Joanna groped toward the pocket.

  “You can do it,” Zelda said, when after the third try Joanna started crying again. “Just keep trying. That’s all it takes, just trying and trying until it works.”

  “It’s so hot in here.” Joanna’s fingers flailed at the pocket’s edge. “It’s so stuffy. We’re going to suffocate!”

  “We will not suffocate. I will gnaw my way through the walls if I have to, but we have plenty of air for now. Just keep. On. Trying.” Zelda took a deep breath. I will not lose my temper. Or my cool. “Maybe if I lean over you won’t have to reach in so far.” Please, please, please.

  Joanna heaved and shoved and strained, and got nowhere. “It’s no use,” she wailed. “I can’t do it. I can’t see, and my shoulders hurt, and my fingers are going numb, and my wrists are killing me!”

  That’s because they were bleeding. “You don’t have any choice,” Zelda hissed. “Just keep trying. Focus. Concentrate. It’s not all that hard!”

  Joanna screamed and thrashed and banged her bound feet against the floor. “How do you know how hard it is? You’re so fucking perfect! Can’t you get scared and cry like a normal girl?”

  What?

  Embrace the vampire destiny, her mother would say. Give her what she needs.

  Since the alternative to sacrificing her cool was likely embracing death instead—for both of them—Zelda jumped on it with gusto and relief. “What makes you think I’m not crying?” She let her voice tremble, now that she could. She had to, if it would comfort Joanna. She sniffled. “Just because I don’t cry a lot doesn’t mean I’m not scared. Besides, I’m saving it for later.”

  “Saving what? You’re talking about sex now?”

  Zelda gave a snort of near-hysterical laughter. “Not my virginity, dummy. My tears. I’m saving them for when we get out and I can hug my mom and cry buckets.” She allowed herself a sob and then bit hard. Blood again. “Try again. Please. You are the Queen of Persistence, and your subjects bow down to you in awe.”

  Joanna let out a tiny giggle, and sniffled hard and tried again, and a minute later the keys clinked onto the floor.

  “Perfect! You saved our lives!” Zelda slid her butt forward, hooked a finger into the ring, and closed her hand around the knife, giving thanks to Constantine for providing her with this miracle tool. She felt around the edges of the little knife, slipped off the safety, placed her finger on the button, and popped the blade smoothly open. “Back-to-back, now.” Several agonized minutes of sawing later, the rope binding Joanna’s hands gave way. “Now you cut mine. It doesn’t matter if you can’t see. Do it by feel, and don’t worry about cutting me.” Zelda held still and waited and prayed, and it took too long, but eventually it was done. “Good job!” She flexed her fingers and eased her tormented shoulders, then grabbed Joanna’s raw, bleeding wrists and spat on them before Joanna could stop her. “Slather it in. It’ll help, I swear.” She sawed through the ropes holding their feet. “Now we get the hell out.”

  Zelda rammed the knife into the drywall and set to work.

  Gideon laid the second maple tree gently beside the first on an old blue tarp in the trunk of his Mercedes.

  “That woman has bewitched you,” the chief said.

  “Uh-huh.” Gideon laid the third maple tree beside the others. “Sure feels good.”

  “Gideon, I’m serious. I mean what I’m saying.”

  Gideon got the fourth tree. “You want to meet her, sir? If you see her, you’ll understand.”

  “Goddamn right I’ll understand,” the chief said, “because I’m a normal man just like you. I did some nosing around last night, and you know what I found out? She’s a vampire.” Gideon raised his brows and quirked his mouth into the beginnings of a smile, and the chief said, “Damn it, boy, don’t give me any sass. You think that vampire gene business is hogwash, but I’m older than you, and by God, I know better.” He cleared his throat. “Slept with one, back in the day.”

  Wonders never ceased. “All the more reason for you to understand how I feel about Ophelia, sir.” Gideon wrapped the blue tarp over the trees and unwound a coil of yellow nylon rope.

  The chief glared. “You’ve slept with her?”

  Gideon secured the rope to the trunk latch. “With all due respect, sir, my personal life is none of your business.”

  “You’re having an affair with a suspect? Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?”

