How to Party with a Killer Vampire (22 page)

“No, I didn’t know him. How would I? I’m not into stupid stuff like those crazy people. And that girl with the long black hair—she’s nuts!”

A red flag flapped. “When did you see the girl?”

Ryan flushed a deep red. “I—I don’t know. When all those kids were running and jumping all around the cemetery at the party. There was a girl with long black hair. . . .”

Not the night of the party, I recalled. Lark had been there, but she’d had her hair twisted up into a spiky knot, and her face had been disguised by all that white makeup.

“You were there . . . ,” I said softly.

He headed for the doorway, then paused. “What are you talking about? Yes, I was there. I was invited, remember?”

“No, you were there the night
before
, during the party setup and rehearsal. That was when you saw Lark, the girl with the long black hair!”

“So maybe I was. I’m thorough. Sometimes I check out the locations beforehand so I can get the lay of the land and find the best place to . . . pick up the dirt. But I had nothing to do with the deaths of those two guys, if that’s what you think. If you’re looking for someone with a motive, check out the person who’s been right in front of your face. You can show yourself out.”

The person who was right in front of my face. Whom did he mean? Ah. The one who’d had the confrontation with Bodie Chase. And the one who’d kept Spidey from coming to the party and seeing the object of his affection. The one with the temper, who might have a lot to gain from the publicity surrounding the murders.

Lucas Cruz.

This, coming from a gossip reporter who appeared to have been at the cemetery the night Spidey was killed, but wouldn’t admit it—and who shouldn’t have been there.

After seeing Trace in a towel, being hit on by Robby the roommate, and getting the boot from Ryan Fitzpatrick, I needed a break from crazy people. I hopped into the MINI Cooper and fled the hills of San Francisco for the quiet flatland of Treasure Island. I’d been neglecting my real job and was sure I had mountains of paperwork to catch up on and party arrangements to make.

I hadn’t talked to Brad since last night and was eager to hear if he’d learned anything from Detective Melvin. Besides, I missed him. Jeez, what was happening to me? I was starting to sound like a lovesick teenager.

I spent the short drive mulling over the facts I’d gathered from my “interrogations.”

So what did it all mean? The dorm? It could mean he had no money, no place to go. The texting and phoning? Could it be that Spidey was Angelica’s stalker? No, she mentioned the stalker after Spidey died—unless someone picked up where he left off. So who knew he’d be at the cemetery late at night?

 

So what did this mean? Was Bodie murdered because he was trying to get dirt on Angelica for that big score? Was it something worth killing him over? Where had he gotten the money to pay off Jonas Jones? And why kill him in the cemetery like Spidey?

With my thoughts racing, I found myself magically transported to the parking lot in front of Building One with little memory of the drive.

That was kind of scary.

I parked the MINI, then glanced around for Brad’s SUV. It was not in its usual spot. I did see Dee’s Smart Car, Duncan’s VW van, and Berk’s Cabriolet, and I was glad to know they were safe in their offices and not out hunting murderers—or being hunted by one.

“Hey, Dee,” I said, waltzing into our shared office and slinging my purse onto my desk.

She looked up from a script she’d been reading. “Where have you been?”

I nodded toward the in/out board. “Says right there. ‘Out.’ ”

“Very funny. Duncan’s been in here a dozen times looking for you and driving me crazy. Meanwhile, your phone has been ringing off the hook.”

“Sorry about that.” I headed for the door, then paused and turned back. “Has Brad been in today?”

“I haven’t seen him. But he’s not my boyfriend, so I don’t have a reason to keep track of him.”

“Oh, now you’re the funny one,” I sputtered indignantly. “He’s not my boyfriend. And I don’t keep track of him. I just wondered . . .”

I left the sentence unfinished. I had nowhere to go with it, so why bother.

I stopped by Brad’s office and knocked on the door, then tried the knob. It was locked. I assumed he was on a cleaning job. I was dying to know what he’d learned from Melvin and made a mental note to give him a call after I checked on Duncan. Entering the office next to Brad’s, I found Berkeley fooling with his video camera and Duncan fiddling with his cell phone, which he’d taken apart. Pieces were strewn all over his desk.

Berk looked up when he saw me.

“Presley! Got something for you,” he said, nearly leaping out of his chair. Before I could say anything to Duncan, Berk had me sitting in his seat and holding his video camera. “Check this out.” He switched it on. My Vampire Party materialized on the small screen.

“Did you find something?” I asked as I spotted familiar faces and recalled the party scene.

“Just watch.”

I did. Moments later I saw what Berk had intended me to see. While his close-up shot focused on a couple of partyers, in the shadowed background, I saw what looked like a figure ducking behind a tree, reminding me of the figure Brad and I had seen on the
Gossip Guy
footage, but from a different angle. The area was dark and details were difficult to make out—I couldn’t see the person’s face—but the body language was clear. Once again, the camera had caught someone trying to stay out of sight.

“That could be anyone,” I said to Berk, a little disappointed at his minor discovery.

He handed me a still photo, enlarged from the video I’d just seen. Protruding from behind that tree was a camera lens. Duncan leaned over to eyeball the picture.

