Free Call of the Vampire by Gayla Twist Page B

said, opening the fridge.
    “You’re kidding,” she gasped, my statement turning her smile into a full frown. “What happened?”
    “Well, I was the last one out of the lot and this jerk was just there, leaning on my car,” I told her, pouring myself a glass of milk.
    “What did you do?” she wanted to know.
    After I told her the full story, she said, “Can you describe him?”
    “I guess so,” I said, shrugging.
    “Good. We’ll go and talk to the police tomorrow. They should at least be alerted that there might be trouble.” We had a very well-funded police department, and they took their job of keeping Tiburon a nice town seriously. I was about to protest, but Mom anticipated me and added, “Honey, what if the next time he tries to prey on someone who doesn’t handle it as well as you did? You wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to someone else, would you?”
    “No,” I had to admit.
    “Good.” She got up and gave me a squeeze. “By the way, I’m not going to scold you for being alone in an empty parking lot at night because you handled it so well.”
    This made me laugh a little. “Thanks, Mom.”
    I didn’t say anything to my mother, but I had a very bad feeling about the guy in the parking lot. First of all, he was up to no good, and it’s always creepy when you encounter someone like that, but secondly, I felt weird about what happened to him. It was like he was just plucked off the pavement, vanishing into thin air. The thought had me jittery.
    Heading up to bed, I gave some more thought to the local police. It was common knowledge that the Vanderlinds always made a sizeable donation to the department during funding events. Every year they got complimentary tickets to the policemen’s ball, and every year there was a rumor that they were actually going to attend, but they never did. It all suddenly made sense to me. Of course the Vanderlinds would want Tiburon to be a nice, safe place to live. If there was a murder or a drug ring or a missing person, they didn’t want detectives and the FBI and whoever poking around and possibly unearthing a little too much of their history. It was a very smart move. The vampires were more invested in the town than I’d ever imagined.
    I closed my bedroom door and then pulled Jessie’s tux jacket out of the closet, like I’d been doing each night for the past couple of nights. It was starting to lose his fragrance. I’d sniffed it too much, but I couldn’t help myself. I hung it by its hanger from a hook on the back of the closet door and then straightened the fabric so it lay perfectly. The jacket was probably suspended an inch or two too high, but very close to where it would have been if Jessie were wearing it. Triple checking that the curtains to my room were closed and that my mom was still downstairs, I did what I did every night: put some music on the radio, closed my eyes, and slow danced with the tuxedo jacket. I knew I was being foolish, but I didn’t care. It was the closest I could come to having his arms around me. Besides, a girl shouldn’t be judged for the romantic foolishness she does alone in her room.
    As I stood there, breathing in his faintly lingering scent, I felt almost hypnotized by the thought of him. We’d never danced, but it was like I could feel his strong arms around me, the faint warm penny smell of his breath, the look in his fathomless eyes.
    How did I know his breath smelled like copper? I opened my eyes and considered. I guess it only made sense, given what he had to drink for dinner. That thought made me gag a little. I didn’t even like dealing with a scrape on my knee. The thought of drinking human blood in order to live made my stomach churn.
     

Chapter 11
    Mom came to school Friday afternoon during my lunch period to pick me up. We went to the police station, and I had to fill out a report. The perv hadn’t physically accosted me or anything, but he had made threatening remarks and refused to give me