Covet (46 page)

And the Clann. I would have to call the elders, tell them we were leaderless now that Dad was gone…

My dad was gone…I debated picking Mom up and carrying her back to the house. She was tiny enough. But she would fight me.

She pounded on Dad’s chest with the heels of her fists now, and I couldn’t watch. It wasn’t right, her beating Dad’s body and trying to bring him back like this. Anyone else could tell he was gone.

“Mom, it’s too late,” I tried to tell her again.

She shoved me with both hands, and I had to grab a nearby tree trunk to stay on my feet. It was like she was possessed. There was no reasoning with her, no calming her. And there would be no removing her from here, at least not by me. Not without force.

I couldn’t do that to her on top of everything else. I couldn’t just throw my own mother, as temporarily nuts as she was, over my shoulder like some kind of Neanderthal.

I would have to make a run for it, call Dr. Faulkner, try to yell for Emily and get her to come back with me to the woods, all as quickly as I could.

I took Mom’s ward from my wrist and carefully snapped it around Mom’s. Not that it would do any good. If a vampire truly had killed my dad, he had done it in spite of the wards around the clearing. But I had to at least try to offer her what protection I could. I also left the flashlight with her, keeping it on and on the ground pointed away from Dad down the path toward the house. It might help her, and it would help the descendants find her.

Then I ran as fast as I could, faster than I ever had in any football game, back to the house, stopping only when I reached Dad’s desk so I could hunt through the drawers for the black spiral-bound leather notebook that contained all the descendants’ names, addresses, and phone numbers.

Dr. Faulkner answered quickly. He was silent after I told him about Dad. Then, “I’m on my way. Have you called anyone else?”

“No. I need to get back to the clearing. Mom wouldn’t leave…Dad.”

“Good. I’ll call everyone soon enough. Just take care of your mother and sister till we can get there.”

I hung up Dad’s office phone, then ran out of the study to the base of the stairs, yelling for Emily.

No response. She probably couldn’t hear me over her own snoring. She’d always been a heavy sleeper anyways.

Should I run upstairs and tell her?

No, I needed to go keep Mom safe.

But then Emily would be here in the house alone. What if Dad’s attacker came in here and went after Emily?

Cursing, I ran up the stairs two at a time then burst into her room and shook her awake.

“Wha…” she muttered groggily, raising up on an elbow and rubbing her eyes.

“Emily, wake up. It’s Dad.”

She frowned, blinking a little faster now. “What? What’s going on? Is he home now? Tell Mom I’m really not hungry, okay?”

What was she talking about? She knew he was home. I’d seen her outside talking to him.

She had to be still half asleep or something. “Emily, you’ve got to wake up, get up and get dressed. The Clann’s on their way, but I’ve got to get back to the clearing to protect Mom until they get here. And that means you have to come with me. I can’t protect the both of you any other way.”

Stumbling to her feet, she wrapped a fleece robe around herself. “Tristan, I swear, if this is a prank I will k—”

“Don’t say it,” I muttered. “This is for real. Dad’s out there in the clearing. He’s… He’s…” I took a deep breath, pushed away my own emotions for the moment. “He’s gone, Em. He’s really gone.”

Her eyes widened and she flew past me down the staircase and into the kitchen. I helped her balance while she shoved her feet into a pair of rubber boots in the garage. Then we were stumbling and jogging as fast as her too-big footwear would allow.

When she saw Mom with Dad’s body, she gasped and fell to her knees beside our parents. And finally Mom allowed someone to hug her, burying her face in my sister’s shoulder.

Dr. Faulkner found us first, with Officer Talbot right on his heels. They checked Dad, confirmed that he had been dead for hours probably, stayed with us as an ambulance showed up to take Dad’s body away. Only then was Emily able to do what the rest of us couldn’t, prying Mom away from Dad and walking her back to the house where she gave Mom a sleeping pill and helped her to bed. The sleeping pill was probably unnecessary, though…Mom had exhausted herself trying to bring Dad back.

While Emily got Mom settled for the night, Officer Talbot and Dr. Faulkner asked me questions in the kitchen. Their tone was calm, but they kept asking the same questions over and over.

And I kept telling them the same answers.

