Any minute now the chief would find Gideon, but Gideon might need more time.

  Ophelia whipped her shotgun into position and eyed Donnie down the sights. “How about I put him out of his misery now?” Donnie froze halfway from the truck to the porch. The chief swore and went for his gun, but Ophelia shot him a mesmerizing smile. “He’ll suffer a far worse fate at Leopard’s hands. Consider it a mercy killing.” Donnie edged toward his back stairs.

  The chief dragged his gun out of its holster, hands shaking, fighting her allure.

  Ophelia lowered the shotgun. “Calm down,” she told him. “I’m not really going to shoot him. It was just a joke.” Donnie sprinted for the door.

  “Lousy joke,” the chief growled as Donnie made it to safety. “Where the fuck is my detective?”

  Ophelia answered with another dazzling smile. “Who knows? I need to freshen up. Come and wait for Gideon at my place. It’s getting hot out here.”

  The chief melted under that smile. “Shit,” he said, “I can’t believe that after all these years, an old man like me—”

  “Some things never change.” She herded him toward the back stairs, riding high on hope and trust, when she caught sight of the bike.

  Zelda’s bike, stashed to one side of the porch.

  Zelda was here? Since when?

  Ophelia hopped up the back steps. The hook on the screen door had been popped, and the shim lay where Zelda must have dropped it. Ophelia hurried indoors. “Zelda?”

  Only Psyche answered, with a querulous meow. The skin on Ophelia’s scalp prickled. Why were her earrings lined up in pairs on the kitchen table? And the Midol on the counter…She hadn’t put it there. Psyche showed up in the entrance to the hall, spied the chief, and spat.

  “Sit down,” Ophelia said. The chief must have started thinking straight again, for he only reluctantly obeyed. “Don’t touch the cat. She hates men.” Ophelia made a quick pass though the house: living room, spare bedroom, bathroom, her own room.

  “Where are you going?” The chief blundered down the hall, pursued by Psyche’s furious yowl.

  Ophelia ran into him in the doorway of her room, the vibrator in one hand and the shotgun in the other. “Zelda wouldn’t come here to fool around with my sex toys.” Gideon wouldn’t have left this kind of mess, either. The chief flushed deep red as she shoved the purple vibrator into his hand. “It has to mean something,” she added, figuring it out even as she spoke. She whirled, kicked the area rug away, and knelt to open the secret compartment.

  “That slime!” She grabbed the pile of snapshots. “That unspeakable lump of shit!” Ophelia shoved the shotgun under her arm, snapped off the rubber band, and leafed through the photos. She glared at the gawking chief. “I can handle being accused of murder,” she said, slapping the photos into his unoccupied hand. Murder wasn’t far from the truth. “But this child-abuse crap really burns me up. God only knows what harm that sleaze bucket has done to Joanna.”

  The chief stared at the photos with Christmas-gift glee. He avoided Ophelia’s eyes, his gaze flicking toward her shotgun.

  “No, I did not take these photos,” Ophelia said. “No, I didn’t know they were here, no, I will not put the gun down—and where the hell is my niece?”

  She stormed down the hall past the cop. Zelda wouldn’t just walk off. Not only was there nowhere to walk to except the river, and she knew Zelda wasn’t there, but Zelda would have left a note. She spied the unfamiliar bowl on the floor holding scraps. Where had it come from? Not Zelda. Ophelia thought about calling Vi. Best not to start a panic yet.

  “Ms. Beliveau.” The chief came into the kitchen. “I need you to stop right there.” He dropped the photos on the table and yanked at his gun, his other hand still clamped around the purple vibrator.

  “You look ridiculous,” Ophelia said.

  Psyche hissed and swiped at the cop’s leg. He yelped and swore at the cat. “Ms. Beliveau—”

  “I have to find my niece.” She wrenched open the door and leaped down the steps. A solitary Midol stared up at her, blue against the dead grass. “How did that pill get there?”

  “Ms. Beliveau, I don’t want to have to get rough with you.”

  Ophelia turned with a brilliant smile. “Then don’t.”

  The chief wavered in the warm spring sunshine. Two doors down, a white Lexus drove up. Lisa Wyler jumped out and plunged toward them, waving her arms. Ophelia spied the first earring, then the yellow one at the verge of the drive. She strode across her dead lawn and the driveway, toward Donnie’s house.

  “Ms. Beliveau!” thundered the chief.

