Hunted (40 page)

“Dad, stop it!  This isn’t a joke!” Lanie cried, feeling fresh tears spill down her cheeks.  “Gretchen has been taken!”

“By who, Lanie!  By a vampire!  Surely, you didn’t think I’d believe that!  This boy has you brain washed!” Sam barked.

“Dad,
listen
to me—“

“Lanie, you’re running around town with a man who’s carrying a crossbow and a bundle of…
stakes
!” Sam shouted, casting a glance at Kyle’s weapon and leather pouch lying on the desk.  “There is nothing you have to say that I want to hear!”

“Dad!  I swear—“

“Kyle Vincent, you have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.  You have the right to an attorney.  If—“

“Daddy, please, stop it!” Lanie beseeched in a shrill, little girl voice.

“If you cannot afford an attorney, one will appointed for you.  Do you understand these rights as I’ve read them to you?” Sam quoted the Miranda Rights in an official tone, but slammed Kyle against the wall once he was finished.

“Kyle!” she cried, not knowing what else to do.  If he didn’t do something, he’d wind up in the holding cell and Gretchen would wind up dead!

Without warning, Kyle broke free of Sam.  There was a dull, metallic screech and suddenly Kyle brought his hands around in front of him, the handcuffs hanging off each wrist, but the chain in the middle broken.  He grabbed Sam by the shirt front and lifted him up off the floor before Lanie could blink.

“If I let you arrest me then I can’t protect Lanie!  He’s after her!” Kyle roared, giving Sam a stout shake.

Sam went stiff, his face going blank as his large eyes focused on the broken cuffs.

“
Listen to him, Dad
!” Lanie shot at her father, angry now.  “He’s not making this up!”

There was a moment of silence and then Sam seemed to give himself a mental kick that jolted him out of his shock.  “I don’t know how you did that, but—“

“Kyle!” Lanie growled, suddenly angry beyond belief. 

She was truly questioning her thinking in telling her father! 

Kyle, clearly frustrated, took a step forward and then Lanie blinked and saw her father up against the opposite wall of his office with one of Kyle’s hands closed over his throat.  Lanie’s first instinct was to scream out, but she stopped herself.  Her dad should listen to her when she was telling him the town was under attack by a crazed vampire! 

“Listen to what your daughter is telling you!” Kyle snarled in a voice that was far deeper and more coarse than it should have been.  “I’m not the one who’s responsible for killing those girls!”

Sam was stunned into immobility, his eyes wide with something that Lanie did not associate with her father, so it took a moment for her to recognize it for what it was.  Fear.  Sam Bancroft was…afraid.

“Kyle, let him go,” Lanie heard herself saying in a trembling voice.  To see that her father was
afraid
of another person was too much for her. 

With an irritated growl, Kyle was abruptly standing next to Lanie, his arm wrapped tight around her shoulders.  “Come on, Lanie.  Let’s go.”

Lanie and Kyle turned to leave, but Sam stopped them.  “Wait!  Lanie, wait!  Please, just wait…wait a second.”

Lanie turned back to face her dad, watching as he pulled himself together and then walked unsteadily back to his desk, dropping heavily into the seat.  His skin was several shades paler than before. 

Sam pulled in a long breath and then let it out.  “Alright.  I’m listening.  Tell me again what the hell is going on around here.”

Lanie and Kyle had been taken to the small, stark interrogation room, given something to drink, and ordered to wait there.  And they’d been waiting for nearly an hour.  Kyle was pacing up and down the room, casting glances at the dark two way mirror, his face scrunched up into a frown.  Lanie had given up pacing long ago and was seated at the metal table, nursing her warm soda and hoping her father wasn’t planning some sort of sneak attack to restrain and then arrest Kyle.  They’d gone over their story three times and he’d seemed to come to grips with what they were telling him, but she couldn’t read her dad when had his work face on, so who knew what was really thinking.

“I should be out there trying to find Gretchen!” Kyle finally said, breaking the deafening silence.  “I can’t help her if I’m locked up in here
pacing
!”

Lanie felt his rage and frustration.  She thought the entire police department should be out there looking for Gretchen.  And hopefully not getting themselves killed doing it.  “Let my dad do whatever it is he’s doing.  He’s trying to help.”

Dear lord, she really hoped he was trying to help. 

“I hope we didn’t make a mistake,” Kyle said, running his hand over his hair.  “Things like this don’t normally get told to an entire police force.”

True, but the police force in Fells Pointe consisted of three people.  “You can trust my dad, Kyle.  He’s the good guy.  Just like you.”

Dear lord, she really hoped Kyle could trust her dad.

Kyle suddenly spun around to face the door and a minute later Sam stepped inside with Deputy Sterling and Deputy Smitty behind him.  Lanie was instantly on her feet, her heart leaping into her throat.

“Daddy, what is it?  What’s happening?” she asked, her fear evident in her voice.

Sheriff Bancroft let out a hard breath.  “Mayor Wylie has a news conference set up outside.  I’m going to announce that Gretchen has been…abducted and that we need to hear from anyone in town who might have seen her today.  I’m also asking for people to come forward if they’ve noticed anything out of place over the past week, like a neighbor they haven’t spoken to in a few days.”

“Are you going to tell them what’s really going on?” Lanie asked.

“No.  I don’t think anyone needs to know that but us.  The last thing I need is mass hysteria,” Sam answered.  “If it’s like you say, then no one can help, anyway.”

“But, you might not be able to help, either,” Kyle said seriously.  “Frederik isn’t someone you can handcuff and haul away.”

