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“Isn’t it fabulous?” Missy squealed. “I had planned to start a gated suburb for the living, but then I was turned, and I was struck by the lack of specialized housing for vampires. Realtors just can’t resist a hole in the market, Jane. Half-Moon Meadows will be the first community of its kind. Vampires from all over the world will come to our corner of paradise for a community that provides for their every need, every whim. If they never want to venture out into the living world again, they won’t have to.”
When I didn’t applaud her brilliance, Missy continued, “My Deer Haven complex is just the beginning. All I need is your teeny little plot right in the center there,” she said, pointing to an aerial view of the planned development. “I tried to talk your aunt Jettie into selling, but the old bat was so stubborn! When she died, I spent months trying to come up with the right way to approach you, to get you to sign it over. And then you were turned. It was a sign, Jane. I had a reason to meet you, the means to follow you, a way to cause…complications for you. Hell, I even went to Thursday night scrapbooking parties just to cozy up to your sister.>My phone rang. I shushed Jettie and picked it up. I could hear someone sobbing softly in the background. I recognized that sound. It was my mother.
“Mama?” I yelled. I checked the caller ID, but the number was blocked. “Mom?”
“Jane, hi, shug, how are you?” Missy cooed from the other end of the line. “I was just talking to your folks!”
“Missy, let me talk to them,” I said in as cool a tone as I could manage. “Let me talk to them right now.”
“Oh, now, shug, they can’t come to the phone, they’re a little tied up,” she said, chuckling at her own little joke.
“Right now, you crazy bitch.”
“Language, Jane, language. You know, maintaining your composure is the first step in any negotiation.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind when I’m not dealing with a freaking sociopath!” I yelled into the phone. “Now let me talk to my parents!”
“I think you’ll want to be more cordial, Jane, honey, or I might not feel quite so hospitable toward your parents, ” she said, her voice constricting like the coils of a snake. “Now, we’re going to meet at my place in an hour. If you don’t arrive promptly and in a more cooperative mood, I may have to do something drastic. Some of your daddy’s favorite parts may just find themselves removed. Then he might end up being turned and, by horrible coincidence, locked in a concrete box until he goes mad with thirst.”
“Please, just let him go.”
“That’s nothing compared with what I’ll do to your mother,” she said. “Jane? Are you listening?” she asked when I didn’t respond immediately. “Jane!”
“I’m thinking!”
I could hear Mama’s squeals of indignation from the other end of the line. If we all survived, I was pretty sure I would never hear the end of this.
So, suddenly, the mysterious deaths and explosions and my poor standing with the council made a lot more sense. It took me thirty-five minutes and a smashed chair or two before Dick and Jettie would let me out of the house. Dick insisted on coming with me, and I couldn’t help but be grateful for it. Missy had not, after all, made the clichéd supervillian demand that I come alone. I might have called Gabriel, but I didn’t want to have to explain how I managed to stumble into another life-threatening situation in such a short time. Every man has his limits.
When I arrived at Missy’s, I tried to close the car door as quietly as possible, but Missy still yelled, “We’re around back, shug!”
I was starting to hate being called “shug.”
Dick had agreed to lurk around the front yard until he heard the sounds of a struggle. I found my parents on Missy ’s back deck, surrounded by twinkling Christmas lights and Japanese paper lanterns. While they were bound and gagged, Missy had taken the time to set out a nice cheese tray and a chilled chardonnay. And there was a covered presentation easel set up behind them.
Maybe this was all an elaborate setup to get me to buy one of her stupid prefab houses.
“Jane!” Missy chirped. “So nice to see you.”
My father looked groggy and confused. Mama looked ready to chew through the gag and start screaming at somebody.
“You guys OK?” I asked.
“Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?” Missy offered sweetly, the picture of Southern charm. I hoped that if we lived through this, it would serve as a lesson to Mama that having fancy cocktail napkins and coordinated clothing did not necessarily make you a well-adjusted person.
“No, thank you.” I sat next to my dad and squeezed his taped hands.
Ahem-ing pointedly, Missy motioned to the shackles attached to my chair. I reluctantly snapped them around my wrists and jangled them, hoping Dick could discern the noise—surely he had to recognize it.
“Well, aren’t you the tricky one?” Missy said, pouting prettily. “Do you know how much trouble I’ve gone to just to get your attention? I used my powers to track you, followed you around. I lured that idiot Walter back to the scene of your pathetic fight, killed him to get the council to watch you. I played those stupid pranks on you, watched your house to make you feel uneasy, painted your car, put a little something extra in your doggie’s bowl. Hell, I even shot at you.”
“Shot me,” I corrected her as Mama shrieked under her gag. “You actually shot me, and it hurt, quite a bit.”
“Aw, shug, don’t take it personally. It’s not like I left any permanent scars. I just wanted to make you desperate enough, paranoid enough, to want to leave town. Whether it was to get away from the council or whoever you thought was out to get you, I didn’t care. I figured, since you don’t like your sister anyway and we’re such good girlfriends, you’d sell me the property and leave.
But you just wouldn’t budge. So I stepped it up, set my precious Dickie’s trailer on fire, framing you for his murder so I could challenge you. But then he intervened, and the council let you walk away scot -free. Nothing has worked, Jane. Nothing. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?”
“I knew it!” I yelled. “I knew all that random stuff couldn’t happen to one person!”
