Driving Mr. Dead Read online

  Mr. Sutherland kept pace with me, checking over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure we weren’t being followed. “How exactly did you manage to overpower a man twice your size, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  I stopped, tilting my head toward him. “Iris didn’t tell you about my background, did she?”

  “Your CV did not include mentions of your amateur cage-fighting career, no,” he said as I unlocked my room door.

  “Can you keep a secret?” I asked, giving a sly little grin as I leaned closer.

  His lips quirked, and for the first time, I saw what his face looked like without that mocking veneer. His eyes crinkled a bit at the corners, twinkling at me in mischievous pleasure. “I’m a vampire. Of course, I can.”

  “So can I.” With a sharp smile, I slammed the door in his face.

  Motel showers were always a crapshoot. The temperature always seemed to hover between “weakly warm” and “human lobster.” And there was always the chance that you could find new friends with more legs than you, scuttling out from under the shower curtain. I really hated that. But the Pine Heights showers seemed bug-free, if lacking water pressure.

  The rush of smacking someone around had finally ebbed, and I was drained of all energy. I had to lean against the wall to wash off the road dirt with a washcloth that could have doubled as sandpaper. I slipped into boxers and a wife-beater, enjoying the chance to go braless after more than eighteen hours of being lifted and separated. I towel-dried my thick hair, humming the melody to a Lady Gaga song and reveling in the thought of sleep.

  After digging lip balm and a paperback—my nighttime essentials—out of my shoulder bag, I tossed the towel aside. I coated my lips in Burt’s Bees balm and found my place in my Catch-22. I’d only read two paragraphs before the door connecting our adjoining rooms rattled under thunderous, rapid knocks from the other side. Forgetting my braless state, I opened the door to find Mr. Sutherland wearing emerald-green monogrammed silk pajamas and a stricken expression.

  Had I fallen asleep and woken up in a Rock Hudson movie?

  He glanced down, eyes widening at my skimpy sleepwear. I cleared my throat. “Can I help you?”

  He grimaced, far more Tony Randall than Rock. “My wallet is missing.”

  A DAY WITHOUT A SWORN AFFIDAVIT IS LIKE A DAY WITHOUT SUNSHINE

  3

  I laughed. There was no other choice. I could have sworn that Mr. Sutherland had just broken into my room wearing full-on Hefner PJs to tell me his wallet had been stolen. His wallet, which contained the credit card we were using to book hotel rooms and buy my meals, was missing. That was the height of fricking hilarity as far as I was concerned.

  “Why are you laughing?” he demanded.

  “Y-you’re wearing pajamas.” I giggled. “You’re not even going to sleep. You went to the trouble of packing pajamas, and you don’t—”

  He glowered down at me. I realized that I was bent at the waist, hee-hawing like a fool, giving an agitated vampire a full down-to-the-navel view of my cleavage. I sobered and straightened, giving him an apologetic little smile.

  “You’re sure it’s not in your room somewhere?” I asked carefully, wiping my eyes. “Or maybe in the car?”

  “Do you think I would have knocked if I had not already turned my room upside-down looking for it?” he asked sarcastically.

  I thought back to our run-in with Lanky and Heavy-Set. They’d had more than enough time to snake Mr. Sutherland’s wallet out of his pocket while they were wrestling around with him. Between the silver and the strange overtures, both of us had been pretty distracted. Had the whole “Good Samaritan Stooges” act been just that, an act? Had mugging my client been the point all along? Had they driven off, stunned and scared, only to pull into another parking lot and pretend to care whether another girl was being targeted as an easy mark?

  I think that hurt my feelings a little bit.

  “I’m sure it was in my jacket pocket when we were … out,” he said vehemently. Suddenly, an expression of indignant shock twisted his features. “I think those ruffians from the parking lot might have taken it!”

  “You don’t say!” I groaned, scrubbing my hands over my face.

