by Aimée Thurlo
“Who the hell are you?” Diane said, peering around the door. Her pistol was aimed at the young woman’s head.
“I’m Bridget. You must be Special Agent Lopez—Diane in the card you sent Officer Nez in Las Cruces.”
Diane stepped forward and closed the door, locking it with her left hand while she kept her handgun directed toward the woman seated on the sofa. Then Diane flipped on the light switch. Bridget was clearly visible now, even to her.
“I’ll check out the rest of the apartment,” Diane said.
Lee nodded, but kept his pistol and eyes directed toward the young woman while Diane checked the other areas of the apartment. She returned within the minute, indicating with a thumbs-up that the place was clear. Diane’s weapon was still out, and she pointed it toward Bridget again.
Lee spoke. “I noticed you in a car outside this morning when we left, Bridget, putting on makeup. You’re wearing a lot of sunscreen and it smells like the brand I use. Does that mean what I think it does?”
“That all depends, Officer Nez. Agent Lopez does know what you really are, doesn’t she?” Bridget smiled sweetly, looking and sounding more confident now.
Lee looked at Diane, who shrugged. “A state policeman?” she asked, not lowering her weapon a centimeter.
“You know he’s more,” she answered, not taken in by Diane’s evasion. “I’m speaking of the undead, Nosferatu—vampires.” She smiled, showing that her hands were empty as she stretched and yawned, trying to appear at ease, though Lee thought he could see nervousness in those blue eyes. “I’ve been waiting all day for you two to return. I turned on the television so I wouldn’t surprise you and get myself shot. I managed to stop myself from raiding your cupboards and refrigerator, but I’m really hungry now. If I can have something to eat, I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
Lee didn’t move, though he finally smiled. “What are you doing here, Bridget?”
“I’m supposed to be helping Elka Pfeiffer kill her enemies, including you, Officer Nez. She was going to pay me a lot of money. I could probably get a bonus for killing Agent Lopez too. But after seeing Elka kill that policeman this morning—I decided there were limits to what I’d do for money.”
Bridget gestured toward the kitchen table. “My pistol and ammunition are over there, well out of reach for even someone as fast as me. My purse is there too, but all I have in it are makeup, my phony ID and billfold, car keys … stuff like that. There’s a fax in your machine with my picture. It was taken by a police camera, so you can’t tell for sure it’s me, but it is.”
Diane took a few steps toward the table, but Lee kept his eye on the innocent-looking young woman. No vampire was innocent anymore, not even the decent, moral ones.
“There’s a fax from Logan here, and her fully loaded .380 handgun along with an extra clip containing four rounds.” Diane examined the contents of the small, black leather handbag, laying them out on the table. Then she turned to look at Bridget. “Where’s your knife, Bridget?”
“You mean the one I carry in case I have to cut off somebody’s head—if I’m attacked by an enemy who happens to also be a vampire?” Bridget sat up, then bent down and lifted the hem of her pant leg up enough to reveal a flat, long-bladed dagger in a soft leather case taped to her ankle. “But you could shoot before I could pull it out, so relax.”
“Where’s Elka, Bridget? We came across her at a hospital not long ago.” Lee moved to the side of the window and looked outside. For all he knew, Elka could be within fifty feet.
“Was that her I heard about on TV? There was a report of someone being attacked at a motel by a woman who went berserk. I understand she was taken to a hospital, then escaped from the emergency room.” Seeing the answer on their faces, she added, “I should have known that was Elka. “She’s been freaking out like that from time to time lately.”
The young woman looked down at Lee’s pant leg, where there was a hole and dried-up blood. “It looks like you’ve been shot, Officer Hawk … Nez. Did Elka do that?”
“Yeah, at the hospital. But getting back to her current location …”
“I really don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her at all since she killed the officer this morning and, just so you know, I wasn’t involved in that at all. The police video used to lift the photo on that fax you received proves that,” Bridget said, gesturing to the table. As she started to get up, Diane tensed slightly.