“Which is why you’re going to tell us how to kill him,” Sam said, taking a seat at the metal table.  Both Deputies stood by the doorway like armed guards, eyeing Kyle as if he was a ghost.

“He has to be staked with the stakes that I carry, beheaded, burned, and buried.  But, you have to catch him before you can stake him and he’s even faster than I am,” Kyle pointed out, again making Lanie question why she’d brought her father into it.

“But we have something he doesn’t know about,” Sam said as if they were discussing just any old serial killer and not a crazed vampire.  “We have the element of surprise.  He doesn’t know that you’ve told anyone, right?  He won’t be expecting anyone else to be coming for him.”

Kyle thought about that for a minute, seemingly unconvinced.  “He always seems to know what’s going on.  He’s always one step ahead of me somehow.”

“What if he’s near a TV when you have the news conference?  Or what if he’s somewhere around the station?” Lanie said worriedly.

“We aren’t going to mention that it’s a vampire.  I’m going to keep my statement as vague as possible while trying to get the point across that I need help finding Gretchen,” was Sam’s reply to Lanie’s concern.

“I don’t know how you can hunt him, Sheriff Bancroft.  I can’t even find him and I can follow his scent,” Kyle rejoined.

“There are four of us.  We’ll find him somehow or we’ll make it so hard for him to find his next meal that he
has
to move on,” Sam stated and Lanie found herself stunned that they were discussing this sort of situation in such a businesslike manner.

“He wants Lanie and I don’t think he’ll leave without her,” Kyle stated somberly.

Sam didn’t speak on that point.  “So, weapons.  What do we need?”

“I use a pistol crossbow loaded with stakes and sometimes tactical mace cans filled with blessed water,” Kyle responded, sounding efficient.

“We can get crossbows, but not the mace cans with blessed water," Sam said, sounding just as efficient.

“I have a few cans and I have dozens of the proper stakes, but you can’t waste them.  They’re hard to come by,” Kyle said.  “And you have to hit him
in the heart
.  If you miss, even by a fraction of an inch, you’re dead.”

“Alright.  We’ll work out the weapons situation as soon as the news conference is done.  I’m certain we’ll start getting phone calls as soon as it’s over and then we can start running down the leads.  We’ll use the radios and code so this Frederik won’t understand what we’re calling, even if he is close by.”

Kyle seemed very uncomfortable with letting someone else help him in his hunt, but he was keeping himself together.  “My stakes and mace cans are all in my car.”

“We’ll get them,” Sam assured.  “But, first, are you certain he’s after Lanie?”

“He’s after Lanie,” Kyle answered firmly.

“And he follows her around town?” Sam wondered stiffly.

“Yes,” Kyle said.

“So, he hunts by scent instead of just watching her?” Sam asked, sounding as if they were tracking an animal. 

Maybe that was how Sam Bancroft was looking at this.  He wasn’t tracking a vampire.  He was tracking a predator.

“Scent is probably the biggest part of it,” Kyle said.

“Lanie, give Kyle your sweater,” Sam ordered and Lanie obeyed, taking off her cardigan and handing it to Kyle.

“Kyle, take this and get as far away from here as you can.  Double back to Gretchen’s place and wait there.  I’ll call the house and tell you where to meet me so we can get our stuff together.”

Kyle gave Lanie a long look and then turned and hurried out the door of the interrogation room, past the two deputies who both parted as though touching Kyle might cause them to burst into flames. 

Once Kyle was gone, Sam turned to Lanie and gave her a soft smile.  “Now for you, squirt,” he said, getting to his feet.

“Where should I go?  Home?” she asked her dad.

Without answering, Sam motioned to Deputies Sterling and Smitty, both of whom came forward, each taking hold of one of Lanie’s arms.  There wasn’t even time for Lanie to say anything else to her father before she was whisked from the room.  The deputies both hung a sharp right and began rushing her down the little hallway that ended at a grey steel door.  Seeing that door filled Lanie with confusion and disbelief, but it was too late.  Deputy Sterling had already swiped his I.D. badge over the electronic lock and she was being swept through the doorway and down the dim stairwell.  With another swipe of the I.D. badge, Lanie found herself in the cell-block of the police station, being hauled into the first of the two cells.

“Sorry, Lanie,” Deputy Sterling apologized as he and Deputy Smitty sat her onto the cot against the wall and then hurried out, slamming the cell door shut with a resounding clang.  “It’s Sheriff’s orders.”

“What!  What-what did he order!” she gasped, half horrified, half outraged. 

“That you have to be kept in here until we get this sorted out.  He thinks you’ll be safer,” Deputy Sterling told her and then both men turned and exited through the first steel door.  A moment later, Lanie heard the clang of the door at the top of the stairwell and then…she was alone.

Stunned, Lanie sat on the cot, her mind trying to work out exactly what had just happened to her.  It took several moments for her to understand that her father had just locked her up.  Sheriff Bancroft had just locked her in the cell-block…which meant that she could not help find Gretchen. 

Rage surged up inside Lanie and she was off the cot and at the iron bars surrounding her, her breath coming hard and fast.  Should she scream and yell and demand to be let out?  Who would hear her?  Should she call someone?  Wait.  She had no phone and wouldn’t know who to call anyway.  Who could a girl call when her
own father
had locked her up in the jailhouse!

Dumbfounded and outraged, Lanie glanced around the cell-block, looking for…for what?  A way out?  She was locked in a concrete and iron cell with nothing but a cot, a pillow, and a grey wool blanket.  There
was
no way out!