I rapped gently and, when there was no response, pushed on the door. It wheezed open on pneumatic hinges, and I could see an old lady sitting on the edge of the far bed.
She smiled when she saw us, her gums looking just like Baby Jon's.
"Uh, hi," I said, creeping in like a thief, Jessica right behind me. "I'm Betsy. This is Jessica. "
She cupped a hand over one ear. She looked like just about every old person in Minnesota I'd ever seen, which was to say white-haired, blue-eyed, skinny, and wrinkly. She was wearing those old-lady panty hose that rolled to the knees and a faded yellow housecoat, buttoned to her neck.
"Hmm?" she asked.
"I said. . . " I inched closer. The door sighed shut behind us. Thank goodness. A scrap of privacy. "I'm Betsy, and this is Jessica. "
"Hmm?"
Oh, great. I leaned over until we were kissing distance. She smelled strongly of apple juice. It brought back awful memories of my candy-striper days. And God knew what I smelled like. Probably the Angel of Death. "Annie sent me!" I bawled. "She said to tell you-!"
She leaned closer. Now we were a fraction of an inch away from actually kissing. "Hmm?"
"Annie said to tell you there never was a map!" I screamed, ignoring Jessica's giggles. Great! Maybe some of the nurses on the first floor hadn't heard the first part of this extremely private conversation. "But there was an account, and here's all the info you need to get into it!" I handed her a folded piece of paper.
"No se. . . " She shook her head. "No se, no se. "
"Oh, for fuck's sake. " I resisted the urge to kick the bed through the window. "Annie never mentioned this. "
Jessica was actually lying on the other bed, holding her stomach, in hysterics. "Louder, louder! No se!"
"Will you get off your ass and help me, please?"
"I took French. You know that. "
"Thanks for a big fat goose egg of nothing. You are, without a doubt, the worst sidekick in the history of duos. Now what?"
Luckily, the old lady-gad, I had to remember she was a person, she had a name (Emma Pearson)-she wasn't "the old lady. " Anyway, while I was bitching at Jessica, Emma had unfolded the piece of paper I'd handed her, and her face broke into a huge toothless smile. She said something excitedly in Spanish-I'd only had a year of it in high school and all I remembered was dondeesta el bano?-and clutched my hand.
"Oh, gracias," she said. "Muchasnuchas gracias. I am thanking you so much. Thank you. "
"Uh. . . de nada. Oh, I almost forgot. . . Annie is very, very sorry she stole the money, and she hopes you have a lot of fun with it. She's. . . uh, lo siento. Annie esmuy muy lo siento para . . . uh . . . para stealing? El dinero?"
Emma nodded, still smiling. I prayed she had the faintest idea what I was talking about. If she didn't, Annie'd be paying me another little visit.
Then we just looked at each other. To break the newly awkward silence, I asked, "Dondeesta el bano?"
She gave complicated directions, which was okay because I didn't have to go anyway, and we left after much waving and shouted good-byes.
"She didn't appear to get a word of that," Jessica observed, pulling her checkbook out of her purse, groping for a pen, and scribbling something. "But she seemed to know about the account. "
"Maybe she reads more English than she speaks. Or maybe she understands the words First National Bank and her own name. "
"Maybe. " She ripped off the check-I saw it was for $50,000-and casually dropped it into the suggestion box on our way back to the car. "This place really needs new wallpaper. Who picked mucous green?"
"You're asking me? This place is like my worst nightmare. Look at all these poor guys. Shuffling around and just pretty much waiting to die. "
"There were some people in the game room," Jess said defensively. "They looked like they were having fun putting the big puzzle together. "
"Please. "
"Okay, it sucks. You happy now? I wouldn't want to end up here, I admit it. "
"A problem you'll never have, honeybunch. "
"Well, that's true. And neither will you. "
I cheered up a little. No, one thing that was most definitely not in my future was spending my last days scuffing along in Wal-Mart slippers and eating applesauce.
"You remember that time you volunteered at Burnsville Manor in high school, and you only lasted a day because that old guy punched you in the knee when you tried to make him finish his-"
"Let's stop talking for a while," I suggested, and the cow had the giggles all the way back to the mansion. Chapter 10
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she gasped, ten minutes later. I couldn't believe she was still hee-hawing about ancient history. "It's just, you went there with such high moral intentions, and you didn't even last a single shift. And you limped for a week!"