“Sorry. I understand you have no reason to trust me. Want me to get rid of the knife? It’s my only weapon now.”
Bridget reached down and slowly eased the blade out of the holster with her thumb and forefinger, then tossed it gently to the floor. It stuck in the carpet. “Ooops.”
“You starting to relax a bit now, aren’t you?” Lee said, taking the knife, then sitting in the chair across from her.
“Finally. I sat outside in that car nearly all day, worrying about the possibility of being attacked by you two and having to defend myself. Believe me, the last thing I want is a fight. The past few months have been scary enough.” Bridget looked down at her hands, and told them about being forced to become a vampire, then how she’d used her skills as a thief to help the group.
“I was never given a choice, not from day one. They would have killed me if I hadn’t obeyed them.” She looked at Diane and Lee, tears in her eyes.
“Now that I’m away from Elka and the rest of them are dead, I’ve got the chance to start living my own life again without being afraid. I’ve decided to go for it. Elka’s on her own. I’m putting myself in your hands.” Bridget folded her legs up beneath her on the sofa and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest, then smiled selfconsciously as she wiped the tears away from her eyes with her fingertip.
Diane took a step forward, lowering her pistol to her side, but keeping it firmly in her grip. “Interesting story. But you said you’d come to New Mexico to kill Lee—Officer Hawk—and some other people as well. You want to tell us more about that now, Bridget?”
After Diane had gone outside, checked out Bridget’s car, and moved it away from the apartment complex in case it harbored a tracking device, they all worked together to fix dinner. Soon the three of them were seated at the table, sipping iced tea and eating lasagna.
By then Bridget had told them about her earlier meeting with Elka, about the death of the police officer in Corrales, and about their decision to split up and go in different directions.
Then Bridget confirmed much of what Lee and Diane knew already about the activities of the terrorists in New Mexico, and Jochen Pfeiffer’s death.
“The pieces are all coming together now,” Lee said. “But one thing just isn’t clear to me. Who is Elka after? Rogers? The President? Me? Someone else? And do you think she’ll change her plans now that she’s the subject of a statewide dragnet?”
Bridget took a small bite of garlic bread, then pretended to gag. “Garlic bread? No, no, no!”
Lee chuckled, but Diane shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Lee already pulled that one on me.”
“Vampires have a unique sense of humor.” She took a sip of iced tea before continuing. “In answer to your question, Elka told me it was personal—for her at least. So, no, I don’t think she’ll back off.”
“It was personal for her, but not for you?” Diane pressed.
“All I wanted was the chance to make enough money so I could stop being a thief and never again have to risk getting caught and going to jail. She promised to pay me for killing you, Officer Nez, and more if I helped her kill Paul Rogers. But if it really was her at the motel, then something’s seriously wrong. That incident just doesn’t make sense.”
“You think she may be mentally unstable?” Lee asked.
“I’m no shrink, but I wouldn’t doubt that for a minute. She’s changed a lot since the Plummers, Muller, and Jochen got killed. When Jochen was captured by the Iraqis and locked up in prison, she was determined to trade the plutonium that was hidden here in New Mexi
co—stuff that you took and hid elsewhere—in exchange for his life. But that plan ended when everyone she cared about got killed. She’s been alive for two hundred years but in two weeks all her family and close friends were dead. Grief does weird things to people.”
“And now …” Lee pressed.
“The last time I talked to her for more than a minute we went over her plan, but I know she didn’t tell me everything. She doesn’t trust me—that’s why she offered me money and my freedom if I helped her out now. It was her way of insuring I’d stick around. But again, she wasn’t really giving me another option, though it may have sounded that way. If I hadn’t agreed to her terms, she would have turned on me. I’m no match for her.”