  Gideon wound the rope around the trailer hitch below the license plate and tied it off. He straightened and faced the chief. “She’s not a suspect, sir.”

  The chief threw up his hands. “My best detective seduced by a vamp.” He stole a glance at Gideon and grinned in spite of himself. “Helluva lay, huh, boy?”

  “She’s going to marry me,” Gideon said.

  The smile morphed into an almighty scowl. “Jesus Christ, Gideon, that’s just what I was afraid of. You can’t marry a woman you’ve known for three days just because she’s good in bed! These vamps may be hot as all hell, but they’ve got vicious tempers, and they’re almost always associated with criminals of one kind or another.”

  “The underworld offers them protection from the crazies and lowlifes that won’t leave them alone. I can offer her the same sort of protection. I know my own mind, and I know she’s right for me. And since you know so much about vamps, you also know the county jail would not be safe for Ophelia.”

  “Where the hell else am I supposed to put her? I can’t leave a murderer on the loose. Even Leopard and his goons have to understand that.”

  Gideon raised his eyes to heaven. “She’s not a murderer. If she were dangerous, Leopard would have taken care of it by now.” He opened the passenger door for the chief. “How about you ride with me today?”

  “Donnie Donaldson isn’t a murderer either,” the chief protested. “He’s a solid citizen. All you have are theories, Gideon, and not one ounce of proof.” He got into the Mercedes.

  The third anonymous phone call must have been coming into the station right at that moment, because they hadn’t been on the road more than a minute when Gideon got the dispatcher’s call. “Is the chief with you?” Jeanie asked. “He’ll probably kill me for calling you instead of him. It’s the same anonymous creep again. Wants to know why we haven’t searched Ophelia’s house.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Also why we’re letting a murderess run around loose. Murderess. What a word. It’s straight out of gothic romance. He was on a pay phone in Hammond.”

  “Which means he’s at least twenty minutes away, closer to thirty,” Gideon told the chief, hoping like hell during the whole drive to Ophelia’s place. Yes! Donnie’s driveway was empty.

  “That doesn’t prove a thing,” the chief said.

  “It doesn’t eliminate him, either.” Gideon pulled past Ophelia’s house and parked beside the first of her compost piles.

  “Damn,” the chief said when he saw the bat house askew against the greenhouse. “Not a bad-looking bat house. The vandal do that?”

  “There aren’t any bats in there, only wasps.” Gideon got out and opened the rear door for his dog. Gretchen leaped out and took off toward the chipper.

  “Tsk.” The chief wandered toward the bat house. “I could have helped her with that. Damn shame she’s going to jail.”

  “Now who’s lost their objectivity? If there’s something in her house, it’s another plant. And if you had let me put someone on surveillance here…” But the chief wasn’t listening, so Gideon didn’t waste his breath. He untied the ropes holding the trunk and unloaded the trees.

  The chipper choked to a halt. “Goddamn this fucking machine to hell!” came Ophelia’s furious voice, followed by a panicked roar. “No! Gretchen, put that down!”

  Gideon surged forward at a run but stopped short. Fangs full down, Ophelia grappled with Gretchen in the dirt, ripped a bone from between her jaws and tossed it into a hole behind her.

  What the fuck? “Gretchen. Come here.”

  The dog scrambled to obey. Ophelia picked up a shotgun from beside the chipper, her eyes flickering here and there, a wave of vampire energy and terror slamming into Gideon. Gretchen skidded to a halt beside him, whimpering. Ophelia leveled the gun in their direction.

  Déjà vu, except this time Ophelia wasn’t acting cool.

  The chief, still by the greenhouse, threw himself to the ground. “Get down, damn it!” He groped for his gun.

  “She won’t shoot me,” Gideon said in a loud, clear voice. “I can’t say the same for you, Chief, so you’d better stay put.”

  “What the hell do you want?” Ophelia’s voice shook with rage and fear.

  “Gideon,” the chief implored.

  “I mean it, sir. Gretchen, stay. Guard the chief.” Gideon picked up two maple trees and walked calmly toward Ophelia. “Having problems?”

