Ms. Renfield and the Deadly Puzzle (Immortal Boss #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Harriet

The basement of Cleveland First Shepherd Congregational Church has the same linoleum tile and drop ceiling as every church basement I’ve ever been in.

Alexandru and I bypass the folding table with the Mr. Coffee and the Styrofoam cups and swizzle sticks and take our seats in a circle of metal folding chairs with fifteen or so people from all walks of life.

A woman with a name tag that reads “Doreen Facilitator” stands up.

“Welcome, everybody! We’re so glad you’re here.

” She projects a mix of confidence and cheerfulness, but not too much cheerfulness, because this is a crime victims support group, after all.

She glances nervously at Alexandru, the standard response to a six-foot-something man in a three-piece suit who radiates danger. “And welcome, new members.”

I push my glasses up and give her a warm smile to hopefully balance him out. My smile says, nothing to see here! Please ignore every instinct telling you that my impeccably dressed companion would happily drain your blood!

Look instead at his harmless, slightly nerdy companion! She seems friendly and safe with her glasses and curly mop of hair, right?

Doreen manages to tear her gaze away from us, hopefully having taken my intended message.

“Just a few ground rules. Number one: no cross-talking. Number two: no advice-giving unless specifically requested. Number three: what’s shared in this circle stays in this circle.

” She smiles hopefully. “Does anyone have questions?”

Nobody has questions.

She casts another nervous glance at Alexandru. A lock of dark hair has tumbled over his brow. I don’t know how he always looks so elegant, like he just wandered in from the Paris opera house and decided to stay among the rabble.

There’s some more meeting business, and then Doreen announces that we’ll go around the circle for introductions.

“Just share your first name and, if you’re comfortable, why you’re here.

No pressure for details. We are here for each other’s healing, and you get to decide what form that takes.

” She presses her clipboard to her chest. “I’ll start.

I’m Doreen, and I facilitate this group because my brother was killed by a burglar eight years ago. ”

There’s a chorus of “Hello, Doreen.”

Doreen nods to the man on her left, and we begin around the circle. Identity theft, hit-and-runs, a stabbing outside a bar, a carjacking. Some people take an angry or defiant tone. Others sound exhausted, like they’re repeating the same thing for the umpteenth time.

I catalog it all: ages, types of crimes, how long ago the incidents occurred. The information arranges itself into tidy categories like it always does. I can’t seem to look at a room full of people without my brain turning them into orderly data. Who knows, maybe it’ll be useful someday.

But mostly I can’t help it.

Alexandru and I are here to find a woman we know only as Elaine99. She joined the Northern Ohio True Crime forum a little while ago and promptly began to rant that her neighbor was murdered, and that the police arrested the wrong guy, and she knows who really did it.

Which was interesting to Alexandru and me.

Very interesting.

Because Alexandru and I happen to be searching for a murderer. Any murderer. Rather desperately.

As a vampire, Alexandru feeds on human blood—to the death, and he can’t go longer than a month between meals. I don’t recommend pushing it to the deadline, because that’s when he enters what I have privately labeled “beast mode.”

Anyway, that month is halfway over. If I don’t help him find that victim, he’ll go after anybody. Even my friends and family.

Why is this my job, you might ask?

For starters, it’s my fault he’s here in Ohio instead of brooding away back in his weird ancient castle in Karsovia, a microstate that borders Romania.

A place with torchlit hallways, no cell service, and a business empire run on handwritten ledgers and trips to the post office.

It turns out that my biological father, who I met only once (don’t ask), was his longtime servant, as were generations of Renfields before that.

After his death, I was summoned to what I thought was his memorial service. It turned out to be part of Alexandru’s warped hiring process to replace him with a new “Renfield”—which, for the record, is not my last name.

It was fun to meet my European half-siblings, less fun to discover we were imprisoned there by a vampire with scary super strength and the ability to not be harmed by knives.

When he declared I’d be his new Renfield servant and my half-siblings would be slaughtered, I made a bargain: I’d work remotely from Ohio, and everyone would live.

Alexandru eventually decided he wasn’t a fan of remote work.

He relocated to the quaint Ohio tourist town where I live, having intention of feasting on my friends and neighbors.

We made another bargain: I would work with him at his refurbished Gothic hilltop manor if he agreed to feed only on murderers we nab.

If we can’t find a murderer before the month is up, he’ll go beast mode and drain just anybody.

Hence the desperation.

Elaine99 didn’t respond to my private messages on the forum, but she once mentioned she lives in Cleveland and goes to a crime victims group.

So here we are, hoping that this is the group she attends. We need to see if her story has any merit. Nobody in the circle has mentioned a murdered neighbor, but we’re only halfway around.

Suddenly it’s our turn. Alexandru gives me a look that means I’m waiting, Ms. Renfield.

Even though Doreen said we weren’t required to share the crime we’re here to heal from, everyone’s been telling all, so I decide to go for it.

We do qualify—last month Alexandru and I investigated a string of staged wedding accidents, and some masked figure tried to steal my tablet full of investigation notes.

