Fate of the Vampire (8 page)

Jessie pressed his lips together. “At least you’d be safe,” he pointed out.

“But there wouldn’t be this,” I said, putting my arms around him and tilting my head back. When our lips touched, I could feel an electric charge through my entire body.

When we finally pulled apart, Jessie gave me a look that was sheer passion. I knew he wasn’t still thinking about foisting me off on a non-vampire so I could have a normal life.

Gathering me in his arms like I weighed no more than a dried leaf, Jessie took a few steps toward the bed. It was insane. We were in my mother’s room and she was in the house. I knew it was wrong, but my body was begging me not to stop him.

There was a knock at the door. “Everything going al
l right in there?” Mom asked.

“Yes,” I said, answering all too quickly. “Just shaking the ink cartridge. We’re almost done.”

Jessie let out a quiet chuckle and then whispered to me, “Shaking the ink cartridge. Is that what you call it?”

“Missing Corpse a College Prank,” the headline of the Tiburon Sentinel announced the next day. The article began with “The body of Colette Gibson was found back in the Tiburon Morgue early this morning with a letter of explanation. The note read, ‘I thought this would be something funny to do as a fraternity prank, but now I realize that it was very wrong and I apologize. Please accept this money to help with the burial of this poor lady. Taking her was a sick thing to do and I feel really bad.’ With the note was an envelope containing five thousand dollars in cash.” The rest of the article went on to review Colette’s history and recent discovery. Someone who worked in the morgue must have tipped off the local paper so they could get the story first before any of the national reporters.

When I typed the note, I made sure to put on some gloves first. I even pulled a piece of paper from the center of the stack for printing so that there was no chance there were any fingerprints on it. I wasn’t sure if prints could be detected on paper, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Jessie insisted on the part about the money. He figured it was a way to get to help pay for the burial without it being known that it came from him. He believed, and I assumed correctly, that Grandma Gibson would refuse any help from the Vanderlind family. But Grandma Gibson had no money
, and Mom couldn’t afford a headstone or anything. I was grateful that Jessie insisted upon the money. At least this way, Colette would have a nice resting place. She deserved that.

Mom had to take off early in the morning for a mandatory meeting. She worked way too hard for way too little money, but she helped girls who had survived trauma
, and it was a pretty damn important job. I was proud of her, so I didn’t mind that we couldn’t afford to buy a lot of things. It seemed stupid that being in social work meant not getting paid well, but for whatever reason, helping others always seemed to mean making a personal sacrifice. I wasn’t sure why.

I was just grabbing some toast before school when the phone rang. I snatched it up, hoping it wasn’t something to do with Colette. Our phone number was unlisted
, and we had been mercifully spared too many harassing phone calls. “Hello?”

“Is this Aurora?” a woman asked
. Her voice was shaky.

I knew it was stupid to give people information over the phone, especially without knowing who they were
, so I said, “Who’s calling, please?”

“This is Betty Thurman. Liz’s mom,” was the reply.

“Hi, Mrs. Thurman. This is Aurora,” I said immediately.

“Aurora, sweetie, is your mom home?” She sniffed
, and I could tell she was fighting back tears.

“No,” I told her. “I’m sorry. She had to leave early for some big meeting. Can I give her a message
, or is there something I can do to help?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t ask you, sweetie. I was really hoping to talk to your mom.”

“Go ahead and ask me,” I told her, glancing at the clock. I still had a few minutes before I positively had to leave for school. “I can always talk to my mom about it when she’s free at work.”

I could hear Mrs. Thur
man’s breathing; it sounded choked and heavy. “Well,” she began. “I’m sure you probably know that Liz is missing.” I wanted to tell her that I knew and I was sorry, but I didn’t want to interrupt. I felt like at any moment she would shatter. “And I can’t get the police to take things seriously. They keep saying she probably ran away, but Liz wouldn’t do that to me. She might have been mad at her dad, but she wouldn’t go days and days without calling me.”

“Okay,” was all I could think to say. “I believe you.”