  Ophelia backed toward the chipper, her shotgun wavering in the general direction of the chief. “Why are you here?” she croaked. “Why did you have to come?”

  “To bring the trees.” Gideon tried a light, carefree voice. It wasn’t easy, faced with fangs full down and another blast of allure. “Sorry we surprised you, honey. It’s understandable that you’d be in a state of nerves, but…Ah, I see you’ve already dug a hole.”

  Ophelia lowered the gun and leaned trembling against the chipper, her face pale with misery, her eyes empty of hope. Gideon walked right past her, eyeballed the big thigh bone in the hole and a few others poking up. He set one of the trees down on top of them. He put the other tree on the ground beside the hole. Jesus Christ. He sure hadn’t figured this one right.

  He went right up to her. “You couldn’t have waited till later?” he said in a low, savage voice, unable to contain his fury at her recklessness, his fear at her peril. “He’s been here for two fucking years, hasn’t he?”

  Ophelia gaped. “You knew?”

  Sort of. But there was no time to explain.

  Ophelia’s whisper was harsh, but her eyes betrayed her. “When was I supposed to do it? I can’t run the chipper at night!”

  Gideon found his voice again. “You couldn’t have waited a day or two till this other fiasco was over? Until you were a tad less likely to be caught?”

  Ophelia’s knuckles whitened around the barrel of the gun. “You were supposed to be at the dump this morning. If you knew, why did you come here?”

  “I didn’t know, but…” It wasn’t the time to bring up the trust issue again, but by God she would hear about it later. He signaled to the chief to stay back and forced himself to speak low and calm. “I assumed Constantine had killed him.”

  “He was on tour at the time.”

  And she’d been all alone. “What happened? Did Parkerson attack you? Rape you?”

  Ophelia drooped. “He tried.”

  Gideon let out a long, harsh breath. “Then he got what he deserved.” He let that sit. “But you can’t put him through the chipper.”

  Ophelia shuddered. “No.” She closed her eyes. “But I wanted you so badly, you and your garden, and I’ve been stuck out here by myself with him and those awful dreams for so long…I couldn’t think of any other way.” She shuddered again. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

  “You’re right, it doesn’t. This is one hell of a mess.” Gideon put an arm around her. She cringed and curled into herself, but he pulled her closer anyway and deposited a kiss on her hair. “I need you to vamp the chief.”

  “What?” She looked blank. Almost absent. Damn.

  “You’ve got to get him on your side.” The chief was getting to his feet now, scowling in their direction. Gideon picked up a sizeable twig and poked it tentatively into the chipper. “Do whatever you vamps do. He’s obsessed with bats, which might be useful. Take him on a tour of your bat houses and go heavy on the allure.” Wake up, girl, he wanted to say. Don’t go all emotional on me now. “He thinks you’ve bewitched me.”

  “And have I?” She sounded desperately sad.

  “No doubt about that.” Gideon stifled his impatience with a smile. “Listen, honey, the chief’s a stubborn old fart with a one-track mind. He won’t buy my theories about Donnie, and this morning there was another anonymous call saying to search your house. If you can arouse the chief’s chivalrous instincts—”

  “Unfortunately, that’s not all that will be aroused,” Ophelia said.

  “I’m not asking you to sleep with him.” Gideon resisted the urge to shake her. “He knows you’re a vamp, he’s been with one himself, and he knows enough about vampires to be wary of their legendary tempers. Trust me, if you can show him you’re a desirable, sweet-natured woman who values his advice about bats, he’ll want to shift tracks.” He took her by the arm. “Perk up, Ophelia. You’ve dealt with this for a long time. You can’t afford to give in to your emotions now.” He guided her toward the chief. “I have to go make some calls.”

  Her eyes flicked miserably toward the grave. “But, Gideon, what about…Gideon, I know you’re a cop, but do you have to get involved with this? Don’t you understand what it means?”

  “I don’t have any choice,” Gideon said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Hemmed in by trust and betrayal, Ophelia hustled the police chief to the river, tossing out allure and making no effort to control her fangs. In the clearing by the water, she relented long enough to let him appreciate the bat houses, because his enthusiasm was so genuine. After a while she led the march toward home. Time to dump the chief back on Gideon and get on with going straight to hell.

