I woke up completely disoriented and clueless as to where I was. The curtains at the window were so thick they let in just the barest sliver of light, from which I could ascertain it was daytime. The sun illuminated a Victorian dresser topped with a vase of white flowers whose name I didn’t know, which reminded me I was at Steve’s. I looked over to his side of the bed, but he was gone, the pillow fluffed and his side of the comforter neatly pulled up.
The digital clock on the bedside table read 10:30. I had finally drifted off to sleep about 4:00 A.M., listening to Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas” in the movie Holiday Inn. It was the most cheerful thing I could find on TV, but it didn’t help me a bit.
I reluctantly left Steve’s soft bed to go to the bathroom. When I looked at my neck in the mirror I thought I could detect a faint pink line, but when I leaned closer I couldn’t see anything. Last night Inspector Sansome had taken a long, hard look at me, and I’d thought that maybe I’d missed some blood when I washed up. I knew that it would be helpful to his investigation to know that I’d been slashed as well as Kimberley, but I couldn’t bear to give him any information that might lead him, even erroneously, to Eric.
After putting on the clothes I’d brought from home I went to the kitchen and poured a bowl of Raisin Bran with milk. I chewed, but it tasted so much like sawdust that I spat it out. I pushed the bowl away and laid my arms on the table, then my head. Sadness overwhelmed me and I cried onto the wooden table.
The sound of Steve singing dried up my tears. Through the window I saw him weeding in his garden, knees on a rubber gardening cushion, iPod speakers in his ears. The day was bright, the sky was blue and his flowers brilliant red. It was a beautiful, sunlit moment, one Eric would never get to experience for the rest of his long life. To never see the sun again, what would that be like?
It seemed like I was on the way to finding out, as the light was stinging my eyes, even from indoors. Steve had left the Chronicle on the table and I scanned the front page. A wooly mammoth had been hacked out of the ice in Antarctica and scientists were hoping to clone it. I turned to the local news. A venerable printing press was being evicted because a brand new blog-hosting company had bought the building. The press employees were desperately trying to finish printing six hundred copies of an illuminated Bible before they ceased to exist.
Below the picture of a man laying tiny metal letters into a plate was the next story’s headline: “Autopsy Report on ‘Vampire’ Victim: Blood Loss Cause of Death.” At first I thought the article was about Kimberley, then realized that it had to be about Lucy. There was no way they could have done an autopsy on Kimberley so quickly.
The autopsy report on Lucy’s body stated the cause of death as massive blood loss from two wounds in the carotid artery, made by a weapon similar to an ice pick. Toxicology had found traces of Rohypnol, the “date rape” drug, in her system. Time of death was estimated to have been between nine P.M. and midnight on Tuesday. I wondered whether the police were still looking for Les.
The feeling I had then would have been giddy relief if I hadn’t been reading about a dead colleague, but I was still relieved. Lucy had been drugged with Rohypnol. As I could attest, Eric didn’t ply anyone with drugs. He didn’t need to, since his own scent was a drug to humans. Lucy’s murder had been staged to look like a vampire’s handiwork, or more accurately, a fake vampire’s handiwork. So now Eric was exonerated, at least in my mind, of both murders.
I went back to the bedroom and rooted around in Steve’s closet for a hat. He had a shelf of brand new baseball caps, acquired while squiring clients to Giants games. I took one, found my sunglasses in my purse, and headed downstairs to the garden. I handed Steve the newspaper, folded over to the Lucy article. He sat down on his weeding cushion and began reading.
I couldn’t wait for him to finish. “Eric didn’t kill Lucy!” I shouted.
Steve looked up. “The article says that?”
“No, but it says that Lucy was…” I stopped myself. Unless I was going to tell a long and unbelievable story I’d better keep my mouth shut.
Steve sighed. “I wish you felt you could trust me, Angie.”
Instantly I was filled with remorse. “Oh, Steve, of course I trust you.”
His baleful expression told me he didn’t believe me, and why should he?
He looked back down at the newspaper. “So he didn’t kill Lucy. But what about Kimberley?”
“Oh, no, he definitely didn’t kill her.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you how you know that. So your vampire boyfriend is as harmless as a kitten, huh? No wonder you’re happy.”
Was Eric harmless? I paused to think that through. He may not have killed Lucy or Kimberley, but that didn’t change what Nicolai had been telling me: “If you die in the conversion you’re out of luck…” Eric could still kill me in the conversion process, if he decided to continue it. And then there was the person who had killed Lucy and Kimberley, and attempted to kill me. That person was still at large.
“I’m not happy,” I answered, and by then it was true.
Steve got back on his knees and pulled some yellow flowers out of the ground.
“How can you do that at a time like this?” I asked.
“It calms the mind. You should try it. Actually, never mind. You don’t know an oxalis from a delphinium.”
“Steve, did you try calling Bangkok yesterday?”
He moved his knee cushion farther down the flowerbed. He was wearing a leather gardening belt, the slots filled with pruning shears, weed diggers, a ball of twine, and other tools. Steve was nothing if not prepared.
“Yes, they know Barry Warner over there, that’s a fact.”
“Really?” I leaned forward eagerly. Maybe the theory that I’d been formulating about Tangento might turn out to be true.
“But I didn’t get anything. The woman who answered said, ‘You not Barry!’ and hung up. I guess my accent wasn’t convincing.”
I picked a flower and put it to my nose. I used to think fresh flowers were the prettiest scent in the world, but now I knew better. “Steve, there’s something I need to tell you. The man who attacked me, he took the Tangento file, with all my information in it.”
Steve stopped weeding, his trowel in midair. “Huh? Did you tell the police?”
“No, not yet.”
“Why not?” he asked.
I couldn’t tell him it was because I had a vampire-killing knife in the bag that was also stolen, so I just shrugged.
