; she would, in all probability, be meeting her sovereign the next evening and must be dressed appropriately. Then she called Tommy to make sure he would feed her parakeets and clean the cage while she was gone. Finally, she hurried back to Liam's place...and skidded to a stop on the gravel driveway, amazed.
He had put a brand-new topper on the back of his red truck and was just now finishing spray-painting the windows black. She stepped around to the back and, careful not to get wet paint on her fingers, pulled the window up. There was a fully inflated air mattress lying the length of the truck bed, piled high with comfortable quilts and pillows.
She heard Liam coming around the side and turned just as he reached her. He jumped a little--most people were surprised at how good her hearing was--and said, "In case we need to move during the day. I can drive and you can sleep."
She chewed on that one for a minute, and finally said, "You seem...well-prepared."
"Well," he said shyly, "I'd always hoped I'd get to drive you around sometime. I just wanted to be ready."
He was so big, and his voice was so soft, it was hard to process the change. Weirdly, he looked more cheerful than she had ever seen him. All because he was driving into the dark unknown...with her? She wrinkled her forehead as she tried to process this, and he laughed. "I'm confused," she admitted.
"Aw, but you sure look cute when you're trying to figure somethin' out." He tossed the now-empty paint can into the garbage, then walked around to the front door. "Let's go, Sophie. You can tell me what's going on during the drive."
"What if I don't tell you anything?" she countered, clambering up into the passenger's seat--dratted thing needed a step ladder! "What if I keep it all a deep dark secret?"
He shrugged and started the truck. "Then we'll have a nice drive."
"Touche," she muttered.
"SO...you know I'm a vampire."
"Yup."
"You've always known."
"Mm--hmm."
"You and everybody else."
He looked over at her, surprised. "Well, I can't vouch for what everybody knows and doesn't know. I remember my daddy telling me you were good with animals and we should be nice to you so you didn't leave. That was when I was just a kid m'self." He chuckled. "Boy, you were the prettiest thing I ever saw."
She blushed. Tried to, anyway. Blood didn't rush anywhere in her body anymore. "That's very sweet."
"My point is, nobody ever out and out said, 'Dr. Sophie's a vampire.' But nobody ever got out the cross and pitchforks, either."
"Thank goodness! She turned, putting her arm across the back of the seat, the better to face his profile. "Weren't you afraid?"
"Heck, no!" He looked surprised. "Just afraid you'd leave. We all knew you didn't...I mean, that you hadn't come from Embarrass. Or even Minnesota. Or even America. We were afraid you'd go back. To where you came from, you know? In...how many years? In all that time, you never once griped about late nights or house calls. Didn't mind working holidays. Truth was, we were scared to let you go."
"That's so...sweet." So they liked her for her work ethic, eh? Well, what did she expect?
"Bunch of outsiders came to build a Catholic church up here," he mused. "Course, Reverend Reed put a stop to that right quick. We didn't know if you could stay, if--"
"So you are telling me, in this entire town, no one, no one at all, had a problem with the resident veterinarian being a vampire?" Too good to be true! There had to be a...what was the colloquialism? A trap? No. A catch.
"Well, sure." He glanced at her, then back at the road. "The ones who had a problem moved away."
"Oh." She sat back, fee
ling foolish. Of course, several families had moved away in the last forty years. But when no one came down to her houseboat with a teapot full of holy water, she had put it out of her mind. And her dear friend Ed had always kept his ear to the ground. He would have warned her if the town's mood had turned ugly. "Yes, I can see that."
"So, there you go," he said comfortably.
"There I go," she parroted. "Do you know where we're going?"
"I expect we're heading down to Tyler Falls."
She blinked. "Yes. That's right. I must know. How did--"
"That news story, the one that got your panties in a bunch. Gal who killed herself was from Tyler Falls."
"They aren't killing themselves," she snapped.
"All right, keep your shirt on. What, you guess another vampire is doing it?"
"Liam, has anyone ever told you, you're extremely astute?"
He shrugged.
