Chapter 21
Twenty-One
JULIAN
Maris seems upset about the priest that I ate.
Fuck.
I don’t miss the way her heart speeds up or how she looks sick at the mention of Father Paretti’s bloodless body being discovered. Next time, I’ll check if the person means anything to her before I eat them.
“Who could have done such a thing?” We walk into her office and she rubs her temples and drops her sad breakfast wrap onto her desk with a thud. “I can’t-murders don’t happen here.”
I hum in agreement like she’s right and keep my mouth shut. The woman in front of me has committed two of them, but it’s part of her charm.
“We aren’t that kind of town. We’re just…
we’re not that kind of town,” she says again and slumps forward in her seat.
She’s at her desk. It’s old, but the good kind of old, wide and broad, made of dark walnut, the sturdy kind of old.
It’s probably been around for a hundred years and will be around for a hundred more if it’s left alone.
It’s built to outlast Maris. I frown at the thought of Maris not being here one day.
You almost lost her in the graveyard.
I recoil at the thought and turn away from Maris so she doesn’t see it.
She has her existential crisis and I have mine.
The entire night and the better part of the early morning hours while I watched Maris sleep beside me, the reality that if Maris wasn’t a murderer, I’d have lost her preoccupied me. Twice over now.
First when her house was broken into, and second when she beat his son’s brains out with a candle.
Maybe neither would have resulted in murder, but I don’t believe it.
I almost lost my wife to not one but two redneck fishermen in this backwater town.
I clench my fists. And then there’s Billy.
That makes three. It’s easy to see he’s up to no good with Maris, demanding that she ‘leave the light on’ and telling her when he’ll be coming by.
I might not have been there for the other two but I’m going to enjoy teaching Billy a lesson.
“Maris, I got some news from the sheriff.” Josie, a grizzled reporter in her sixties with salt and pepper hair and the kind of voice that tells you she’s a pack a day kind of gal rushes into Maris office and slaps down a stack of papers.
“He said that in addition to no blood being found in Father Paretti, they found two lacerations in his neck.”
Maris sucks in breath. “What do you mean in his neck?”
Josie stabs two fingers to the side of her neck.
“I mean here. In his fucking neck. They said from the bruising around the wounds there, that enough force was applied to suction out his blood. The bruising is pretty on par with the kind of extreme applied pressure you’d get with an industrial vacuum. ”
What the fuck? They’re calling me a vacuum?
“You’re telling me some freak sucked Father Paretti dry like a capri sun?”
“More or less.”
“But thats…that’s…it’s impossible. That’s like a-” Maris stops herself short and I know why. I look over at her and see her her biting her lip and shaking her head. “I’m not even going to say it,” she whispers.
“Vampire,” Josie supplies gleefully. The older woman has no hang ups about the word.
“It’s like a fucking vampire, Maris. Can you believe it?
” She looks at me when Maris doesn’t react.
“It’s like one of those Stephen King novels, a small town, vampires, fuck we’re going to have the undead overrunning us by the end of tomorrow, don’t you think, doc? ”
Maris snorts. “We aren’t that lucky, Josie.”
“I think you’re right,” I tell Josie. “Zombies at the supermarket by tomorrow evening for sure. I bet we even see Dracula shapeshift. He becomes a wolf, right? Or mist, or something?”
Josie cackles. “He does! Oh my god, can you imagine? The mist rolling off the water? Yeah, it’s definitely fucking Dracula coming to town.”
“Probably looking for a bride,” I point out. “I know I would be.”
I’m not Dracula but I’m close enough.
“Knock it off you two,” Maris groans and slumps forward on her desk. She looks distraught.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“We need news but not this news. This news is the kind of news that we can’t report on. We’ll look fucking crazy.”
“But the body is at the morgue, boss, and it’s not like his throat was ripped out.
It’s two, count them,” Josie holds up two fingers and waves them in the air for effect, “two fucking holes in his neck. Those are the facts so we have to report on it. They’re even getting our big city doctor to look it over and confirm the findings,” Josie says, pointing her pen at me.
“They are?” I ask, pulling out my phone. There’s not texts or missed calls.
“They are but they haven’t told you yet. They’ll get you looped in tomorrow morning because from what I hear they had enough of you running out there with the way Liz is mooning after you.”
“Ah, Liz,” I nod and duck my head. “Didn’t know that had already made the rounds in town.”
“Vesper Point is a small town, doc. You fart wrong and half the town is gonna know before lunch.”
I pocket my phone with a sigh. “Good to know.” This is the worst place I could have been sent to keep a low profile. If Maris wasn’t here, I’d think I was being punished.
