Chapter 139
Where Sarah was. How could Katelina tell her mother the truth?
I can't.
Instead, she took a deep breath and offered up the rehearsed lie, "No, I didn't even know she was missing until you told me."
A knock sounded on the door and Katelina jumped. Her mother didn't seem surprised and called cheerfully, "Come in!"
The door opened and Brad hurried though it. He looked much like Katelina remembered; his sandy blonde hair fell in perfectly gelled waves, and his blue eyes were the kind that caught your attention and held them. She'd always found him incredibly sexy, but next to Jorick, he didn't seem that amazing anymore.
He came to a stop in front of her, and his words tumbled out in an enthusiastic rush, "Katelina! So your mom was right! Thank God you're okay!" He suddenly looked at Jorick in bewilderment, as if he'd just realized he was there. "Where's Sarah?"
"She doesn't know." Her mother moved to stand next to the young bartender and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "She didn't even know Sarah was missing."
Brad's face fell and he looked ready to collapse. "Oh." Though only one word, it was filled with defeat. He let Katelina's mom lead him to a chair and then he sank down wearily. The older woman hovered behind him protectively, her hands on the back of the chair.
It was as if Brad had aged several years in the span of a minute, and Katelina felt a crushing wave of guilt wash over her. She wondered if she could just edit out the vampires, that way he'd at least know Sarah was dead. He deserved that much, didn't he? But, even if she changed the vampires to some kind of a gang, how could she admit she'd known and hadn't called the police or told anyone? Brad would definitely go to the cops, and there'd be an investigation. They'd haul her in, and Jorick and - No. It was too risky. She couldn't chance someone finding out about Jorick and the others. She'd seen what happened to people who "knew"; they ended up mutilated and left in a ditch somewhere.
"I'm sorry," she said, for something to do. "I wish I could tell you more."
Brad seemed to shrink. "The last time I saw her she was going to your house. You hadn't been at work and she thought you were sick. She was just going to stop for a minute and then meet me at the bar." He looked up, emotions shining in his eyes. "She never came."
"Oh." She bit her lip hard and tried to find something to say. "The last time I saw her was at work. I went home early and she offered to cancel her date and come hang out. I, uh, told her not to, and then I left with Jorick a couple of hours later and haven't seen anyone since."
Her words were useless, but Brad's eyes lit up and he leaned forward, as if she'd said something important. "Wait. What day did you leave?"
"The twenty-first of October. It was the day I got that -"
"Phone call," Brad finished. His eyes danced to Jorick and a strange suspicion blossomed in them. "Who is this?"
Katelina cleared her throat, uncomfortable at the connections Brad seemed to be making. "This is Jorick. He's my boyfriend," she added, to make it clear that he was not up for debate. "I don't feel like going through the story again."
"You didn't go through it a first time," her mother mumbled, but she seemed content to let it drop for the moment. She released Brad's chair and started towards the kitchen. "Would you like some tea?"
"Yes, please." Brad turned back to Katelina. "You say you left the twenty-first? What about your house? Was it trashed or-"
"When I left everything was fine."
"Fine," he echoed, his attention on something far away. "You left the twenty-first and Sarah didn't go missing until the twenty-fourth, the night before those men showed up."
"What men?"
Brad jerked back to the present. "Patricia didn't tell you about them?"
Patricia? It took Katelina a moment to figure out that he meant her mother. "No." She started to ask how they'd gotten on a first name basis, but he rushed on.
"Two men were here. The neighbors saw them for a moment, but not well enough to identify them." He gave Jorick another suspicious glance. "Whatever they wanted, they gave her a heart attack."
Katelina's eyes bulged. "What? A heart attack? Not literally?"
"Yes, literally. She doesn't remember anything about it." His eyes glowed as he drifted away again. "If your house was ransacked after you left, then that means they were probably looking for you. Maybe Sarah came in during it, and they took her because they thought she knew where you were. She didn't, which would explain why they came here-" he trailed off, making disturbing mental leaps and calculations. "But why?" he asked no one in particular. "Why were they after you?"
"Patrick owed gambling debts," Jorick said quietly. "They probably wanted their money. Other than that, we don't know anything, and asking repeatedly isn't going to help."
Brad started to object, and Katelina talked over him. "My mother had a heart attack? Tell me what happened!"
He grimaced, then explained grudgingly, "It was about two in the morning when the neighbors saw a couple of men enter the house, and then they heard her screaming. They called the police, but since it takes the cops forever to do anything, they got impatient and came over themselves. By then the intruders were gone and Patricia was left for dead. Luckily they called an ambulance, which got here faster than the cops. The paramedics saved her, but she doesn't remember anything that happened from the moment she got home that afternoon until she woke up."
The woman in question reappeared, toting glasses of iced tea. "It was Mr. Wallabee and his son," she explained. "I'm eternally grateful to them. If they hadn't come, I don't know what would have happened. Thank goodness they're both vampires!"
Katelina froze in paranoid horror, then realized it was a reference to the Wallabees' regularly late hours. There was an irony in the fact that, on that particular night, there probably had been vampires present, just not the kind her mom meant. It was too much of a coincidence that her mother had nocturnal visitors at the same time that Claudius was looking for her - visitors who left her for dead. She met Jorick's eyes questioningly and his expression said this was the first he'd heard about it. Obviously his sources were not infallible.
After that, they sipped iced tea and talked in circles for two hours. Her mother and Brad asked the same questions over and over, and Katelina struggled to stay calm and stick to her story. When the sirens sounded outside the window it was almost a relief, except they all knew what it meant.
