If Harry Jr. ever met an Amish wolfman doctor who taught grammar school in an empty box, that kid would shit his pants. More than he normally does.

  Where was I? Oh, yeah. My subconscious, trying to tell me something.

  I needed to take another power nap, figure things out. But Phin, and an angry Jackie who was storming over here, probably wouldn’t let me sleep while Sam was missing.

  Not that Sam was actually missing. She just wasn’t in the room. The girl probably went to the gift shop to pick up the latest issue of Smarmy Know-It-All Kids Magazine. Or I’m Eight And I Know More Stuff Than You. Or You’re A Bad Parent Because Your Child Still Shits Themselves.

  Really, that girl was a lot.

  Phin wheeled away to check with the nurses’ station, and I searched my soul to see if somehow I might have been partially responsible for this dilemma.

  It took me three seconds to realize my soul was blameless. And also, beautiful. Really, if you saw my soul, you’d want to have sex with it. Like all kinds of crazy, nasty sex. Including butt stuff. That’s how beautiful my soul is.

  I’ll let you think about that while we try to figure out where Sam is.

  JACK

  The man I video chatted with, Mr. Max Svenson, was older than my parents, and a combination of a leathery bald head and loose neck reminded me of a smug tortoise.

  “Thank you for talking to me, Mr. Svenson.” I adjusted my tablet so I was fully in frame. “My name is Jacqueline Daniels. I know this must be hard for you.”

  “Not at the moment. But I could pop a Viagra.”

  He did a Groucho eyebrow waggle, and I smirked in spite of myself. I’d obviously been hanging around Harry McGlade for too long, so my tolerance for inappropriate behavior was high.

  “Can you tell me about the Destiny Drac?”

  “Do you know how old I am, Ms. Daniels?”

  “Mrs. Daniels. I’m married.”

  “How married?”

  “Very married.”

  He frowned. “That’s a shame. So guess how old I am.”

  I checked his year of birth on notes I’d taken from the police report and did the math. “You’re ninety-one.”

  “When do you think was the last time I made love to a woman?”

  Completely off-topic, but I was sort of curious. “Ten years ago,” I guessed.

  “Wrong. It was yesterday. I had a three-way. Horny old men are prime real estate in a nursing home. After a certain age, women outnumber men three to one. Those men that are still around are too old and frail to properly mount a lady. Or they no longer have any interest in women. But I’m not that kind of man.”

  “Fascinating. So the Destiny Drac—”

  “If you want information from me, Ms. Daniels, I’d like something in return.”

  “What is that, Mr. Svenson?”

  “Flash your boobies.”

  It had been a while since I’d been sexually harassed, so I wasn’t even sure how to react. “Are you serious?”

  “Have you ever been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans? All the women do it. Flash complete strangers. It’s liberating.”

  “We’re not at Mardi Gras, Mr. Svenson. And I told you I’m married.”

  He winked. “That makes it even naughtier.”

  “It ain’t happening,” I assured him.

  Mr. Svenson folded his thin arms over his sunken chest. “You want me to answer your questions, then I want to see your sweater kittens. Your dinner buckets. Your flabbergasters. Your num-nums. Show me the Hindenburgs. The twin peaks. The noogies. The maracas. The—”

  “I get the idea,” I interrupted.

  “What’s the problem? Are you a prude? In Europe, all the women are topless.”

  “We’re not in Europe, Mr. Svenson.”

  “Young people do it all the time. They call it Snapchat.”

  “We haven’t been young for a long time.” You especially, you dirty old coot.

  “You want me to open up and share one of the most harrowing experiences of my life, and all I ask in return is a quick look at your gazonga fruits. Seems like a fair trade.”

  Twenty years ago I would have called him an asshole and ended the call.

  Ten years ago I would have rolled my eyes and ended the call.

  Even five years ago, I wouldn’t have considered his offer.

  But what did I really have to lose here?

