The Reluctant Vampire (31 page)

“Is there anywhere she would go? Somewhere she liked or . . . just anywhere you think she might go?” Harper asked some two hours later. They were driving in circles now, recovering old ground and seeing nothing but the others out searching for Stephanie.

Drina started to shake her head, but paused, and murmured, “Beth.”

“Beth?” Harper glanced to her with a frown. “Beth of the madam days Beth?”

Drina nodded. “I was just thinking that when Beth ran from Jimmy, she went straight back to the empty brothel. The last place she’d been safe and called home.”

“Casey Cottage,” Harper said, getting it at once. He turned at the first corner, and Drina closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer that they’d find her there, safe and sound and well. However, it appeared no one was listening to prayers that day because a thorough search of Casey Cottage turned up nothing.

“I guess it’s back to driving around.”

Harper frowned at the weariness in Drina’s voice as he ushered her out of the house and across the deck. She sounded exhausted, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she was. Surely she hadn’t slept much on that stool of hers the night before while waiting for the drugstore to open. But he suspected most of the exhaustion was caused from worry. She was beginning to lose hope.

“I need more gas, and the one by the highway is the only one open at this hour,” he said, as they walked along the side of the garage to the driveway. “We’ll head back there and start another circuit.”

Drina nodded, not looking terribly encouraged.

Harper opened the car door for her, but when she went to get in, he caught her arm. “We’ll find her, Drina. We won’t stop looking until we do.”

Drina let her breath out on a sigh, then leaned forward and kissed his cheek, whispering, “Thank you.” She looked just as calm and strong as she had all night, but there was something in her voice that told him while she appreciated his effort to encourage her, it hadn’t really worked. Harper watched her slide into the car and wished he could do something to make her feel better. But the only thing likely to do that was finding Stephanie.

Where the hell was the girl? he asked himself as he closed the door and walked around to get in the driver’s side. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a clue.

They were quiet on the drive back to the gas station, both of them scanning the passing scenery for Stephanie. They were nearly to the station when Harper said, “Maybe we should call the house and make sure no one’s found her.”

Drina glanced at him with surprise. “I’m sure they would have called if they had.”

“Oh right,” Harper muttered, and then suggested, “Still, if she’s causing a fuss about leaving, they might be a little distracted and forget to call.”

“That’s possible,” Drina said slowly, and then straightened a little, and asked, “Can I use your phone?”

He pulled his gaze from the road to glance at her with surprise. “Where’s yours?”

“I lost it the night of the fire,” she admitted.

Harper grimaced and turned his gaze back to the road before admitting, “So did I. It was in my back pocket.” It was probably a melted mess by the end, he supposed.

“Neither of us has a phone?” Drina asked with amazement, and then smiled slightly, and said, “Then they couldn’t call us. She could have been at Teddy’s for hours.”

Harper glanced at her, worried about her getting her hopes up only to have them dashed, but said quietly, “We can call from the gas station. I know Teddy’s house number.”

Drina hung up with a little sigh, and stood for a minute, waiting for her disappointment to ease. Harper had given her Teddy’s number and suggested she call while he pumped gas. But Stephanie wasn’t back at the house, and no one had even reported a sighting of her, “Not the gals at Timmy H’s, or Val at the twenty-four-hour Quicky mart, nobody.” Teddy had sounded as frustrated as Drina felt.

“No joy, huh?”

Drina glanced to the skinny, sandy-haired gas-station attendant behind the counter. His nametag read Jason. “No joy?”

“No luck,” Jason explained, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the words. “No one’s seen her?”

“Oh, no,” she said on a sigh, pushing the phone back toward him. “Thank you for letting me use the phone.”

“No problem,” he said easily, turning away to set it back where it belonged on the counter behind the till he manned. “Least I could do since we didn’t have a pay phone. It’s hard to find those anymore. They become more scarce as cells get popular.”

“Yes,” Drina murmured, her gaze dropping to the chocolate bars lining the front of the counter. As upset as she was, her body was getting hungry. Harper must be too.