“I don’t know who the guy was. He was dressed nice, slacks, shiny black loafers, long black wool coat. I never saw his car—he must have parked in front and walked around back. Emily seemed to know him. She hugged him hello. You should ask her who he is. I never heard them talking. I don’t know what he wanted. He showed up around five or so.”

At some point, Emily came back downstairs and Officer Talbot pulled her aside in the foyer. But I could hear her replies.

“I’m telling you, there was no one here. I never saw Dad come home,” she insisted. “I’ve been in my room sick and asleep all day. Ask my mom, she’ll tell you.”

I’d known Emily was good, but this was a whole new level of lying. After several minutes of listening to it, I was ready to strangle her.

“Cut the crap, Emily.” I wove around Dr. Faulkner into the foyer. “Just tell them the truth. This is our dad we’re talking about here. You and that guy were the last ones to see Dad alive. So tell them the truth!”

Her eyes welled up with tears, her eyebrows drawn together. “But I am telling you the truth! I remember Mom going to get groceries, and you were going with her. I fell back asleep, and the next thing I know, you’re shaking me awake and telling me about Dad—”

“You’re saying you don’t remember anything about putting on your coat and house shoes and scarf and going outside to talk to Dad and some stranger for nearly two hours?”

“No.”

“No, you don’t remember doing that, or no, you didn’t do it?” I tried reading her mind, but it was a locked vault as always.

Could she have been sleepwalking? She’d never done it before that I knew about. But she was pretty exhausted. Maybe the flu meds or Mom’s herbal drinks or the combination of them had somehow messed with Emily’s mind or something?

“Does your sister have a history of sleepwalking?” Officer Talbot asked.

At the same time, Dr. Faulkner began checking Emily’s pupils with a penlight he’d pulled from his pocket. “Emily, do you often lose track of time or hear about things others have seen you do that you have no memory of?”

“No.” The tears ran freely down her face now. “And I think I’d remember my own dad being hurt by someone.”

“Look, I’m telling you what I saw and everything I know,” I said. “Maybe something or someone’s messed with her memory. But I was wide awake, I haven’t been sick or taken any kind of meds or drank anything, and I know what I saw. He was youngish, maybe early twenties, with light brown hair, short on the sides and back, kind of long on top. He was about Emily’s height, maybe a few inches taller.”

Emily frowned. She knew something.

“Who do you know that looks like that?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “Nobody.” But there was something in her voice, deep down, the tiniest hint of uncertainty so faint no one but family would have caught it. And again when I tried to read her mind, her thoughts were barred to me.

“And you said you didn’t get his license plate number?” Officer Talbot asked me.

“No, I said I never saw his vehicle at all.”

“Did you hear him arrive?”

“No. I just saw him walk around the side of the house to the backyard.”

Officer Talbot and Dr. Faulkner shared a look.

“What?” I asked.

“If he was a vamp, he could have walked in from anywhere,” Officer Talbot said.

Except that didn’t seem right. “A vamp would have had a hard time getting past the vamp wards in the clearing without a descendant’s help, wouldn’t he?”

“Unless your father was attacked outside of the clearing and then crawled within the wards’ protection just before dying,” Officer Talbot said.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Something about this just doesn’t seem right. Dad should have fought back, whether his attacker was human or vamp. He would have read a human’s thoughts in advance and been able to stop them. And he never would have let a vampire get that close.”

“Not even if he knew and trusted that vamp?” Officer Talbot asked, and I didn’t like the way his eyes narrowed. He had someone specific in mind.

“Like who?”

“Oh, I don’t know…how about our local resident vamps?”

CHAPTER 32

“Savannah and her dad? No way would they have hurt my dad, or helped anyone else to do it, either.” I didn’t know what had happened to Dad, but
this
much I knew for sure.

“All the same, I think I’d better pay them a visit, see where they were this evening,” Officer Talbot muttered, his hand moving to rest on the butt of his gun at his waist.

“She had nothing to do with it,” I growled. “She wasn’t even here. Read my mind, see for yourself.” I forced my mind to stay open to them so they could see the truth in my thoughts.

“How would you know if she was here?” Officer Talbot said.

