Dick smirked.
Ophelia, Sophie, and Mr. Marchand were waiting in the hall, ready to offer me an apology on behalf of the council. Well, Sophie and Mr. Marchand were apologizing. I didn’t need telepathy to know Ophelia would not bother with a “trial/no trial” vote the next time I got into trouble.
Dick managed to speed the process along and practically launched me through the entrance to the council office—which was actually a Kinko’s. I felt silly walking through a weeknight crowd of people copying their tax records in hospital scrubs and bare feet.
But the patrons seemed used to this sort of thing.
Dick threw me into the front seat of his car, an old beat-up El Camino, and pulled out of town as quickly as our two stoplights would allow.
I crossed my arms and spoke with overly sweet clarity. “OK, I’m getting tired of being thrown in and out of shitty situations because people withhold information from me. What were you calling to tell me about? And why couldn’t you talk about it at the council gulag?”
“I couldn’t talk about it before because I didn’t know who was listening,” he said, turning toward my house. “Look, Missy has it out for you. I found these papers in her briefcase. I was looking for a light while she was in the shower. She’s got these sketches for a planned community thing out near your place. She’s got a clubhouse smack in the middle of your backyard.”
My head swam. “Use smaller sentences, please?”
“She wants to get her hands on River Oaks.”
I grabbed the door handle, not sure if I could manage a Charlie’s Angels roll on gravel. “Stop the car.”
“Why?”
“Stop the car!” I yelled. “It took me a while, but I finally caught on. You call me over to your trailer to give me mysterious information. The trailer blows up. I’m framed for your murder. Missy challenges me to a duel and stands to inherit my property. Do the math, Dick.”
He stared at me and nearly ran the car off the road. Somewhere in Dick’s brain, ten thousand chimpanzees had just typed the opening act of Hamlet. “Missy set fire to my trailer?”
“There you go.” I resisted the urge to pat his head.
He huffed. “Missy’s determined, but she’s not crazy.”
“She matches her cell-phone case to her shoes!” I yelled. “That’s one stop short of Hannibal Lecter territory in my book.” And as I realized the true depth of my stupidity, I sputtered, “Oh, for God’s sake, there’s no such thing as the new-arrivals welcoming committee, is there?”
“No, actually, there is,” Dick said. “I think she just does this other stuff as a side project.”
“OK, say Missy is the big bad blond evil force behind the shooting and the fires and the really hurtful rumors. How do I know that you’re not in on all of this?” I yelled.
“You could be luring me into some sort of trap. You could be her little henchman. Or you could be under her thrall. Stop the car, Dick!”
“Let go of the door now,” he said in a soothing “talking down the crazy lady” tone.
“I’m not a little anything. I haven’t been under anyone’s thrall since an unfortunate incident in 1923 involving a succubus from Baton Rouge without a sense of humor. The gravel would take a chunk of your hide and your pride. Just let me drive you home. And then you can call Gabriel, and we can all talk about this and decide what you should do.”
“I’m not calling Gabriel,” I said, far too shrilly. “I just want you to drop me off here, and I’ll walk home. Then I’m getting a gun and a much smarter dog.”
Dick reached out for my hand. “Oh, come on, don’t you trust me, Stretch?”
I stared at him for a long pause. “No!”
Dueling is a time-honored tradition among vampires and is closely monitored by the council. Do not enter into a battle without first consulting a Council representative. (From The Guide for the Newly Undead).
Dick did not stop the car.
Instead, he promised to drive me home, give me his cell phone, and let me call Gabriel the second I felt anything out of the ordinary. He had Gabriel’s number saved in his phone book under “Jackass.” Dick also offered to let me kick him in the goods if he let anything happen to me. If that wasn’t a guarantee of my safety, I didn’t know what was.
My parents’ car was parked outside the house when we got to River Oaks, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Jettie materialized next to me and started talking at a speed only birds could understand. Thrilled to see someone I knew for sure wasn’t trying to kill or frame me, I tried to hug her and fell through her. Fortunately, Dick came in a few seconds later, so Jettie was the only one who saw it. Distracted, Jettie let her guard down enough to allow Dick to see her. He tried to introduce himself but was ignored in favor of more gibbering at me.
My phone rang. I shushed Jettie and picked it up. I could hear someone sobbing softly in the background. I recognized that sound. It was my mother.
“Mama?” I yelled. I checked the caller ID, but the number was blocked. “Mom?”
“Jane, hi, shug, how are you?” Missy cooed from the other end of the line. “I was just talking to your folks!”
“Missy, let me talk to them,” I said in as cool a tone as I could manage. “Let me talk to them right now.”
“Oh, now, shug, they can’t come to the phone, they’re a little tied up,” she said, chuckling at her own little joke.
“Right now, you crazy bitch.”
“Language, Jane, language. You know, maintaining your composure is the first step in any negotiation.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind when I’m not dealing with a freaking sociopath!” I yelled into the phone. “Now let me talk to my parents!”
“I think you’ll want to be more cordial, Jane, honey, or I might not feel quite so hospitable toward your parents,” she said, her voice constricting like the coils of a snake.
“Now, we’re going to meet at my place in an hour. If you don’t arrive promptly and in a more cooperative mood, I may have to do something drastic. Some of your daddy’s favorite parts may just find themselves removed. Then he might end up being turned and, by horrible coincidence, locked in a concrete box until he goes mad with thirst.”
“Please, just let him go.”
“That’s nothing compared with what I’ll do to your mother,” she said. “Jane? Are you listening?” she asked when I didn’t respond immediately. “Jane!”
“I’m thinking!”
I could hear Mama’s squeals of indignation from the other end of the line. If we all survived, I was pretty sure I would never hear the end of this.
So, suddenly, the mysterious deaths and explosions and my poor standing with the council made a lot more sense. It took me thirty-five minutes and a smashed chair or two before Dick and Jettie would let me out of the house. Dick insisted on coming with me, and I couldn’t help but be grateful for it. Missy had not, after all, made the clichéd supervillian demand that I come alone. I might have called Gabriel, but I didn’t want to have to explain how I managed to stumble into another life-threatening situation in such a short time. Every man has his limits.
When I arrived at Missy’s, I tried to close the car door as quietly as possible, but Missy still yelled, “We’re around back, shug!”
I was starting to hate being called “shug.”
Dick had agreed to lurk around the front yard until he heard the sounds of a struggle. I found my parents on Missy’s back deck, surrounded by twinkling Christmas lights and Japanese paper lanterns. While they were bound and gagged, Missy had taken the time to set out a nice cheese tray and a chilled chardonnay. And there was a covered presentation easel set up behind them. Maybe this was all an elaborate setup to get me to buy one of her stupid prefab houses.
“Jane!” Missy chirped. “So nice to see you.”
My father looked groggy and confused. Mama looked ready to chew through the gag and start screaming at somebody.
“You guys OK?” I asked.