Vampire Zero (Laura Caxton, #3)(37)

“No, you’re wrong,” she insisted. “I sent them here knowing there was a chance they could get killed. Also knowing that was part of their job. Policemen put themselves in the line of danger all the time. It’s what they sign up for. It’s what we signed up for.”

He shook his head. “Sure,” he said, “cops go up against bad guys all the time and sometimes, occasionally, one of them gets shot. Sometimes one even gets killed. This was something more, something worse. I’m not necessarily blaming you for their deaths. But the bodies are starting to pile up real high.”

“That’s why we’re doing this, to keep Jameson from killing any more.”

“Really?” Glauer asked.

“Yeah, damn it!” Caxton scowled at the big cop. “Yeah. Everything I do. Every day of my life since October has been devoted to that. I put my own life at risk every night, and I never ask anyone to do something I wouldn’t do myself. I have to make hard decisions sometimes. I have to make them fast. Sometimes I make the wrong choice.”

“Tonight was one of those times. I’m just saying—”

“I’ve said all I’m going to. Get in the car before I freeze my ass off.”

“You need to be more careful with the people around you. Maybe you don’t care if you live or die, but the families of those men are—”

“Get in the damned car!”

“Yes, Deputy,” he growled, and yanked the passenger door open.

“It’s Special Deputy,” she shot back, and climbed in her own side.

She drove him back to Harrisburg without saying another word. When they arrived he jumped out and ran inside the building without even looking at her.





Vampire Zero





Chapter 24.


In the morning Caxton woke to pure white light streaming in through her window. It had snowed so much during the night that it had piled up against the windowpane. She couldn’t even see the backyard. She could smell bacon and eggs cooking in the kitchen. Reluctantly she kicked off the electric blanket and went to the table in her pajamas. Clara beamed at her from the stove. “The way you looked when you came in last night, I figured you could use a hot meal.”

Caxton tried to smile back, but her face didn’t quite feel up to it. When Clara put a cup of coffee in front of her she sipped at it, grateful but unable to say so. She wanted to tell Clara everything that had happened. She wanted to just grab her around the legs and hug her. She couldn’t do that either.

“I’ve been thinking,” Clara said, when she had finished making her omelets and had placed them on the table. “About what you said yesterday. Obviously I can’t be your forensics specialist. But maybe I could do what you said. You know, coordinate with those guys. I could come work with you. If that would be helpful.”

Laura’s eyes went wide. “It would.”

Clara nodded and started to eat. “You can buy me lunch every day, too. If you want.”

“I do,” Laura replied.

“Where should we go today, then?”

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“There’s only one problem,” Caxton said. “Today I’m going out to Allentown. To talk to Jameson’s daughter, Raleigh. And I’ll probably have to spend the night there, too.”

“Of course,” Clara said, and turned back to the stove.

“Hey,” Laura said, as soothingly as she could, “you’ve been great about this so far. I know I have no right to ask for more understanding, but I need it.”

“Yeah,” Clara said. “Yeah, of course it’s okay. I suppose she’s in mortal danger, this girl.”

“Her own father is going to try to kill her.”

Clara turned around with a sad smile on her face. “I can’t compete with that. Go. Do what you do best. I’ll be here when you get home.”

Laura kissed her. She ate her eggs and bacon, though she was too distracted to taste anything, and then she went to get dressed. In half an hour she was on the road, headed for her office. There were errands to complete there. She had to write her report on the previous night’s disaster, for one thing. She found her new phone waiting on her desk, still in its box—Fetlock must have delivered it during the night. The Fed travels fast, she thought. It was bigger and clunkier than her old one, with a tiny black-?and-?white screen. Sighing with pointless misgivings, she slipped the SIM card out of her old phone and into the new beast and then shoved it in her pocket. It started to ring almost instantly. It was Fetlock calling.

“You’re going to watch Raleigh?” Fetlock asked, once she’d said hello. “Good. Don’t let me stop you. I saw that you had activated the new phone, so I thought I’d test it out for you.”

“It seems to work fine,” she said.

“Yes, on this end too. Listen, I’ve just sent you an email—take a look now. I’ll wait.” While Caxton booted up her computer he explained, “I’ve had my best people working on the videotapes from our archives facility. I thought we might catch our intruder in the act. It looks like we might have something.”

Caxton opened her email and saw a picture start to load. “This is the guy who broke in and stole all of Jameson’s files?”