“Wow,” I said. “You think it’s Bodie with his camera?”

“Who else could it be?” Berk said. I could hear the excitement in his voice.

“Maybe it was Ryan Fitzpatrick, the other paparazzo,” I suggested.

Berk pressed PLAY on the video, and I watched the scene continue. There was Ryan in the foreground, holding his own video camera and panning the party.

So it wasn’t Ryan.

Berk was about to turn off the video when my eye caught on someone familiar.

“Wait!” I said. There was Lucas Cruz again, only this time he was chatting with Angelica, who seemed to be hanging on his every word. She touched his arm, laughed at his jokes, even played with her hair while she talked to him. Was she flirting?

Then Cruz did something very strange. He turned his head away from Angelica and the small group he’d been entertaining, and looked into the dark cemetery. He froze for a moment, set down his drink on a nearby table, and abruptly walked out of the view of the video camera.

Just before the video ended, Lucas Cruz appeared to be headed for the figure hiding behind the tree.

I was speechless for a few moments. If it was Bodie, Lucas might have been one of the last people to see him. What had happened between the two men?

“Presley, are you all right?” Duncan said, pulling me out of a horrible fantasy where Lucas Cruz attacked Bodie in the shadows with a shovel and pushed him into the open grave.

“Pres?” Berk said.

“What? Oh. Sorry . . . I was just . . . never mind.” I stood up. “Thanks, Berk. Really good work. You should apply for a job at SFPD in their photo forensics department.” I turned to Duncan, who seemed to be putting the phone back together as if it were a 3-D jigsaw puzzle.

“What did you think of the video?” Duncan asked.

“Interesting,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I got a call from Trace. He said you’d been over there snooping around. I don’t think he liked it much.”

“Really? Well, too bad for him,” I snapped.

“Presley!” Duncan snapped back. “He’s a friend of mine. I don’t want you harassing my friends. Trace didn’t kill Spidey, if that’s what you’re thinking. They were good friends.”

I hesitated to tell him what I’d learned, but then I figured it couldn’t hurt, and I hoped it justified my snooping. “Did you know Spidey was living in the dorm with Trace? I think Lark is staying there too.”

“So?” Duncan said defensively.

“So, it’s against the rules. It could get Trace kicked out of school if the RA found out.”

“No one’s going to tell the RA—besides you, maybe.” He shot me a look.

I shook my head in dismay. “You really think I’d do that, Duncan? Give me a break.”

His tense shoulders dropped. “No. But you seem to be hinting that my friends had something to do with Spidey’s death. They didn’t. Besides, they had no reason to kill that other guy—the paparazzo.”

Unless Bodie saw something that Trace or Lark didn’t want him to, I thought. Instead, I said, “You’re right.”

He took a deep breath and returned to working on his cell phone.

I leaned over and patted his shoulder. “You were right about Spidey having a crush on Angelica. Trace also said Spidey thought she liked him, because she flirted with him while he was on the set.”

He said nothing, just kept fiddling with his cell phone again, as if trying to suppress his feelings. And what were those feelings? Anger at me? Concern for his friends? Deep-seated suspicions about . . . what?

“I told you,” he finally said, fitting in a last piece and closing the case on the cell phone. “Spidey was clueless about girls. He didn’t notice that she macked on every guy in sight. I don’t think she took him seriously.”

“Do you know if they met up?” I asked. “That night before the party, after the setup and rehearsal? They were both there. Maybe she agreed to see him after everyone was gone.”

Duncan gave me a look that let me know I was as clueless as Spidey. “I really doubt it, Presley. A big star like Angelica, fooling around with a homeless dropout whose greatest aspiration was to do competitive parkour? Come on.”

“He was good-looking, in a punk sort of way,” I said.

Duncan looked at me and rolled his eyes.

There would be little sense in arguing with him. He was too biased to see the possibilities—that maybe Angelica did meet up with Spidey, the bad boy. Maybe she liked the thrill of being caught, or wanted to rebel against her husband, or to make Jonas jealous.

“Anyway,” I said, changing the subject. “Anything new on the murders?”

“No, but I’ve got some ideas.”

“Duncan . . .”

“Don’t worry. Nothing that will get me into trouble.” He turned on his rebuilt cell phone.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked.

“Pimping my cell phone.”

“What?”

“I put in a listening device.”

“What do you mean, listening device?”

“Something I got off the Internet. It’s supposed to let me listen in when someone’s talking and let me read their text messages. Even view their contacts list—stuff like that. It’s called iSpy.”

“You’re kidding,” I said, almost laughing. “You’re hacking into someone’s cell phone? You can’t do that. It’s illegal!”

“Using it might be illegal, but owning it isn’t.”

“That’s a matter of semantics, don’t you think?”

“Huh?”
he said.

“Never mind. How does it work?”

“You install the software; then it uses GSM technology to listen in to other people’s conversations.”

“GSM?”

“Global System for Mobile Communications.”

“Definitely not legal.”

He shrugged.

“So how does it work?”

“You install it on your phone and you get a text message when your target gets or makes a call. Then you can listen in if you want, by calling a special number, which puts you into a disguised teleconference mode.”

“What kind of special number?”