“I have a theory,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
“I think last night’s attack was about Tangento. Kimberley must have been using information about Tangento to blackmail Barry Warner. And then I got a hold of the same information. Someone was trying to shut us both up.”
“And what about Lucy?” asked Steve. “Did she know about Tangento too?”
“I don’t know, that’s what we need to find out. We need to know what Lucy knew.”
“And who sent you those envelopes,” Steve added. He sighed heavily and stood up, brushing off his knees. “I guess it’s time to get to work.”
At the front entrance of HFB Steve and I almost collided with a skinny delivery boy hidden behind a basket of extremely tall flowers. When we followed him into the lobby he announced to the front desk receptionist, “I have a delivery for Angela McCaffrey.”
The receptionist was new and didn’t know me on sight. She was flipping through the directory when I answered, “I’m Angie McCaffrey.”
The boy looked relieved to relinquish his burden. I signed for the flowers, then peered around them to find my way to the elevator. The flowers had a strong, sweet yet somehow depressing smell. I remembered my grandmother’s funeral, six months before, in St. Philip’s Cathedral. It had been a cold day and the old radiators had heated the chapel like a sauna, cooking the flowers and making the smell almost unbearable. That had been my first experience of death. Now I could write a book on the subject.
When I put the bouquet down on my desk I found an envelope tucked into the blossoms. It was heavy ivory card stock with nothing written on it. Inside I felt something small, with sharp edges. I ripped open the envelope and a necklace fell into my hand: a red stone carved in the shape of a teardrop, placed at its narrow end into a delicate gold setting studded with tiny diamonds. I’m no connoisseur, but I’d been to enough vintage clothing and jewelry shows to know this was Victorian.
I touched the stone. It really was beautiful. About an inch long, it had such clarity I could see the table right through it. But a red teardrop? What was the meaning of that? I checked the envelope again and found a card inside it.
My dear Angela,
You are astute, so I imagine you’re wondering why I would choose a symbol of sadness as a gift. It represents my regret at having to withdraw from your life. However, I know what happened at your apartment last night. How sorry I am I cannot begin to tell you.
How I wish that you had been able to accomplish your task when you came to the House of Usher, wielding that ancient blade. But since I am still alive, if I can call this existence living, I must leave this place. I implore you not to try to find me, simply trust that I know what I am doing, and that the difficulties you have been experiencing will begin to dissipate as soon as I am safely at a distance.
Even from afar, I remain,
Your humble servant, Cyprien
Eric knew about the attack on Kimberley and me, and he blamed himself. He knew who Barry Warner was. In fact, it seemed he had known everything about Tangento before I knew it. As I looked into the red stone I suddenly saw everything with a clarity that I’d never had before. The threads of information I’d been gathering, that I’d thought had been separate, braided together into one cohesive story. Eric had sent me the information about Tangento’s misdeeds; he had wanted me to do something about it. Perhaps he had given the information to Lucy first, but whoever wanted to keep the information secret had silenced her permanently, just as they’d silenced Kimberley and tried to silence me.
Eric had put me in mortal danger—and not from his own vampiric nature, but from someone pretending to be what Eric was. The only solution he saw was to leave and hopefully take the murderer with him. I understood why he was doing it but the thought of never seeing Eric again was unbearable. If I let him go now he would leave the city, change his name, and disappear as completely as if he’d never existed.
A half-hour later I was charging into the walnut-paneled lobby of Harbinger, International.
“May I help you?” The same receptionist smiled helpfully, with no recognition on her face.
“Yes, I need to go to Eric Taylor’s office.”
“I’m very sorry, but he’s not in at the moment.”
This time around, the lies tripped easily off my tongue. “I know that, but we met here last night, and I left some papers. I’ll just go and get them.”
“I’m sorry, that won’t be possible,” the receptionist replied.
I had seen a few of my clients get everything they wanted by being pushy as hell. I thought now was the time to give it a try.
“I need those papers right now!” My voice was loud. “And when I tell Mr. Taylor how rude you’ve been to his best client, you’ll never work in this town again!”
I marched down one of the hallways, fervently hoping that it was the correct one. The receptionist trailed after me.
“Oh no, I’m sorry, you can’t come in here, it’s not allowed, if you’ll just…”
On the right there were three cubicles containing people talking on telephones. On the left there were two offices, one of which was on the corner. I bet on that one, and without pausing, swept in.
The corner office had windows on two sides, overlooking the Financial District and the Bay Bridge. A huge mahogany JFK-style desk faced the window. It looked like the occupant was in the process of moving out. Packing boxes half filled with books and papers were scattered around the room. I imagined Steve’s voice saying, “Nice work, Nancy Drew, what’s your next move?”
“Is Mr. Taylor moving?” I asked.
The secretary was touching my sleeve. “I’m not at liberty to say anything about that. Really, Ms. uh, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave now.”
I cast one last, desperate look around the room, but there was nothing there to help me.
At midnight I snuck out of Steve’s bed, leaving him snoring under his pillow. I went into the living room and sat on the couch, facing his tiny statue of David, holding the red stone necklace in my hand. Not knowing exactly what I was doing, but following an instinct, I closed my eyes and focused all my energy on Eric. He was somewhere in the city, and we were linked—psychically, physically, and emotionally. Somehow I would find him.
I pictured him at the House of Usher in sapphire blue velvet, eyes sparkling with amusement at my attempts to spar with him; his hand at the small of my back, guiding me in a perfect waltz. I felt him wrap me in a blanket on a cold night in Half Moon Bay and tell me I was beautiful. I saw the sadness in his eyes as he told me of his betrayal by the monk; and the pure delight on his face upon discovering the Balclutha, a ship he thought existed only in his memories…
I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door. “Just stay put, now,” I muttered.