Walker nodded tightly.
“Where we just stopped to speak to Bex?”
“Yes,” he bit out.
Ronnie’s gaze sharpened on Walker. “When did you speak to Bex? The sun just set after you came home.”
“We’ve got to go,” Walker said, ignoring Ronnie.
I nodded slowly, still trying to puzzle together why Ronnie was near hysterical. “Do you know the victim personally?”
“Victims,” Walker said, emphasizing the plural. “John Dunbar and his wife, Priscilla. Sounds like their car was found abandoned on the side of the road, their bodies yards away. And torn apart.”
“Torn apart? Is there any connection between the Dunbars and Lydia?”
Walker shook his head. “I need to research Lydia’s wounds and examine the Dunbars before we assume anything. If the Dunbars have the same injuries, maybe the same animal who attacked Lydia this evening attacked the Dunbars tonight.”
“And maybe they’re both vampire attacks.”
Walker leveled his gaze on me. “We won’t know ‘til we examine the Dunbars. You ready?”
I shook my head. “If country vampires are anything like city vampires, my vote’s with Ronnie. We should wait until sunrise. There’s nothing we can do now that we can’t do in daylight.”
“Berry, Keith, and Riley are expecting me,” Walker said, exasperated. “I’m tracking the animal on this case, remember?”
“I don’t care about Berry, Keith, and Riley,” Ronnie whispered, still sniffing. “I care about you.”
“Berry, Keith, and Riley?” I asked.
“You just met Berry, the coroner. Sheriff Keith Pitston and his deputy, Officer Riley Montgomery, will be at the scene and expecting me,” Walker explained. To Ronnie he said gently, “Bex won’t kill me. You know as well as I do that I’m less at risk than anyone else out after dark.”
“No, she’ll turn you, and then you’ll be as good as dead anyway. Isn’t that what you always say, Ian? That you’d be dead to us?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll have DiRocco with me,” Walker assured her. “I’ve seen her entrance a vampire as easily and completely as they entrance us. She’s better equipped to protect us than all of my weaponry combined.”
I shook my finger at him. “Don’t put this on me. I came here with specific goals in mind, and none of them involved protecting your coven of night bloods. I’m here to find the facts, not to save lives, and the facts can wait until sunrise.”
“Will they?” Walker stepped closer and tipped his voice in a deep, taunting whisper. “If you don’t come with me tonight to interview witnesses and report tonight’s murders, you know damn well someone else will. You’ll be out-scooped.”
Rage swept like a backdraft through my veins, and I opened my mouth to blast him with its heat. Before I could articulate my anger, he turned his back on me, opened the front door, and left the house.
Since discovering the existence of vampires and my own identity as a night blood, I’d struggled to balance my career and survival, but as Walker had just so accurately stated, I couldn’t interview witnesses and out-scoop my competition while hiding in my apartment. This crime fluctuation feature, in addition to being an excuse to visit Walker, allowed me to trick my boss, Carter Bellisimo, into thinking I was still in the game as a competitive crime reporter. In reality, I was swiftly becoming a hermit obsessed with the sunrise/sunset calendar.
I watched Walker’s back as he strode across the yard, confident and empowered and purposeful, and I ached inside. This was what my experience with vampires had done to me. They’d stripped my ability to live according to my own terms. They’d confined my life according to their schedule, and they’d compromised my abilities as a reporter.
My rage switched targets, and I stepped out of the house into the night.
“You’re going with him?” Ronnie asked, shocked.
I looked back at her. “Did he leave me much choice?”
Ronnie pursed her lips. “Don’t let his demands become your only choices. His goals and intentions are very important, but that doesn’t make yours any less important. I have to remind myself of that every day.”
I considered her words carefully before I spoke. “You didn’t know that Bex could survive in daylight, did you?”
Ronnie shook her head. “I don’t get out much.”
“She just needs to stay confined to the shadows,” I said, “but otherwise, she doesn’t need to wait for sunset to leave her coven.”
“So in the hours between sunrise and sunset, we’re still not entirely safe.”
I opened my mouth, but Ronnie had already turned her back and walked into the house, leaving me on the porch between the two of them, my head safely inside with her and my heart torn somewhere between Walker’s pickup truck and common sense.
* * * *
John Dunbar and his wife, Priscilla, had been sixty-three years old, high school sweethearts, and enjoying dinner with their daughter, Alba. She was attending cake decorating classes at the local bakery, Hot Buns, and her parents had been so impressed by her new fondant skills, they’d stayed later than usual to have a slice of her newest creation—strawberry-vanilla marble cake with chocolate icing and a flip flop-shaped fondant topping. The Dunbars left Alba’s apartment shortly after sunset without taking their extra slice, so she packed the slice in a Tupperware container and drove after them.
Alba only made it five minutes down Elm Street before finding their upturned car on the side of the road. Their bodies had been thrown so far from the car that Alba hadn’t found them until Officer Riley Montgomery and Sheriff Keith Pitston arrived at the scene, which was actually very fortunate considering their injuries. Officer Montgomery removed Alba from eyeshot of her parents’ remains—what little there was left—and brought her to his car to recover. I kept her company while more officers flooded the scene, examined the bodies, and gathered evidence.
Berry had arrived in his van a few minutes ago. Although they wouldn’t move the bodies for several hours, after all evidence had been collected and photography had been captured, he was deep in conversation with Sheriff Pitston. If the Sheriff’s deepening crease between his brows were any indication, I’d need to snatch another interview from Berry. For the moment, until the activity at the scene settled, I contented myself with interviewing Alba.
I leaned on the frame of Officer Montgomery’s cruiser as Alba huddled in the passenger seat. I tried to keep my interview light and unobtrusive, but I didn’t need to ask Alba questions to encourage her story. She couldn’t stop talking about her parents. I listened and wrote some brief notes, but throughout the entire conversation, I couldn’t help but think, dear God, not another baker.
John and Priscilla were the golden couple, according to their daughter, and their love was why she was still single. They’d taught her to never settle because once she found the right love, she’d have the rest of her life to enjoy it. She’d never settled, so she was alone. Now, being an only child, she was completely on her own.
Alba clammed up after that. She covered her mouth with her hand and just shook her head in shock. I didn’t have the words to comfort her—I knew how deep and sharp grief could stab—so I just sat with her in silence until Officer Montgomery returned. He was in his late twenties, like Alba, and from the looks he was shooting her, Alba wasn’t as alone as she felt.
“Is this woman bothering you, Alba?” he asked
Alba shook her head, but she hugged herself a little tighter and started rocking back and forth from her perch on the passenger seat.
Officer