  I’ve weathered more than my share of toxic men and the unwelcome male gaze. I’d been hit on and then verbally abused when I turned men down, been cat-called and wolf-whistled, been groped, objectified, and even had to physically fight off guys who couldn’t accept no as an answer.

  There was no real threat in this situation. I couldn’t be manipulated unless I allowed it.

  Why did the US have hang-ups about breasts in the first place? Men ogled women, but they also shamed us. It was a ridiculously sexist double-standard that had lasted for my entire life. Guys who scored were called studs. Women who slept around were called sluts. Men lusted after women, but despised women who lusted after men.

  I’d had enough of all that bullshit. Boobs were harmless. The whole world needed to get over itself.

  “If I do this, you’ll behave and answer my questions?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  If this guy were once a Boy Scout, he’d be old enough to have been in Troop 1.

  “Fine,” I sighed. Then I got my good hand up under my hospital gown and pulled it up to my neck.

  Mr. Svenson’s eyes practically popped out of his head. And I may have been amused by that, and given the girls a little shake.

  Then I put my Hindenburgs away and commenced with the interview.

  “Tell me about the Destiny Drac,” I said.

  Mr. Svenson rubbed his chin, then extended the motion and touched his closed eyes.

  “It was the middle of the night. I was asleep.”

  I checked my notes. “This was at your house, 716 Linden Lane.”

  “I remember it well. That’s the reason I went into assisted living. So the succubus couldn’t get me again.”

  “Succubus?” A lot of interrogation involved getting the subject to keep talking. Having them clarify what they just said was a trick that got them to spill more.

  “She came in through the walls like a ghost and sucked my blood.”

  “It was a woman?”

  “Of course it was a woman.”

  I checked my notes. “That wasn’t mentioned in the police report.”

  “I’m not surprised. That detective was an idiot. I bet he couldn’t find his own asshole with a full length mirror and a shit-sniffing coonhound.”

  “Detective Kertis,” I clarified.

  “That’s the bonehead. Man is about as sharp as a tennis ball.”

  “Walk me through what happened, Mr. Svenson.”

  “I was sleeping. It was a hot night.”

  “Did you have the windows open?”

  “No. Air conditioning. Windows were locked. I always lock everything. That’s how I know the succubus materialized through the walls. Both the back door and front door had deadbolts.”

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “I was sleeping. I had my gall bladder removed the week before.”

  That also wasn’t in the notes.

  “Where did you have the surgery?”

  “St. Erasmus. Where else?”

  “Go on.”

  “I want to go on, but you keep interrupting me.”

  Pretty ornery for a guy who just saw my sweater kittens.

  “I’m trying to do a better job than Detective Kertis,” I said, using calm tones.

  “It don’t matter. Unless you’re a exorcist or a voodoo witch doctor. Those are the only ones who can catch a succubus.”

  I stayed silent, letting him continue at his own pace, holding my questions until he finished.

  “So I’m asleep. It’s hot, even with the air on. When I sold the house later, I found out it was a condenser problem. Damn thing lasted less than fifteen years. For what I paid, it should have outlived me.”

  I nodded.

  “I wake up when I feel a pinch. In my arm. I’m not in deep sleep because of the heat, so I immediately open my eyes and I see the succubus. She’s a pretty young thing. In her thirties, maybe younger. Lights were out, but there was a full moon. Clear sky, stars bright. I could see her pretty well.”

  I needed to prod him. “Can you describe her?”

  “I did,” he snapped. “Young and pretty.”

  “Hair? Eyes?”

  “Yes, she had hair and eyes.”

  I reminded myself this geezer was part of the so-called Greatest Generation.

  “Do you remember the color?” I asked, trying to hide my amusement.

  “Dark long hair, dark eyes. She was white. Tall. Maybe five nine or five ten. Broad shoulders.”

  “Dark eyes? Could they have been red?”

  I was leading the witness, but this wasn’t a court of law. I was trying to find the consistencies between Svenson’s story and Marjorie’s.

  “Red eyes? You know, now that you mention it, they might have been. Something was weird about them.”