"Rich people should never criticize the working class," I snapped.
"Hey, I work fifty hours a week at The Foot. " Dammit, she was right. It had always been something of a mystery to me why she bothered. She pretended like the nonprofit was a tax shelter and she needed the break every April 15, but we all knew it was a lie. Bottom line was, she liked going there, liked seeing her dad's money teach welfare moms how to program computers and get good jobs.
She ran the place with an ever-shifting staff, and me. I did the books when she was between office managers. I didn't much mind the work, but I didn't live and breathe it the way Jess did.
"She seemed like a nice lady. "
"Jess! She didn't say five words to us the whole time. She could be a drooling psychopath for all we know. "
"Do you think some of the ghosts are bad guys? And ask you to help other bad guys?"
"Great. Because I didn't have enough awful things to contemplate. " Horrible thought! One I immediately shoved out of my head.
"Sorry. It was just an idea. Do you think there are any old psychopaths?"
"Sure. They're not all killers, you know. It's a psych problem, like schizophrenia. It's not just the property of thirty-somethings. The ones who don't get caught prob'ly get old like any of us. "
"I read somewhere that there aren't nearly as many psychopaths-sociopaths?-out there as the media want us to think. Something like one tenth of one percent of the population is a deviant sociopath. "
"Well, good. Like the vampires aren't bad enough. They all seem like psychos to me. "
"Tough one to argue," she admitted.
"You're right, though! It seems like every book, movie, and made-for-TV miniseries is about a brave young woman-always a shrink or an FBI agent-tracking down a serial killer who has mysteriously targeted her. Or her family. Or her dog. And she, along with the brave hero, must alone face the threat of the drooling nutjob-"
"Taking Lives wasn't so bad. "
"Oh my God!" I shrieked, nearly driving into a stop sign. "Worst movie ever! I almost gave up on Angelina Jolie after that one. "
"Too cerebral?"
"Oh, yeah, real cerebral. Jolie has sex with a guy who may or may not be the villain. " Hmm, that didn't sound like anybody I knew, right? Argh. I shoved that thought into the tiny corner of my brain where I kept all bad thoughts: Prada going out of business, Sinclair coming to his senses and leaving me, me leaving him, the Ant moving in. "Jess, I love you, but-"
"Here we go. "
"-you keep your taste in movies up your ass. I'm sorry, but it's true. "
"Says the woman who bought Blade IV on DVD. "
"That was research!"
"Oh, research my big black ass. You've got a thing for Wesley Snipes. "
"First of all, what ass? And second, do not. " I had pulled into our driveway, and we were just sitting in my Stratus, arguing, when I noticed that in addition to Jon's truck, there was a navy blue Ford Escort in my driveway.
Cop.
Detective Nick Berry, to be exact. I didn't have to see all the Milky Way bars on the passenger sid
e floor to know, either. He'd had the same car ever since I'd known him.
"What's he doing here?" Jess asked.
I brought my head down so fast on the steering wheel, the car honked. "What now?" I groaned.
"Hmm, someone else who's desperately in love with you stopping by unannounced," Jessica said with annoying cheer. "Must be Tuesday. "
"This is a serious problem. "
"Oh, will you spare me please? 'I'm Betsy and I'm an eternally beautiful and young queen with the coolest guy in the universe boning me every night, and whenever he gets tired, other guys are lining up to take his place. Waaaaaah!' "
I gave her The Look.
"Sometimes," she admitted, "it's hard to empathize with your problems. Like they weren't trampling over me to get to you when you were alive. "
"That's not true!" I said, shocked.
"What's more irritating-being invisible, or you not having a clue about your effect on men?"