“It’s hard to figure why no one’s seen her though. A new car seems to pull in here every ten minutes with people out scouting for her. Teddy must have half the town searching,” Jason said, turning back. “If she’s on foot, someone should have seen her by now. Maybe she thumbed it.”

“Thumbed?” Drina asked blankly.

“You know.” He held out his hand, fingers curled into a fist and thumb up. When she still looked blank, he added, “Hitchhiking. She must have hitched a ride or something.” Jason smiled faintly when her expression cleared. “Your accent . . . you’re not from around here, huh?”

Drina shook her head, and murmured, “Spain.”

“Cool.” He nodded. “Always wanted to go. Someday I will.”

“Were there any other cars here when Anders was getting gas?” she asked suddenly.

“Anders,” Jason said blankly, and then his expression cleared, and he said, “Oh, you mean the cool black dude who lost the girl?”

Drina nodded.

“Well, yeah, some old dude was in here paying for his gas and getting junk food. A real asswipe,” he added with a sneer. “He saw your Anders guy get out and start pumping, and says to me, “You better lock up the till and door, boy. That nigger’s probably here to rob you.” Jason snorted. “Racist old prick. I checked the security tape after he’d left and, sure enough, he was the thief. Pocketed at least three chocolate bars when I turned my back to get the lottery tickets he wanted.”

Drina stilled. “Security tape?”

“Yeah.” He waved toward a corner of the store. “My boss put them in last year. Said it would keep the insurance down.”

Drina peered at what looked like a rounded mirror in the corner and considered the direction it was pointing.

“That Anders guy asked about them too, but there aren’t any outside, and it doesn’t show the pumps. There’s only the one inside, so he didn’t bother with it. But you can check out the security tape if you want.”

Drina hesitated, but then decided she might as well. They hadn’t been able to find Stephanie by driving around. Perhaps there was something on the tape that might be useful. “Yes. Please.”

“Come around,” he invited, waving toward the end of the counter.

Drina walked around the long counter and came up behind it as Jason knelt to start typing on a keyboard under the counter next to where he stood. There was a very small computer screen next to it.

“What are you doing?” she asked, as he typed, tapped at a mouse, and typed again.

“I’m pulling up the program and punching in the time I want so it will start replay there,” he explained, and muttered, “A late-night
Two and a Half Men
rerun was on so it was between eleven and eleven thirty.”

“A late-night
Two and a Half Men
rerun?” she echoed with confusion.

“A comedy show on television. I watch it instead of the news,” he explained, gesturing to a small television on his other side. “It passes time while I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs.”

“Oh.” She nodded, and then glanced to the door as Harper entered.

Apparently, he was done pumping gas.

“What’s going on?” he asked, as the door closed behind him.

“Security video,” she answered, and he came around the counter to join them.

“There,” Jason said with satisfaction, and an image popped up on the computer screen of the store.

Drina noted the miniature Jason slumped in the corner watching his little television. Her gaze started to shift to the background, but Jason fiddled with the mouse a bit, and the image sped up. When a beer-bellied older man entered the store on the screen, he hit a button, and the image played at normal time again.

“That’s the asswipe,” Jason announced.

“Asswipe?” Harper echoed with amusement.

“Racist shoplifter,” Drina explained, but her attention had shifted to the background. It was true you couldn’t see the pumps, but she could see the parking lot in front of them and the exit sign.

“See, I told you he lifted three bars.”

Drina glanced to the man shoving something in his pocket while Jason worked at the lottery machine, but then her attention shifted back to the background as the nose of a vehicle appeared halfway up the left edge of the screen. The SUV, she was sure, and was proven right when Jason said, “That’s the Anders guy’s truck, and now the asswipe’s making his crack about locking up the till and store.”

Drina nodded but continued to watch without comment.

“Then he just stood there in the store for a bit like he was afraid to go out, like your Anders guy would rob him or something,” Jason commented with disgust. “There, Anders must be heading in to pay ’cause that’s when the guy scooted out.”

They watched the old man leave the store. Three seconds later, Anders entered and waited as Jason punched buttons and jiggled things on the cash register.

“I had trouble ringing him up. This is a new system, and it’s kind of glitchy,” Jason muttered, sounding both annoyed and embarrassed.

