“Oh, wow. Ouch.” There was laughter in his blue eyes and an infuriatingly sarcastic tone in his voice. “Put that damn book down before somebody gets hurt.”
“Like you, you mean?” I challenged. “Move aside or I’ll hit you again.”
I don’t know how it happened, but one moment, the book was in my hand, and the next, it was in his. Turning the volume, he read the title aloud. “The Collected Works of Stephenie Meyer. Hey, thanks. I’ve been looking all over for this.” His brow furrowed as he addressed me again. “Your name’s Stephanie. Are you she?” He smiled. “Is this one of yours?”
I crossed my arms and mumbled, “Mm-hm, yeah, sure. I wish.”
He reached for me and curled his long fingers around my wrist. I started to pull away when he said, “Let’s go sit down. This is a crime scene. We don’t want to disturb it more than we already have.”
As he tugged me along the aisle and out into the main part of the study, I said, “Are you going to call the police?”
“Not yet.”
The fire crackled and popped in greeting as we took our seats. “Why not?” I asked. “If you didn’t kill Percy—”
“I told you,” he interrupted. “I did not kill anyone. Hell, I didn’t even know Usher. Only met him briefly yesterday. What possible motive would I have? Besides…” He paused and seemed to search for words. “Besides, I have an alibi.”
I straightened in my chair and eyed him. “An alibi? What kind of alibi?”
“I was with someone.” He cleared his throat and said softly, “A lady.”
Narrowing my gaze on him, I said, “If you were with a lady, as you claim, why did you send Lucy to get me, and why was the cook waiting for me here instead of you? And why does she yell everything?”
He shifted in his chair and with a small shake of his head, said, “I can’t elaborate on your first two questions, but I can tell you that Miss Troll is very hard of hearing. She resists getting a hearing aid because she thinks it will make her look old and since English is her second language, she yells because she’s afraid she might be misunderstood.”
I flattened my mouth. “If you say so.”
“I do have an alibi, Stephanie, but it would be awkward for the lady in question to come forward. You must trust me or we’ll never get past your assumption that I killed Usher to work on finding out who did.”
So what then? His lover was married? He was having an affair with a married woman? I was being asked to trust a man who was lying and cheating with a married woman?
I felt my blood pressure start to rise. I was experiencing a reaction to John’s explanation that I caught me by surprise. For some reason, I felt a tiny cramp in my heart. I was disappointed in him. Despite his being a Vampire and a possible murderer, someplace deep inside, I’d wanted him to be a good guy. But he wasn’t a good guy. He was a user, just like my ex-husband.
“Well, if you didn’t do it,” I snapped, “and if you have an alibi, why aren’t you going to call the police?”
“For one thing,” he said, leaning back into his chair. “With this storm, they won’t even be able to get here until it stops snowing and the roads are cleared. By the time that happens, whoever did kill Usher could be long gone.”
“And for another thing?”
He arched his brows. “I’m a Vampire, Stephanie. The local yokel cops will automatically assume I did it, and stop looking for the real killer. And since we don’t know why Usher was killed, the murderer could have another death planned. We have to figure out who it is, gather evidence, identify and isolate the murderer and then call the authorities.”
I studied him for a moment. “Okay. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that you didn’t do it. Who had a motive to kill him? What was he doing in the study? Was he here to get a book or was he lured here for the express purpose of killing him? Was it an argument with someone that turned violent, or—”
“Hang on,” he interrupted. “The first thing we have to do is get everyone in the house together and tell them what happened. Watch their reactions to the news. Since we don’t know exactly when Usher was attacked, the best we can do for now is find out who saw him alive last and nail down that time.”
“He might have been attacked hours ago and just lay there, dying. Actually, I think… I think… he may even still have been alive when I came into the study. As I was waiting for you, I heard a sound. I thought it was my imagination or that a book had toppled from a shelf or something, and when I went to check, there he was. I’d hate to think he was still alive when I got here, and that I might have been able to do something to help him.”
