Chapter 12
I MET with Craig and his sister Tiffany at a coffee shop on Massachusetts Avenue. It was close to noon and the place was packed. It took me forever to get a tall latte for Tiffany, an iced chai for Craig, and a Diet Pepsi for myself. When I brought the drinks back to our little table, I found out that my Diet was in fact a regular Pepsi. There was no way I was going to fight the line again, so I pushed it aside and tried not to let its presence taunt me. Craig and his sister sat across from me and they both looked a little pale, although I wasn’t sure if that was from the events of the last few days or the fact that they weren’t used to being up when the sun was shining.
“Isn’t it awful, what happened to Bethany?” Tiffany was saying as I handed her drink to her. The excitement in her voice told me that while she may find it awful on some level, it was also quite a thrill. Tiffany was pretty in a sort of washed-out way. Too much drinking, too many late nights, and too much partying had robbed her of some of her spark. Had her life gone another way she could have been an actress or something similar. You could tell she’d been a stunner not that many years ago. As it was, a few more years and she’d look so worn that she’d have a hard time filling her G-string with dollar bills. I wondered what a stripper did when she retired.
“And to think it happened so close to where I was,” Craig said, shaking his head. In the harsh light of day I was glad I hadn’t gone home with him. The hair was still unwashed, but now I could see the blotchy skin and discolored fingernails. Had I really gotten to the point where someone like Craig would be acceptable? I steered the conversation away from the murder. My case was Brenda Sanderson. “What do you think has happened to Brenda?” I asked Tiffany. She looked blank for a moment so I threw the other name out to jar her memory. “Amber. Your friend who’s disappeared.”
Tiffany blew on her latte and took a tiny sip. “You mean do I think she was murdered too?”
“It’s a possibility.”
She shook her head. “No, Amber wasn’t the sort to get herself murdered. She ran off with her guy. I’d bet you anything on that.”
I wondered what it was that made Bethany the sort that would get herself murdered but forgot about that at the mention of a guy. “She was seeing someone?”
“A guy named Derek Schneider.” Tiffany made a face. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t like Derek or her latte or both. “He started coming to the club a couple of months ago. Really surprised me when they started going out. He was kind of a low-life. Not really her type at all.”
He might not have been her type, but he probably was just the type that Janice Sanderson would have a heart attack over her daughter seeing. “Know where this guy lived?”
Tiffany thought it over. She either really wasn’t used to being up at this hour or thinking for her required a lot of work. “Somewhere on the south side. I remember she said something about going to his place one time. Apparently he lives with his sister and her family, or something like that. Amber was pretty disgusted, I could tell. Kids running all over the place, the place a wreck. She said there must have been six kids and three adults living in a tiny little three bedroom house. She said it smelled, and they couldn’t make out because there was nowhere to do it. I laughed when she told me, but you could tell Amber didn’t see the humor in it.”
“Know where this Derek worked?”
“A junkyard, I think. Or some sort of used car lot. I remember him talking about car parts one night. No, it was a junkyard. Run by his uncle, I believe. Yeah, I remember now. His uncle paid him under the counter when he needed work. The rest of the time I think Derek just sold pot to the local school kids. He never had much money, that’s for sure.”
“Yet he could afford to hang out at Pickin’s.”
She shrugged. “You do what you gotta do. I think after they started seeing each other that Amber paid his cover to get in. He didn’t drink much, and I never saw him tip any of the girls, except Amber. And even then not much.”
Quite the Romeo. “Anyone else show interest in Amber other than this Derek? Any guy that seemed to come just to watch her dance?”
Tiffany shook her head. “Not that I remember.”
During this conversation Craig had kept his eyes on me. He exuded boredom and had almost finished his chai. When his sister seemed to run out of words she knew to say he spoke up. “Do you think the girls at Pickin’s are in danger from some sort of maniac killer? Is Tiff in any danger?”
“It’s hard to say. Bethany’s death may have been an isolated incident, but I certainly wouldn’t take any chances.” I gave Tiffany a stern look. “I wouldn’t go home with any strangers, or go outside at night unless you’re with someone.”
“You think Amber is dead, and they just haven’t found the body yet?” Craig asked.
“It’s possible. I hope not.”
“You saw Bethany’s body, right?” Craig asked.
“Yep.”
“What did she look like?”
“Dead,” I said. “She looked very, very dead.”
IT WAS in their eyes. Angela had that look. The one that said I’m better than you.
He never should have become involved with Angela. His kind never mixed with humans. Not while they were alive, anyway. Angela had lived next door to his cemetery. At that time, he had been staying in a crypt just outside of London. It was a nice area. Lots of trees and even a stream not far away. Angela and her mother lived in the old rectory. He didn’t know it when he first met her, but Angela had been hauled out to the countryside forcibly by her mother. Angela’s mother assumed that if she took her daughter away from the sins of the city, Angela would somehow change. She shouldn’t have bothered.
Angela had been in the garden the first time the man saw her. He hadn’t been a man then, of course. But he now thought of himself as human (mostly) and refused to think of himself as anything else. Angela had stolen out into the night. She had climbed out of an upstairs window and down a tree. The man had been scavenging and had happened to glance at the house as Angela had made her escape. He had never seen anyone so… enchanting. The way she moved. The way she looked. He wanted her. Not like he wanted other humans. No, he wanted to… protect her. The concept had been foreign to him, but he knew that’s what he wanted. He wanted to make sure that she came to no harm.
He followed at a discreet distance as Angela walked down the road in the moonlight. She was heading for the town. He knew she was going to the inn. It was the only place in town to go at night.
He was right. Angela walked swiftly, with purpose, and made her way to the Lion’s Mane. She stayed there for several hours. The man waited outside. He couldn’t go in, of course, but he wanted to be sure Angela would come to no harm.
When she left and walked back down the road, swaying slightly, the man followed again. He listened as she hummed a tune. The notes seemed so sweet in the night air, and it felt like she was singing only to him.