  His expression was grim, and still somehow incredulous, when I tossed him my phone. “Call all of your credit-card companies to report the thefts. My phone has Internet access, so you can look up all of the customer-service numbers. They’ll probably require that you file a police report before they send replacement cards. If you call the police, wake me up, and I’ll give them a statement.”

  “You’re going to sleep? Now?” he asked, frowning.

  “Yes, unless you want to miss your deadline because I fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the car. You can stay up long enough to make your calls, leave my phone on the nightstand, then sleep through the day. Just make sure you crawl into the car cubby before sunset.”

  “You make a surprisingly reasonable argument,” he grumbled. “I assume you’re going to call Miss Scanlon to report this?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, in the least committal tone one could use without being struck down by lightning for lying. “Good night.”

  I closed the door and bumped my forehead against the cold, unyielding metal. There was no way in hell I was calling Iris. Not only had I allowed a client to get assaulted, but now he’d been mugged, too? This was not how one repaid a favor from an old friend.

  I snatched up my own bag and found that my wallet was intact. Beeline employees weren’t allowed to use our company “fleet” cards for anything except gas. A digital lock on the cards allowed use only at service stations. Iris said it kept clients from bulldozing us into covering our own meals and hotel fees with company funds. She’d been stiffed too many times by clients who welched once the receipts were submitted for reimbursement. Vampires hated receipts.

  Mr. Sutherland and I would just have to survive on my meager plastic until we reached the Hollow. I had just enough room on my MasterCard to make it work. I could only hope that Iris would be so impressed with my creatively overcoming the obstacle that she didn’t offer me up to the vampires as a party snack.

  I flopped down on the lumpy motel mattress and buried my face in the flat, flaccid pillow. “Why couldn’t he have just taken the train?”

  Six A.M. came far too quickly. And I woke to find that any commiserating camaraderie I might have built with Mr. Sutherland the night before had evaporated with the sunrise. A note, neatly folded under my phone on the nightstand, managed to insult me in an impressively elegant script.

  Dear Miss Puckett,

  When you manage to rouse yourself, you will find that I am safely tucked away in the car.

  I spoke to the police last night to file an incident report. There was no problem with the credibility of my statement, as the blundering duo we encountered have perpetrated this scheme before on couples undead and living—pretending to protect the female from assault while picking the male’s pocket.

  “I knew it,” I muttered to myself.

  Security video shows the rogues following you from what can loosely be termed a restaurant, so the police know whom they must take into custody. The officers need affidavits from both of us to prosecute the charges after we leave town. I gave mine last night. I took the liberty of writing a statement from your perspective, which will reflect the information given in my own. You will find that the handwriting matches the rather unique penmanship I found on a grocery list in your purse.

  “What the—boundaries!” I gasped, hopping out of bed to retrieve my shoulder bag. The list in question was tucked under the purse strap. Apparently, I’d needed “tampons, Fiber One bars, and depilatory cream.”

  “Kill me now.”

  I glanced at the bottom of my bag and saw that my photo journal had been disturbed. The white ribbon I usually kept around it, a castoff from one of my mother’s Tiffany gift boxes, was tied into a pristine square knot that I couldn’t manage if my life depended on it.

&
nbsp; “You asshole!” I hissed at the offending piece of paper. “You presumptuous, invasive vampire asshole!”

  Sutherland had rifled through my stuff. He’d looked through the album of photos that I kept just for me, remembrances of moments in my life that I wanted to keep with me forever. He’d touched my things, touched my memories, without asking, because he thought being undead or being the client gave him the right.

  I was going to be hitting the brakes without warning a lot today.

  I gritted my teeth and continued to read, all the while muttering curses under my breath.

  The officers asked that you sign the statement and bring it by the department offices before we leave town. Please make this a priority before any other errands.

  To maintain our schedule, I expect that we will reach the Idaho state line by the time I rise. According to my almanac, the sun will set at 6:03 P.M. I expect the car to be stopped and a bottled Type A to be ready at that time.