"Jess, stop it. The last word I'd pick to describe you is invisible. You've dated senators, for God's sake. "
She dismissed the Democrat with the great hair with a wave of her newly manicured hand. "Fortune hunter. "
"Well, that one guy, no kidding. Okay, maybe there were three or four. But I'm just saying, having these guys popping up is a serious problem. And remember-half the time it isn't even me, it's my weird vampire mojo that's bringing them in. Like they say, just because they don't seem like problems doesn't mean they really aren't. Problems, I mean. For example, I'd like to have your tax troubles-"
"No, you wouldn't. "
"Okay, I wouldn't. But I'm just saying. There are things going on in your life that I wish were going on in mine. Like lunch. Chewing. Sunrises. "
"I'm usually in bed by then," she confessed.
"Well, you shouldn't be. Enjoy them while you can. " It wasn't like me to be so serious about any particular subject, and I think she got it, because she just nodded and didn't make with the jokes.
"Before I get caught up in whatever fresh hell this is, please don't let me forget I'm supposed to baby-sit Baby Jon tomorrow night. "
"Jon the Bee, Baby Jon the baby. Like that's not confusing. And don't forget your dad, John the Eternally Annoying. "
"Don't give me anything new to worry about, I'm begging you. "
"Me? It's not me, honey. "
I got out to face the new problem. Maybe Nick was only there to break up my wedding. Sad when that was the cheerful thought I clung to. Chapter 11
"I'm the local liaison for the Driveway Killer task force," Nick explained, fussing with his coffee and finally putting it down on the coffee table in front of him.
"Driveway Killer?"
"The one who's yanking these poor women right out of their own driveways, strangling them, and then dumping the nude bodies in public parking lots?"
"Oh, that Driveway Killer. " It was embarrassing to admit, but I never watched the news and I never read the paper. Not before I died, not after. (Well, I skimmed the birth announcements, but only since the Ant's eighth month, and never since Baby Jon came squalling into the world. ) I mean, seriously. Why bother? It was never, ever anything good. Even in Minnesota, which had a pretty low crime rate, even here they only wanted to talk about the bad. Only the bad. If I wanted to get depressed, I'd read an Oprah pick.
I mean, I never even checked the weather reports anymore. And I sure as shit didn't watch TV; I was a DVD girl.
So while Nick was looking amazed that I could live in the same state with rampant media coverage (was there any other kind?) of a killer, Jessica was just nodding. My massive ignorance of current events was nothing new to her.
"Yeah, I've read about him. "
"Who hasn't?" I asked gamely.
They ignored me, which I deserved. "And you're on the task force?"
"Yeah. "
"To catch a serial killer. "
"Yeah. "
She tried to muffle it, but the laugh escaped anyway. I knew why-what had we just been talking about ten minutes ago? It was ludicrous.
But not to Nick, who was blinking fast and, I could tell, about to ask Jessica just what the hell her problem was. And never mind that she was the richest person in the state.
"It's late," I said. "She's tired. We're all tired. Long day. "
"Uh. . . yeah. " He checked his watch. "After ten already. "
"I'm so sorry," Jessica said quickly. "I wasn't laughing at you, and I wasn't laughing at those poor girls. "
"No," Nick lied, "I didn't think so. " He turned back to me. "Anyway, Betsy, I'm sorry about it being so late, but I know about the hours you've been keeping lately, so I took a chance and swung by. "
"You're welcome anytime, Detective," Sinclair said from the doorway.
Nick, in the act of picking up his cup, spilled his coffee. . . just a bit, but enough to wreck last month's issue of Lucky. I sure couldn't blame him; Sinclair was about as noisy as a dead cat.
"Jesus! You scared me. Which is not something we hotshot Minneapolis detectives like to admit," he joked, trying to cover the fact that his pulse had gone from ba-DUMP. . . ba-DUMP. . . ba-dump to BADUMP BA-DUMP BADUMP BADUMP!
"I apologize. It's Nicholas Berry, right?"
"Nick. Yeah. "
Jessica gave me a look while they shook hands and sized up each other. Nick was built like a swimmer-lanky, with lean lines and big feet. His hair was bleached by the sun-he liked to save up and go diving on Little Cayman-and he had adorable laugh lines in the corners of his eyes.
Sinclair was broader and taller, and much older, but Nick had a gun, not to mention youth on his side. So you never knew.