No question about it, I was still in shock. I know I felt uncertain and confused. In my wildest dreams, I never would have believed I’d be involved in a murder, or working for a man I wanted to trust, wanted to believe, but couldn’t simply take for granted that he was innocent.
“I’m sorry, Stephanie. Truly. For your sake, I so sorry this happened.”
“Well, I imagine Percy Usher feels more even more regret than you do.”
He stood. “I’m going to have Leech assemble everyone in the parlor in fifteen minutes. I want you there.”
“All right. I’ll go get my mother and bring Lucy, too.”
Returning to my room, I discovered my mother was awake and sitting in her wheelchair, staring out the window at the falling snow. Lucy sat close by, her legs curled under her in the window seat, reading a story aloud to my mom.
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to me,” said Charlotte. “I just don’t have much pep anymore. I guess I feel sad because I won’t ever see my children… “
Lucy stopped reading and looked up. Closing the book, she uncurled her legs and stood. “Hello, Missus. We’re havin’ a right good time.”
I looked around the bedroom. There were no bookshelves in the room and no books. As far as she could recall, Lucy hadn’t had anything in her hands when she’d arrived.
I glanced at my mom sitting quietly in her wheelchair, off somewhere in her own world. Had she heard Lucy reading the story? Probably not.
“Where did you get the book, Lucy?”
“From the study,” she said cheerily. “There’s a whole shelf with picture books on ‘em. This here’s my favorite. Who’d’ve thought a lady spider could be so talented!”
Lucy thought Charlotte’s Web was a documentary? Okay.
“When?” I said. “When did you get the book?”
Abruptly, the sparkle left her eyes and her mouth turned down. She lowered her head and looked at me dead on like a feral cat tracking its kill. “Why do ya wanta know, Missus?”
Now was not the time or place to engage in what could turn out to be a to-the-death confrontation, so I shrugged, “No reason.” Grabbing the handles of my mother’s wheelchair, I circled the chair around and headed for the door. “Dr. Mercilus wants to have a word with everyone in the parlor. Could you please lead the way, Lucy?”
Bustling past me, the maid opened the bedroom door and held it while I pushed Mom’s wheelchair out and headed toward the elevator at the end of the hall. As we entered the elevator, I happened to glance down at my mom. Her hair was disheveled from her nap, so I finger-combed it a bit to get it off her neck.
As the elevator door slid closed, I noticed the marks on Mom’s neck.
Two marks about an inch apart. Two tiny puncture wounds.
My blood turned to ice, then to fire. Someone had attacked my mother. Was it Lucy? Or had the “lady” John had claimed to have been with really my mother? I tried to think past my racing brain. Scenarios came and went, each horrific scene replaced by the next, each one more terrifying than the last.
Calm. Calm. Steady on. Think. Breathe. Do not panic.
I had to protect my mother. But how? I had nobody I could turn to. I was isolated in an unfamiliar place, trapped by a snowstorm, surrounded by creatures intending to do me and my mother harm.
The elevator came to a halt and the door slid open. My mi
nd continued to race. What to do, how to escape? Make blind accusations against—who? Keep quiet, avoid arousing suspicion and wait for the chance to get away?
Shit, I’d been stupid. I’d rather be starving on the street than subject my mom to something like this. But that’s what I’d done. I’d walked right into a vampire’s den. I gritted my teeth. Not Vampire, so-called “ethnic” group as John had claimed, but blood-sucking monsters.
Lucy watched me carefully as she held the elevator door open, but not as carefully as I watched her.
For the moment, I had to keep my fears under control and be patient. If it were just me, I’d take my chances out in the snow, but with the storm and the isolation and the wheelchair, I had no choice but to stay put.
The puncture wounds on Mom’s neck were small and she seemed not to be bothered by them. From the look of things, she wasn’t a member of the Undead or a Creature of the Night just yet, so she was still salvageable. I needed to protect her from another attack and then get her to the hospital as soon as possible.
As the elevator door slid open, I felt a strong sense of self-loathing with only one thing on my mind…
Oh what a damned fool I’ve been!
