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I cleaned up the best I could, using some Wet Wipes in my backpack to erase the evidence of Cal’s nearly draining me dry. By the time he woke up, pants still around his ankles, I’d dressed, rehydrated, and taken samples and pictures of everything I could find. And I’d discovered that whoever designed this outbuilding clearly did not have escape of accidental prisoners in mind. There was no way out of the place, except for the door, which I wasn’t strong enough to yank open and Cal wasn’t able to touch.
This was like one of those Saw movies … only a little sexier.
Cal stirred at my feet, groaning softly.
“What happened?” he grumbled as I helped him sit up. He tilted my head gently to examine my bite mark and winced. “The last thing I remember is kissing you …”
“I’m OK.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, checking me over for other wounds. “I remember wanting your blood so badly. Then I got just the smallest taste of it. But I was able to pull myself out of it. I remembered it was you. I could hear your voice, smell your skin. And that seemed so much more important than being angry or hungry.”>I checked our exact coordinates. “We’re just a few degrees off of the location Mom and I found before.” I pulled out my county map to determine our location in reference to roads. “And we’re about twenty miles from the nearest house. This could be a hunting shack. Some guys around here lease a plot in the middle of a farm or old homesteads so they can hunt in peace.”
He gestured to the windowless little cube, which lacked the charming little touches hunters used to mark their territory. License plates from long-defunct trucks, wind chimes made of beer tabs, deer skulls sporting sunglasses and trucker hats. “Does that look like a hunting shack to you?”
“No. You don’t have to wait for a warrant or anything, do you?” I asked as we circled to the nondescript metal door. “Just in case we find something?”
He snorted, dropping to his knee to examine the door. It was fitted with a standard Master Lock, which Cal ripped off like it was some cheap papier-mâché decoration. “Ophelia’s more of a ‘solve the problem by any means necessary, and we’ll worry about paperwork later’ sort of administrator. You watch too much Law and Order.”
I grasped the door handle, and Cal grabbed my wrist.
“It could be rigged.”
“What sort of moron would rig a booby trap on the inside of the building where he couldn’t reach it when he needed to open the only door?”
“Good point,” he admitted.
“You watch too much Burn Notice,” I told him primly as I pulled the door open. Since we did not, in fact, blow up, I stepped inside to find drying racks, planting tables stocked with terra-cotta pots, organized shelves of pruning shears, spades, plant-food mixers—all the tools needed to run a remote operation like this. Unfortunately for us, there was no helpful sign on the wall saying, “This evil botanical lair belongs to …”
“I need pictures,” Cal said, taking out his digital camera. “Could you look around, see if you spot anything unusual or particularly interesting?”
“Well, the fact that this guy isn’t growing weed is pretty interesting,” I retorted as I studied the peat pots sprouting tiny seedlings.
Cal gave me an amused look, which I took as a prompt to continue.
“Why do you think our green-thumbed friend took so much time to camouflage this building? The chances of someone stumbling here on foot are pretty slim, but the state police do regular helicopter circuits, checking for marijuana patches. Growers who aren’t sophisticated enough to buy grow lights and hydroponic sets will sneak out at night and put in plants in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes farmers have a quarter acre of pot growing in some remote corner of their property and have no clue.”
“How do you know so much about the habits of marijuana farmers?” he asked.
I waggled my eyebrows at him. “Misspent youth.”
“Really?”
“No, I watch the news. I thought you were supposed to be a truth seeker. Dork.”
“I offer her the world, and she calls me a dork,” he muttered.
“I don’t recall being offered—”
The door slid shut behind us, an internal mechanism locking with a resounding snick.
We both turned toward the noise. Cal hissed, his fangs bared as he threw me behind him and crouched defensively. A metallic pinging, the sound of another padlock being looped through the outside brackets.
We could hear footsteps outside, shuffling. A vent opened over the door, above our heads. I could hear the faint electric whir of a fan. Air-conditioning seemed like a strangely thoughtful gesture for someone who was locking me into a small enclosed space with a vampire.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Whoever that is better open the door quick or …”
Before I could come up with a threat violent enough, a strange yellowish-gray dust began circulating from the vent in a swirling billow. I sneezed mightily, waving my hand in front of my face to ward away the pollen. The footsteps outside stopped. Either our host had wandered away, or he was waiting for something.