  “And it was a woman?”

  “Yes. Or a man with bazoombas. A little bigger than yours. I pay attention to those things. Boobalas nourish life. Without them, we’d have no human race. Also, they make my pickle prickle. I’m a breast man, you know.”

  I never would have guessed. “What was she wearing?”

  “All black. Blouse and tights—no, what do you call them? Yoga pants.”

  “Was she wearing gloves?”

  “Of course not. Why would a succubus need gloves?”

  I could have asked why a succubus needed yoga pants, but I wanted to get this interview over with as quickly as possible.

  “Where was I?” he asked.

  “A pinch in your arm woke you up.”

  “Yes. I’m looking up at this succubus, and I know I’m under her spell.”

  “Her spell?”

  “Her love spell. She wants to drain my bodily fluids. Milk my potato dry.”

  That expression was new to me. I covered my mouth so he didn’t see me grin.

  “So it was a love spell,” I said.

  “What else was it? Got me all dizzy and giddy, like a boy at prom with a double-D date. You ever see a woman with big gazebos do the jitterbug? It’s a verifiable boobquake. A mesmerizing jigglefest guaranteed to pump blood into any man’s bloatwurst.”

  Part of me had to admire Mr. Svenson’s one-track mind. The old man knew what he liked, that was for sure.

  “So I’m stiff as a starched collar, waiting for the cute young succubus to climb on and ride me like Hi-Ho Silver.”

  “To milk your potato dry,” I said, keeping a hand over my mouth.

  “Dehydrate the one-eyed spud. Yes ma’am. But that succubus, her love spell was too powerful, and I passed out.”

  From the drugs the Destiny Drac injected him with. But I kept that to myself. Though I was still smart enough to know that both Mrs. Marjorie Calhoun and Mr. Max “Tittybang” Svenson had been given sedatives, I felt like I was still missing something obvious. Or perhaps more than one thing that was obvious.

  Was I slipping in my middle age?

  I knew that, physically, I wasn’t the cop I used to be. But had I lost a step mentally too?

  “I must have missed the lovemaking,” Mr. Svenson continued, “because when I awoke the succubus had moved on to other bodily fluids. Kneeling next to the bed, sucking my blood through a bendy straw. I couldn’t move. Her spell was so strong, she paralyzed me. Or maybe she drained the tuber too hard, zapped out all my jingo.”

  I was hearing all sorts of new, awful expressions that I wouldn’t be able to forget even if I wanted to.

  Mr. Svenson pressed on. “All I could do was watch her bleed me until I fell asleep. Got up in the morning, tired, bad headache. Wondered if it was all a dream. But I had a big old bruise on my arm where she took the blood. There was also some dried blood on the carpet, where she was kneeling. That was a pain in the butt to scrub out when I sold the house. The realtor told me to tear up the carpet, but I bought that carpet only twenty years earlier. For what I paid, the carpet should have outlived me.”

  “And when you got up, your doors were still locked?”

  “Darn tootin’ they were locked. That’s how I knew it was a succubus who walked through my walls.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t a ghost?” I asked.

  Or someone who knew how to pick locks.

  “Ghost don’t want your bodily fluids. Ghost don’t want to peel your carrot.”

  I couldn’t wait to tell my husband this story later. “So you’re sure that your carrot was peeled?”

  “She must have. Woman can’t resist my carrot.” He smiled wide. “Want to see it?”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “It’s not orange or nothing. I just call it my carrot, or my potato, or my pickle, because it’s more polite than tallywhacker. And ladies like to munch on vegetables. It’s good for their skin.”

  My cell phone buzzed, and I decided to end the interview because I was sure it would end with Mr. Svenson exposing himself, and I didn’t want to see a 91-year-old man’s junk until Phin was 91. Gravity hadn’t been kind to me. I could guess how low a nonagenarian’s balls hung.

  My guess was mid-thigh. But I didn’t need a confirmation.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Svenson. I’ll call back if I have any follow-up questions.”