  The third earring glistened in the sun on Donnie’s trim green grass. Ophelia’s heart thumped frantically and her fangs slotted down hard.

  “She’s not at school,” Lisa sobbed, crossing Donnie’s yard. “Did she come back here?”

  Hell. Ophelia pushed her fangs up. “I haven’t seen her, Lisa, but I’m afraid—”

  A hard hand gripped Ophelia’s arm and the cool muzzle of a gun jabbed into her back. “Ms. Beliveau, you’re under arrest,” the chief said. “If you so much as look at me, I’ll shoot.”

  “You’re right,” Zelda said from her perch on Joanna’s shoulders. “The tile stops here.” She licked a bleeding finger and pounded a hunk of drywall down into the bathtub, then started with the knife again. Her hand howled with the pain of fighting the knife against backer board and tiles, jamming it into closely spaced studs in the front and one end of the closet, knocking against exterior wall at the other end, and finally trying the backer board again. Joanna had done her share of messing with the walls, and it was Joanna who had suggested Zelda sit on her shoulders and try the top of the wall, which might not be tiled. “Thank God one of us is thinking straight. When I get pissed off, my brain short-circuits.” She grunted, forcing the knife sideways to widen the hole. “I’m so mad I’m ready to bust.”

  “I’m just plain scared,” Joanna said.

  “I used to think I was a patient person.” Zelda bashed at the drywall, and another hunk fell away. “I used to think I had self-control.”

  “I used to think I was a wimp,” Joanna said. “So did you. But I’m not a wimp. I’m just scared.”

  “Rightly so.” Zelda changed hands, braced herself, and smashed her bruised fist against the last bit of wallboard. “That’s it. Here I go.” She folded the knife, dropped it in her pocket, and hefted herself to a standing position on Joanna’s shoulders.

  “Oh God,” Joanna said. “I’ll die in here alone.”

  “You won’t be alone for long,” Zelda panted. She slung one leg through and toppled sideways, scrabbling at the hole to slow her descent, landing with a thump in the tub. “So far, so good.” She headed straight for the window, which faced in the direction of Joanna’s house. “No cars at your place. I’ll be right back.” From the only room across the hall, the view was similarly bleak: no vehicles in Ophelia’s drive either.

  Zelda skittered downstairs and through the main floor a mile a minute. No phone. One locked door. Probably Donnie’s office, where of course his phone would be. She kicked the office door, yelped, and Joanna wailed wordlessly from above.

  “Coming!” Zelda bounded up the stairs to the room where they had been confined. An ornate chair and dresser, a king-size bed covered in a red velvet spread. Ick. Obviously it was Donnie’s room. The decor was a parody of Blood and Velvet, and a picture of Violet dominated the dresser. Tears jumped into Zelda’s eyes, immediately superseded by sick fury at the thought of Donnie anywhere near her mother. Her emerging fangs, which had been mercifully quiescent for a while, throbbed angrily. She cast around the room for a way out of this mess, her brain pulsing with thoughts of vengeance and bloody murder.

  Aha! Donnie had left the hammer on the bedroom floor instead of stowing it back in his belt, which showed how rattled he must be, because he never went anywhere without a hammer. Zelda couldn’t bring herself to feel the least bit sorry for him. She jammed the claw of the hammer under one of the nails in the door. “I’m going to get you out. Would you believe Donnie has a picture of my mom in here? He’s so vile!”

  “Did you call the cops?” Joanna asked.

  “I couldn’t get into his office, where the phone is.” Zelda wrenched hard and her biceps screamed, but the nail came partway out. “I swear, he will never touch you. Or my mother.” Her fangs bucked inside their slots, and the tip that had already broken through tore a little farther down. Zelda took a deep breath to quell the pain. “I am vampire,” she whispered to herself, verging on maniacal laughter. She savored the small trickle of blood from her torn gum. “I will prevail.” Rising confidence and fear clashed inside her.

  “Go to Ophelia’s or to my place,” Joanna squeaked. “Go call the cops while you can.”

  Next nail: jam, wrench, wrench. “And leave you alone in here? No way.”

  “I’ll be okay.” The quaver in Joanna’s voice said that she definitely wouldn’t.

  “You’ll die in there alone, remember?” Crap. My big mouth does it again.

  “Zelda, don’t be mean to me! I’m trying!”

