Many Bloody Returns

How Stella Got Her Grave Back Toni L. P. Kelner

Toni L. P. Kelner is the author of the Laura Fleming Southern mystery series and the forthcoming Where Are They Now? series about a freelance entertainment writer who specializes in articles about the formerly famous. She has won the Agatha Award for best short story and the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, and has been nominated for the Anthony, the Macavity and the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice awards. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, fellow author Stephen P. Kelner Jr., and two daughters. Though she’s a longtime fan of vampire fiction, this is her first vampire story.

They stared at the tombstone. Or rather, Mark stared. Stella glared.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Mark asked.

“Of course I’m sure!” she snapped.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been here, right? And the circumstances that night were pretty much tailor-made for making you forget the exact location.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “A person doesn’t just forget something like that!” She continued to glare at the tombstone, as if waiting for its current inhabitant to rise and answer her questions. “What I want to know is, who the hell is buried in my grave?”

“I told you this was morbid.”

Almost exactly an hour earlier, Mark had asked, “Don’t you think this is kind of morbid?”

“We’re vampires,” Stella replied. “It doesn’t get much more morbid than that.”

“Still, visiting your grave on your birthday? That kind of goes beyond the pale.” He snickered. “Beyond the pale! That’s good—I mean, we’re nothing if not pale.”

“It’s not bad,” Stella admitted. “Not that you’re all that pale yet.”

“True.” He’d been a vampire for less than a year, so as long as he applied generous amounts of SPF 45, he could still go outside in the daylight, and his tan hadn’t faded.

They drove down the North Carolina highway in silence for a few minutes, Stella handling the maroon Cadillac with the ease only decades of practice can bring, and the caution for which vampires were infamous. While they could walk away from most accidents, reckless driving could lead to overly curious medical personnel or jail cells with uncurtained windows, so vampires tended to obey the rules of the road. Mark hadn’t had time to absorb that yet, which was why she was driving.

He asked, “Is this your actual birthday or the anniversary of your death?”

“Both,” she said.

“You died on your birthday? That’s harsh. How old were you?”

“You tell me.”

“No way! I know better than to try to guess a woman’s age.”

“We vampires are proud of our age.”

“Yeah, right. If I said you looked thirty-five when you stopped aging at twenty-five, I’d be walking home.”

“You think I look thirty-five?”

“What I think is that you are a timeless beauty.” There was something about becoming a vampire that enhanced a person’s best traits, but Mark suspected Stella had been gorgeous even before death. Her hair was glossy chestnut, her eyes chocolate brown, her skin like porcelain, and her figure lush. “In fact, I think you’ve become even more beautiful since I’ve known you.”

She smiled. “I’ll accept that. But, for the record, I was eighteen.”

“Really? I would have guessed thirty-five.”

“Bastard,” she said, still smiling.

They passed a few more exits before Mark went back to his original point. “Other vampires don’t go to their graves on their birthdays, do they?”

“Other vampires don’t put dirt into their beds, either.”

“That’s not fair! Ramon swore that I’d lose vitality if I didn’t sleep in the earth of my homeland.”

“I wonder how long you’d have kept doing it if I hadn’t smelled it on your pillow.”

“No telling,” he said. “He bugs me about it every time he sees me, too.”

“He tells everybody he sees about it.”

“Damn it! How long will it take me to live that down? Die that down. Whatever.”

“Until he plays the same trick on somebody else.”

“Yeah, like he’s going to find a sap as big as me anytime soon,” he said glumly, looking out into the darkness of the countryside as they approached Allenville. “What counts as the dirt of my homeland anyway? Does it have to be from the town where I died or the town I was born in? Or buried in, for that matter? Or just the county? The state? The country?”

Stella flipped on her signal and turned off of the highway. “Well, the dirt in Allenville would have done the job nicely. I was born here, died here, and buried here.”

“On your birthday. That sucks!” He resisted any number of potential vampire/sucking jokes, having been threatened with being locked inside a tanning booth the last time he made one.

“Are you kidding?” Stella said. “It was the best birthday ever!”

