Vampire Blood (24 page)

“It’s where I most want to be,” he whispered back. He grinned at her and reached out a hand to touch hers, as if he were trying to make things up to her, and it was like a slice of sunlight breaking through her brooding thoughts.

“It doesn’t make any difference about the Michelsons. I’ll keep an eye on them. I’ll be careful, enough for both of us, even if you won’t be. I’ll be with you every second and will help you finish that job quick. Help you look for your Dad. No one’s going to ever hurt you again.”

She locked eyes with him, her thoughts on how much he’d once meant to her, how much she’d once loved him and how much he’d hurt her.

“This time I won’t let you down. I promise. This time I’ll be there, Jenny, for you.”

Jenny had a strange and sudden premonition that sometime soon he’d have a chance to prove his words.

Outside in the night, the mists danced at the window. It looked like hateful faces leering in at them. Hateful, like the world had become.

“Let’s talk about other things.”

“You got it,” she consented, relieved.

They finished their meal, chatting about the old days and Samantha. He seemed insatiable when it came to catching up, and she obliged him. It felt good to talk about all the things he’d missed over the last ten years, and she’d missed telling him. Plus it kept her mind off her father and the Albers. The town’s troubles.

A part of Jenny was getting used to him being there already, but another part warned her not to count on him too much, after all, he’d let her down before, hadn’t he? Over and over and over. She was careful how much of her herself she offered him.

She got up to clean their dishes. He was right there at her elbow, taking the plates away and scraping them for her, helping. The old Jeff never would have done that. She noticed the tiredness in his eyes, in his movements. “When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep, Jeff?”

“Ah, I don’t know. A couple days ago.” He yawned, arching his back, a dirty plate clutched in his hand. “Let me wash, dry and put them away, Jenny. That’s the least I can do. You made the supper.” He turned on the water, shoving her away from the sink with his hip.

“If you insist. I’ll get the couch ready for you. Since you seem to be staying.”

“I could share your bed,” he tested precociously. “It’d save you the trouble.”

“No, thanks. I’ve gotten used to sleeping alone. I like it that way.” She’d brushed the remark off as lightly as she could, and hoped he wouldn’t see her blushing. She wasn’t letting him back in that easy. In fact, she wasn’t letting him back in at all.

“It won’t take much to prepare the couch. I’ll pad it with extra blankets so it’ll be more comfy.”

“Thanks,” he replied apathetically.

Jenny left him in the kitchen while she fixed the couch. She could hear the water running, dishes clinking and Jeff out there mumbling to himself. Well, that habit hadn’t changed.

As she made up the couch, Jenny couldn’t stop herself from daydreaming. In so many ways, he’d changed. He seemed sure of what he wanted. More realistic. More compassionate. Harder working. He seemed content simply to be with her.

“It’s ready, whenever you are,” she announced when she was done and walked into the kitchen. He’d finished the dishes, stacked them neatly and was reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in his hands, his shoes kicked off. He looked half asleep.

“You’re welcome to stay up all night, but me,” she said, stifling a yawn, “I’m taking a long hot bath, and then I’m going to bed.”

“You sure I can’t join you?” he tried one last time.

“Nope. See you in the morning.”

“I think I will stay up awhile, read the paper, think some.” He was still a night owl, though.

“Fine, Jeff. Turn the lights off when you go to bed.”

“Except the night light in the kitchen, I remember,” he said before she could finish.

“Yeah. See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Jenny.” His voice was a wistful sigh. “Thank you for letting me stay here. I truly appreciate it. I appreciate all of it.”

She nodded and left the room, afraid to meet his eyes again.

* * * *

He listened to the bath water running and moved to the front room couch after switching the television on low, got comfortable and prone, and resumed reading the paper. As exhausted as he was, he had too much on his mind to go to sleep easily. Coming back after all these years, seeing Jenny and realizing he’d never stopped loving her, wanting her back desperately, had shaken him to his very core.

Then all this crap about Jenny’s friends and her father being missing and that weird thing that happened to him in the theater earlier.

Those people.

He finally drifted into a restless sleep with the television on and the paper crumpled on his lap. He awoke a few hours later in the middle of the night.

The trailer was silent. Jenny must have snuck out to check on him, turned the television and lights off, except for her eternal night light in the kitchen, and left him to sleep. She’d covered him with a light blanket. Just like she used to do when they were married.

He was happier than he’d been in years. For the first time, he knew he was where he should be. With Jenny. If he were patient, loving, soon he’d have it all back.

This time, he promised himself, he wouldn’t be so stupid as to let her slip away as he had before. It’d taken marrying another woman to realize what a prize he’d had in Jenny, how truly special their love had been. How lovingly she’d treated him. How good a woman, a human being, she’d been. No matter what it took or how long, he would make her love him again.

Sometime while he’d been asleep, it had begun to rain outside. It was a restful sound.

He smiled groggily and fell back to sleep.

When he awoke, Jenny was in the kitchen, making coffee in the sunlight, calmer and rested. She’d tied her brown hair back with a colorful crinkly thing, and had on shorts and a green top. He followed her movements quietly for a time, his mind’s eye seeing her eighteen again and them newly married.

“Is it okay if I take a shower, Jenny?”

“Sure. Just put it back where you found it when you’re done with it, but hurry, breakfast is about done. Pancakes.”

Jeff chuckled as he headed for the shower. He loved pancakes and she knew it.

Scrubbing himself clean, he couldn’t stop worrying about their dilemma. They had to finish the theater; they both needed the money. He’d decided not to speak any more about his suspicions concerning the Michelsons. Perhaps nothing would come of it, perhaps, for once, his feelings had been wrong.