Chapter 9
7:15 P.M.
As Lucy led the way to the parlor, my mother began to mumble and shake her head. Bending toward her ear, I whispered, “Mom? Is something wrong?”
Without turning, she suddenly shouted, “Woof!”
I moved around to crouch in front of her. “Mom?”
She blinked a few times before making eye contact with me. It happened so seldom these days, it took me a little off guard.
With furrowed brow, she appeared to be searching for a lost puzzle piece. She glanced around the room, settling her gaze on Lucy standing by a closed door beyond which, I assumed, lay the parlor.
Returning her attention to me, she said, “Where have I been, Lady?”
I cupped her cool hands together in mine. “We’ve been upstairs, and now we’re going—”
“No,” she said, her brown eyes clouded with confusion. “No, no, no. Where have I been? I can’t seem to remember. So much… lost time… I…”
Her words trailed off and she became silent once more. Over the last few years, she’d had occasional moments of lucidity, but this one seemed different in some way.
“Missus?” Lucy called out. Turning the handle on the door, she opened it. “This way, Missus. There all waitin’ fer us.” She grinned her incisor-challenged, pointy-canined grin.
Dammit. Reluctantly, I moved around behind the wheelchair and continued propelling it toward whatever awaited us beyond the parlor door.
Whatever was up with Mom would have to wait for now.
Though the parlor was large, it reflected the same cozy tone as the rest of the house—the small portion of the house I’d seen, anyway. Overstuffed leather chairs, brocade-covered settees, plush sofas and carved oak coffee tables were arranged in such a way as to encourage relaxation and conversation. Beautiful landscape oils filled the walls, and at the far end of the room, an enormous fireplace offered a roaring blaze.
All eyes turned to watch as we entered the room.
A quick inventory allowed me to identify those people I’d already met.
The man himself—John Mercilus—stood with one arm resting on the polished cherry mantel. Though his rugged face held no particular expression, his blue eyes seemed to smile at me as I wheeled Mom to a spot near the fire. Of course, I could have been mistaken, and what I thought was a warm greeting was just the reflection of firelight on his glasses.
Leech stood next to him, her arms folded, her shiny obsidian eyes glaring at me. No mistaking that glint for firelight.
Wolf and Igor sat on opposite sides of a love seat near a bay window. Wolf was still in his jeans and purple tie-dye T-shirt, while Igor had changed into a khaki jumpsuit such as mechanics often wear. Still attired in their respective aprons, Ura Troll and Lucy were perched like nervous birds ready to take flight at the least sign of a predator.
Shoving off from the fireplace mantel, John walked toward me. “Everyone,” he said. “This is Stephanie Gabriel and her mother, Jeanne Wilder. Stephanie is the Mausoleum’s new housekeeper.”
A variety of greetings—from grunts to murmurs to restrained hellos—emanated from the assemblage following his introduction.
John gestured to a short, pudgy, bald man of middle years. “Stephanie, this is Robert Renfield, the docudrama’s director.” Renfield gave her a brief who-the-hell-cares smile.
Catapulting from a chair next to Igor and Wolf’s loveseat, a tall, gaunt, pale man in his thirties stretched his hand toward me. As I reached around my mom, he said, “Barnaby Karloff. I’m writing the screenplay for this little project. I understand you’re a writer? A novelist?” He released my hand and stepped back toward his chair.
“Was,” I said softly. “I was a novelist. What is your screenplay about?”
“About a hundred pages!” he gushed, then laughed as though he assumed I’d never heard that lame line before. Recovering, he rushed, “Hey, just kidding, kid. A little Hollywood humor.”
Very little indeed.
He tapped his index finger against the hollow of his cheek. “You see, it’s the true story of Vampires. God knows they’ve been maligned for two hundred year. We felt we owed it to this oppressed and misunderstood people to set the record straight.”
I felt more obligated than curious, to ask the question, “What’s the title?”
He lifted his shoulders in a sort of helpless shrug. “What else? The Vampire Strikes Back!”
Of course it is. “Sounds perfect.”