  He started to say something, probably something sexist and inappropriate, but I killed the call before he could and answered my cell.

  “Sam’s not in her room,” Phin said.

  “Wasn’t Harry watching her?”

  “He was asleep. Also, it’s Harry. I wouldn’t trust him to take care of a pet rock.”

  Phin was right. Harry’s last pet rock had died.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I grabbed my tablet and hurried back to the room.

  PHIN

  The same trio I’d spoken with earlier was at the nurses’ station. Doug, Doris, and Shelby. None of them had seen Sam.

  At least, they told me they hadn’t seen Sam. But if any of them were the Destiny Drac and took Sam, they’d deny it.

  I wheeled myself back to the room, so fast I was sure I’d popped a stitch or three, hoping that Sam would be waiting there when I returned.

  She wasn’t. But Jack was giving Harry the riot act.

  “Even if I saw her go, what was I supposed to do, Jackie? Hop after her with a shattered leg?”

  Jack had her arms folded across her chest. “You could have told her she couldn’t leave the room.”

  “Isn’t that what you and Phin told her? If she wouldn’t listen to you, why would she listen to me?”

  Jack’s face pinched. “What if someone… took her?”

  I’d been hot with panic, but Jack vocalizing my worst fear made my heart go icy.

  I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  I felt mean.

  I’d had more than a few fight-or-flight bouts with adrenaline since knowing Jack. I’d fought for my life, and for hers. I’d been upset at times. Angry at times. I’d lost control at times.

  But it had been a long time since I’d felt the steely, ugly urge to murder someone in cold blood.

  If someone had my little girl, I’d do things to that person that would make Amnesty International puke.

  At the same time, I knew I was a lame duck.

  It wasn’t just about my age, and losing some of my strength and reflexes.

  It wasn’t even about being injured, stuck in a wheelchair.

  It was an overall loss of self-confidence.

  Yes, I’ve become happier since marrying Jack and having Sam.

  But I’d also become domesticated. A busted bronco.

  I was once a survivor. An alley rat. You couldn’t kill me if you tried.

  These days I couldn’t even protect my own family.

  My dark thoughts weren’t a threat.

  I wasn’t a threat.

  I was useless.

  “She wasn’t taken,” Harry insisted. “Sam is smart. She would have woken me up somehow.”

  Jack wasn’t having it. “While you’re stoned off your ass on morphine and who knows what else?”

  “Edibles, mostly. I might have also taken some sleeping pills. And some muscle relaxants. And maybe a tranquilizer. I know for sure I didn’t take any meth because that would have woken me up. Or molly, because I don’t have any.” Harry raised an eyebrow. “Do you have any molly?”

  Jack narrowed her eyes. “You’re useless, Harry.”

  “And you’re blaming me when you should be blaming yourself. Or your husband. You’re her parents. If you didn’t trust me you shouldn’t have left her alone with me.”

  Jack and Harry had a stare-down, and Jack looked ready to strangle him, and I would have probably let her.

  Not that I could have stopped her anyway.

  Harry sighed, long and dramatic.

  “Look, Jackie, we can’t focus on blame. We can’t close the barn door after the cow got out. Or close the barn door after the cow was abducted by a blood-guzzling psychopath. Or hate your BFF because he was stoned off his ass and passed out while the cow was being violently murdered. We need to call the police.”

  I had my phone out and had already dialed 9 and 1 when I heard my daughter’s voice.

  Crying.

  I whipped my head around and my eyes locked on the doorway.

  Sam was holding the hand of a man I didn’t recognize. He was tall, wore a hospital custodial uniform, and had a name badge that read ELROY.

  My daughter immediately ran to her mother for a hug, and I sized up Elroy, trying to gauge the threat level.

  “I found her in the basement morgue,” Elroy said. “Funky monkey dunker!”

  “Hi Elroy,” Harry said. “Still got the Tourette’s?”

  “Same as yesterday,” Elroy said. “Still got a broken leg?”