The Diva Haunts the House (10 page)

But when I heard a dry leaf crunch behind me, my suspicion radar perked up again. I whirled around, but before I could raise my hands, someone cast a huge cloth that smelled of licorice over my head. A scream rose from my throat, and I flailed my arms in panic, but my short arms were no match for my assailant. While I wrestled to tear the cloth off, he pressed something against my nose and mouth with such pressure that I could hardly move. I tried to suck in air, but something was wrong. I couldn’t breathe. Desperate, I kicked at him but only succeeded in losing my balance. I tried to scream again, but I couldn’t get air. Wishing I’d worn daggerlike heels or at least heavy shoes of some type instead of sneakers, I slammed my foot onto his. A groan suggested I’d made contact in a painful way.

Loud barking gave me hope. Daisy! Oh no! Why had I latched the gate?

“Stop that! Help!” I recognized the voice of my best friend, Nina Reid Norwood.

The next thing I knew, my assailant grunted and shoved into me. We fell as a unit, and someone lay on top of me. I floundered, fighting the cloth over my head. He’d released his grip when we fell, and I gulped air like a drowning victim. I could hear Daisy snarling and Nina yelling for help. In panic, I tried to kick my pinned legs and scramble backward. As I struggled, the cloth pulled away, and Daisy, Nina, and I found ourselves sitting on the cold brick sidewalk with a person in a vampire costume.

“Get his mask!” I shouted, trying to lunge at him from a seated position. He scrambled to his feet, and ran across the street and around the corner, a huge cape billowing from his arm as he disappeared into the night.

My heart pounded.

Nina touched my shoulder gently. “Are you okay?”

I nodded and stumbled to my feet to prove it. “Where did you come from?”

“I’m trying to catch a cat. I was about to go home to warm up for a bit when I heard Daisy barking. I opened your gate, and the two of us jumped that creep.”

I hugged her. “You and Daisy just saved my life.”

“Nonsense! Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll walk you inside and make you some tea.”

“What? You know how to heat water in the kettle?” It was a silly thing to say, but I needed to lighten up the situation. Or at least pretend that I wasn’t scared out of my mind.

“Emergencies call for drastic heroics—like cooking.”

“Don’t worry about me. Daisy will protect me. Right, girl?”

Daisy’s tail wagged, and I could have sworn that she was smiling at me. I planted a quick kiss on her head.

Nina pointed across the street. “There’s the cat. Hurry up now. I need to catch that rascally fellow for his own good, but I’m not leaving you out here to be attacked again. Are you sure you don’t need help?”

I waved her off.

“Well, go on then, before that kitty disappears!”

I staggered to the house, wishing I could walk more sprightly, but each step revealed a new ache where bruises were undoubtedly springing to life.

When I looked back, Nina, moving as stealthily as a jaguar, prowled toward the black cat sitting under the streetlight.

I wasn’t going to hang around outside for even one minute longer. Daisy and I bolted into the sunroom, and I locked the door behind us. Just to be on the safe side, I wedged a chair underneath the handle. No one was coming in
that
way.

“Aunt Sophie?” Jen’s voice came from the family room. “Is that you?”

“It’s just Daisy and me.” I hurried to the kitchen, called Wolf’s cell phone, and told him what happened. When I hung up, I hugged Daisy like I would never let her go. I’m not much of a crier, but tears trickled down my face, wetting her fur. So much for Natasha’s theory about Daisy. If it hadn’t been for Nina and Daisy, who knows what might have happened?

She barked at the sound of Wolf approaching the front door. I whisked it open and flew into his arms, my breath still ragged. He shuffled inside, kicked the door closed, and held me.

Jen’s voice behind me asked, “What’s going on?”

I forced myself to let go of Wolf, tried to smile reassuringly at Jen and Vegas, and ushered them all into the kitchen. I collapsed into a fireside chair, and Daisy planted herself beside me. While I relayed the story, Jen put on a pot of tea, and Vegas listened with her mouth open.

