If Mercedes is right and I do have luck, it’s long since run out.
Chapter 8
My resolve is stronger than ever, but I have to admit that calling the break-in to the precinct isn’t fun. When the dispatcher answers and I identify myself, she patches me straight through to the lieutenant.
Uh oh.
I take a deep breath and hope for the best. “Hi, Lieutenant.”
“Tempest.” There’s both weariness and dismay in just that one word.
“I have to report a crime.”
“Another one?” His grunts sound disgusted.
“Yes.”
“I thought I told you to stay out of alleys.” Now he sounds disappointed and frustrated.
“A guy broke into my house.”
“A guy? Did you recognize him? Was he the murderer? Damn it, Tempest, I—”
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I say dryly.
“You didn’t even have a gun for—”
“I did,” I whisper guiltily.
He’s quiet.
“I shot him.”
“You killed him? Do you need an ambulance? Wright, send an—”
“He was fine.”
“’Was fine?’ What in the world does that mean?”
“I mean I shot him, and it didn’t affect him.”
His sigh sounds heavy over the line. “What in the world? Are you trying to pull that vampire crap again? Seriously, Tempest, I don’t have time for—”
“Lieutenant, have I ever done anything like this before? I’m a good cop. I work hard. I do my best. Why would I lie? What would I have to gain?”
“Tempest, I’m starting to get worried about your state of mind. Have you called Dr. Harris yet?”
“No,” I admit.
“Call her. I’ll send a unit over to secure your house and leave an officer outside your place for protection.”
“I don’t need—”
“You do.” And he hangs up.
The officers, Diego Garcia and Felix Kerns, examine every window and door. None show any signs of tampering, but like I mentioned, the windows aren’t securable. They find the shell from my shot, but there’s no bullet. It’s still in the guy. I still can’t get that picture out of my mind. The recoil from the gun, the explosion of sound, the guy not even staggering, no blood, no anything.
I ride with them to the station, Diego opting to ride in the back so I don’t have to. Giving statements is becoming all too common, and I hate the stares everyone is giving me. The whispers plague me, but they’re nothing compared to my growing fright, the fear I’m doing my best to hide. None of this makes any sense. Who is the guy who came after me? How does he relate to the murderer? Because there’s a connection there, I’m sure of it.
My statement given, I walk past my desk. Travis, Marlon, and Mercedes aren’t near theirs. Have they made any headway against Hank the Tank and Slammin’ Sammy? I sure hope so, but it feels so weird to be out of the loop.
Then again, if I get my way, I’ll forever be out of the loop unless a drug dealer ends up dead.
Someone already has. Jane Doe.
Wanting to forget about the intruder, I focus instead on the murderer. I’m ready to head to the morgue to corner Henrietta, but Diego saunters over to me. His huge grin reveals blinding teeth made all the whiter compared to his darker complexion.
“Ready to go, princess?”
“Princess?” I gape at him.
Felix joins us. “We’re your protectors.”
I groan. “I don’t need—”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. We’ll protect your neck from the big bad vampires.” Diego’s grin grows. He can be charming as Hell when he wants to be, and I can’t find it in me to be aggravated.
“Who is going to protect you if I judo chop you in the neck?” I retort, grinning myself because it’s either joke or cry, and I’m not about to cry.
They drive me back home and park on the far side of the street. Diego offers to come inside, but I decline. He’s a lady’s man, and I’m not interested.
As soon as I get inside and after I lock the door, I call Travis. “How are things going?”
“I should be asking you.”
“Talk to me about Ricky Bones. Did he admit that he lied? How did he react when he learned about the kid?”
My chest grows tight, and I rub it uncomfortably. I’ve fired my gun in the line of duty before, but only ever warning shots. That my gun killed a kid bothers me. Honestly, I’m surprised I could pull the trigger on the intruder without suffering a panic attack over the kid. Maybe that’s why I’m gunning so hard for the murderer. I want to do something to help. I have to.
“You don’t need to worry about that or anything else. Clarissa, I know you don’t want to hear this, that you’ve heard it from the lieutenant already, but seriously, you should think about leaving—”
“No.”
“Even if it’s just for—”
“No.”
“You’re too pigheaded for your own good.” He sighs. “What’s this I hear about someone breaking into your place?”
“Travis, it was another one,” I whisper.
“Another what, Clarissa?”
“Vampire. Or vamp wannabe. His teeth, Travis, you should’ve seen them! They were—”
“Clarissa—”
“Sharp and pointed like long knives. They could cut through bone!”
“And he threatened you.”
“Yeah. He knew I was a cop.” I bite my lower lip and tell him everything I said in my statement.
“Do you wanna stay at my place?”
“There’s no need. Tweedledee and Tweedledum are babysitting me and my place.”
He laughs. “If they ever learn that you call them that, it’s not gonna be good.”
“Ah, come on. You know they’ll argue over who’s Tweedledee. Or, knowing Diego, he’ll claim to be a long-lost triplet, Tweedledebonair.” My laugh is a little forced.
“Clarissa, you really think vampires are real?”