Next, John introduced Teri Van Helsing, actress, and Harry Nuckles, actor.
“Hey,” Teri said with a little wave. “Welcome to the madhouse, sweetie.” The requisite blond bombshell, Teri almost certainly had more brains in her implants than in her head. What role could this sexpot possibly play in a Vampire docudrama? “What part do you play?”
She winked. “The female lead, of course. Leech.”
It was all I could do to keep from keeling over. The best I could manage was to clamp my jaw shut and make no comment whatsoever. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Leech nodding her approval.
“It is like lookink in a mirror,” she drawled. Since I’d been lead to believe Creatures of the Night had no reflection in a mirror, if Leech was happy with the casting choice, who was I to challenge it?
At that point, Harry spread his arms as though he expected to wrap me in a big bear hug. “Stephanie!” he said with a beaming Bucky Beaver smile. “C’mere, baby, and give old Harry a proper welcome.”
Not gonna happen.
Harry Nuckles appeared to be in his mid-forties. His hair was too black and too long for a man his age, not to mention the disconcerting constant expression of surprise that was undoubtedly the result of too severe a facelift, or too much Botox, or both.
I side-stepped Harry, keeping my mom and her wheelchair between us.
“Nice to meet you all,” I said to the room at large, and left it at that.
“Say, where’s Percy?” This from Renfield who stood, hands on his hips, a bemused look on his face as he surveyed the room. “Somebody forget to tell Percy about this little confab?”
John stepped into the center of the room. “Percy Usher is the reason I’ve called you all here. There has been a… development.”
Teri Van BoobJob leaped to her feet with a breathy, “What kind of…” Dramatic pause. “Development?”
“I’m sorry to have to break it to you like this, but Usher is dead. Murdered.”
As John had suggested, I studied everyone’s reactions.
Robert Renfield threw up his hands. “Shit! There goes my leading man!”
Harry Nuckles thrust his fists into his hips. “What? The little son-of-a-bitch owed me money!”
Felix Karloff crossed his arms. “I’m not re-writing the friggin’ script!”
Titties Van Cleavage mewled, “But… but… but… he was gonna marry me! We was ingaged!”
Wolf and Igor exchanged Who’s Percy Usher? glances.
Lucy and Ura gasped in unison.
Leech frowned and said to John, “How vas he murdered? Vhen? Vhere?”
But before he could answer—
“I know who did it.”
Who said that?
I looked around. Everyone was staring open-mouthed at… my mother.
“Mom?” I said, crouching before her again. “Do you know who killed Percy?”
She nodded, then leaned forward and whispered, “It was Professor Plum in the Hall with the Candlestick.” Pursing her lips, she nodded several more times, then sat back in her wheelchair with a satisfied look on her face, and gave me a wink.
“Mom?” I choked. “Mom, are you here? Do you know me?”
Her forehead wrinkled as though she were trying to understand an obscure foreign language. A moment later, her expression cleared and she smiled. “Yes. I know you.”
My heart lurched and I feared I might cry. “Tell me, Mom. Who am I?”
Her smile grew wider. “Lady,” she said. “Lady, who won’t let the angels take me away.”
An involuntary cry left my throat. I swallowed, wiped my eyes. “That’s right,” I whispered, tamping down my disappointment. “That’s right, Mom.”
John had moved to stand behind me. “Do you think she saw something? That she might know who killed Usher?”
I shook my head. “No. We used to play Clue when I was a little girl. In her muddled mind, that’s what we’re doing. It’s a game to her. A game… from a lifetime ago.”
John tilted his head and eyed my mom. “Hm. I wonder… ”
I slid a glance at my mother. Quiet. Serene. Off again in her world of shadows and mist and memories. If she really did know who killed the young actor, how did she know?
And if whoever killed Usher believed my mother could identify him, would he try to silence her before she could reveal his identity?
I stood and tried to make eye contact with those in the room. “My mother has Alzheimer’s,” I said loudly. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time. Besides, she wasn’t anywhere near the study when Percy—”
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