  We must reach Bozeman by the time we retire this evening, Miss Puckett. I will not accept excuses.

  Drive safely.

  CS

  The initials were written with a pretty little flourish, which, after staring at it for a moment or two, I realized was an arrow, indicating I should flip the page over.

  P.S. Please remember that the car is not to be driven faster than 65 miles per hour, as outlined on page 5 of the contract rider.

  P.P.S. Please remember that you are not to open to the transport cubby at any time before sunset, as outlined on page 2 of the contract rider. The cubby door should not open unless the car comes to a complete stop.

  P.P.P.S. Please remember that the car is to remain free of litter, crumbs, and extraneous personal items, as outlined on page 4 of the contract rider.

  I would consider the wisdom of leaving the adjoining-room door unlocked—and exactly how long he had been in the room while I was sleeping—at a later time.

  I rolled back onto the mattress, pressing my face into the pillow and groaning like a zombie on crank. Murdering a client while he slept was immoral, I supposed. But I didn’t like my chances if I tried while he was awake.

  I rose from the thin hotel sheets, stiff and achy, stretching my arms over my head. In the two weeks I’d been home, prepping for this job, I hadn’t had time to find a decent yoga studio in Half-Moon Hollow—I wasn’t entirely sure there was a decent yoga studio in Half-Moon Hollow. But it was either take a beginner’s class in a church basement or try to stretch the knots out of my back on my own … and the last time I did that, I ended up with a puncture wound from a wrought-iron palm-tree sculpture.

  Don’t ask.

  I found the affidavit folded carefully on top of my purse. The narrative was scrawled in my own loopy half-cursive, half-block script. Mr. Sutherland’s statement was very similar to what actually happened, apparently omitting the part where I’d had to smack Lanky around to come to Mr. Sutherland’s aid. Whether that was an effort to prevent legal trouble for me or to protect his own pride, I had no idea. But it was harmless enough, and I signed it.

  I repacked my bag, carefully checking over the room to make sure that I hadn’t left anything like my wallet or my reading glasses behind. I mapped the route to the local police department, confirmed that my phone was fully charged, and walked into the pink light of sunrise. I blinked rapidly, sliding classic Ray-Bans over the bridge of my nose. That was one thing I was going to have to get used to while working with vampires, the shock of daylight.

  The sun rose slowly over the horizon, framing a rusty, rounded old pickup at the edge of the parking lot in just the right amount of golden, nostalgic light. My fingers itched for my camera, the lovely little high-powered Canon I’d used while working in Chicago. But, like the rest of my equipment, it had been sold off to keep the creditors at bay.

  Three years before, I’d borrowed twenty-five thousand dollars from my parents to buy a share in my then-boss’s photography studio. While moonlighting as a waitress, I’d worked as an assistant and general peon to Anthony Figueroa for more than a year. He was known for edgy wedding photography, wild angles, sexy shots of the bride and groom getting frisky in their wedding attire, shooting the bride underwater in a copy of her gown. Brash, eccentric, and occasionally downright rude, Anthony saw himself as the bride’s last chance to rebel in an otherwise cookie-cutter affair planned by her mother. The business was growing by leaps and bounds, and my parents were impressed enough to loan me the money to buy into the studio.

  Partnership with Anthony was supposed to give me time to shoot what he called my “artsy-fartsy” photos of the city I loved so much. But during my brief tenure as a professional photographer, I spent most of my time shooting stock photos for online services. If a bakery needed professional-quality photos of a cupcake for an ad but couldn’t afford a photo shoot, they could go online and buy a stock photo from an online broker. Once Anthony saw how much the services were willing to pay and how quickly I could crank the photos out, I spent weeks painstakingly lighting and shooting an apple, a stapler, women in various stages of frazzled distress. I think those were either for male-escort ads or housekeeping services. I never figured out which.