  “Sorry,” Zelda panted. “I know you are.” So much for patience. So much for tact. “I’m the one who’s losing it.” The third nail came out. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “I just heard Donnie’s truck.” Joanna stoically cut off a whimper, and Zelda’s heart squeezed. Patience and tact, step aside. Fury is taking over. Zelda narrowed her eyes at the nail in her hand, at the closet, at a scattering of unused nails on the floor…

  Got it! “I’ll nail the bedroom door shut.” Zelda drove the first nail into the closed bedroom door at an angle where it abutted the frame, just as Donnie had done with the closet. “Then I’ll get you out.” Second nail. “Then we’ll make a plan. He can’t stop both of us.” He sure as hell can’t stop me. Bam, bam, wham! Third nail. By the time Donnie slammed the back door shut, the fourth nail was in. She dragged the chair across the room and whacked more nails into the top and the other side of the door.

  Donnie’s footsteps pounded up the stairs. He rattled the door handle, but the door didn’t budge. Yes! He spat out curses and banged on the door, and Zelda whammed home another nail. “Go away, you old creep,” she hollered. “How dare you have a picture of my mother?” She hauled the chair to the closet as Donnie’s footsteps thumped down the stairs.

  “Here’s the strategy,” she said, yanking at the highest nail. “He’ll break the door down eventually. Our plan is to get past him. Discombobulate him enough that we get out and down the stairs. If we manage to hurt him, great, but the focus is on getting at least one or both of us away.”

  “We can’t get out the window?”

  “Last resort,” Zelda said. Two more nails. “It’s a long way down, and you can’t run away if your leg is broken. Oh, why isn’t Ophelia here?”

  “Or my mom.” Joanna sniffled.

  Zelda bit back her opinion of Joanna’s mom. “Weapons,” she said. “This hammer, for one.” She wrenched at the last nail. “The bedside lamp.” One last yank, and the nail slipped free. She opened the closet door, and Joanna stumbled out. She grabbed Zelda and hugged her tight. Zelda hugged her back. “We’re almost there.”

  Donnie was on the stairs again, so she let go. Her fangs quivered and her heart rammed against her chest. “Any weapons in the closet?”

  “Stinky old shoes?”

  “Sure. Bring them all out.” Zelda yanked the lamp cord from the wall. “Bash him with this. I’ll take the hammer. The shoes are the second line of defense.”

  Joanna took the lamp. “Zelda, your mouth is bleeding!”

  “Don’t I know it,” Zelda replied, clutching her jaw with her free hand as her fangs fought for freedom and Donnie commenced his assault on the door.

  “You have the right to remain silent!” said the chief.

  Ophelia spoke through clenched teeth, through quivering fangs she could barely suppress. “And you have the obligation to shut up and help me!” The gun at her back didn’t budge. “Here comes a hysterical mother. That’s two missing girls! Can’t you see?” She pointed with the shotgun, one by one. “Pill. Earring, Earring, Earring.” And one more earring by Donnie’s back steps. “Zelda and Joanna are in there!”

  Lisa panted to a halt. “Joanna’s at Donnie’s?”

  The chief brandished the purple vibrator, jabbing the gun into Ophelia’s back. “Ms. Beliveau, that’s the stupidest attempt to divert my attention I’ve ever seen. Drop the gun.”

  “Maybe you should holster yours, since you know so little about gun safety. If I drop it, it might go off.” She heard frantic hammering inside Donnie’s place. What the hell?

  Lisa stared. “Is that a vibrator?” She snickered, but the smirk faded. “Who are you? Why are you pointing a gun at Ophelia?”

  The chief reddened and threw the vibrator down. He moved around beside Ophelia, trailing the gun across her back, and grabbed the shotgun. “I’m the chief of police, ma’am, and Ms. Beliveau’s implicated in three murders. I need you to go on home. Ms. Beliveau’s a dangerous woman. No telling what she might do.”

  “Goddamn right I’m dangerous,” Ophelia said. “Donnie’s the murderer, not me. All I want is to rescue those girls before Donnie kills them, too.” She shuddered with impatience. “Come on, Lisa. Stand up for me!”