The problem with the polite hand-shaking and "How do you do's" was that they had met before. In fact, Nick had come to me right after I'd risen as a vampire. In a moment of extreme weakness, I'd gotten (nearly) naked with him and it had sort of driven him out of his mind.
Sinclair had had to step in and make things right, and had used his vampire mojo to make Nick forget everything about that night. That I was dead, that Nick and I had seen each other (almost) naked, that he'd been a wreck when I wouldn't bite him again, wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep. Everything.
The problem was (one of the problems), Nick kept popping back into my life at the weirdest times. Tina suspected he knew more than he was telling. And I honestly didn't know either way. But it wasn't exactly something we could come out and ask him.
So we sat around and pretended he didn't know we were vampires. And we didn't know if we were all pretending. Usually Sinclair and Tina could smell a lie from a hundred miles away, but Nick was a cop. He lied for a living.
"I'm Betsy's fiance," Sinclair was explaining. "Eric Sinclair. "
"Oh. " Nick's face fell a bit, and Jessica shot me another look. I felt like throwing my tea in my face, just for an actual physical problem.
"We're getting married on July 4th. "
"September 15th," I said quickly.
"As I said," Sinclair continued smoothly, "September 15. We do hope you can join us. "
"Uh, thanks. I'll-thanks. " He looked down at his hands for a minute and then back at me. "Anyway. The reason I stopped by. This killer-he's targeting your type. "
"He is?" I was beyond appalled. A type? Gross!
"Tall blondes," Sinclair said. "With blue or green eyes. " When we all looked at him, he said, "Some of us read the paper. "
"Not that they're hard to come by in Minnesota," Nick added, "and maybe it's just a, you know, coincidence of geographical type, but still. "
"What does VICAP say about it?" Sinclair asked.
Nick shrugged. "The feds won't catch this guy, no matter how many forms we feed into the computer. He'll get nailed by good old-fashioned cops. "
I hoped Vicap, whoever he was, didn't hear Nick running down the FBI. Besides, that's what they did, right? Catch psychos? Not that I doubted Nick's abili
ty. But I was glad he had help on this one. And really really glad I wasn't involved.
"And I just wanted to tell you to watch your ass," Nick was saying to, uh-oh, me. Time to tune back in. "Don't get out of the car until you've got your keys organized. Don't linger in the driveway, messing with groceries and stuff. Watch the driveway. Check the hedges when you pull in. This guy, I'm sure he's snatching them while they're distracted. They don't even have time to hit the horn. Half the time, there were people in the house, waiting for her. So be alert. Pay attention. "
"Okay, Nick," I said obediently. It was, of course, ridiculous and sweet at the same time. The last thing I had to worry about was a serial killer. But it was adorable that he'd come by to give me a heads-up.
Unless he was fucking with us because he knew. . .
No, no. That was the way Sinclair looked at the world, like it was a big ball of mean out to get him. I swore that no matter how old I got, I wouldn't always assume the worst of people. I'd try, anyway.
"Are there any leads?"
"Just between us?"
"Well, us and the Pioneer Press. "
He didn't smile at my sucky joke. "We've got shit. No witnesses, nobody even out walking his dog. He's really lucky, the asswipe. "
"You'll get him," I said helpfully. Rah rah, the cops!
"Yeah, we will, unless he moves on. But he's going to have to slip up first. " Nick's laugh lines suddenly doubled, and he stared at the stained magazine on the table. "And for him to slip up. . . "
"You'll get him," I said again. "And it was, I have to say, it was so nice of you to stop by. I appreciate the warning, and I'll be careful. "
"Yes," Sinclair said, walking to the doorway in an obvious gesture for Nick to leave. Awkward! "It was very kind of you to stop by and warn my fiancee. I can assure you I'll look after her very carefully. "
Now, if anybody else in the world said that, it'd seem loving and concerned. When Sinclair said it, it sounded vaguely like a threat. Certainly it was weird enough for Nick to give him the 'raised-eyebrows tough-cop' look.
Then he got up (reluctantly, it seemed to me) and said, "You just moved to the area, right, Mr. Sinclair?"
"No," Eric replied. I noticed he didn't ask Nick to call him Eric. But then, except for my roomies, nobody ever did. "I've been here a long time. "