“Stop!” Drina barked suddenly, and Jason started, and then scrambled to grab the mouse and pause the image for her.

“What?” he asked, glancing at the screen uncertainly. “He’s just signing the slip.”

“Back it up, but just a little,” Drina said. He hit his mouse, it started to rewind, and Drina said, “Stop,” again.

Jason’s hand was on the mouse, and he paused it at once, but frowned. “I don’t see anything.”

Harper had apparently seen what she had. He leaned past Drina and pointed to the car on the street. It had just pulled out of the gas-station exit. “She’s in the backseat.”

Jason leaned closer and squinted. “I see a smudge that could be a head, but—”

“It’s her,” Drina assured him. She’d been watching the car when it had driven into view, headed for the exit. The backseat had been empty as it cruised to a stop at the street. Then it had turned onto the road, and a head had popped into view. It had to be Stephanie. “She hitched a ride.”

“That explains why we haven’t been able to find her walking the streets,” Harper muttered. “We should call Teddy and give him a description of the car and the license-plate number. He can pass it to everyone.”

“Good thinking,” Jason said, grabbing his mouse again. “I’ll make the image bigger and see if we can read it.”

“No need, I’ve got it,” Drina assured him. “Can I use the phone again?”

“Well, yeah, sure, but—” He fell silent as she turned sideways to pick up the phone on the counter behind them. Then he bent to squint at the screen again. Shaking his head, he glanced to Harper, and said, “There’s
no
way
she can see the license plate, let alone read it.”

“She has very good eyes,” Harper said solemnly, as Drina punched in Teddy’s number.

“Man, that’s not good eyes, that’s whacked, superscary sci-fi eyes,” Jason assured him, and then frowned, and said, “You look familiar. Are you—” He stopped suddenly and slapped himself in the forehead. “You’re that vamp guy who rents a room next door to my buddy Owen’s place.”

Drina saw Harper wince and bit back a smile, but then Jason turned to her, his eyes widening farther.

“Oh, whoa, that means you’re probably one of the vamp chicks staying there. Aren’t you?”

“Owen is the son of Elvi’s neighbor,” Harper explained to her, then in answer to the question said, “Yes.”

“Damn,” Jason muttered, not even sparing Harper a glance. He then added mournfully, “I shoulda known. You’re too hot to be human.”

Drina just shook her head and turned her back to him. She
was
human, and she definitely was not too hot to be anything. In fact, she didn’t consider herself hot at all. She was really rather average. But she was immortal, and for some reason mortals tended to find them attractive. Beth had a theory about it. Since she drew a lot more attention from mortal men now that she was immortal, Beth suspected it was another little trick of the nanos, making their bodies create and release extrastrong pheromones to attract prey.

Drina had no idea if it was true or not and didn’t much care.

Teddy’s voice sounded in her ear, and Drina forced her mind to the task at hand. She quickly relayed what they’d found, giving him a description of the car and the license-plate number. He made her repeat all the information, promised to pass it on to the others, and then quickly ended the call. She suspected he was eager to get moving on it. This was the first lead they’d had after hours of frustrating, resultless searching.

“Thank you, Jason,” Drina said sincerely as she turned back from the phone. “We appreciate your help.”

“No problem,” he said, but she couldn’t help noticing that he was looking at her differently. Earlier, he’d been friendly and open. She’d been able to tell that he was attracted to her, but he’d been more natural. Now, however, he was looking at her like she was some exotic creature who had unexpectedly flown into his workplace . . . a sexually attractive exotic creature. Drina added the last thought as she noted the way his eyes had dilated and kept dropping downward over her body.

“Right,” Harper said dryly, taking Drina’s arm and urging her back around the counter. “We’d best go help look for the car.”

There were two islands with two pumps each, and Harper had parked on the outside of the second island, farthest from the store itself. They had just passed the first island and were approaching the second when Jason suddenly yelled at them from the store door, “Hey, you forgot to pay!”

They both stopped at once, and Drina was chuckling at Harper’s irritated mutter as they turned back, when Jason yelled, “Look out!”