***
My lip has stopped bleeding. I feel the tingle as it repairs itself, the swelling recedes, the torn skin knits together. In about ten minutes, when I touch the place where Carolyn’s mother hit me, there’s not a trace of the wound left.
All that’s left is the sting of anger.
I pull into my parent’s driveway. I use my key to let myself in and find Trish’s hairbrush and Steve’s baby tooth, wrapped in a cotton cocoon, where my mother promised to leave it-on the dining room table.
Unwrapping the tooth, and seeing the fragile, tiny reminder of my family’s loss, I feel another surge of resentment toward Carolyn’s mother. She condemned Steve for what happened to her daughter with no regard for my feelings. I’m glad my parents weren’t there to experience her bitterness. But at least her words confirmed one thing for me. She believes Steve is Trish’s father. So why would Carolyn lie to Trish all these years? It’s obvious there was very little contact between Trish and her grandparents. If there had been, Trish would have learned about Steve a long time ago.
So was Carolyn lying when she said Trish once ran away to her grandparent’s? I can’t imagine Mrs. Joseph Bernard showing anything but contempt for her daughter’s bastard child.
Too many questions and too few answers.
My fingers close around my brother’s tooth. Maybe there’s one question I can get answered.
I don’t have the slightest idea how to go about getting a paternity test done. I could ask my family doctor, but she’s been calling me to come in for my annual physical exam and that’s something I won’t be doing anytime soon. Maybe the phone book?
The first entry I look for-DNA testing-yields no results. But “Laboratories-Medical” has a boxed ad with “Paternity Testing” in big, bold letters. I call the 800 number and am greeted by a woman who introduces herself as “Marty.” I explain my situation and the voice at the other end replies in a sympathetic tone.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “But the simple truth is, we wouldn’t be able to use a baby tooth. There’s a lab in Canada that runs tests using bone and teeth, but it’s an expensive process and takes a long time. As for the hair, it’s also problematical. We need at least ten to fifteen strands with the follicles attached and the hair should be no more than ten days old.”
I pick up Trish’s hairbrush. Being a typical teenager, the brush looks like it hasn’t been cleaned-ever. There are lot more than fifteen strands twisted in the bristles. And since Trish ran away just two days ago, I have to assume at least some of the hair is recent enough.
“Okay. The tooth won’t work. What else could we try?”
She asks about the father’s death and I explain what happened to Steve and when.
“Were you given your brother’s clothes?” she replies. “The ones he was wearing at the time of the accident?”
I have to think about that. I have a vague recollection of going to New York with my parents to claim Steve’s body. I was made to sit on a folding chair in a cold waiting room at a morgue somewhere near the college campus. I close my eyes, conjuring the scene, remembering how scared I was at the way my folks looked when they were taken away from me, and how I bit my lip to keep from crying when they came back, shock and unbearable sadness stamped on their faces.
But my father was holding something when he came back. He had his right arm around my mother’s shoulders, but in his left hand he was holding something.
A brown paper bag.
I have to shake away the vision to be able to speak again.
“I think we do have the clothes.”
The voice at the other end of the line softens. “If there is any blood, the smallest spot, we can use that. As long as the clothing has not been sealed in plastic, the specimen is viable.”
I thank Marty, tell her I will get back to her when I find the clothes and hang up. I rub at my face with the palms of my hands. I know where the clothes will be if my parents haven’t disposed of them. But the prospect of going through Steve’s belongings fills me with a despair that spreads like ice through my body. The only thing that propels me forward is Trish. The image of Carolyn’s mother, cold, arrogant, flashes in my head. I can’t help feeling that proving Trish is Steve’s child and keeping her away from that woman is the only thing that can save her.
Houses in California don’t have basements. As a result, garages and attics become repositories for the flotsam of life, things one step away from being relegated to the trash or donated to charity. Since my folks actually use the garage for their cars, I know where to go to find Steve’s things.
The attic in this house is accessed by a pull down ladder in the ceiling of the guestroom. I’m queasy as I climb the rungs. The last time I ventured into someone’s attic it was Avery’s. What I found there foreshadowed what I fear is my future-the remains of his relationships with mortals. Literally, the remains. While I don’t expect to find bodies in my parent’s attic, as in most families, there’s always the possibility of stumbling across a skeleton or two.
It’s hot in the attic. Heat is trapped here under the eaves. And it’s dark, though that poses no problem. I actually see better in the dark than I do in bright daylight. A holdover, I guess, from when vampires really were creatures of the night. I gauge each step carefully, balancing on the joists, not wanting to risk plunging through the ceiling tiles if my foot slips. There isn’t much up here. A mound of old bedding and drapes. Some books piled on a wooden pallet. In the corner, a stack of cardboard boxes.
I make my way toward the boxes, knowing that if Steve’s clothes are here, that’s where I’ll find them.
The first couple of boxes I open contain school things-yearbooks, yellow lined note pads, binders, report cards with tape at the edges where they had been fastened to the refrigerator. I shuffle through the stack, touched by sadness. He never got anything but A’s-ever. It was irritating to me when we were growing up. A’s were an occasion for me, not the norm. But now it’s just another reminder of what Steve might have accomplished had he lived.