  The monotony, the void of creativity, sort of sucked the fun out of photography for me. I never left the studio. I had to follow prescribed rules about resolution, composition, and color saturation. And when I took my usual long walks down to the river, I’d line up a shot of bridge architecture or a family laughing, and I’d be so worried about aperture and film speed that I’d lose the shot.

  And then, in his creative wisdom, Anthony removed portions of a hundred-year-old window casing in St. Thomas Church to attach his precious strobe flashes, making it look as though the bride was caught in a Gothic lightning storm. The window casing was permanently damaged, and the studio was sued into bankruptcy by the bride’s family, the church, the local historical society, and the Catholic League. Also, we may have been excommunicated.

  My investment capital, the equipment, our building—everything was liquidated to pay off our debts. So I owned 7 percent of exactly jack squat, but I owed my parents 5-percent interest on the loan. Anthony’s reputation, which was already hanging by a thread thanks to his scorched-earth policy when it came to other photographers, was ruined, as was mine by association. With no job prospects and the loan debt hanging over my head, my parents demanded that I “stop all of the foolishness and get a real job,” which meant working for the firm.

  Let this be a lesson to you, kids. Don’t borrow money from your parents. It gets ugly.

  Now I was left with my little portfolio of “artsy-fartsy” photos and my old first-generation digital camera. If my Canon had been a Porsche, my old camera was more along the lines of a Toyota Tercel. But I always kept it with me, buried in the bottom of my shoulder bag, in case the mood struck.

  I took the old Nikon out of my bag, lined up the shot, and forced myself to forget exposure times or saturation. I just took a quick breath and snapped. I didn’t even bother checking the screen for the result. I just loaded my bags into the back of the car, noting that Mr. Sutherland’s luggage was already stacked neatly in the rack. I checked the cubby door and noted that the special “occupied” tag had been switched on. Like those handy little tabs on airplane lavatory doors, it could only be engaged from inside. It was meant to keep humans from opening the light-tight cubbies during the day, exposing the vampires to dangerous rays. In my case, there was the added bonus of knowing that I wasn’t driving off without my client.

  After dropping the report off at the police department, I plugged that night’s approved motel’s address into my phone and prepared to drive at least eight hundred miles to make up for time we lost the night before. According to his calculations, it would take me three full days to drive the twenty-four hundred miles from his home to mine and give him a few hours to spare before his midnight deadline. I would be allowed a short break just before sunset to rest and eat, and then we would drive until ei
ght or so. I was allowed exactly ten hours of “off time” per night, and we were expected to be on the road within an hour of sunrise.

  Iris was convinced that people drove more safely during the day. And no one would suspect a vampire of driving around during the day in what looked like a badass soccer-mom vehicle.

  Given Mr. Sutherland’s parking-lot experience, I guessed I couldn’t blame him for being a little paranoid. In 1999, this whole public vampirism thing left a lot of humans unsure of our place in the food chain, which could lead to ugly confrontations.

  It was as if vampires had walked into the proverbial room, and the entire world stopped talking at once. The first year “postvampire” was a pretty dark chapter in terms of our collective history. The World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead formed to “formally interact with human governments and facilitate open, cordial communication.” In other words, they busted their way into the homes of presidents, prime ministers, and dictators around the world and told them, “Quit killing us off for giggles, or prepare for an ass whipping of biblical proportions.”

  The American government issued mandatory after-dark curfews out of fear that vampires would retaliate en masse. So humans found ways to track vampires to their sleeping places during the day, making daytime vampire security a sought-after, ridiculously overpriced service.

  Enter Iris Scanlon and her business, Beeline, a daytime concierge service for vampires. Beeline was part special-event coordinator, part concierge service, part personal organizer. Iris took care of all of the little details that vampires couldn’t see to without bursting into cinders or just didn’t want to deal with themselves. Picking up dry-cleaning, filing government paperwork, delivering blood, receiving deliveries of household items. The transport service was an experimental venture, and so far, it didn’t seem likely that Iris was going to be adding it to the menu of regular Beeline services.