“I see you celebrated birthdays differently in your youth.”

She flashed him a look. “Look around the town.”

“Just let me know when we get there.”

“We are there.”

Mark looked out the window. The interstate had been better lit than the street they were driving down, which had just enough light for him to see the WELCOME TO ALLENVILLE sign put up by the local Jaycees. The existence of a few scattered houses was betrayed only by the flickering blue glow of TV screens. “Not exactly a happening place, is it?”

“Not unless you’re into chicken farming. Have you ever smelled a chicken farm?”

“Wait! There’re lights ahead.” They crested a hill, but he saw nothing more exciting than a McDonald’s, a gas station, and a Wal-Mart. “Never mind.”

“At least there’s a Wal-Mart now,” Stella said. “If we’d had something like that here when I was growing up, I’d have been in hog heaven.”

Mark realized that her usual sophisticated tones had been growing more and more countrified during the drive but decided it would be impolite to mention it, and perhaps dangerous as well, considering the strength and speed of a vampire Stella’s age.

“You weren’t happy here?” he asked as they left the oasis of neon behind.

“Mama used to say I started walking early, just so I could get away from here that much sooner.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I wanted to, God I wanted to, but I had nowhere to go. No money, no schooling, nobody to stay with. I saved every penny I could, but I’d just about given up on ever getting a chance to leave when I met Vilmos. As soon as I saw him, I knew he was my ticket out of here.”

“Just not quite in the way you expected.”

“Not hardly,” she said. “Anyway, I thought I was seducing him, and afterward, I poured out my heart to him. He offered me the Choice, and I accepted it.”

“And you never looked back?”

“Not once.”

Of course that begged the question of why they were there that evening, but he resisted asking until they reached an area with knee-high weeds that Stella insisted was the parking lot for the graveyard she’d abandoned. That was when he stepped into something he wouldn’t have wanted to go near with his former sense of smell, let alone with the vampire upgrade.

“Why are we here again?” he groused

“Because it’s my birthday,” she said.

“That’s a lousy reason.”

“How about because I’m your sire and I say so?”

“Why are you my sire, anyway?”

“Because I bit you, bled you to the point of death, and gave you my blood. Or are you asking why I decided to bring you over?”

“No, I know you brought me over because you couldn’t resist my manly wiles. I mean, why are you my sire? Shouldn’t you be my dam?”

“Excuse me?”

“A sire is a male parent. A female is a dam. And damned if you’re not female.”

“Vampires always say sire,” she said doubtfully.

“That’s because vampire society is male chauvinist, and has been since Dracula developed a taste for Turks on a stick. Let’s strike a blow for feminism! From now on, you can be my dam. My dam of the damned!”

As quickly as only a vampire could, Stella grabbed him by the neck and kissed him soundly. “That,” she said, when she was done ravaging his mouth, “is why I brought you over.” Then she went back to leading the way.

Though Mark had no false modesty about his manly wiles, which included jet-black hair, green eyes, and a swimmer’s build, he knew part of the reason for the enthusiastic smooching was Stella’s nervousness. He recognized it even though the only other time he’d seen it was when he’d first woken up after his death, and she was there to welcome him to vampirehood.

She’d been so afraid he wasn’t going to like it, that he’d be angry at her. It had taken some effort to prove to her her that he considered the Choice to be better than a lifetime pass to Disney World, and one of his other manly wiles was showing the strain by the time she was convinced.

They reached the entrance, an open iron arch with the name “Spivey” overhead.

“Spivey was your name?” Like most vampires her age, Stella had changed her name more than once.

“No, Spivey was Mama’s maiden name. I’m a Boyd. Mama didn’t get along with Daddy’s people, so she had me and him buried here.” She hesitated.

“Are you sure you want to go in?”

“It would be right silly to come this far and not go in,” she said.

“It’s silly to go to monster truck rallies, too, but that never stopped me.”

She smiled briefly, then stepped through the arch. Mark followed closely in case she needed him and because her night vision was considerably better than his own.

“Stella Boyd,” he said experimentally. “Not bad.”