  Gretchen had other ideas. “I don’t want your dumb dog along,” Ophelia had told Gideon, but he’d said, “Please take her,” visibly controlling his annoyance, and she still didn’t know why she’d gone along with it. Why help him safeguard the remains that would send her to prison? “Get out of my goddamn way,” Ophelia told the dog four times along the track and once more as they finally neared the end of the woods. “Stop trying to comfort me, damn it.” Gretchen bumped her flank gently against Ophelia’s.

  “Don’t burden him with your past,” Constantine had said, and now she knew why.

  Gideon was a cop. He’d found evidence of a homicide. True, she’d been defending herself. True, it hadn’t been her fault. Still, he had no choice but to report it. Except that he’d promised she’d always be safe with him. And she had believed him, even in her sleep.

  Gretchen jostled Ophelia again, and the chief hollered something tedious about stopping or shooting. Asshole. Tapping her toe on the dirt track, Ophelia waited for the old man to catch up. In this mood, she doubted she could have sweetened him up even if she’d been trying. Briefly, she considered bopping him on the head—gently, just to get him out of the way—and going on the run. But setting aside the loneliness of such a life, she shriveled at the thought of being caught and dragged back to Gideon in chains, so to speak, after he had—get this—trusted her. It would be more dignified—she almost laughed—to give in now. To disregard the simmering rage since he had waved her and the chief toward the river while he leaned uncaringly on his Mercedes and made his calls.

  It didn’t make sense. It felt terrifyingly wrong. And some foolish part of her, deep inside, still wanted to trust him. A wasp sailed by, and she envied its life uncomplicated by murders and incomprehensible cops. Didn’t he know what would happen to him after she ended up in jail?

  No. For the umpteenth time, she shut out that horrifying thought. We’ll see each other in hell. She stifled a hysterical giggle.

  The chief came up beside her, wheezing. “Where is that damned Gideon?” he gasped. “I should fire him: sleeping with a suspect, disappearing in the middle of a murder investigation, leaving me in the clutches of a vampire—” He grew more and more incensed, and the wasps had picked up on his mood. One zoomed out of the wonky bat house, and then another.

  “I’ve hardly vamped you at all,” Ophelia said. “You’re in a lot more danger from these wasps than from me. All Gideon wants me to do is convince you that I’m innocent.” She shifted the shotgun on her shoulder.

  “You’d look a lot more innocent if you put that gun down.”

  “We already discussed this, mister,” Ophelia said. “I don’t trust you any more than you trust me.” She grinned at him, fangs and all.

  “Don’t do that,” groaned the chief, wiping his brow on his sleeve.

  Ophelia stuck out her tongue, making the old cop shudder and hurry away toward the greenhouse. Gretchen stuck out her tongue, too, and lolloped in the direction of the chipper and the gruesome hole in the earth. Idly, since it didn’t matter anymore what Gretchen dug up, Ophelia watched her go. Over the top of the chipper, past the last of the compost piles, poked the tops of three young Japanese maples, two upright and one bent, in a tight row.

  A tiny door of hope opened in Ophelia’s mind. She tried to shut it again, but the door was open and she desperately wanted it to stay that way. He’d said she should trust him.

  From over in the direction of the chipper she heard him, a muffled curse the chief would never catch, and the soft click of a car door.

  The older man’s voice interrupted her scurrying thoughts. “After you spray the wasps,” he was saying, his eyes on the bat box hanging askew on the vandalized greenhouse, “clear out all the empty nests. Then I’ll take a look at the inside and see if you need to redesign the roosting spaces.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You’re going to prison for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m innocent, you dumbass cop. I’ll clean it out after the wasps leave on their own. I don’t kill anything I don’t have to.” It about killed her not to look toward the chipper.

  The chief snorted. “You can’t go around with a gun in your hand and fangs in your mouth and say you don’t kill anything.”

  “Of course I can. It’s the truth.” If only she could see what Gideon had done.

  Donnie’s truck pulled up in the driveway next door. The idiot chief gave the murderer a friendly wave. “Where the hell is Gideon?” he said again.