“We heard barking.” Vegas nervously twisted the hem of her pajama top. “It never occurred to me that you could be in danger.”

Jen handed me a cup of steaming tea with milk. When I took it, I was shocked to find my hands still trembled. “It’s all behind us now. Daisy and Nina are my heroines.” I bent toward Daisy. “Steak is on your menu tomorrow.”

She wagged her feathery tail across the floor.

People could say what they liked about dog intelligence, but I was certain Daisy understood she had helped rescue me tonight.

Wolf leaned against the kitchen island, his face troubled. “Show me where this happened.”

I nodded. “Give me a minute.” I asked Jen and Vegas to turn on lights in the dining and living rooms. Meanwhile, I switched on the lights in the sunroom. If the assailant was lurking around, I wanted the house to be fully lit while we were outside. I clipped a leash on Daisy, and we trekked out to the sidewalk.

“Right about here,” I said.

We all stared at the sidewalk as though it might hold a secret. If it did, it wasn’t giving it up.

Wolf didn’t say much. He glanced toward Natasha’s house and asked in which direction the person had run.

I pointed at the corner on the opposite end of the block from Natasha’s.

“We have a bulletin out for people in vampire costumes, but if he’s not wearing the cape, there’s not much hope he’ll be noticed.”

“Do you think it was the same vampire we saw earlier?” asked Vegas.

“I think he was wearing the same mask,” I said as we walked back to my house. But it dawned on me that I had a clue to his identity after all. I glanced at the girls. Maybe it was an overabundance of caution, but I thought it prudent not to say anything to them, lest it end up on Facebook or Twitter.

Putting on as brave and cheerful a face as I could manage, I shooed the girls back to their movie and motioned to Wolf to join me in the living room. I turned off the extra lights, and we settled on the sofa.

Before I could begin, Wolf asked, “What’s your connection to Patrick?”

“None, other than the fact that his girlfriend’s son, Blake, is working at the haunted house. I only met Patrick once. He threatened me, but I didn’t take it seriously. It seemed like a lot of hot air—empty bullying.” I eyed him. “So you think the person who attacked me was the same guy who killed Patrick?”

“Seems unlikely that there would be two guys in vampire capes running around Old Town attacking people.”

He said what I’d been thinking. I scooted closer to him. “Wolf, he smelled of licorice.”

“What?”

“When he threw the cape over my head, I smelled licorice. It could have been an odor on the cape, or it might even have been on his breath.”

A smile crept onto Wolf’s face.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Absolutely not. I’m just imagining myself telling other cops to sniff suspects. They’ll demand licorice samples so they can get it right.”

I could well imagine the ribbing he would take.

Wolf’s moment of levity faded fast. “If Blake is the only connection between you and Patrick, the common factor must be the haunted house, since Patrick used to rent the building. Have you found anything unusual there?”

“Nothing worth killing for. Mostly dust and cobwebs.”

Wolf picked up my hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want to worry you, but if this guy thinks you can identify him, he could come back to try again. You need to be on alert.”

After a quick kiss, Wolf went back to work at Natasha and Mars’s house.

I heard the girls scurrying back to the family room. By the time I looked in on them, they were on the sofa bed, pretending they’d been there all along. “You two okay?”

“Great!” said Jen.

I had my doubts about that, but I left them to their movie, double-checked to be sure all the doors were locked, and dragged my weary legs up the stairs with Mochie and Daisy leading the way. I opened the window a few inches to take advantage of the cool, crisp October air. Even though the vampire had attacked me in front of my own home, I felt some small degree of comfort in the police lights and murmuring voices just down the block at Natasha’s.

I crawled into bed, and Mochie and Daisy nestled into my down comforter, but as exhausted as I was, I lay awake for hours, thinking about Patrick and why his killer would attack me.