“Try again. My old name was Estelle,” she said, putting the emphasis on the first syllable. “But nobody calls me that now. Ever.”

“Message received.”

They kept on for a few minutes, Stella pausing now and then to read the words on tombstones that were nothing but black blocks to Mark. She finally stopped by a wide monument, with room for two names. “Here’s Mama and Daddy. I didn’t find out about her dying until a long time afterward, but I figured she’d be buried here, with Daddy and me.”

Mark moved close enough to make out the inscriptions. “Caleb Boyd. Beloved Husband and Father. Oveda Boyd. Beloved Wife and Mother.”

“Mine is over by that tree.”

“What tree?”

“Sorry, by that tree stump. It was a tree when I was here last. But there’s my stone.”

“I’m guessing your epitaph includes ‘beloved.’”

“I don’t know. It hadn’t been put in when I left—there was just a big fieldstone marking the place. I imagine Mama had to save up to pay for a tombstone.”

Stella walked over to the grave, then went as still as only a vampire can.

Mark, thinking she must be feeling like Scrooge had when confronted by the price of his sins, put an arm around her, but she didn’t respond. He looked down at the stone, then blinked.

“It says ‘Jane Doe,’” he said. There was no birth date, and the only date of death was the year.

“I know what it says.”

“Then where’s your grave?”

“You’re standing on it.”

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“It’s been a while since you’ve been here, right? And the circumstances that night were pretty much tailor-made for making you forget the exact location.”

“I’m sure. A person doesn’t just forget something like that!”

She stayed there while Mark wandered over toward the neighboring graves, hoping to find the correct one, but there was no Estelle Boyd. Eventually he came back to where she was still standing.

“Maybe your mother moved you somewhere…” He stopped before saying nicer. “To another cemetery.”

“She wouldn’t have moved me and left Daddy here. I was a Daddy’s girl from the day I was born—she wouldn’t have separated us.”

“Well, maybe nobody realized you were already here. I mean, you said there was no tombstone.”

“Are you saying my own mother didn’t buy me a tombstone?” she said, an edge in her voice.

“No, I’m just saying—Hell, I don’t know what I’m saying.” He looked around helplessly, but there was no night watchman to bespell and question. “Let’s go back to the hotel. I’ll hit the web and see what I can Google about Jane. Okay? We’ll find out what happened.”

Fortunately they’d already fed, so they could go straight to their hotel, where Mark immediately booted up his laptop. By searching for “Allenville, NC” and “Jane Doe,” he found a hit on the Allenville Sentinel’s website archives.

“Here we go,” he said. “Story dated a year and a half ago. Jane Doe to be buried in Spivey family plot. Unknown murder victim. Believed to be between sixteen and nineteen years old. Found raped and strangled in Allenville six months previously. No funds in the budget for burial, so Officer Norcomb offered room in his family plot. He must be a relative of yours.”

“I suppose so. The Spiveys always were a fertile bunch. Mama would have had a house full if Daddy hadn’t died so early.”

Mark continued reading. “Ongoing investigation. Norcomb still hopes he’ll be able to identify her and her killer. There’s a photo of the funeral, complete with locals paying their respects.”

“Nothing about relocating the previous inhabitant of the grave?” she asked.

“Nope. Shouldn’t they have found your coffin?”

“There wasn’t much left of it when I broke out of it.”

“Vilmos didn’t dig you up?” he said, appalled. Stella had arranged it so that he’d never been buried, but sometimes it was necessary to placate the human world. In those cases, the vampire’s sire dug up the coffin as promptly as possible.

“He was late. It took him longer than expected to find some men to bespell to do the digging. I could have waited, but I panicked.”

“No wonder. Why didn’t he dig for you himself? He could have done it faster than bespelled humans.”

“Vilmos get his hands dirty? Please!”

Mark supposed it wasn’t surprising that he disliked Stella’s sire so intensely.

“At any rate,” Stella said, “the coffin was broken up pretty thoroughly. Vilmos splintered the rest, tossed it back into the grave, and had it buried again. I don’t know how long it takes wood and cloth to rot, but I don’t expect they found anything when digging Jane’s grave that would have told them I’d been buried there. Only there should have been a marker of some sort. Let me see that picture.”