  “Bullshit,” said the chief. “I saw those nudie pictures in your house—”

  “Where Donnie planted them. He knew about that compartment. He made it for the guy who lived here before me.” Lisa Wyler was dithering between Ophelia and the cop. “For cripes sake, Lisa, we’ve been through this already. You know I wouldn’t hurt Joanna. Donnie was in cahoots with the creep who blackmailed you. He took all your savings, and now he’s taking your house. He even encouraged Willy’s drinking binges. What have I ever done to you? Go break down his door.” She raised her voice. “Tell him the cops are here. Demand to search his house for your daughter—”

  “Shut up!” The chief stuck the shotgun under his arm and clicked the radio button on his phone. “I need backup. Beliveau’s place. Send at least one female officer, and quick.”

  “There are children at risk,” yelled Ophelia. “Make sure it’s a woman with brains!”

  “Goddamn it, girl!” the chief bellowed. An indignant squawk issued from the radio and the gun in Ophelia’s side wavered. “No, not you, Jeanie. You know I wouldn’t yell at you. It’s Ms. Beliveau. She’s a vicious criminal, and she’s making a ruckus for no reason at all.”

  Crashing, smashing noises and a shrill scream came from Donnie’s house. Damn, damn!

  “Give me a break,” Jeanie said. “Backup is on the way. Hold tight, Ms. Beliveau.”

  “Goddamn it, Jeanie,” the chief roared.

  “Thank you!” Ophelia called.

  A window on the second floor of Donnie’s house splintered and a gilded lamp plummeted to the ground. Its red lampshade bounced and rolled away. “Help!” Joanna shrieked. “Call the police!” The cop’s gun wavered even more.

  “Asshole!” Zelda hollered. A shoe came through the window, followed by a cry of such agony that the world stood still.

  Ophelia knocked the gun out of the chief’s slackened grip, seized the shotgun, and made for Donnie’s back door. She smashed the window with the butt of the shotgun, reached in, and opened the door. She leaped up the stairs and lunged through what had once been a bedroom door.

  “Stay back!” Wild-eyed, a cracked picture frame on his head, blood smeared on his scalp, Donnie Donaldson tightened an arm around a thrashing Joanna. In his other hand he gripped a screwdriver. “Put the gun down. I’ll skewer her, I swear.” His voice shook, and so did the hand that held the screwdriver.

  Ophelia laid the shotgun gently on the floor. Joanna’s struggles slowed as she fought to breathe against Donnie’s deathly clasp. An old sneaker fell from her hand. Zelda rose from her knees, a trickle of blood running over her lip. “It’s okay, Joanna,” Ophelia said. “Donnie doesn’t really want to hurt you.” Lisa’s voice, shrill with hysteria, rose through the window. “Your mom’s down there, and so are the cops. It’ll be all right.”

  “Nothing will ever be all right again.” Donnie’s voice broke. “Would you believe my asshole of a partner wanted to blackmail you for sex? I gave you so many chances, and you still screwed everything up. Why couldn’t you just sell me your land, you stupid, stupid bitch?”

  Because…

  No. This was not her responsibility. This was not her fault.

  “You should have told me about your plans, Donnie,” Ophelia said sadly. “We would have worked something out.” But no, it wasn’t her fault. Ophelia widened her eyes at Zelda, crawling bloody-mouthed up from the floor, shiny new fangs extended, eyes on fire. Oh, shit. “Zelda, it’s okay. Stay down. You don’t have to do this.”

  Donnie’s eyes flicked to Zelda. He yelped, stumbled backward over a sledgehammer, and dropped Joanna. She hit the floor with a thud and a crack, and her eyes slid shut. Donnie seized the sledgehammer and scuttled backward.

  “He scared my friend,” Zelda sobbed. She licked the blood off her lips. “He hurt her. She may even be dead.”

  “She’s not dead,” Ophelia said. “She’s just unconscious. Stay out of the way.”

  Donnie gripped the sledgehammer and eased sideways toward the bedside table. Shit, again. Where were the cops when you needed them?

  “Let me go to my baby!” Lisa sobbed from below.

  “Ouch! Get us some backup!” roared the chief. “Male backup! Somebody sane! Some crazy woman’s clobbering me with a vibrator!”

  “He has the hots for my mother,” Zelda snarled. “I’m going to rip him apart.”

  “No, you aren’t.” Ophelia slotted down her fangs. I survived this. I can survive it again. “I am.”

  Donnie eased open the drawer in the bedside table, and Ophelia crouched to spring.

  “The hell with that,” Gideon said from the doorway.

  Donnie pulled out a handgun, and Gideon shot him dead.