I hesitate. “I think they think they are. Their teeth aren’t natural. I’m telling you. They must’ve had implants put in. They’re dangerous!”
“All the more reason why you should leave. You’re obviously being targeted since you’re the only one to see them and live to tell the tale.”
“All the more reason why I have to stay,” I counter. “No one else believes me because they haven’t seen it. When another body turns up, all of you are going to realize you should’ve taken me more seriously.”
I hang up, hoping I finally got through to him. It would be nice to have at least one person think I’m not crazy.
I mean, I understand. If Travis was saying all of this, I would have a difficult time swallowing it. Even so, I’d like to believe I’d give him the benefit of a doubt, given everything we’ve been through.
My phone buzzes with a text from Samantha asking to catch up over dinner tomorrow. I text back a time and place. She replies with a thumbs up as my phone rings. Man, I’m popular tonight.
When I glance at the name, I smile and then sigh.
“Hey, Marlon.”
“How are you doing?” he asks.
Normally, I would be so happy for him to call, but right now, I’m not worried about flirting.
“Been better,” I admit.
“Ah, what is going on exactly? I’ve heard some things, but…”
I roll my eyes and flop onto my couch, disappointed. He just wants to pump me for intel. And here I thought he’d called out of concern for my welfare.
I chew on a nail as I debate how to answer him. He’ll think I’m crazy if I tell him the truth, but I do need to convince at least one person. I do not want to go about this alone.
Quickly, I disclose everything about how I think they’re vamp wannabes. How the murderer drank Jane Doe’s blood and how he scraped his fangs against her skin to obscure the bite mark.
“Wow,” he says when I finish.
&
nbsp; That’s it? Wow?
“A lot to take in, I know.” I wait for him to respond.
He doesn’t.
Well, there goes him for being an ally.
“I gotta go,” I say abruptly.
“All right. Clarissa? Stay safe.”
“You, too.”
That night, I don’t sleep easy, not until I bring an aluminum baseball bat into bed with me. Now that Dad’s gun has been turned over, I don’t have access to one. That’s even worse than not having my badge.
As soon as eight o’clock rolls around, I call Doctor Harris. As a shrink, maybe she’ll listen to me. Maybe she’ll have insight into vamp wannabes.
I can only hope.
The phone rings two and a half times before she answers. “Dr. Harris speaking. How may I help you?”
Yes, she answers the calls herself if she’s not with a patient. I think that’s insane. Then again, she deals with the insane all day long, so she’s bound to be a little nuts herself.
Okay, that’s terrible of me. I know. She does help people, and she’s every bit as important as us cops. It’s just I can’t stand her personally. She’s so… judgy. I feel like she’s always side-eyeing me. I’m convinced she thinks I’m a failure of a cop, of a daughter, of a human being.
And when you talk to her, she scribbles away on her notepad. She doesn’t even use a computer. At least no one else can read her chicken scratch. Believe me, I tried peeking, and I caught maybe my name, and that’s it.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Sorry. It’s Clarissa Tempest calling.”
“Ah, yes. I was going to call you this afternoon if you didn’t reach out first. Your lieutenant wishes for us to speak. When are you available today?”
“All day,” I mumble.
“Excellent. I had a cancellation, so I’m available now if you would like to come over.”
I pull the phone away, heave a sigh, and say through gritted teeth, “I’ll be over in fifteen.”
It’s more like a half hour because I hop in the shower and heat up a Pop-Tart to eat on the ride over. Frosted brown sugar cinnamon. The best flavor of all. Anyone who tells you differently is lying.
I brush crumbs from my coat as I open the door. The waiting room is nicer than any I’ve ever gone to, but I don’t get time to enjoy it. Doctor Harris is standing outside her office, and she wastes no time bringing me back. Her office is on the small side. If she’s going for intimate, she missed the mark. I always feel suffocated here like I’m trapped in a tomb or coffin.
“So,” Doctor Harris says, drawing out the word as she walks around her grand desk. It takes up a third of the room, and if you ask me, that says a lot about her. “Lieutenant Reynolds didn’t quite explain to me what is going on with you, Clarissa. Why don’t you—”
“Didn’t quite?” That suggests he did share something. I opt to sit on a high-backed chair instead of lounging and refuse to fidget. “What did he say?”
“Let’s not worry about him and focus on you instead.” She primly sits down and picks up her notepad and a purple pen. “In your own words—”
I hate that expression. Whose words would I use other than my own?
“—share with me what you are going through.” She taps the pen against her lips. She wears minimal makeup, but what she uses hides her age. She’s older than she looks, definitely in her fifties.
“I’ve been witnessing a lot of crime lately.”
“Oh? How is that different from normal?”
“It’s not every day you witness a man gnawing on a woman’s throat.”
Doctor Harris’s eyebrows lift a little, the only hint of a change in her expression. “Now that is different.”
“You can say that again.”
“You’re sure he was… gnawing?”
“He was biting her neck. Drinking, I think. There was blood all over her and him, too.”
“Now that is interesting. Blood can symbolize a great many things to different people. Did you know that one of the first female serial killers… And there are female serial killers, not just males even though the males do outnumber the females greatly. The first female serial killer was a woman by the name of Elizabeth Bathory. She was a Hungarian countess who lived in the—”
Is she a shrink or a historian?