He moved the screen so it was aimed toward her.

“No tombstone, no fieldstone, no nothing,” she said. “I don’t understand. Why would Mama have moved the marker? Why didn’t she get me a real tombstone? I know they’re expensive—she had to save for a year to pay for Daddy’s—but…I guess she decided not to bother.”

“Hey, don’t make assumptions! Tell you what—tomorrow I’ll go back and see what the story is. There must be records of who’s supposed to be where.”

“Probably not. When Daddy died, Mama just picked a spot and buried him. I’m not even sure who owned the land then, let alone now.”

“I bet Officer Norcomb will know. I’ll track him down and ask him.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. You were right. It was stupid to come back.”

“I didn’t say it was stupid—I said it was morbid. And I’m going to find that guy tomorrow and see what happened.”

She shrugged, saying only, “I am a little curious.” Then she reached for the TV remote control. “I wonder what they’ve got on pay-per-view.”

They picked out something violent and mindless, and when it was over, Mark produced the birthday present he’d hidden in his suitcase. Stella demonstrated her appreciation for the sapphire pendant ardently, proving once again that her years had given her skills beyond safe driving. Still, Mark could tell her unbeating heart wasn’t in it, though he certainly enjoyed her efforts on his behalf.

As the night ended, Stella got into bed, and after making sure the door was locked, the windows thoroughly curtained, and the DO NOT DISTURB sign was in place, Mark joined her. An instant before dawn arrived, he felt her start to cry. Then they both stiffened in death.

At some point, Mark shifted from a vampire’s death-sleep to human sleep, and he woke when it was nearly eleven. Stella would remain cold and unmoving until dusk, but his body was still fighting off the vestiges of humanity.

Normally he stayed nearby while Stella rested, especially when they were away from home, but finding out about Stella’s grave took priority. His first target was Officer Norcomb, the one who’d given permission for Jane Doe to be buried in the Spivey plot. While en route to Allenville, he used his cell phone to call the police station to find out if Officer Norcomb was in. According to the cop who answered the phone, Norcomb was on his lunch break, and he directed Mark to Benny’s Truck Stop near the highway.

Mark had noticed Benny’s the night before, admiring the glamor of the chubby neon chef and his flashing burger. In the daylight, it was less glamorous, but the gas and diesel islands were doing a brisk business. As Mark got out of the car, he tried for a deep breath of fresh country air but instead breathed in a horrible mix of ammonia and general nastiness coming from the buildings a field away. He stepped inside quickly.

As the only police officer in the place, Norcomb was easy to spot. A skinny man, despite the remains of gravy-soaked meat and mashed potatoes left on his plate, and as far as Mark could tell, he didn’t bear the slightest family resemblance to Stella.

Mark approached his booth and, with his friendliest smile, said, “Officer Norcomb?”

Norcomb gave him such a suspicious look that Mark used his tongue to make sure his fangs weren’t out. “You the one who called the station looking for me?” he said.

“That’s me. Can I join you?”

“If this is about a traffic citation, don’t bother. I don’t fix nobody’s tickets.”

“Nothing like that,” Mark assured him. “I’m here about Jane Doe.”

Norcomb sat up straight, and before Mark could put rump to the sticky vinyl of the bench, the cop said, “Do you know who she is?”

“No, I’m afraid not, I just wanted to—”

“Are you a reporter?”

“Why don’t we start over? My name is Mark Anderson.” He offered his hand, and Norcomb reached over his late lunch to take it. As they shook, their eyes met, and Mark exerted the force of will a vampire used to bespell his victims.

A moment later, Norcomb said, “You going to let go of my hand anytime soon?”

“Sorry,” Mark muttered. Stella assured him he’d develop the ability to bespell victims before too much longer, but so far, nothing. Since his compelling gaze hadn’t worked, he’d have to rely on his backup plan. “I believe you and I are related,” he said.