"Well, you're right. It's not the girls. What I think is, a vampire is making them fall in love, then he no doubt breaks up with them in some brutal fashion, then enjoys their torment and their eventual deaths. Remember, how the girl's father told the news she had a new boyfriend? I'm willing to bet they all had new boyfriends. Bastard," she added in a mutter.
"So, they are killing themselves."
"But they wouldn't have, if not for him. Bastard," she said again.
"So, we find him. And stop his clock."
"One thing at a time. First we talk to the girls' fathers. I'm suspicious, but I would like to talk to at least one of the family members. Then we tell the queen what we know."
"Okay." Pause. "The queen?"
"Oh, you won't be there," she assured him. "You can just drop me off when we get to Minneapolis."
"Hell with that," he said.
"Liam..."
"Nope."
She didn't reply, but figured that could be dealt with when the time came.
5
"NO," the woman in the bathrobe said. She was probably in her late forties, but looked like she was on this side of sixty. Poor thing, Liam thought. Losin' her kid, and now strangers knocking on her door in the middle of the night. "I told you. No more reporters."
She started to swing the door closed, but quick as thought, Sophie brought her arm up and stopped her, her palm slamming into the glass pane so hard, Liam was afraid it would break. "I beg your pardon," she said in her gorgeous accent, "but we do insist. We will not take up much of your time." She smiled big--Liam almost got dizzy, she smiled so big--and looked dead into the woman's eyes. "And a mother knows things, yes? A mother always knows things."
As if in a trance, the woman stepped back, leaving the door open. Sophie walked right in, bold as you'd want, and Liam followed her. He noticed that though the woman was staring at Sophie with a rapt expression, she kept her hands up on the neckline of her powder blue robe. Keeping it closed. Hum.
"It's so good of you to see us," Sophie said sweetly, soothingly. "And we won't be a minute. Where is your husband?"
"Asleep. He took three Ambiens and he sleeps all the time."
"Of course. And soon you will be sleeping as well. We just want to hear about Shawna's boyfriend."
"No good," Shawna's mother said, shaking her auburn head, which was probably neat and pretty most times, but tonight it looked like a dirty mop. "He was no good."
"Because he was never around, correct?"
"Yuh."
"You asked and asked to meet him. Told her to invite him to dinner many times."
"He never came."
"That's right, he never ever did, and you never saw him during the day, did you?"
"He was in school," Sophie's mother said, fiddling with the neckline of her robe. Liam had the impression she was trying to break Sophie's gaze, but couldn't quite do it. "He was busy. She understood. But not me. If he really cared for her, he would have met us. He would..." She sighed, a dreadful, lost sound.
Liam's heart was almost breaking, listening to that. To distract himself, he looked around the small ranch house. Pictures of Shawna all over the place. He jerked his gaze elsewhere, finally settling on Sophie, who was holding the mother's hands with both of her small ones. Her dark eyes were intent and sad at the same time.
He couldn't believe the night's events so far, and felt ashamed that he was so happy in the middle of so much shit and sorrow. He'd finally screwed up his courage...and now they were after a bad guy together. She'd let him come along; shit, she was letting him drive her. He was afraid he'd wake up any minute. It was awful being in the dead girl's house, but it would have been more awful to watch Sophie leave.
"Then he quit calling, yes?" Sophie was still pulling information out of the dead girl's mom, as carefully and gently as he'd get a kitten out of the lilac bushes behind his place. "And she couldn't find him? To talk to him, find out what was wrong?"
"It was worse than that. He said she was a child, a little girl. He said he needed a woman. A grown-up woman. He said he hadn't liked her for a while, he was just..." Another dreadful sigh. "Playing."
"And Shawna couldn't take that, yes? She tried to hide it from you, but..."
"A mother always knows. Her dad thought...you know, high school stuff..."
"That she would get over it."
"But she couldn't. He was everything. He was..." Shawna's mother's fingers were fiddling faster. "Her dark sweetheart. Her everything. He was going to be a doctor. He was pre med. That's how they met. And..."
"And she waited until you were gone," Sophie prompted gently.