Bridget looked at Lee, then Diane. “Elka said Rogers was her main target, but she was lying about that, or maybe she changed her plan. If her target had really been the CIA man, she could have snapped his neck like a pencil. But to wrestle with him, then let herself get shot… that just doesn’t sound like Elka. The cop she killed was just doing his job and she broke his neck like he was nothing.”
Diane’s cell phone rang just then and they all jumped. Bridget started giggling and Lee couldn’t help but smile. Diane scowled at them both, then stood and walked away, speaking in low tones, obviously remembering how good vampire hearing was.
“Is she going to tell whoever it is about me?” Bridget asked, hearing Diane close the bedroom door.
Lee shrugged. She looked vulnerable now, but he didn’t know if she was playing him or not. Bridget was innocent-looking and attractive, and undoubtedly knew how to use both of those attributes to her advantage. Remembering Angela, he decided to be extra careful with this particular vampire. Though everything she’d told them so far seemed believable, the best lies were 90 percent truth.
“A couple of questions. Where did you get the pistol, and why are some rounds missing from the second clip?” he asked.
Bridget rolled her eyes. “I followed a guy home from a sporting-goods store, then, when he left the house, broke in and found the pistol. There were two clips, but one wasn’t fully loaded. I fired a couple of shots into a hillside later on just to get a feel for the weapon.”
Lee thought she might be lying about the gun or bullets, but why? Had she shot someone and they just didn’t know about it yet? He looked at her skeptically, letting her know he wasn’t buying the story.
“I understand you not trusting me yet. Maybe you never will. But you can return the pistol to the owner and prove I’m telling you the truth. Anything to give me back my life. I promise I had nothing to do with the death of that police officer and I won’t try to hurt you or your girlfriend, partner, or whatever she is. I just want the chance to disappear.”
Bridget looked around the apartment as if someone were listening, lowered her voice, then continued. “For my own safety—and you know why—111 have to try and escape if you take me to jail or someplace like that. All it takes are a few minutes in the sun and I’m toast.”
Diane came back into the room and Lee’s eyebrows rose in question, not knowing if Diane wanted to speak in front of Bridget. “Something I should know about?”
Diane nodded. “A confirmation from the source on Elka’s attack. She came out from the restaurant and lunged at him from beneath the shade of the walkway, wrestling him to the ground before the security guards could intervene. During the attack she kept screaming that he’d killed her husband and family. She grabbed Rogers’s .38 from the holster—but he managed to twist the barrel around and she accidentally shot herself in the side.”
“And Rogers wasn’t even hurt?” Lee asked.
“He was scratched and his hair was pulled, but thinks he’ll get off with just a few bruises,” Diane replied.
“Elka was playing with him,” Bridget said firmly. “She’s strong enough to crush his fingers like they were Cheetos.”
“Obviously. So what happened then?” Lee prodded Diane.
His partner continued. “Elka lay there groaning and clutching her side until the EMTs arrived, along with two squad cars. Then they took her away in the ambulance we saw. One more thing. Elka called Rogers by the name he’d used as a CIA case officer.”
“Stands to reason,” Lee said.
“Rogers admitted that Elka came to him a few months ago to get the Agency’s help in freeing her husband. Rogers promised Elka he’d help, then bailed on her. Of course he didn’t word it that way. But reading between the lines, my bet is that he was the one who compromised Elka’s husband. A short time after that, he got out of the CIA and started working for the DOE as a security consultant. A real fast-track deal. Tomorrow the President is going to be shaking his hand and patting him on the back for service to his country.”
“The Peter Principle. Being promoted to your highest level of incompetence,” Lee grumbled.
“Never heard of it.” Bridget shook her head.
“Before your time.” Lee smiled.
Diane and Lee exchanged glances. They hadn’t had the chance to discuss what to do about Bridget, much less how much to trust her—if at all. And although well-nourished vampires didn’t need much sleep unless they were healing an injury or starved, Diane was yawning almost constantly now.