“Is that right?” Norcomb said skeptically. “I don’t recall any Yankees in the family. No offense.”

“None taken. If we are related, it’s only by marriage. You see, my wife’s great-aunt Estelle is from Allenville, and she’s always said she wanted to be buried in the Spivey family cemetery. Since I’m in Raleigh on business, my wife asked me to confirm that it’s still in use.”

“I’d heard there were some Spiveys who moved up North, and I know old folks are big on coming back home to be buried.”

“Exactly. Aunt Estelle is getting quite frail, so I don’t think it will be too much longer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Norcomb said with enough genuine sympathy to make Mark feel guilty.

“At least she’s had a long life,” Mark said, which was true enough. “I found the Spivey cemetery the other day, and while I was checking for recent burials, I noticed Jane Doe’s grave. I was curious, so I did some research on the web, read that you gave permission for Ms. Doe to be buried there, and figured you were the one to talk to. Do we need to fill out any paperwork?”

“Shoot, we don’t get that formal around here. If Aunt Estelle is family, she’s welcome.”

“My wife will be glad to hear that.”

Norcomb seemed to be pulling himself together in preparation for leaving, so Mark hurriedly said, “I know you’ve got to go back on duty, but I did wonder how Jane Doe came to be buried with the Spiveys. Is there reason to suspect she’s a relative?”

“We don’t have any idea of who she is, bless her heart.”

“Really? I realize it might not be proper to talk about an ongoing investigation…” He tried to bespell the man again, and was almost certain he felt something. Or maybe Norcomb just felt like talking.

He said, “The case is still open, but I wouldn’t exactly call it ongoing. That poor girl’s been dead over two years, and we don’t know a bit more than we did a week after we found her. Wasn’t far from where we are now, as a matter of fact. Just on the other side of that chicken barn you can see from the parking lot.”

“So it’s chickens in that building. What a stink!”

“You should smell then in the middle of summer. Anyway, some boys found the girl in a field, partially covered up with leaves and brush. She’d been stripped, and the killer bashed her face in so bad that she was unrecognizable, so we had no clue who she was. Nobody’s ever claimed her.”

“I read online that she was seen in Wal-Mart.”

“That’s right. The manager identified her from her hair, believe it or not. She had it dyed solid black and cut kind of funny. One of those Goths. We don’t get many of those in Allenville, which is why the manager remembered her. Even though she bought some things, she paid cash, so that was no help, and she wasn’t with anybody, either. I went through the store’s security tapes and got some pictures of her to run in the newspaper, but nobody knows who she is.”

“I take it that her purchases weren’t helpful, either.”

“Actually, that was kind of peculiar. She bought herself a whole outfit, and afterward, she went to the store’s bathroom, changed into the clothes she’d just bought, and threw the old stuff into the trash can.”

“That is peculiar.”

“My take is that she was in trouble, maybe drug-related, and wanted to disguise herself. But whoever was looking for her found her anyway, and nobody in town saw anybody suspicious.”

“Isn’t that strange in a small town?” Mark said, tactfully not suggesting that a local could have been involved.

“Not as much as you might think. We get all kinds of people passing through: runaways, transients of every description. Plus Raleigh is a big city, with big city problems, and sometimes that causes us problems, too.”

Having spent time in New York, Boston, and London, Mark didn’t see Raleigh as big or dangerous, but perspective was everything. “I still don’t understand how Ms. Doe came to be buried in the Spivey plot.”

“We kept her in cold storage for a while, hoping something would turn up, but decided it would only be right to bury her. Bob Henry at the funeral home donated a coffin and tombstone and the florist sent flowers, but when nobody had a burial plot they were willing to part with, I offered her a place with my family.”

“That was very decent of you.”

The cop looked abashed. “We had plenty of space—that whole corner of the lot was nearly empty. Besides, I was the first officer on the scene, and I feel bad that we’ve never found out who she was. Not that I’ve given up, mind you. There’s not enough time or money to keep an investigation moving indefinitely, but I’m like a bloodhound—I may not have a scent to go on now, but when I get one, I’ll not give up.” He started to rise again, and said, “Now I do need to get going. You have your wife give us a call, and we’ll pick out a nice place for Aunt Estelle.”