"And then we came home...and she had...but I think he came back. I think he came back and hurt her by saying more bad things to her. Hurt her until she did that. Hurt her until he got what he wanted."
"As a matter of fact," Sophie said, "so do I. And there's just one more thing...where is this awful creature staying? Did Shawna tell you?"
"He's at the B and B. How many college students do you know who stay at a B and B? He was no good."
"I agree totally. Madam, you will not remember this conversation."
"No," she agreed, "I won't remember it."
"And you'll go to your bed, and find solace with your darling husband. And you'll sleep and sleep."
"I'll sleep and sleep," she agreed, "for the first time since Shawna left."
"Yes. And tomorrow, you will still grieve, but you will start to imagine that perhaps someday, there will be something to live for again. It won't seem like a far-off impossibility."
"Someday there might be something to live for. Lots of kids need good homes." Then she added doubtfully, "But I doubt it. Shawna's death is too big. It takes over everything."
"Yes, but not forever. Go to bed, now, madam." Sophie stood on her toes and kissed the older woman on the cheek. "Shawna sees you."
The woman turned around without another word and shuffled toward the back of the house.
Sophie burst into tears, startling Liam. He put a clumsy arm around her and she leaned against him. She smelled like sweet, fresh straw. "Oh, the poor thing," she wept. "Did you see the pictures? Their only girl, dead. And for what?"
"I guess," he said slowly, "for a mean trick."
Sophie stopped crying at once--though there had been no tears, just a kind of hoarse sobbing--and her eyes took on a hard shine he had never seen before. It was dumb, but he almost felt like taking a step back from her. "That's right, Liam. That's just right. A mean trick. And we're going to stop his clock. We're going to gut him like a trout and take his head and bury it with the garlic bulbs. That's what we're going to do."
"All right," he replied. "Sounds like a good deal. But I gotta gas up the truck first."
She smiled at that, as he had meant for her to do. "Fair enough. Let's leave this place. Can we be in Minneapolis before dawn?"
"You bet."
She tucked her small hand into his and followed him back to the truck.
6
"I'M sorry," the reservations clerk at the Radisson told them. "The only r
ooms we have left have a king-sized bed in them. Non-smoking," he added helpfully.
"That will be fine," Sophie replied. Liam was his usual expressionless self, but she assumed he wouldn't mind, either. In fact, the thought of sharing a bed with him caused a pleasant tingle low in her stomach, usually the sort of tingle caused by strolling through a blood bank. If Liam did mind, she could always sleep under the bed. Or in the closet. "Do you take American Express?"
When the clerk, a short man with a freckled, egg-shaped, shaved head, turned away to run the card, Liam muttered, "You got a credit card?"
"You know all those 'Cardholder for ten years,' 'Cardholder for twenty years' ads?" she whispered back.
"Don't even tell me."
"Well, I've had one for a long time."
He snickered and, when the clerk came back, said, "Can we get a window facing west?"
The clerk blinked. "Oh, sure."
"Got to take care of my skin," Liam said, totally straight-faced. Sophie almost laughed; Liam looked like a farmer, which was to say he was deeply tanned, with wrinkles around his eyes and hands like leather blocks. He was the SPF association's nightmare.
"Oh, really," Sophie said, rolling her eyes a minute later when they were in the elevator.
"Well, didn't think it was too good to tell him the truth."
"Hotel employees have heard it all. He likely wouldn't have batted an eye."
Liam grunted and glanced down at the key card, which looked almost tiny in his large, capable hand. "We'll draw the drapes, should do the trick, yeah?"
"Yes."
"Or you can sleep with your whole self under the covers."
She almost laughed at the mental image of her deeply unconscious self swaddled in covers deep in the middle of a king-sized hotel bed. "I think closing the curtains will be fine." She followed him out of the elevator and down the hall. "But you don't...ah...I needn't...I don't have to sleep in the bed. With you."
He looked over his shoulder at her, surprised. "Well, where the hell you supposed to sleep? The tub?"
"I was only suggesting--you've been so kind--I do not wish to make you ill at ease."
"The clams we had will do that all by themselves."