Fate of the Vampire (13 page)

She took a deep breath before looking directly into the camera again. “Or maybe you're the person who kidnapped these two children. I’m sure you know what you did is wrong. And I’m sure on some level you are sorry. Please just let these children go. Or call the police anonymously and tell them where they are. I know that you’re probably in pain, but you are causing other people pain, too. You might think on some level that’s what you want to do, but I know, deep in your heart, you are a good person. Yes, you’ve done something that is very wrong, but that doesn’t erase all the good things you’ve done in your life. And now you have the chance to do the best thing you can possibly do by helping reunite these children with their families.” Grandma handed the photos back to the mothers. “Please,” she said to Mrs. Updike, “you go first. Tell them about your boy.”

I was so very proud of my grandmother, it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I’m sure it caused her some pain not to mention the vampires living down by the river, but that wouldn’t have done Liz and Don a bit of good. It would have only sensationalized things. She knew that, and she put her convictions aside to help.

By the time the reporters finished up and we drove over to Cup of Joe’s, there was already a note posted on the door reading “closed for a private event.” The place was crowded with the senior set. I grabbed an apron and scooted behind the counter to scrub my hands and get busy. Joe had decided on only simple orders. No triple shot decaf lattes with extra foam or whatever else people liked to imagine they needed to get through the day. The seniors were absolutely fine with a cup of coffee or tea. Joe set out some biscotti and various sweet rolls that he’d divided into smaller portions. A large plate of sugar cookies and a deli tray seemed to appear out of nowhere. Joe usually had a rule about no outside food, but this was an obvious exception.

Mom stuck by Grandma Gibson
, and I saw Fred lead his great grandfather over to be introduced. I wondered if that was a good thing. I wanted Grams to have some friends at the nursing home. She and Mr. Lighton obviously had things in common. But I didn’t want them to agitate each other about the Vanderlinds. I didn’t put it past my great grandmother to try to incite the seniors at the home to sharpen a few snooker cues and storm the castle.

As we drove up to Ashtabula Elder Care, it was obvious the news crews were gone. Both Colette and the story had been laid to rest. The whole thing would probably only come up again if the police somehow discovered her murderer, but that was unlikely. I was sure they assumed whoever did kill Colette was long ago dead and buried. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite sure about that, myself.

“I’m a bit tired today,” Grandma said as we walked into the facility. “I think I want to lie down.”

“I can help you, ma’am,” an orderly said, immediately snagging a wheelchair that was close at hand. “Your family can sign back in for you.”

“Thank you, young man,” she said, gratefully sinking into the chair as he held it steady for her. She looked up at us
, and there was a weariness etched across her face. “Thank you, Helen. Thank you, Lettie. I had a wonderful afternoon,” she said as the man began rolling her down the hall toward her room.

We both looked after her as she disappeared around a corner. “She must be very tired,” Mom commented. “She hasn’t called you by Colette’s name in a long time.”

Not too long ago, it really bothered me when my great grandmother called me by her dead sister’s name. But now, in a weird way, it made me feel good that I could provide an old lady some comfort. If her brain had somehow temporarily erased over her sister’s funeral and she was able to get a little sleep thinking I was Colette, then that was fine by me. I suddenly felt quite tired myself and was looking forward to going home and sitting on the couch in front of the television for a while.

It was only as we approached the front desk to sign Grams back in that I remembered I had put my borrowed black umbrella on the ground next to my chair and then never thought of it again. Mom had hers, of course
; it was just me who had been absentminded.

“Let’s just pay for it,” Mom said with a sigh when I confessed to the loss.

“Are you sure you don’t want to call the cemetery and check if it’s there?” the lady at the desk asked. “You’ll be charged eighty-five dollars plus tax.”

Mom’s mouth dropped open a little. “That’s a lot for an umbrella,” she managed to say.

The lady shrugged. “I guess getting the really nice ones was the only way to make the residents’ families responsible for not losing them.”

Both of the adults turned to look at me. It was as if they expected me to confess to being an irresponsible teenager or something. Instead
, I pulled out my cell phone, looked up the number for the cemetery, and dialed. The line was engaged. “It’s busy,” I said, hanging up. “Their website says the cemetery doesn’t close until six-thirty. Let’s just swing by. I’m sure whoever gathered the chairs found it. Don’t cemeteries have a lost and found?”

Mom shook her head slightly. “Sweetie, by the time we drive there, then come back here
, and then go home, that’ll be an extra two hours of driving around. And I have a ton of work I really need to get done.”

