Were Nguyen and Phaedra safe? I knew he would take care of her. Provided he could.
I shut the door of the morada and retreated to the darkest corner for protection against the sunrise.
Jolie scooped up the bags of blood in case there was any left. They all had neat punctures and had been sucked dry. “Phaedra must’ve found her appetite.”
Morning light trickled through the cracks in the door.
Jolie cursed. “I hate feeling so goddamn vulnerable. A one-legged midget could bust through that door and we’d be helpless because of the morning light.”
She curled next to me and we tucked close to each other under the sleeping bag.
At a quarter of eight, long after the sunrise, we got up and tidied the morada. I found the hawthorn stake discarded in the dirt of one corner. I couldn’t believe Nguyen had been so careless or that he’d been so rushed to leave that he had left the stake behind.
Carefully, so I wouldn’t touch the silver veins, I picked up the stake.
“Has it been used?” Jolie asked.
“I can’t tell.” Vampire blood would’ve turned to dust and become lost in the dirt smudging the wood and silver.
The leather pouch was inside the sleeping bag. I tucked the stake into the pouch and dropped it in my backpack.
“Seen the knife?”
“I’m still looking.” Jolie pointed to gold bits of macaroni and costume jewels around a smashed cigar box. “You know what this is about?”
“Phaedra’s way of saying good riddance to a lot of bad memories.”
Inside the sleeping bag I discovered bottles of Phaedra’s medications, full of pills and capsules. She wouldn’t need these anymore.
I asked, “Where’s the toiletry bag?”
“What for?”
“Phaedra stashed jewelry and money. Stuff that’s easy to pawn for quick cash.”
Jolie asked, “She’s been planning her getaway?”
“Seems that way.”
“And Nguyen went with her? Not a brownnoser like him. Doesn’t make sense.”
We went back down the mountain. I hoped to see Nguyen and Phaedra and give myself a laugh for all the grief I’d suffered for nothing.
But no Phaedra. No Nguyen.
His motorcycle remained where it had been. The panniers were unlocked and empty save for a few small parts and loose pennies. I’m sure he traveled with some belongings, bags of blood and makeup at least.
Boot prints had been tracked around the Buell. I recognized mine, Jolie’s, Phaedra’s, and a fourth set, which had to be Nguyen’s. So the two of them had come back to the motorcycle, retrieved his things, and then what?
Jolie went down the road.
I lost Phaedra’s and Nguyen’s prints in the rocks and hard dirt. I tried the scout trick of spiraling out from the motorcycle to pick up their trail. The only tracks I found were their prints going from the morada to the motorcycle.
Jolie returned. Her aura burned in anxious confusion. “Nothing. Either they grew wings or hiked out a different way.”
I tried Phaedra’s number again. Voice mail.
The paranoia felt like a cold rain. Wisps of fog snaked through the trees. The silence of the forest sucked hope from me.