by Kathi Daley
“I don’t disagree,” I said. “I’m just not sure what we can do about it. The tabloid that first ran the story is all over it. There was a follow-up this morning. I spoke to Salinger about running an article offering proof that the bite marks were made by a device, not actual fangs, but he’s dealing with an ongoing investigation and doesn’t want to give too much away.” I frowned. “In fact, I probably shouldn’t even have mentioned it just now. I know you’ll all be discreet.”
Everyone promised they would. The committee, which usually had ten members, was a few short today. Normally, both Levi and Ellie attended, but Levi had an out-of-town football game and Ellie hadn’t been feeling all that well when she woke up, so they were both out. Zak was tied up at the Academy and our newest member, Olivia Bradford, was away too, which left me, committee chairperson Hillary Spain, my new stepgrandmother, Hazel, preschool owner Tawny, my father, Hank Donovan, and novelty shop owner Gilda Reynolds.
“As it is, we’ve encountered more than our share of challenges with this year’s event,” Hillary said. “I can’t emphasize enough how much the community needs the income our annual fund-raisers provide. I’m afraid with all the vampire enthusiasts around, the visitors we normally count on to come up from the valley simply won’t.”
“Maybe Salinger will figure this out soon and we can run something in the Bryton Lake newspaper at least,” Hazel said encouragingly.
“Things are really out of our hands,” my dad added. “I think all we can do is proceed as planned and hope everything works out.”
“Have any of the food vendors made any noise about backing out?” Gilda asked.
“Not so far,” Hillary said. “I wish I could say the vampire hunters will pick up the slack and spend the money in the local economy that will be lost if the families from the valley don’t make the trip, but my impression of them is that they don’t have a lot of money to spend. Most of them are camping out on the beach and in the park. There are signs discouraging such things, of course, but they’re ignoring them. The hype will die down when they realize there are no vampires here. The question is whether that will happen in time.”
We continued to discuss the situation for a while longer, but because there wasn’t an answer to be had, Hillary called the meeting to an end.
After, I ran a few errands because my mom was watching Catherine. Originally, before I realized Ellie wasn’t going to make it into town, the two of us had planned to grab some lunch, so my mom was already geared up to watch Catherine until at least one. I didn’t have a lot of items to pick up for the party next week, though I wanted to avoid the last-minute rushing around that so often dominated my life. Now that I had a couple of hours to kill, I figured I may as well take care of the short list I’d created over the past few days.
My first stop was the Halloween store. Zak had the decorations for the house covered and then some, but I wanted to pick up some cute paper plates and napkins. The aisles that had once been stocked to overflowing were now showing bare spots as the holiday grew closer. I just hoped they’d have something cute left that didn’t feature superheroes.
“The Nightmare Before Christmas napkins are pretty cute,” my friend Erica said as I sorted through the items left on the shelf.
I smiled. “I did see those, and they are cute. Are you off today?” I asked. Erica usually worked at a local bar and grill.
“I work the late shift tonight. Worked the late shift last night too. I don’t usually mind the late shift because the tips are better, but with the undead seekers in town, things have become pretty strange.”
I picked up several packages of napkins and tossed them in my basket. “Yeah. Most of the locals aren’t happy.”
“I’m an open-minded person for the most part,” Erica said, “but some of these people are really weird. Not all of them, of course. I’ve had decent conversations with several really nice people, but there are others…” Erica shivered. “This one guy came in last night and he had real fangs. Not removable; actual implants.”
I grimaced. “Really? Who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know, but they were really creepy. He calls himself Lorcan. Then this other guy dressed all in black came in and threatened to put a stake through Lorcan’s heart if he didn’t clear out. Apparently, the second guy is some sort of vampire hunter.” Erica leaned in just a bit. “I felt as if I was trapped in a really cheesy horror movie.”
“Did you feel the second guy presented a real danger to the first one?” I asked.
Erica shrugged. “I don’t think so. I mean, I kind of doubt the guy goes around staking people. I’m sure it’s just part of some role-playing game. Still, Ashton Falls isn’t the sort of town where these things are normally played out. I wish they’d all just move on.”
I really did intend to go directly to my mother’s to pick up Catherine as soon as I finished my errands, but somehow I found myself driving to Henderson House. The fact that a psycho had not only killed a man but was threatening to disrupt a very important fund-raiser really stuck in my craw. Salinger couldn’t make a statement about what was really going on until he closed the case, so the answer, it seemed, was to help him close it quickly.
I sat in my car for a minute after I pulled up outside the house. It looked the same as it always did, although minus the storm, it didn’t seem quite as ominous as it had on Monday. I put my hand on the door latch, ignoring the voice in my head that was desperately trying to remind me that I’d promised both Zak and Salinger I was done with sleuthing. It wasn’t that I wanted to break my promise. It was just that it was easier to promise not to get involved than it was to actually not get involved.