“Liz is doing what?” Maris gets up from her desk.
The look on her face is different. She’s not disheveled or distraught, not worried about what she might look like reporting on a vampire attack, she’s not the broken, small version of herself that I’ve seen.
She’s bigger, darker, every bit the kind of woman that could kill.
“Mooning. She’s got fucking heart eyes for doc here. You should stake your claim before she pops out of a cake naked,” Josie advises.
Maris crosses her arms and looks at me. “Do you like her?”
“Liz?” I shrug and feign stupidity like a normal man. “I work with her. She’s fine. Good at her job, if a little zealous in calling me in for small matters.”
“So you don’t like her then?”
“Not outside of a strict work environment. She’s a fine nurse. We had coffee once.”
Josie looks between us like she’s watching a tennis match, which I guess for her she is. I bet she’s going to put this in the paper. Good.
Maris comes around her desk, eyes on me. “Josie, can you share the info you shared with the others? I'll be out in a few for a team meeting. Close the door on your way out.”
“No problemo.” Josie salutes and backpedals with a shit eating grin on her face. Yeah, it’s definitely going to be in the paper. When the door closes, Maris speaks.
“Liz is a bitch.”
“Is she?”
“She goes after married men. She goes after anything with a dick and a pulse really. Even if they don’t want her.”
“Is that so?”
“I caught her trying to get Billy’s pants down when he passed out at the beach bonfire after prom. Yes, I went with him to prom.”
“Well fuck.”
Maris nods. “She’s a shitty person all around. Not just a fucking whore, but a predator whore. What is that? Like the deluxe version? Whatever it is, that’s what Liz is.”
“I feel like you’re telling me to stay away from her.” I cross my arms in a mirror stance of Maris.
“I am. She doesn’t deserve someone like you.”
“And Billy didn’t deserve you either.”
I almost say it. Almost end the sentence with wife but I rein it the fuck in and take a beat while Maris rolls her eyes.
“I was young and horny, he was hot and stupid. We dated. That’s it.”
“How many men have you dated?” I ask. I don’t give a shit how many.
She could say five hundred and it wouldn’t matter.
I ask because I already think I know the answer.
Small town, Maris’ reaction to Billy, the way she mentions going to prom with him.
Maris is in her late twenties, but she’s been alone for the past two years and I’ve seen the men in this town.
There’s no one I can see her settling down with.
“Just him,” she says softly. “Just Billy.”
“Lucky Billy,” I muse.
Maris’ eyes go wide and just like that, the murderous woman in front of me melts away. She softens, becomes the woman that I held in my arms, the one that opened the door to me in shock because I’d come back to her.
There’s a knock at the door which is a blessing.
I want to cross the room and pull Maris into my arms. I want to ruin her carefully coiffed hair, smudge the carefully applied lipstick and taste her in the sunlight streaming in through her office windows.
God, it would be decadent to feel the warm sun on my skin while I touched Maris.
I rub my hands against my thighs to chase away the phantom feeling of her soft skin beneath my fingers.
The knock comes again. More insistent this time.
“I should go. You have a busy day ahead of you.”
Maris nods. “I do. Okay.”
I incline my head and take a step back towards the door, my eyes never leaving her as I move. “I’ll come by when you’re done for the day. Say…six? Is that enough time or would you like me to come earlier?”
“No, six is good.”
The person at the door knocks again.
She sighs and glares past me at whoever is there. “One second!” Maris yells.
“For what it's worth, it’s not a vampire,” I lie. “The murderer, I mean.”
“Promise?”
I hesitate at the door. “No, I actually can’t.” I answer. Turns out, Maris is the only soul that I’m incapable of lying to. “See you tonight.” I open the door and slide past the two reporters I haven’t spoken to. They’re watching me with big eyes and open mouths.
“You’re the new doctor,” one of them, the woman, whispers.
“I am.”
“You’re Maris’ friend?” she asks. While Maris might not have many friends in town, her staff is loyal.
“I am,” I answer again and the woman nods.
“I’ll be watching you. We will be watching you, right Lyle?” She elbows the man in the stomach and he coughs.
“Right, both eyes 24/7, doc. Three hundred and sixty-five.”
I don’t have to come up with an answer to that because Maris steps into view and points a finger at them.
“Stop threatening Julian and get in here or so help me!” Maris yells at them, and they both jump with a yelp.
“Coming right away, Maris!” They rush into the office, the door slamming shut behind them but not before I get one last look at my wife standing in the golden morning sun looking over the papers the two reporters brought her like a general going over battle plans.
She’s glorious, and she’s fucking mine.