Vampire Zero (Laura Caxton, #3)(73)

“Where’d you get that?” Caxton asked.

“The girl’s parents. They agreed to the cremation, by the way. They did it last night, as a rush job.”

“Good,” Caxton said, “though it was probably unnecessary. Jameson would know I had a guard on her body. If he raised her I could have interrogated her.”

“Sure,” Glauer said. He wrote Violet’s name on the board with a dry erase marker. VIOLET HARMON. Caxton hadn’t even known her last name before.

“I brought Simon back in one piece,” Caxton said, and introduced the boy to the big cop.

“I’m so sorry, for everything that’s happened,” Glauer said, his big hand folding around one of Simon’s.

“I promise, we did everything we could to help your mother.”

“I’m sure you did,” Simon said.

“Listen, your sister is here. Do you want to see her?”

The boy frowned. “Why?” he asked. Then he shook his head as if to clear it.

“You should talk about what’s happened.” Glauer patted Simon on the shoulder. “Your family needs to be together at a time like this. Love and support mean everything in the face of grief.”

Simon shrugged. “I’ve never really done the big brother thing before.”

“Just wait in the lounge, then,” Glauer said, and gestured toward the door. When Simon went out of the room the big cop turned to Caxton and rolled his eyes. “He’s about as bad as you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caxton asked, but with a smile. Nothing could ruin her good mood. When Glauer didn’t answer she followed him out into the hallway. “I take it,” she said, “from the fact that everybody here is still alive, that Jameson didn’t attack last night.”

“No, he didn’t,” Glauer told her. “And I’ll admit I was kind of relieved. You made it sound like one night alone with Raleigh was going to be the death of me. Instead it was kind of fun.”

“Really?” Caxton’s smile broadened. “She’s a little young for you, isn’t she?”

Glauer blushed but assured her nothing like what she was insinuating had happened. “She got bored pretty early, which didn’t surprise me. I mean, what’s a nineteen-?year-?old girl going to do spending the night in an office building? We played a game of Scrabble—”

“Who won?” Caxton asked.

“She did. With chasma on a triple word score. I challenged, because I’d never heard of it before, but it turns out it’s a medical term for excessive yawning. After that I gave her the grand tour of the place—the PCO room, the computer crimes unit, the evidence room, the garage…”

“Did you let her wear your Smokey Bear hat?”

Glauer blushed again, but didn’t comment on whether he had or not. They went up the stairs to the barracks wing of the headquarters, where off-?duty troopers often slept between shifts. There were several semiprivate bedrooms there. “I kept her up kind of late—I didn’t sleep at all myself, of course, because I was on watch. She’s still sleeping, I think, or at least she hasn’t come out of there yet.” He indicated a particular door and raised his knuckles as if to knock on it. “I don’t know, maybe we should just let her sleep.”

“It’s almost one o’clock,” Caxton said. “If she sleeps any later she’ll never sleep tonight. Go on.”

Glauer knocked once, tentatively, and waited a second. When there was no answer he knocked again with more determination. By the time Caxton started frowning he had knocked three times and gotten no response at all.

“Open it,” she said.

He turned the knob and pushed the door open. The shades were drawn over the windows of the room beyond, so it was lit by the glow of a television with the sound turned off. It gave a bluish cast to everything, but instantly Caxton realized that it couldn’t explain why Raleigh’s lips were so purple, or why her face was so pale. She rushed inside and cupped her hand over the girl’s mouth and nose.

“She’s not breathing,” she said, looking up at the big cop in the doorway, who could only stare back with nothing on his face but surprise.





Vampire Zero





Chapter 44.


Caxton pulled the sheet off Raleigh’s body. She was naked underneath, but there was no time for modesty. She grabbed the girl’s wrists and rubbed them violently. Her skin was ice cold.

“No,” she moaned, then looked up at Glauer again. “Get in here and help me. Call 911, tell them we have an emergency.” She put her hands together over Raleigh’s sternum and pushed down rapidly. Glauer put his mouth over Raleigh’s and blew air down into her lungs. They’d both had CPR training—in fact, the state police required them to get checked out on emergency first aid every year. They both also knew it was pointless. The girl was dead. She probably had been for hours. Still they kept up chest compressions and mouth-?to-?mouth. Caxton kept at it until her arms grew sore and her own breath grew ragged. Eventually the paramedics came. One of them grabbed the girl’s wrist and asked how long she’d been unresponsive. Caxton didn’t know, and told him as much, while still pushing down on Raleigh’s chest. The paramedics tried giving her a shot of adrenaline, but it was just for form’s sake. Eventually they told Caxton to stop.