I carefully made my way up the stairs to the front door and stepped around the crime scene tape. I wasn’t sure why the house had been left open all these years. It would have made sense to board the door closed, or at least fix the lock. There might have been fewer murders in Henderson House if someone had taken the time.
I’d just search the floors above the basement before heading down to the room where I’d found the body. I knew Salinger and his men had gone over the basement with a fine-tooth comb, but I wondered if they’d taken as much care with the attic and the two stories of living space.
Deciding to start at the top and work my way down, I headed up the rickety old stairs to the attic. Actually, I corrected myself as I made my way to the top of the staircase, the first place I was going to look was the secret crawl space from which props had been manipulated to scare the camp counselors who’d died in the house because of the madman who’d simply wanted to record their fear for a horror movie.
Despite my resolve to explore that space, my heart beat just a bit faster as I approached the hidden door. The last time I’d ventured into it I’d thought I was going to die. It wasn’t a memory I wanted to relive.
The crawl space was cramped and windowless. Dust had settled over every surface, but otherwise it didn’t appear as if the area had been disturbed since the day Zak rescued me there four years ago. Once my curiosity was assuaged, I headed to the attic. The large room had been empty when I’d been here last, but today I found an old mattress on the floor. I walked over to look out the window. With the exception of the old barn just behind the house, all I could see was trees for miles.
Then I searched the second floor, followed by the first, and eventually the basement. There wasn’t anything to find, which wasn’t surprising; Salinger’s men would have been through everything. When I was certain the house held no clues, I went outside. As I approached my vehicle, I remembered the barn. I turned away from the car and headed down the drive and around the house. I realized there was little chance I’d find anything there, but it seemed worth looking, if only to reassure myself that I’d been thorough.
Like the house, the barn was dark and dusty. There was a hay loft overhead and half-rotted stalls below. The old stairs leading up to the loft looked even more rickety than the stairs in the house and I was about to le
ave when an instinct, or maybe it was my Zodar, urged me to go up.
The old stairs were really no more than a rotted wooden ladder. I tested my weight on the first rung. It held, so I used my arms on the rungs in front of my body to pull myself up to the second rung. The fourth and sixth rungs gave way under my feet, but eventually, I was able to make it up to the loft without slipping down. I paused and looked around. From the boxes stacked along the back wall, it appeared someone had used the barn for storage at some time. From a glance, I didn’t notice anything that would qualify as a clue to who had killed Edgar Irvine, but I was curious about the boxes, so I crossed the loft to lift the lid of the first one.
I gasped, and my heart began to race even faster as I took out my phone to call Salinger.
******
I watched as he sorted through the contents of the first box, a look of increasing horror on his face. Horror was exactly what I’d been feeling when I’d opened that box and realized what was inside.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Salinger held up a photo of me standing in front of Zoe’s Zoo talking to Jeremy. I was holding Catherine, and Charlie was standing next to me. “It looks like you have a stalker.”
“That’s what I thought when I realized the box was full of photos of me. Some were taken outside my house, while others were taken while I was at work or in town. And they look fairly recent.”
Salinger scowled as he studied the photo in his hand. “How recent?”
“The one you’re holding was taken on Friday of last week. I was out doing errands with Catherine and Charlie and stopped by the Zoo to ask Jeremy about a mountain lion cub that was supposed to be brought in.” I walked across the loft and took the photo from Salinger. “This looks like it was taken with one of those old Polaroids.” I glanced up at Salinger. “Do they even make those anymore?”
“They do, but with a more modern design and a better quality. This photo might have been taken on a pretty old version, but I don’t know where someone would get film for it.” There was an expression of outrage on Salinger’s face.
“Who do you think took these?”
He angrily tossed the photo into the box and mumbled a series of curses before he spoke directly to me. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think the photos are connected to Irvine’s body, or that the entire town seems to have been invaded by vampire hunters? Do you think whoever’s been stalking me also killed Edgar Irvine?”
“I don’t know that either. What I do know is that heads are going to roll when I confront the men I told to search this property. They should have found these.”
I glanced around the dark and dusty barn. I wasn’t sure when it had last been used for its original purpose, but I was pretty sure it hadn’t been during my lifetime. “I suppose they must have focused on the basement because that’s where the body was found,” I offered. “The only way to know the boxes were up here would be to climb up, and the ladder is in pretty bad condition.”
“That’s no excuse. You found the photos and it wasn’t even your job to look for them.” Salinger frowned. “Why were you up here anyway? I thought you were going to stay out of this.”
“I was, but things in town are really tense with all the vampire hunters, so I decided to take a look around here. I know I shouldn’t have, but I’m glad I did.”
Salinger didn’t answer, but I could see he was furious. I wasn’t sure if he was angry with me or his men or both, but I felt it best to change the subject.
“I heard there are people in town who have real fangs; not the kind you can pop in and out but permanent implants.”
Salinger lifted a brow. “Really? Who would want to have those?”