“You talked to Rogers quite a while, Diane. He open up to you a little? I’d always heard that the CIA and the FBI were mortal enemies, fighting over turf, funding, prestige.” Lee was just making conversation now, not wanting to discuss anything really important in front of Bridget until they’d decided what to do about her.
“That’s true enough. But maybe Rogers is less paranoid now that he’s no longer on the Agency’s payroll. Or more likely, he needs any ally he can find,” Diane replied.
“He no longer has power over so many lives,” Bridget said softly. “Elka said he was a manipulator. I guess it takes one to know one.”
Neither Lee nor Diane replied, and the three of them sat there for a few minutes. Finally Lee spoke. “Bridget, I suppose you know Diane and I are going to have to discuss exactly what to do about you.”
“I wondered when you were going to bring that up. But like I said, I’m not turning myself in or anything like that. I came to you, Officer Nez, because you’re the only one who can really understand my situation. You both know why vampires can’t allow themselves to be taken prisoner and locked up,” Bridget replied. Her voice was firm, but Lee saw uncertainty and what could be fear in her eyes.
Diane smiled. “Trust is something none of us here offer or accept easily. Let’s take it one step at a time. Would you mind going into the bedroom for a while so Lee and I can have a little privacy?”
Bridget thought about it a moment. “Well, okay. I don’t have any other place to go at the moment.” She walked toward the bedroom door, then stopped and looked back at Lee questioningly.
“We won’t call the cops or the FBI on you. You have my word,” Lee said.
“That’s because you are the cops and the FBI.” She shrugged, then turned, stepped into the bedroom, and closed the door.
Lee motioned for Diane to join him at the table. “Reminds me of the ancient curse that goes ‘May you live in interesting times.’”
“You’ve got that right. Now, let’s get to the point,” she said, her voice low, almost a whisper. “What do we do about Blondie?” She brought out her notebook and pen, writing down one suggestion.
He nodded. Vampires could hear too damn well not to take this extra precaution.
CHAPTER 18
ast time we left someone alone, they turned into a panther,” Diane wrote.
Lee nodded, then added, “Bridget came here on her own and put herself at our mercy. That says something.”
“When I-moved-her car I couldn’t find anything inside that would contradict what she’d been saying.” Diane put down the pen and looked up toward the bedroom door. Lee had positioned himself beside her so they both had a wall to their back and could see across the room.
He picked up Bridget�
��s pistol and examined it carefully, whispering this time instead of writing. “Loaded, and looks functional. She claims to have stolen the pistol, but she’s also fired it more than once, supposedly just checking it out. I got a feeling she wasn’t telling me everything about this pistol.”
“You think she used it on someone?” Diane’s eyebrows rose.
“Unless a body turns up somewhere, we won’t know, will we? Maybe I just misread Bridget. If she’s really a professional thief, chances are she’s not a killer, at least not intentionally. Thieves don’t want confrontations. It’s bad for business,” Lee answered.
“True, and she had the skills needed to break into here. That required picking two good locks.”
“Becoming a vampire must have made her a formidable thief, all things considered.”
“Yeah, I agree. Vampires would make great burglars. They’re quiet, fast, strong, and can jump like frogs,” Diane noted as she looked through Bridget’s purse again, examining each item, such as the lipstick, to confirm they were not some spy device or weapon.
“Gazelle, deer, graceful cats. Not frogs,” Lee corrected.
“I could have said fleas.” Diane smiled, examining the purse itself.
Lee picked up the pen and wrote so she could read at the same time. “Let’s keep Bridget here for now but watch what we say around her. If she’s setting us up for Elka, then we can make Bridget our bait. But this bait can bite back so we have to be ready for anything.”
Diane nodded, then stood, folded up the paper, and stuffed it into her pocket. “Let’s confirm with Bridget that Elka doesn’t know where we live, what we’re doing right now, or how to find us. And look for any sign of lying or deception. If Blondie wants to get away from Elka she’s going to have to cooperate with us and tells us all she knows about Elka’s plans. We aren’t going to baby-sit for free.”