“Okay, fine,” I told her. “Let’s just go home
, and then I’ll grab my car. No big deal.”

Both adults made disapproving faces. Mom said, “It is a big deal when you know there’s a maniac snatching kids off the sidewalk.”

She had a point. I tried the number again. This time it went straight to voicemail. “Okay,” I said, re-evaluating my plan. “I’ll keep the doors locked, like I always do, and I won’t get out of my car for anything. I’ll just drive up to the gate and ask. If they don’t have it, the money can come out of my paycheck.”

I must have said the right thing because the lady behind the counter gave me a smile of approval. “That’s very responsible of you,” she said. She wrote something on a piece of paper. “Call this number once you know whether you have the umbrella or not. If you find it, you can bring it by in the next couple of days. That should at least save you some time. I’ll make a note in Lily’s file so you’re not charged.”

As we headed home, Mom kept frowning and making little noises in the back of her throat. “What is it?” I finally asked her after the seventh or eighth small grunt.

“I’m not sure I should let you go to the cemetery by yourself,” she admitted. “Me having a couple of extra hours to plug into work isn’t worth the risk of having my daughter kidnapped.”

“Mom,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes. “I will use every precaution you’ve ever taught me. I will not get out of the car, and if anyone so much as looks at me funny, I will run them over; I promise.”

This made Mom chuckle a little. “Okay,” she said, relenting. “I suppose I can’t keep you locked in the house. Just be as smart as possible.
This weirdo might even be someone we know.”

After we got home and I headed out in my own car, I had a brief flash of anxiety wondering if I was being stupid and actually risking my life for eight
y-five dollars.

But that had to be nonsense. We couldn’t be made prisoners in our own homes because of some sicko psycho. Besides, we didn’t even know for sure if Liz
’s and Don’s disappearances were connected.

I distracted myself from frightening thoughts of what had happened to my fellow classmates by fretting over Jessie’s Christmas present. Another entire shopping day
was gone, and still no purchase had been made. My cell phone tweeted at me, letting me know I had a text. I waited until I caught a red light before I fished it out of my bag. The message was from my boss. “Cyndi is on the schedule for tomorrow, and she just twisted her ankle. Jareth has the flu. I know this is last minute, but can you work a double?”

“No,” I said to myself with a groan. “I can’t work a double shift. No. No. No.” But I knew that I would. First of all, Joe had just done me a mega-favor that I was sure had cost him a bit of money. Second, he had given me a lot of time off already while my family was the temporary focus of the twenty-four
-hour news cycle. And third, smartphones aren’t cheap, and I couldn’t see getting Mr. Jessie Vanderlind anything that wasn’t top of the line. “Of course,” I texted back at the next light. “You’ve got me for as long as you need me.”

I realized with a shudder that I was going to have to get Jessie’s gift on the eve of Christmas Eve. I really hated the idea of fighting my way to the mall with all the other panicked shoppers, but it looked like I didn’t have a choice.

The sky was already dark as I pulled up to the cemetery at exactly ten to six. The tall iron gate was wide open, and the extra guards were gone. I could see a man in a staff uniform sitting in the small stone building that served as the information center. Pulling my VW up as close as I could to the door, I parked and went inside. “Hi,” I said, smiling at the man, who seemed a bit surprised to see me. “I was at the Colette Gibson funeral this afternoon, and I left a large black umbrella by my chair. Do you know if anyone turned it in?”

He was a very broad man with a bald head who looked like he did a lot of sitting. He shrugged his shoulders. “Nobody gave nothing to me.”

“Great,” I grumbled, letting my shoulders sag. Eighty-five bucks out the window. “Oh well. Thanks anyway.” I turned to head for the door. Not only did I owe the home eighty-five dollars, but I had wasted gas driving over to find out.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I’ll check around for you.” He picked up the phone and dialed. “This is gonna take a minute.”

My hopes were not up, but it didn’t hurt to check. As I waited, I strode over to the window. I could tell by the ripples in the glass that the panes were probably original from when the old stone building was first built. I wondered if they had electricity back then. It made the world outside look a bit blurry in spots. I could see the parking lot, but a couple of the few remaining cars appeared as smeary blobs. If I moved my head slightly, those cars came into focus and others appeared smudged like someone had dragged a thumb across a still-damp oil painting.