What Trish might accomplish if given the opportunity.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First things first.
The third box yields what I’m looking for. The only thing it contains is a large, brown paper bag. With shaking fingers, I curl back the top and look inside.
Steve’s clothes are folded neatly. I withdraw a shirt, jeans, boxers, and a pair of socks. At the bottom, Nike sneakers with frayed laces. There’s no blood that I can see on the shoes. I recall that Steve was hit so hard he was literally knocked out of them.
My fingers are trembling so badly I lace my fingers together and squeeze for a minute. Then, carefully, I unfold each item and lay them one by one on top of the boxes. Jeans, shirt, boxers. No blood. It seems impossible. How can one be hit by a car and not shed a lot of blood? But the words come back to me-internal injuries.
The last things are the socks. The left one has a frayed edge where something has been cut out. I feel a tingle of excitement. The police must have kept that piece for the driver’s trial. But it turned out there was no trial. The driver plea bargained his offense. Because of his youth, he was given a sentence of two years in a juvenile facility and five years probation.
Which means right now, he’s out there living a life he stole from my brother.
But if I let myself dwell on that, I’ll get angry about it all over again. Right now, I have more important things to get angry about.
The right sock is folded in two. It’s not necessary to unfold it to find what I’m looking for. There’s a stain, brown now with age, on the cuff and another on the heel.
Blood, even old blood, evokes a visceral reaction in a vampire. It’s instinctive and uncontrollable. It’s my brother’s blood that I “feel” on the sock. But it sets my teeth on edge anyway, and triggers a need I have to fight. I bring the sock to my face and inhale because I can do nothing else. The smell is of salt and earth and the essence of his life. My nerve endings ar
e on fire with the hunger.
So, I do the only thing I can. I wait for the thirst to fade. And when at last it does, I replace Steve’s clothes in the box and close it up. I slip the sock back into the same bag my parents carried home with them all those years ago.
Time to stop looking back and face what lies ahead. It’s what Avery tried to make me understand. And Culebra. As a vampire, I will remain forever the same. My human family will not. At some point, when it becomes obvious that I am not aging, I will have to leave. And once more my parents will be forced to endure the loss of a second child.
This time, it will be me.
Trish has to be Steve’s.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I call Marty back. She gives me directions to the lab. I carry the tooth away with me because I don’t want to take the time to write my mom a note explaining why I didn’t. I have what we need to get the DNA test run, and the results are all that matter.
The lab is located in a medical complex up on
4th Avenue
, Pill Hill. The University of California runs the hospital here, a busy one, and it takes me awhile to find a parking space and hoof it back to the lab. I fill out the requisite forms, turn over the brush and sock, and write a check for “expedited services.” I’m told I can return in forty-eight hours for the results.
Forty-eight hours. It’ll be a long two days.
Back in my car, I don’t realize how tense I am until I glance at my watch, see that it’s only noon, and heave a sigh of frustration. Frey won’t be available until three. I’m so antsy, my skin prickles. I’m not that far from the office, but after the less than satisfying conversation I had with David this morning, I’m not sure I want to go there. And if by some god-awful chance Gloria is with him, the urge to bite her-her-really bitethe living crap out of her-may be too strong to resist.
I slump into the seat. For the first time I wonder how I’m going to break the news of Carolyn’s death to Trish. As despicable as she was, Carolyn was Trish’s mother. And when I tell her, how will Trish react? Will she demand to see the body? Will she want to go with her grandparents?
More questions I have no way of answering, at least not yet.
Another glance at my watch confirms it’s now two minutes after twelve. If I was human, I could treat myself to lunch to kill time. Or go to the gym for a workout. Two things I reluctantly had to give up. The eating thing for obvious reasons. The workout thing because one time I forgot to check how much weight was on the bar and the expression on David’s face when I effortlessly bench-pressed the same three hundred pounds he had struggled with moments before is something I will never forget. I had to let the bar come crashing down and pretend it almost killed me.
I acted my way out of it that time. I doubt I’d be so lucky the next.
The one thing I can think of doing is driving downtown and arranging to have my new furniture delivered to the cottage. If the store can handle it, I might be able to move in by the end of the week. I can’t wait to be back in my own home. And maybe Trish would agree to move in with me while we sort out her future. It surprises me how much I’d like that.
I’m pulling out of the parking lot when I see them. The Blues Brothers from Frey’s apartment are sitting in a beige Fair lane across the street from the lab. They are looking right at me, though like cartoon characters, they turn their heads in unison when they catch me looking back at them. I let my gaze pass over them and ease into traffic. Not surprisingly, they pull out too, and fall into place about two car lengths behind.
I have a hard time concentrating on the road. When did they start following me? Did they pick me up at Frey’s? Or Carolyn’s? I was too preoccupied with getting beat up by Trish’s grandmother to notice. Damn. They followed me to my parent’s home. They must have. The image of Carolyn’s face flashes in my head. I have to get these guys before they decide to pay my folks a visit.