“I know your family hasn’t been having an easy time of it lately, but I was wondering …” She took a ragged breath, trying to keep it together. “Could you or your mom read something in front of the reporters for me? I know you haven’t done any interviews about your grandmother, but this is my only chance to reach people about Liz.”

“Of course
, I’ll read something for you,” I told her. “Do you want to email it to me, or do you want me to come by the house?” Screw being late for school; I had to help if I could.

As I was giving Mrs. Thur
man my email address, the dam broke for her and she started sobbing. I couldn’t tell if she had it together enough to write down my address correctly, but a few minutes later I got an email with an attachment. Fortunately, we still had enough ink, so I quickly printed it out before heading to school.

There were a couple of news vans outside our house, but I thought there would probably be more prowling around school. When I stopped for red lights, I quickly scanned what Liz’s mom had written. She’d also sent over a photo of Liz. I was grateful we had enough colored ink in the printer for me to print it up.

I pulled into the Tiburon High School lot the same time as Fred. “Hey,” he said, getting out of his car. “Better hustle or we’re going to be late.”

“Yeah, uh
… You go ahead,” I told him, eyeballing the horde of reporters standing just off school grounds.

Fred glanced in their direction and made a face. “Just ignore them,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder. “In another couple of days
, they will all be gone.”

“Actually, I’m going to go talk to them,” I said, although I did appreciate his support.

“What?” Fred was a little incredulous. “I thought you were trying to get everyone to leave your grandma alone.”

“I am,” I assured him. “But Liz’s mom called and asked me to read this.” I waved her statement in the air. “She’s hoping if she gets the word out someone might know what happened to Liz.”

“Oh,” Fred said very quietly. He looked down at his shoes for a moment. Then, with his arm still firmly around me, he changed the direction of his steps, heading toward the news piranhas. “Okay, fine. Let’s get this over with.”

I am not a big fan of public speaking. I hate even giving a presentation at school. But that was nothing compared to facing a pack of hungry reporters. I was so grateful for Fred’s help. I felt really unnerved.

The reporters started rustling around like excited hens as we approached. All cameras were immediately trained upon us. Fred gave my shoulder a squeeze, and then I stepped forward, clearing my throat. “I’d like to read a statement,” I said, before they could all start shouting questions at me. “I’m Aurora Keys,” I began. “Lillian Gibson is my great grandmother.” I felt I adequately had their attention, so I continued. “Colette Gibson’s body has been anonymously returned to the morgue. It turned out it was just a prank. A sick prank, but what are you going to do? At least whoever took her had the decency to return her, and now we can give her a proper burial.” That first part was mostly me. I knew Mrs. Thurman was tunnel focused on finding her daughter, but I thought I had to give the news people a little of what they wanted so they would keep filming. “Colette Gibson disappeared eighty years ago, and her body was only recently found. For decades, her family had to live with the pain of not knowing what happened to her.” And then I added of my own accord, “I speak for my great grandmother when I say it is a special kind of hell to have a missing loved one.” Returning to the script, I read, “And now another girl from our town is missing.” I held up the photo of Liz. “On Sunday evening, Liz Thurman left her house on foot. She was wearing jeans, a red sweater, and a brown coat with faux fur trim. She said she was heading for the bus station, but that was the last that anyone heard from her. There is a ten-thousand-dollar reward for any information that leads to the discovery of Liz Thurman. Please, her family is frantic. If you know anything, please contact the Tiburon, Ohio, police department.” That was the end of what Mrs. Thurman had written, but for some reason I felt compelled to add, “Liz, if you can hear this, your family loves you very much, and they are doing everything they can to find you.” That was all I had to say, but the cameras kept rolling. “Okay, thanks,” I mumbled. “That’s it.”

“Wow,” said Fred as we headed into the school. “You did great,” he told me. “I wasn’t really thinking about it too much before, but I’m really kind of worried for Liz.”

“Yeah, me too,” I had to admit. “It’s not looking good.”

We did not get in trouble for being tardy. I showed the teacher patrolling the hall the statement and explained what I had just done, and we were allowed to simply head to our homerooms. I guess some kids must have seen the reporters filming, or maybe Fred told a few friends because within an hour, everyone in the school knew about it. I was already tired of being the center of weird gossip, but I knew that leveraging the reporters who were there to feast off Grandma Gibson’s pain was the right thing to do. I just had to suck it up for a while.