As I shifted about, playing with the optical illusion the old glass created, I was able to focus on one very distinct vehicle in the parking lot. It was an antique limousine, probably from the thirties or forties. I knew absolutely nothing about cars, but that was my guess. It had running boards and looked like a car that gangster
s would be hanging off of in an old black and white movie—if the gangsters happened to be very, very rich. There was only one family I knew of anywhere near Tiburon that could afford such a vehicle. I was hurrying for the door when the man at the desk called out to me, “For some reason, nobody cleaned up from the Gibson funeral yet. Your umbrella might still be there.” He gestured in the general direction of the graves. “You got to hurry up, though. We’re gonna close soon.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I said, dashing out the door. I headed straight for the fancy limousine. The windows in the back of the vehicle were all tinted. I could discern that the front seat was occupied. In fact, it looked very crowded, but I was willing to bet it was filled by only one man.

“Viggo?” I asked, tapping on the driver’s side window.

The door opened
and the tallest man imaginable hauled himself out of the car. “Good evening, Miss Aurora,” he said with his faint Eastern European accent. I thought he was pleased to see me, but sometimes it was hard to tell. “It is getting late. Vhat are you doing back at the cemetery?”

“I forgot an umbrella and it turned out to be an expensive umbrella, so I came back to try to find it.” He just nodded, his face inscrutable. After several seconds, with him adding nothing more to the conversation, I asked. “Why are you here?”

“Mr. Wanderlind wanted to come to the funeral, but as you know this was not possible. He asked me to load him in the car and then wake him when it was dark.

“Jessie’s here?” I asked, doing a bad job of keeping the eagerness out of my voice.

Viggo nodded again. “He has been here since it started to get dark. I think he feels wery bad that he could not attend the service.”

I had to force my legs not to immediately hurry in the direction of Colette’s grave. I was mad at Jessie for blowing me off, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to see him. “Does he
…” I stammered. “I mean, do you think he wants to be alone or … do you think maybe I could …” I waved a hand vaguely toward the headstones.

“I have never known Mr. Vanderlind to not want to be with you,” the giant said.

I felt my heart skip a beat, and a warm glow crept over my body. This was the effect even a secondhand comment about Jessie had on me. “Okay, then I guess I’d better go find him.”

“Let me escort you,” Viggo said in his deep, booming voice.

“That’s all right. You just relax,” I said. “I know where it is.”

“No,” Viggo said, with such conviction that it left no room for argument. “There is a killer loose in Tiburon. A man so sneaky that even Mr. Wanderlind can’t find him. I do not trust for any young person to be alone. Not now.” He started walking with me down along the path
that wound its way toward Colette’s grave, Viggo’s one long stride matching three of mine. “Mr. Jessie has not said anything to me, but it is my opinion that the man who is snatching the children must be a wampire.”

A shiver ran up my spine
, and I couldn’t help but glance around the cemetery. “Do you really think so?” I asked with a gulp.

Viggo gave me a solemn nod. “I believe it is the only way that there could be no clues and no evidence to follow. I think there must be a member of the undead who has moved into town to feast.”

“But why teenagers?” I asked. “Why target kids in high school?”

“I am sure their blood must taste better than that of a vagrant,” Viggo said in a matter-of-fact tone. “A young child does not have much blood. A teenager is almost fully grown, but the blood is still fresh. Maybe that is why.” And giving it some additional thought, he added in an offhanded way, “Or maybe it is someone with a grudge against the Wanderlinds who is trying to make trouble.”

I was definitely glad Viggo had decided to escort me across the graveyard. He had a lot of experience around vampires, so if he thought that was who was snatching teenagers off the street, then I tended to believe him. I had to wonder if Jessie harbored the same suspicions and was concealing them from me for some reason or if he was just in denial.

We turned off the path and started heading over a slight rise. I didn’t know if it was something natural in the land formation or some type of landscaping the cemetery had put in years ago for aesthetic appeal. When we reached the top of the rise, we could see the chairs and flowers still arranged around the Gibson family plot. “I shall vait here to give you some privacy,” Viggo said, stopping by a large marble urn.

“Thank you,” I said, giving his arm a quick squeeze before continuing across the lawn.

“My pleasure,” he said in return. “Shall I tell Gloria that you said hello?”

“Oh.” I felt a flash of embarrassment for not having asked about her. “Yes, please. How is she, by the way?”

“We are both very happy thanks to you, Miss Aurora. We can never thank you enough for vhat you did for us.”

“I’m glad it’s all working out,” I assured him. He’d thanked me so many times that to thank me again was really unnecessary. And it was Jessie, after all, who had bought out Gloria’s debt from the Csorbo family. I wasn’t sure that leaving one vampire family to work as a servant for another was much of an improvement, but at least Gloria got to be with the giant she loved.