I slip my cell phone out of my purse and plug it into the hands-free system on the dash. As much as I hate doing it, there’s only one person who can help me. I dial Chief Williams’s private number. I got it from Avery a few months ago, and though I only used it once, I have no trouble remembering it. Photographic memory, another vampiric talent.
Williams’s greeting is curt. “Warren Williams here.”
“It’s Anna.”
A pause the length of a heartbeat. “This is a surprise. Are you ready to talk?”
“I’m ready to ask for a favor. Will that do for a start?”
This time there’s no hesitation. “What do you need?”
The car directly behind me has turned right, giving me a clear shot at the Blues Brother’s license plate. I read it off to Williams. “I need you to stop that car. I’m heading south on 6th approaching Ash. Do you have a patrol car in the area?”
“To do what?”
“Get some identification. Find out who they are.”
There’s the half-muffled sound of Williams barking an order. Then he’s back on the line. “Patrol car will intercept them in about two minutes, so talk fast. Does this have to do with Carolyn Delaney’s death? I read the report. You were on the scene.”
It didn’t take him long to get that report. I fill him in on what happened this morning-most of it anyway. I have to actually tell him, no mental telepathy. Thought transference doesn’t work through phone lines, electrical currents interfere. For once it seems that having to speak the words is a nuisance that takes much too long.
I purposely omit any reference to Trish and to Frey. I let him think I went directly to Carolyn’s to ask her more questions. The plus side of using the phone. No vampire lie detection.
Williams is suspiciously quiet when I finish. Finally, he says, “Anna, if you have evidence that these guys are implicated in Carolyn’s death, you need to tell me. We can pick them up right now.”
“Believe me, if I had evidence of that I would tell you,” I reply. And it’s the truth, if for no other reasons than to protect my parents. “If these guys were the ones who killed Carolyn, when the cop stops them, he’ll know. Carolyn lost a lot of blood. She was beaten and tortured which means blood spatter. No way could they have avoided getting blood on their skin or clothes.”
Williams barks a short laugh. “Then I’ve dispatched the right car,” he says.
I know immediately what he means. “There’s a vampire cop in that car?”
“Yep. So even if these guys wore raincoats and rubber boots, if they got a drop of blood on them anywhere, Patrolman Ortiz will pick up on it.”
A flash of strobe lights in the rear view mirror gets my attention. “Here we go,” I tell Williams. “The patrol car just pulled them over.”
“Do you want me to call you on your cell when I find out who these jokers are?” he counters.
I consider it. But there’s no place for me to pull over where I won’t be in plain sight. I don’t want them to guess I was the one who called the cops.
“No. Call me at the office. I’ll head over there now.”
Williams cuts the connection and I turn on Ash, then again at PCH, and drive to the office. David’s parking space is empty, which is a relief. He and Gloria are probably enjoying a no oner somewhere. At least they’ll be out of my hair.
By the time I unlock the door, the telephone is already ringing. I snatch it up.
“Anna?” It’s Williams.
“What did you find out?”
There’s a moment of dead air and then he says. “You’d better get your ass down here.”
I hate that tone. Especially from a big shit, old soul vampire who, in spite of having two hundred odd years on me, I actually bested once. You’d think he’d show more respect.
When I don’t answer right away, he blows an irritated breath into the receiver. “Did you hear me? Or are you being pissy because I didn’t say please?”
“Please would help.”
“Yeah, well bite me. Get down here. Now. Those guys following you? Guess what. The
y’re Feds.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Blues Brothers are Feds? “No way,” I tell Williams. “They can’t be.”
“Yeah? Tell them that. They’re on their way to my office as we speak. And they want to see you. I told them you’d be here, so get in that hot car of yours and come down. Now.”
He disconnects and I’m left listening to dead air. This doesn’t add up. If they are Feds, what were they doing at Frey’s? And why didn’t they identify themselves?
Shit.
Since I hadn’t had time to put my purse down or take off my jacket, I do an about face and head back to the car. SDPD Headquarters is on Broadway between 13th and 14th. Shouldn’t take me longer than fifteen minutes. For once, I’m actually hoping lunch hour traffic will slow me down. I need time to think.
As luck will have it, I hit every green light. There’s not a trolley or train crossing to halt my progress, and I find a parking space right in front of the big granite and blue steel building. Since it’s located across from City College, that’s no mean feat. I deposit the requisite coins in the meter and go inside. The reception area is utilitarian-blue plastic benches not designed for comfort, one cop behind the desk, a line of about ten people ahead of me. I shift restlessly from foot to foot, awaiting my turn with the receptionist. Williams left word that I was expected, and the desk sergeant gives me a code to use on the elevator. Part of building security. No one accesses anything except the reception area without a code of some kind or another.
The elevator whooshes up to the top floor. Another uniformed cop greets me in another reception area. Williams has left orders to usher me right in.
It’s the first time I’ve met Williams on his home turf. He’s seated at a big mahogany desk, a manila folder open in front of him. He doesn’t look up, and only acknowledges my presence by a wave of a hand toward one of three chairs across from him. He doesn’t use vampire wavelengths to project a single thought or emotion. His mind is a closed, black void. I make sure mine is, too.
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