“I’m not sure, but I met someone who told me that one of these vampire wannabes with real fangs ran into a guy who claimed to be a vampire hunter in the bar where she works last night. The hunter threatened to stake the guy with the fangs if he didn’t move on. I know this is over-the-top ridiculous, but I found myself wondering if we weren’t going to find people around town who’d been staked to death.”
Salinger kicked at a bale of old hay. “This has gotten completely out of control. One way or another, I’m running these particular visitors out of town.”
“It won’t be easy.”
Salinger grunted as he knelt down and started sorting through the photos in another box. It seemed like a good time to move on. “I need to go pick up Catherine. If you have any questions for me feel free to call.”
Chapter 6
Later that evening, after the kids had gone up to their rooms to do homework and Nona had retired to her suite to watch television, I decided to come clean with Zak about the photographs. I really, really didn’t want him to freak out, but I realized I could be in real danger, and I didn’t want to keep something so important from him.
“Can we talk?” I asked after we’d settled Catherine in her crib.
Zak took my hand and led me to the sofa. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”
“I told you it seemed someone might have staged the death of Edgar Irvine, the writer, to mimic Coach Griswold’s death. We also discussed the fact that his death was made to look like a vampire attack. What you don’t know is that I found something else in the Henderson barn today. Something even more disturbing.”
“What did you find?”
“A box of photos. Photos of me. All taken within the last month. Maybe even the past couple of weeks.”
Zak sucked in a breath. “Someone’s been following you and taking photos?”
I nodded. “It would appear so. I have a stalker, but I don’t know if he means me harm. I thought you should know.”
Zak pursed his lips and narrowed his gaze. “I don’t like this one bit. I’m hiring a bodyguard to be with you when I can’t be.”
I shook my head. “No bodyguard. We don’t know if my stalker is dangerous.”
“A man is dead.”
I let out a slow breath. “Well, yeah. There is that.”
“Were any of the photos taken here at the house?”
“A few. Not inside, but there are some of me walking on the beach.”
“Were there any of anyone other than you?” Zak asked. “The kids?”
I cringed. “There were a few photos of me with Catherine.”
Zak stood up. “Okay, it’s settled. We’re keeping the kids home from school until this is taken care of. You,” Zak looked at me with an expression that left no room for argument, “are staying here as well.”
“Wait.” I shot out a hand and stood up myself. “I won’t be held prisoner in my own home.”
Zak’s face grew red. He looked mad, but I supposed he might just be scared. “So you’d rather risk your life and the life of the children?”
“No,” I insisted. “I’d never intentionally put the kids in danger. But maybe we can come to a compromise.”
Zak took a deep breath but didn’t speak.
“Please,” I added, “I don’t want to put myself or the kids in danger, but I need to find out who this stalker is or I’ll never be able to feel safe. Maybe we can work together on this. Like the old days.”
Zak’s expression softened a bit. “I’m listening.”
I paused before I continued. This conversation could easily get out of hand if we let it. “How about if we keep the kids home from school for the time being and I agree to only leave the grounds if I’m with you or Salinger?”
Zak sat back. I was glad he was at least considering my suggestion. “I’d prefer you stay here all the time, but I know you probably won’t, and I’d feel better if you were with me or Salinger. But Catherine, Alex, and Scooter don’t leave the house. Nona either for that matter. If this stalker already has been following you for weeks, chances are he knows who you’re close to. If he’s the one who killed the man you found in the Henderson basement, he’s dangerous. If he can’t get to you directly he might be satisfied with getting to you through them.”
<
br /> “Okay. I’ll talk to the kids.”
Zak stood up and took my hand in his. “Now that we have that settled, let’s go downstairs to the computers to see if we can find something that will help us nail this wacko.”
When we arrived in the computer room Zak called Phyllis to let her know that both he and Alex would be taking a few days off from Zimmerman Academy. We’d need to call Scooter’s school tomorrow. Then Zak logged onto the computer and typed in some commands. “Do you think your stalker is someone from your past?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I can’t think of a single person who would follow me around taking photos of me. And I can’t see how I’m in any way related to or associated with Edgar Irvine. Why would my stalker kill him? If my stalker didn’t kill him, do we have two bad guys to worry about?”
“Let me see what I can dig up on Irvine.”
I sat down in a chair next to him.
After a few minutes Zak said, “It looks as if the e-mail Irvine received from this Boris Grimly came from a cell phone. A burner cell, naturally, but I can see the e-mail came from right here in Ashton Falls. Apparently, it looks as if Irvine received six e-mails from the same phone over a two-month period.”
“Two months? That means his killer has been working on this plot for a while.”
“So it would seem.”
“So why Irvine, and why Ashton Falls? He lived in Hollywood, so why did his killer go to the trouble of luring him here? Why not travel to LA and shoot him there? In a city with more homicides, one more shooting would hardly be noticed. At least not to the degree a vampire murder has been in Ashton Falls.”
“I think that may be the point,” Zak said. “The killer wanted the hype. Not only did he kill a man in a very strange manner, he made sure the tabloids would pick it up by tipping them off before it even happened.”