They also had to keep searching for her father and the others, but Jenny was at the end of her rope.

“Jenny,” he queried later between bites of syrupy pancakes, “you and Joey have done everything you can to find your dad and the Albers. You’re both physically and emotionally drained. The sheriff is doing all he can, so I have a proposition for you.”

“What?” Jenny sipped her coffee, watching him.

“The sheriff recommended a private investigator to me yesterday morning on the phone, a Clyde Foster? Gave me his address, too.”

“Don’t know him.”

“But I do. Used to be a friend of mine. I say we go to his office first thing this morning and hire him to look for your dad. I’ll kick in my share of the money we’ll earn from the theater, if you keep feeding me and lending me the use of your sofa.”

“I see the sense in what you’re proposing. We need money, we need to finish the theater, and you’re right, I’m used up. A few days off would help,” she breathed, her eyes grateful. “I can only do one thing at a time.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. I loved your dad, too, you know. We’ll go as soon as we’re done eating.”

* * * *

Clyde Foster was a short balding man, clad in blue jeans and a solid-colored blue shirt with a thin face trapped behind huge spectacles. He had a voice like a mouse, but seemed smart and empathetic. Jenny liked him right away. He remembered Jeff and was tickled to see him. They spent a couple minutes catching up with each other, and then got down to business.

“I’ve seen both you and your father around town, Jenny. Liked your dad. Eat at Joey’s all the time. I know you’re a novelist, a hometown girl, and I’ve read your books.” He smiled at her over the cluttered desk, his glasses slipping down on his thin nose. His office was a mess, but he seemed to know what he was doing. He took the pictures they’d brought of the missing subjects and wrote down the needed information very professionally. “I promise to devote every spare minute I have to the case, gonna give it top priority. I’ve been following the disappearances in the newspapers. It’s worried me plenty. I’ll keep in daily touch with both of you on my progress.”

On the way out, he told Jeff, “For old times’ sake, because I like you, I’m only gonna charge the minimum fee.”

“Thanks, it means a lot to us, Clyde.”

Outside, Jenny shadowed her eyes from the sun. “He’s a nice guy.”

“Yes, and one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. We’re in good hands.”

They went on to work.

* * * *

That morning at the theater they met Mister Maxwell, the projection specialist that Mister Michelson had hired to renovate the projection booth. He and his surly workers were in and out all day, doing their job. He seemed like a decent man, but reserved and solitary. In the time he was there, he barely spoke five words to either of them.

“Hello.”

“It’s done now.”

And “Good-bye”, so they could paint the small room, was about the best of it.

It was the only interruption their work had for the next week. The Michelsons were nowhere in sight. Jeff claimed he didn’t miss them, but the place still gave him the creeps.

They worked at the theater until five or six, and at the end of each day, they checked in with the police and Clyde (he still had nothing) and periodically with her mother and Joey. It became the pattern of their days and nights.

They moved on to the auditorium, painting it, shampooing the rugs and the velvet-backed chairs. Apparently Michelson had ordered new curtains to frame the screen, and when they arrived, Jenny and Jeff struggled to hang them perfectly.

Slowly, as the days went by, Jenny and Jeff became comfortable with each other, became friends again, became close.

They didn’t see the Michelsons again until the day they finished, mainly because so near to completion, they’d stayed later than usual.

When Jeff was busy loading up the car in the declining light that last afternoon, Jenny heard the violin music coming from downstairs somewhere.

Intrigued and determined to solve the mystery once and for all, she picked up Jeff’s pen flashlight from the counter, went to the door on the other end of the lobby, and snuck down the basement steps.

She groped her way downward, using the flashlight, the music drawing her on like a cool flame. When it stopped, she missed it.

“Jenny.”

“Mister Michelson?” Jenny
nearly trampled over the man in the dark. He appeared out of nowhere. Jenny tipped the tiny flashlight so she could see him.

Mister Michelson’s eyes shifted through the grayness around them and came back to her.

“Get away from here, Jenny. Far away,” he whispered urgently.

“From Summer Haven?” Jenny couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Why was he acting so nervous?

“Yes. Away from Summer Haven. I can’t take the time to explain why.” He kept glancing behind them into the shifting shadows. “We haven’t got time. Only that you’re in danger here. Both of you are, and I can’t help you any longer.”

“Help me?” Her mind registered what was being said and what she was replying, but a tranquil forgetfulness was drifting into the edges of her reality. “I can’t leave Summer Haven,” she protested feebly, leaning against the wall. “I live here. It’s my home and my father—”

“Will never be found. Like the Albers and all the others, so go, Jenny. Now. Go.”

Jenny raised her hand to her face, trying to shake the encroaching dizziness away, blinked, and Michelson was gone.

Completely
gone
like he’d never been there at all. Jenny turned, as if following orders, and numbly felt her way up to the light with shivery fingers.

By the time she’d reached the lobby, she’d almost forgotten meeting Michelson. Except for this persistent voice in her head.

Go, Jenny. Now. Go.

Then she saw her father’s smile, he was depending
on her to find him, and the words faded.

She never told Jeff about her adventure, because her mind had buried it.

Ten minutes later they were driving to Clyde’s office for their daily check-in, and Jenny was unusually hushed, the bundle of cash Michelson had somehow stuffed in her pocket, final payment, now clutched in her closed hand.

* * * *

“Well, it’s done, Joey,” Jenny pronounced proudly the following afternoon. She was sitting on one of Joey’s stools beside Jeff, eating a tuna salad sandwich and fries. A clear, cool September day with a bright blue sky.