They didn’t get it, and we caught the wedding killer in the end; Alexandru handled the aftermath—with his fangs, presumably. That killer is currently a drained corpse at the bottom of Lake Erie.

But it was technically a mugging, though we’re still not sure who did it.

I clear my throat. “Hi. I’m Harriet. And we were, uh, mugged at gunpoint last month—me and my—” I pause. How do I even describe Alexandru? Employer? Overlord for life? “Me and my boss,” I finally decide.

There are murmurs of sympathy.

Alexandru shifts beside me. Is he annoyed I called him my boss?

“It was pretty scary,” I add. “They wanted my tablet.”

“Unfortunately, the perpetrator escaped.” Alexandru’s cut-glass English accent surprises people. “I looked back at Ms. Renfield here and saw her stumbling. At that moment he fled and I did not pursue, choosing instead to determine if she was shot.”

“Wait, the mugger shot at you?” a man in a turtleneck asks. “Shot at you and ran off?”

It does seem odd. What kind of mugger shoots at a person and then runs away? The answer would be a mugger who puts a bullet in a guy’s chest and the guy keeps casually walking toward him like the Terminator. That’s the kind of mugger who shoots and runs off.

“Yeah. We were lucky we weren’t hurt,” I say.

Alexandru says, “The man disappeared by the time I was able to determine that Ms. Renfield was unhurt. A faulty decision in retrospect.”

People disagree. “You did the right thing.” “You had to help her.”

Alexandru brushes an invisible spec from the sleeve of his gray cashmere suit coat.

“Indeed. She is of no use to me injured. Rest assured, I will find this man. I will make him regret ever raising a weapon against someone under my protection. There are so many ways to make a man sorry. Far more than most people presume.” His voice lowers to a dangerous rumble.

“No one threatens my Renfield and lives to tell the tale.”

“I know you’re new,” Doreen says gently, “but we don’t condone vigilante justice here, so I might ask you to avoid that kind of talk?”

“He doesn’t mean it,” I say quickly. “It was a very emotional experience.”

Alexandru makes a low sound, but Doreen moves on to the next speaker—a woman whose house was burglarized twice. She’s thinking of moving.

Finally we get to a woman in her mid-forties, blonde hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, navy blazer buttoned over a white T-shirt.

“My name is Elaine, and I’m here because my neighbor was murdered three years ago, and the police completely botched the investigation.”

Bingo!

I feel Alexandru’s attention sharpen beside me.

“They put away her husband, but I know it wasn’t him.

I knew her husband. We’d talk every Saturday doing yardwork, and he’d go out for a jog like clockwork at three in the afternoon rain or shine, and that’s when my neighbor was murdered—during his jog, and I know he was on that jog because he loves to jog—he told me once that jogging was his lifeline and if there’s one thing a person never gives up, it’s their lifeline.

Think about it, that is the thing they throw from a boat to rescue you from the water.

It’s his lifeline.” She pauses to look around at the group for emphasis.

“It was completely circumstantial, what they put him away with. What’s more, there’s this guy who runs a butcher shop a few blocks out and he has this food truck where he does smelly sausages and jerky and stuff and he’s always had a thing for my neighbor.

I’ve seen the way he looks at her. I told the police about it—”

“Okay,” Doreen interrupts. “Thank you, Elaine.” Her firm yet patient tone suggests to me she’s been through the Elaine experience before.

“No, but my point is that I told the police and they barely questioned the butcher.” Elaine’s voice trembles with outrage. “I watched from across the street—they actually shook his hand after they spoke! What kind of police officer shakes a murderer’s hand? I’ve confronted the butcher of course—”

“Elaine—”

“Not aggressively! Just asked where he was that day, questions the police should’ve asked, and he was evasive. Now he’s watching my house. Following me.”

“Okay, thank you,” Doreen says. “Remember, this is not a place to relitigate cases or rehash police investigations. This group is about working through your own emotions and what you can control going forward.”

“But how can I go forward when they framed a husband and let the murderer go free?” Elaine grits out.

I glance at Alexandru, who looks faintly weary. I don’t need his empathic abilities to tell me this woman is unhinged.

We finish the circle. A teenage girl talks about her best friend’s death. An older man mumbles about getting scammed.

Then comes open discussion. Elaine’s hand shoots up again.

“I’ve been documenting everything,” she says, pulling out her phone. “I have a detailed timeline—”

“Sorry, we’re not doing the timeline,” Doreen says. “Let’s let others share.”

Elaine huffs, crossing her arms.

I stare at the ceiling. If only Elaine had shared a little bit more of her reasoning with the true crime forum, we wouldn’t have wasted this trip.

The teenage girl wants to read a poem she wrote, and we all settle back to listen. It’s long and earnest and full of pain.

Alexandru grumbles softly beside me.

“We have to stay,” I mumble under my breath. Alexandru has batlike hearing—he can pick up the faintest whisper.

Alexandru grumbles again. He is not used to constraints of any kind.

When I next look over at him, he is glaring at the far wall, which is festooned with colorful banners. He seems to be fixating on one that says “…and the meek shall inherit the earth.” Like he’s outraged by the very concept.