“Because I would have sensed her,” I snapped, completely out of patience now. If this prejudiced idiot couldn’t get over his stupid hang-ups, he would miss following the real clues and the true killer would continue to get away with murder.

“How do you sense her?” Dr. Faulkner asked.

“It’s like a punch to the chest or gut.”

“Does this happen only when you see her?” Officer Talbot asked.

“No. She can be anywhere within a few hundred yards and I’ll know it.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Faulkner murmured. “Could be a heightened survival mechanism of sorts.”

“Or something else.” Officer Talbot’s mouth slowly stretched into a smirk.

“Hey, unlike some people, I’m not letting my emotions color the situation,” I said. “Whether you like it or not, I’ve told you the truth. I would have known if Savannah was anywhere around here. And her dad would never go after mine, either. He’s a former council member. He values the peace treaty too much to risk another war.”

“He’s still a vamp,” Officer Talbot spat out. “Which means older vamps could order him to kill and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.”

This was ridiculous. I grabbed the house phone off the kitchen wall and dialed Savannah’s number from memory, hoping she hadn’t changed it since our breakup.

She answered on the fourth ring with a hesitant “Hello?”

“Sav—” I started to say.

Officer Talbot grabbed the phone from me. “Where were you and your father tonight between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m.?”

“Who is this?” she asked, her tone firmer now.

“Just answer the question, please,” Officer Talbot said.

“We were home. Why? Who is this?”

Officer Talbot ended the call. “I still think we should bring them in for questioning.”

“Look, either you can waste time and explain yourselves to my mother tomorrow, or you can try to find whoever really did this. Now, the guy looked college-aged, so maybe you could start with the local colleges and seminary—”

“And tell them what, son?” Dr. Faulkner said. “We’ve got nothing to go on. No name, no vehicle description or license plate number. He could have been from anywhere. And bringing in a sketch artist would only open this can of worms up to the public and the national media. It’ll be hard enough to keep it contained as it is, what with Sam’s standing as a local figure and a nationally recognized businessman. Not to mention your parents’ reputations among the charity crowds.”

“But—”

“Why don’t you walk with me a bit.” Dr. Faulkner went out the front door. Following him through it felt weird to me because my family never used it. We always used the garage entrance in the kitchen.

Outside, he turned to face me. “I know you want to catch your father’s killer. Believe me, we all do. And the Clann’s going to be out for blood even more once they learn their leader’s been murdered. But if the media gets wind that your father was murdered by someone even pretending to be a vampire, every descendant alive will go off looking for the nearest vamp to stake or set on fire. Your father was greatly loved, and he’s going to be sorely missed. But you’ve got to let the Clann handle this discreetly or that peace treaty your grandpa and dad spent most of their lives working to bring about and maintain will be gone in an instant.”

“So exactly what do you want me to do then?” Surely he didn’t expect me to just sit around like a dumb little kid waiting for all the grown-ups to handle this.

“I’m saying let us figure this out as quietly as we can. We’re going to catch the killer, have no doubt about that. We have to, or they’ll never stop and none of us will ever be safe again. But let’s keep the situation among our own kind and the vamps and keep the media and everyone else out of it.”

“What about Savannah and her father? Talbot sounds like he wants to go interrogate them. You know the vamp council won’t react well to that.”

“Let me handle him. I’ll get him sniffing down the right track in no time.”

I sighed, feeling tired and suddenly way older than seventeen. “What do we do about Dad?” My voice grew hoarse at the end, and I had to clear my throat. “I don’t think Mom can handle arranging another funeral so soon. And I’ve got no clue what he would have…” My tongue stumbled over the words, and I had to try again. “What he would have wanted.”

Dr. Faulkner clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. The Clann will follow tradition and we’ll get all the arrangements set up. We can hold the funeral this Saturday. And then we’ll need to hold the elections that night while everyone’s still in town—”

“Elections? For what?”

He blinked at me behind his glasses like a dazed owl caught in the spotlights that had just shown up at the front of my family’s home. “For the new Clann leader, of course. With all the recent murders, the Clann can’t afford to be leaderless for longer than a week at best. Wait any longer than that, and you’ll have pure chaos on your hands.”