Screams woke us in the middle of the night. Mochie’s head stretched up in alarm, like an auditory telescope, confirming that I hadn’t dreamt them, and Daisy shot out the bedroom door. I could hear her heavy footsteps pounding down the old wooden stairs. I scrambled out of the warmth of my comforter and stumbled after Daisy to check on the girls. When I flicked on the lights in the family room, Vegas was sitting up on the sofa bed, holding the covers up to her chin. Jen blinked at her, seemingly confused.

Her voice trembling, Vegas said, “I saw him. I saw Viktor.”

More likely Vincent Price had invaded her dreams. I sat on the edge of the bed next to her, and Mochie sprang up, purring. “Honey, there’s no such thing as vampires.”

Jen’s eyes widened. “Yes, there is!”

She wasn’t helping.
I spoke gently. “I know that vampires are popular right now, but they’re just based on legend. Even the original vampire, Count Dracula, was fiction.”

“What about that guy in Transylvania?” asked Jen.

“Vlad the Impaler? He was a sick and very cruel man, but he wasn’t really a vampire.”

“But I saw him, I know I did.” Vegas loosened her grip on the sheets and pointed. “He was standing right there, watching us sleep. He looked just like June described him.”

Could the killer have gotten into the house? I dismissed that notion. Daisy was a friendly dog, but if someone had entered the house, she would be tracking the scent. Instead, she sat on the sofa bed kissing Jen.

“Okay, everyone into the kitchen.” They followed me, and I made quick work of reviving the fire. I didn’t light candles or spooky Halloween lights. Vegas didn’t need her imagination inspired.

Jen retrieved milk from the refrigerator. “What about people who drink blood? Aren’t they vampires?”

I popped some hot dog mummies into the oven. “There
are
people who do that. But are they immortal? They can go out into the sun, can’t they? They have reflections, and they’re not afraid of garlic.”

“Garlic! Do you have any more?” Jen asked. “We used it all to protect Gabriel.”

Fortunately, I always have plenty of garlic.

They passed the next half hour stringing garlic teeth on dental floss. The kitchen smelled great, but I suspected it would take several showers for the girls to rid themselves of the pungent aroma.

I served the cute mummies—really hot dogs wrapped in bread dough with mustard drops for eyes—and I could feel the tension release.

“Vampires can go out into the sun if they have the right protection. Like a lapis stone,” offered Vegas.

“Their skin glitters in the sun.” Jen bit into a mummy.

I hesitated. Fiction was fun. I wasn’t sure where the line was, though. Did I ruin it for them by saying it wasn’t true? Or should I let them have that fantasy?

“What about ghosts? Are they real?” asked Jen.

I couldn’t help looking at Faye’s portrait. Until I lived in this house, I would have insisted that ghosts didn’t exist. But too many unexplained things had happened, and June was thoroughly convinced that Faye’s ghost resided here. I didn’t know quite what to say. I dodged the question. “Have you ever met anyone who didn’t have a reflection?”

Jen picked up on that right away. “Tomorrow, we’ll carry our makeup compacts with us. That way, we can check the reflections of
everyone
.”

Vegas eyed me with suspicion, and I couldn’t help laughing. I retrieved a shiny stainless steel pot and scooted next to the girls. I held it up, and our images reflected like they would in a fun-house mirror, completely warped. The resulting giggles and laughter finally did the trick, and I thought they might be ready for bed.

I tucked them in this time and nestled into a plush chair, my legs propped on an oversized ottoman, intending to watch them until they slept.

The next thing I knew, someone was banging the knocker on the front door and daylight was streaming into the house. The girls stirred but didn’t rise. Mochie and I hurried to the front door, where Daisy already waited.

The door knocker sounded again. Someone was in a hurry. I threw open the door to find the doorkeeper vampire from Natasha’s party. He held a stunning arrangement of fall flowers in an urn and a box of Teuscher Champagne Truffles.