“—1500s. She was rumored to take baths in the blood of virgins to maintain her beauty and preserve her life. Some called her the Blood Countess while others referred to her as Countess Dracula.”
Man, does she love to hear herself talk.
“What about you, Clarissa? What does blood mean to you?” She scribbled all throughout her speech, but now she lowers her pen and stares at me expectantly. I swear she wears her half jacket glasses to look the part. I don’t see how she could see through them with them perched so low on her sloped nose.
I shrug. “Blood’s important, I guess. Meant to be on the inside, not the outside.”
She nods, scribbling away. Okay, I don’t think I said anything substantial.
I lean forward. “In your experience, have you ever come across people who think they’re vampires?”
“You think vampires are real?”
I want to slam my forehead. Or slap hers. “That’s not what I said.”
“Allow me to rephrase. Do you think vampires are real?”
“I think there are people in Bethlehem who think they are vampires.”
“People? Now there is more than one?” She’s writing furiously. “Tell me, Clarissa. Has anyone else seen them?”
“The Jane Doe who died,” I say dryly.
“No one else who is still alive has,” she notes critically.
“No.” I squirm.
Why do people keep bringing that up? It makes me feel like there’s an invisible timer clocking down the last minutes of my life.
“I think you have a lot of explaining to do,” she says. She’s putting on that phony, indifferent air she sometimes adopts. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“I was walking home—”
“From where?”
I take a deep breath to try to expel my growing frustration. “From the bar. I—”
“Why did you go to the bar?”
Of course, she would ask that instead of if I had anything to drink. I know shrinks are supposed to dig deep, but I hate all of the intrusive questions. I’ve questioned more than my fair share of criminals and suspects. Maybe it’s only fitting that I have to face an interrogation.
“To meet up with friends.”
“Which friends?”
I flush. “Coworkers.”
“No other reason to go to the bar?” She puts down her notepad and picks up a file. After a moment of flipping through, she nods, discards the file, her hands clasped on it. “Have you visited your parents’ graves recently? You told me before that you used to go every week.”
“It’s more like every month now,” I confess almost guiltily. “And, yeah, I went there before going to the bar.”
Again, I recall that form at the cemetery, the one that disappeared in the blink of an eye. What it was, it moved too fast to be seen. My first vampire encounter? Or an overactive imagination? I’m not sure. Maybe I’m disillusioned about everything.
“What were you thinking about just now?” she pries.
“That I will do everything I can to make sure that no one else gets killed in the same manner as Jane Doe.”
“Hasn’t Lieutenant Reynolds taken your badge and gun away? Yes? Why don’t you explain why to me?”
I rub my forehead. This is going to be a long, drawn-out session. It’s already wearing me down.
How convenient of Doctor Harris to forget to mention she doesn’t have another patient lined up after me. We end up talking for two sessions. By the time I leave, I don’t feel any better. In fact, she dug into my parents too much. She insinuated that I have a lot of unresolved guilt that I project into my work. Maybe I do, but I sure hate talking about it.
As for the murderer and the vamp wannabe who threatened me, Doctor Harris didn’t have any insight. Honestly, I think she thinks I’m crazy. I know I’m not. Someone has to believe me. Someone has to be willing to do more. Maybe make a task force specifically for the vamp wannabes. I’m not gonna get anywhere with the detective sergeant or the lieutenant. Instead, I opt to go over their heads and make an appointment to see the mayor.
Yes, it’s a major step, going to talk to him about all of this. Normally, I would go out and try to find more evidence to build my case. Too many lives are at stake for that. We have to make a move and now, and in order to do that, I need support.
I’m stubborn to a fault. Maybe one day, that flaw will come to bite me in the ass or the neck. Doesn’t matter. I’m gonna do whatever I can to make sure people are safe.
Who better to have on my side than the mayor? But that’s assuming I can convince him when I haven’t been able to convince others.
Chapter 9
The mayor of Bethlehem, Juan Martin, is a tall, handsome Hispanic in his early forties. Always dressed in a suit, with a nod to his team, the Eagles, with a tie, belt buckle, or socks. His jet-black hair is always perfectly styled.
He walks another man out of his office and waves me in. “Officer Tempest, how are you? I haven’t seen you since you cracked that small drug ring a year ago.”
“Year and a half,” I correct, “and it wasn’t just me. Travis and I—”
“That’s not what Travis said.” His laugh booms as he gestures toward a seat in front of his desk. The mayor doesn’t sit. He hardly ever does, always on the move. Instead, he just leans against the front of his desk. “How can I help you?”
I remain standing, stuffing my hands into my coat pocket, hoping I look relaxed. “I wanted to be the first to inform you about a problem.”
His well-groomed eyebrows rise. “Problem? Do tell.” His accent becomes thicker when he’s emotional, and worry is definitely bringing it out.
“Well…” I’m starting to hate talking about all of this. “I wanted you to know before the media catches wind of it. We potentially have a serial killer on our hands.”
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