“Hey,” Don Updike said to me as he passed me in the hall after second period. I steeled myself for something obnoxious, but he actually
said, “That was really cool what you did for Liz with those reporters. Maybe it’ll help find her.”

“Thanks. I hope so,” I told him. I didn’t know why I’d thanked him, but I really wasn’t expecting him to be nice to me.

“Sorry about the mummy jokes,” Don said in a much lower voice. “I wasn’t thinking about how there are still people alive that would be upset. It was kind of a tool thing to do.”

“Um, yeah, okay,” I replied. At first I was literally too stunned to string anything coherent together. Forcing myself to focus, I said, “I appreciate you saying that.”

Don shrugged and headed off down the hall.

“What was that all about?” Blossom asked, walking up to me.

“Don just apologized for being a jerk,” I said, still a bit off kilter from the rarity of the whole thing.

“You’re kidding
.” Blossom turned to look at the retreating boy. “Wow. I always think of him as such a little worm. Maybe he’s not so bad, after all.”

“Maybe,” I said. My mom was always telling me that people are more complex than you think
, and I guess she was right.

“Any chance you’re free after school to do some Christmas shopping?” Blossom asked as we both started walking to our next classes. “The whole Liz thing is really getting to me. I’m not feeling festive at all
, and it’s really getting me down.”

“Let me just double check that Joe doesn’t need me.” I worked at a cafe called Cup of Joe’s
, and my boss was being really understanding about my family’s bizarre disaster. For the last couple of days, he actually didn’t want me coming into work because there were too many news people hanging around, warming up, and getting a cup of coffee. He knew that having me trapped behind the counter where anyone could ask me anything under the guise of ordering a latte would be pretty hellish.

It is against school policy to use a cell phone during school hours unless it’s an extreme emergency. It was a really good way to get your phone confiscated. Still, kids did it
, and the best way was to either go outside or have a friend cover for you. Blossom acted as my human shield while I quickly pulled up Cup of Joe’s number.

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Joe said in a guarded voice, once I got him on the phone.

He sounded so awkward, I felt compelled to ask, “Is there a reporter standing in front of you right now?”

“You could say something like that,” was his reply.

“Okay, well … Just text me when you think I can come back to work,” I told him. I was annoyed, but not with Joe, of course. He was just looking out for me. The truth was that I really needed the money I got from my part-time gig as coffee servant. Especially with Christmas breathing down my neck. I was hoping to have a bit of surplus cash to try to figure out a really good gift for the vampire who had everything.

With my schedule free and clear, we headed for the mall as soon as we were done with classes. I always thinks it’s hilarious that stores will have red and green decorations everywhere and they’ll be blasting Christmas music, but they make sure their employees say “Happy holidays,” like they’re actually trying to be considerate of people who don’t celebrate Christmas. Nobody is fooled.

Even with the fake holiday sincerity, it did make me feel a little more festive
seeing little kids lining up with their parents to talk to Santa and everything. I got a down vest for my mom and some tarot cards for Grandma Gibson. If she was going to predict the future, she might as well have the proper equipment. Then Blossom and I bought each other earrings because we each found a pair that we loved, so why not? My dad usually didn’t even bother to call on Christmas, so I didn’t get him anything. That just left Jessie. Blossom suggested hot chocolate at the food court, and I figured as long as I didn’t get any whipped cream, I was doing okay as far as reeling in the calorie consumption. Blossom, of course, got whipped cream, sprinkles, and a peppermint swizzle. What I wouldn’t give to have her metabolism.

“So, not to sound like a dork or anything, but I’m proud of you for making that announcement about Liz,” Blossom said as she made short work of her whipped cream. “I mean, I know you were probably really embarrassed, but maybe it’ll help.”

“Actually, once I started talking, it wasn’t so bad,” I told her.

“What do you think happened to her?” Blossom asked, her eyes a bit wide. “I mean, do you think, like, someone kidnapped her or killed her or something?”