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“That’d be nice,” Val said. “On the other hand, if it wasn’t frat boys, then we have to consider that burning the body is the one way to destroy any trace of physical evidence that Boyd was anything more than a psychotic killer.”
“There’s that,” Weinstock agreed.
“Problem is…we might not ever know the truth.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So what do we do?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Val. I mean…I still have the videotapes and lab reports, but now I have nothing to back them up, and I don’t know how much mileage I can get out of that stuff. Even if I could make a case for each individual bit of evidence being faulty, or tainted. I’m not willing to risk my whole career on it at the moment, not if there’s a chance this thing is actually over.”
Crow nodded and glanced at Val. “So what do you think we should do?”
Val didn’t answer right away, but her eye was flinty. “I guess,” she said at last, “what I’m going to do is hope for the best.”
“Okay.”
“And from now on, and maybe for the rest of my life…I’m going to keep all my guns loaded.”
Weinstock and Crow looked at her.
“This is still Pine Deep, boys,” she said. “Far as I’m concerned, it’ll never be over. Crow, I think you should see what you can do to beef up security for the Festival, and as often as we can we should brainstorm with Newton. Even if this is over we should all learn everything we can about vampires. From now on we need to be prepared. If—and I only say if because I hope like hell it is over—if we run into another one of these bloodsucking bastards again, then I want the story to have a happier ending. I’m tired of being in the dark, and I’m tired of being blindsided.” When they said nothing to that, she added, “I’m going to have a baby. I want that baby born into a safer world.”
Weinstock smiled at her. “I hear garlic’s good for your health.”
Crow gave him half a smile. “I heard that, too.”
After a moment Val managed a smile. “Then I guess I’d better learn to cook Italian.”
INTERLUDE
The first thing Paul Ruffin did after he threw his suitcase on the motel bed was call the pizza joint the manager had suggested, then he switched on the big screen, popped the top on a Coors, and scooched over to the center of the big bed. His sigh was enormous. After eight hours on the road nothing felt as good as a cold beer, a hot pizza, and nothing in particular to do. Tomorrow he would be busy with his camera, taking photos of the Haunted Hayride and all the spook-film celebrities for a major horror magazine. He was doing a whole spread on scream queen Brinke Stevens, and he was psyched. She’d factored in his fantasies for a lot of years.
The place had cable, so he surfed for a while, amazed as always at how many stations seemed to broadcast either reruns or mind-numbing shit that no one could possibly want to watch. He cruised along the airwaves, then slammed on the brakes as he discovered that yet another service provided by the Pinelands Motel was Showtime. On the screen Carmen Electra was running slow motion down a beach. It was quite something to see, though it had to be at least ten years old—not that it mattered even a teensy bit. He smiled as he sipped his beer. Now there was something he would like to have taken pictures of—her breasts were something out of science fiction.
Balancing his beer can on his stomach, he lay back and watched the image change from Carmen Electra and her breasts running on the beach to Carmen Electra and her breasts taking a bath. As Ruffin saw it, she took one hell of a bath. Just as Carmen Electra and her breasts began playing billiards, someone knocked on the door. Ruffin muted the TV, set down the beer, and fished for his wallet as he opened the door. “Come on in. What are the damages?” He looked up from his wallet and his smile bled away.
The person standing just inside the doorway was not dressed in a pizza delivery uniform of any kind, and he held no steaming cardboard box. He was a tall, pale man with black hair that dipped down in a widow’s peak and a face like a stage magician’s. Paul Ruffin looked confused by what he saw, and the confusion tumbled quickly into unease and then fear. The person standing in the door was smiling. It was the wrong kind of smile for a relaxing kick-back kind of evening.
“Welcome to Pine Deep,” whispered Ruger as he pushed his way into the room.
On the TV Carmen Electra and her breasts were riding a horse, smiling at the camera without a trace of concern, even when the bright splash of arterial blood stitched red splatters all across her nipples.
PART TWO
BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN
I don’t mind them graveyards, and it ain’t ’cause I’m no kind of brave;
Said I don’t mind no graveyard, but I ain’t no man that is brave.
’Cause the ghosts of the past, they are harder to face than anything comes from a grave.
—A. L. Sirois and Kindred Spirit, “Ghost Road Blues”
You ain’t hearing nothing, don’t mean nothing’s going down,
You ain’t hearing nothing, don’t mean nothing’s going down
You ain’t hearing nothing…don’t mean the Devil done left town.
—Oren Morse, “Silent Night Blues”
Chapter 13
Very early Tuesday morning Crow was seated in Val’s guest chair sorting through e-mails on Terry’s laptop, putting out fires for the Festival. Val was reading estate papers her lawyer had brought by, when there was a quick knock on her door and then a very tall woman breezed in. The woman was in her midsixties, with a straight back, a long face set with intelligent gray eyes, and lots of wavy red hair caught up in a sloppy bun. Her hair was threaded with silver, but her face and energy were youthful. She wore a lab coat with a name-plate that read: G. SOMERFIELD, MD—CHIEF OF OBSTETRIC MEDICINE.
“Hello, cupcake!” she said brightly, plucking Val’s chart from the foot of her bed.
“I think she means you,” Weinstock said, touching Val’s shoulder.
“Well, Saul, I certainly don’t refer to you as cupcake,” Somerfield murmured as she scanned the chart. “Not to your face anyway.” She peered over her granny glasses at Crow. “Let me guess…you’re the father?”
“Malcolm Crow,” he said, reaching over the laptop to offer his hand. Somerfield gave him a firm shake with a hand that was bigger than his.
“Gail Somerfield. Call me Gail.”
“So?” Val asked, and the decisive edge that had been in her voice just moments before had softened. She looked scared and Crow took her hand and kissed it.
“Well, if I was our esteemed chief of medicine here”—and she shot Weinstock a look—“I’d lead off with one of his famous ‘I’ve got good news and bad news’ openers, but since I’m not an overpaid bureaucrat who only thinks he’s a doctor…”
“She really loves and respects me,” Weinstock said. “Ask anyone.”
“Ask someone whose paycheck you don’t sign. Hush now, women are talking.” She leaned a hip against the bottom of the bed frame, laid the chart against her chest, and folded her arms over that. “The bottom line is this, Val…your baby is fine.”
Val closed her eye and let out a breath that had been cooking in her lungs since Somerfield walked in; Crow bent over and hugged her and whispered, “Thank