Top Secret Vampire (Monsters, PI #4)

10. Wolfram

Chapter 10

Wolfram

“ Y ay,” Reese cried out, lifting her hands away from her computer keyboard. “I accessed all three accounts, changed the passwords, and deleted the nasty comments. I’ve made new statements, apologizing to my readers.” She pivoted around in her office chair, tension stealing her excitement. “I explained what happened, and all I can do now is hope they believe me.”

“Excellent.” I held up the pad of paper full of notes. “I’ve started a list of suspects and outlined possible motivations.”

“We still need to call Detective Carter about the person inside my house and someone hacking my accounts. I need to see if there’s a way I can press charges. Tracy is the only one who had access to those accounts.” She listed them off. “Defamation. Identity theft. Invasion of Privacy.”

“Don’t forget cybercrime violations.”

“Good one. Since Flint hired her, I’ll notify him as well. I’m sure she’ll deny doing it, but I know it was her, and he at least needs to be aware of my suspicions.”

“If she did it, she’ll pay for trying to ruin your career.”

“I can’t figure out why she’d do something like this. She quit. I didn’t fire her. And I was always a decent boss, or I tried to be. I never complained when she needed time off, and I didn’t ask her to do anything outside business hours. I even gave her bonuses.”

“If confronted, she might confess.”

“That would be perfect, but I doubt it.”

So did I.

She called the detective and left a message for him to stop by when he had time. With a sigh, she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. “What do you need from me?”

I started down my list of suspects. “Wilber Blight. He showed up not long after someone crept from your house.”

“You said you thought the person was a witch. I doubt Wilber is.”

“We’ll see.” I continued reading my notes. “He’s running for state legislature, and you have information that could damage his campaign. Plus, there’s something suspicious about his mother that I need to research.”

“It could be something silly.” Taking a nail file from her desk, she sawed it across one of her nails. “Random fact. When we were young, he couldn’t go out in sunlight.”

An interesting detail I wrote down. “Why not? Did he ever say?”

She tossed the file onto her desk. “I think I remember him saying he burned easily. He was kind of hyper about it in elementary school, hiding in the building’s shadows. Kids can be mean. He still went out during recess back then, but he always wore long sleeves, a hood that covered his face, and even gloves.”

“That must’ve been hot in the summer.”

“But effective. One of the mean girls, and there were too many of them, sadly enough, loved to run behind him and yank his hood down, exposing his face. The poor guy would cry. The teachers were pretty good about it, though. They’d rush over and cover him up fast. But by the end of the school year, and I think this was third or fourth grade, he would stay inside even during recess.”

“Were his parents the same?”

“I know where you’re going with this.” She tapped her chin. “Monsters emerged into human society only a few years ago, but I assume vampires have always lived close to their prey—us.”

“You’re correct.”

“I’m trying to remember if I ever met his parents, but I don’t think so. He didn’t participate in any sports or school activities. I would’ve seen his parents if only in passing if he’d done band, for instance. Or acted in plays. I did a lot of that. It was fun. Sad that he didn’t.”

“I’ll look into it. Wilber could have a skin condition, or he could be a born vampire. My family is ancient, which means, over time, we’ve acclimated. Most of my family can remain in sunlight for long periods of time. Other families are not as fortunate.”

“How ancient are we talking about?”

“Let’s just say that my tour of the Egyptian pyramids would come with details passed down from close relatives who lived during that time.”

“Wow. You really are old.”

My cryptic smile grew. “Please don’t call me daddy.”

Her snort rang out, and she rose from her chair. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’m going to grab some dinner. Do you eat food?”

“Sometimes. We don’t digest it like you do, but it doesn’t make us sick. I still enjoy a good tenderloin. Extra rare, of course.”

“Grim, Wolfie,” she said with a trilling laugh as she scooted out of the library. “Very grim.”

The next morning, I finished planting traps outside her home while she did some work in her office. I joined her, taking my usual place on her sofa with my pad of paper in front of me. When she’d finished, we continued going through the rest of my suspects.

“Flint Prospect,” I read.

“Really?” She sat at her desk again, the chair turned to face me. “Why my old professor?”

“He appeared jealous of your success. He hired your assistant; one might even say that he stole your assistant. And we don’t know if he did so before or after she quit.”

“I doubt either one of them will tell you if you ask, though I’d start with Flint. At this point, I don’t care if I ever talk with Tracy again. Good luck to her if she hopes to get more than employment dates out of me for a future reference.” She sighed. “Although, I need to wait until after the local law enforcement looks into it. Maybe she wasn’t involved.”

“She’s the most likely suspect. She was angry with you yesterday. She quit without giving notice, and she had access to your accounts. You said no one else did.”

Biting down on her lower lip, she shook her head. “She’s my first and only assistant. Some authors have more than one, and I’ve thought of hiring more, maybe one to handle marketing while another does graphics and manages my newsletter, but Tracy always insisted she wanted to do as many of those tasks as she could. I’m kind of a control freak, and I still do a lot of things myself, so it was easy to let her handle the things I wasn’t good at and do the rest on my own.”

“Let’s not forget Mary,” I said, tapping my paper with my pen.

Her eyebrows lifted. “Mary?”

“His hawk.”

“You think he told the seagull to attack me?”

“You said he runs a bird sanctuary, and he stated himself that he raised and trained Mary. Does he work with seagulls as well?”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.”

“Tracy and Wilber can stay on the list as well as Flint, though I can’t imagine why he’d endanger his career at the college to come after me. Who else is on your list?”

“No one else so far. Do you have family or friends who might be eager to ruin your career or drive you away from Mystic Harbor? Those are our primary motives right now.”

We’d talked about other reasons but kept coming back to her career and her recent move to this area.

“I wish I’d kept the blender parts so you could look at them, but they went out in my trash pick-up. But no, no family or friends I can think of who might want to do something like that.”

“Please list your family members and any close friends who might still be in the area. I’ll look into their backgrounds and see if any should be added to my list.”

“Aunt Beverly is my only surviving family other than my mom. She’s never liked me, but I doubt she’d try to ruin me. She never married and has no children. I’m sure I have second or third cousins living somewhere in the country who I’ve never met, but I don’t even know their names. I could ask my mother.”

I wrote her aunt and mother down for further investigation.

“As for friends, I didn’t stay in touch with anyone other than a few from college, and I haven’t spoken with them in at least a year. None live locally. They came here to go to college and left to take jobs.”

“Names?”

She listed three I’d look up online. “I suppose you could add Charmaine to the list. She and I were best friends in college, but we argued—”

“About what?”

“Her older brother, of all things. He had a crush on me, and she kept insisting I should go out with him. But I wasn’t interested.”

“What’s her last name?”

“Hodgkins.”

I wrote it down.

“Funny, but I swear I saw Charmaine in town before we found my tires slashed. But when I waved, whoever it was turned and walked away. If it was her, I swear she would’ve responded in some way. Sure, we argued, but we shared everything back then.” Her lips thinned. “It couldn’t have been her.”

Perhaps not, but I’d investigate any clue, even those that seemed improbable.

“Anyone else?” Reese asked.

“There’s only one other suspect.”

“Who?”

“Jolene Molson.”