“I’d do that. Thank you very much for your time.”

“Hey, what are families for?”

The two men shook hands, and Norcomb headed for the door. Mark was about to follow him when he noticed his stomach was growling. Stella no longer needed food, other than the occasional dose of dark chocolate she claimed vampires required, but he still ate one or two regular meals a day. So when the waitress came to clear off Norcomb’s table, he ordered lunch.

On the way back to Raleigh, Mark speculated about how Stella would react. He honestly had no idea—Stella’s unpredictability had been part of what had attracted him to her in the first place, even before she confessed her undead status. Some days she seemed as young as she’d been at death, while others she demonstrated every day she’d lived. Most of the time he was happy to go along, so even though he didn’t understand why she’d wanted to make a birthday pilgrimage to her grave, he hadn’t argued.

Now there was one thing he was sure of. Stella wanted her grave back.

Mark was in bed with Stella when she came back to life, and she responded immediately, if not in the way he’d hoped.

“You reek!” she said with a grimace.

“Damn it,” he said, sliding out from under the covers. “All I had was a cheeseburger! No onions or mustard, and I brushed my teeth and used mouthwash. Twice!”

“It’s not the food,” she said, sniffing.

“I ate next door to a chicken farm,” Mark said.

She shuddered. “Maybe that’s it. After living near one all those years, I was ready to switch to blood just to make sure I never had to eat chicken again.”

“Ready to hear about the body in your grave?”

“Not yet—I’m hungry.” As long as he got regular food, Mark could go two or three days without blood feeding, but Stella could not. “Did you scout out a place for us to hunt? What should I wear?”

“Workout clothes. The desk clerk recommended a nearby jogging path. It’s around a lake and includes numerous twists and turns.”

“I’ll hit the shower and get ready to go.”

“I better shower again, too, to get that nasty smell off of me. And in the interest of conserving water…”

“By all means, let’s conserve.”

Oddly, taking a shower together took longer than two separate showers would have.

If it had been his grave, Mark would have been frothing at the mouth to find out more about the body buried there, but older vampires were annoyingly patient. Stella wanted to wait until after dinner.

Admittedly, it didn’t take her long to pick out a healthy-looking man and bespell him into following her to a darkened patch of trees. She quickly sated herself, and then Mark took his turn. After that, Stella kept the man bespelled long enough for their saliva to heal the wounds, and fuzzed his memory before sending him on his way again. All he’d remember was that the run had taken more out of him than usual.

Mark could have tried to bespell his own donor, of course, but it would have taken longer, and he’d have had to spring for a nice dinner and a movie. Stella’s methods were much more efficient.

Afterward, they headed back for the Caddy, and since he didn’t have Stella’s patience, Mark was about to explode with his news by the time she asked, “What did you find out?”

He told her everything Norcomb had told him but wasn’t so distracted that he didn’t notice that Stella was driving back toward the Spivey family plot. He finished as they arrived, and when she parked the car, he followed her to the grave.

She just looked at it. Though it was a much darker night, he had no doubt that she could read each letter of the tombstone’s inscription.

“We could have her moved to a public cemetery,” he said.

“How would we explain it to that cop?”

“We’ll tell him Aunt Estelle doesn’t like a stranger in here, that she wants this space. Hell, we’ve got enough lawyers and money that we don’t have to explain anything. Or you can bespell him—that would be cheaper.”

“I don’t want to do that to her.”

“It’s not like she’d know. She’s dead—really dead, I mean. It wouldn’t hurt her feelings.”

“How do you know?”

“Because there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“A year ago, you’d have said that there’s no such thing as vampires. A year from now, there’s no telling what you’ll be saying.”

A chill ran down Mark’s spine, but that was a conversation he wasn’t ready for. “Well, if she is watching, she’ll understand why you want your grave back.”

But Stella shook her head. “I don’t want to just dump her somewhere. At least here, she’s got Norcomb looking after her. She won’t be forgotten.”

“Then we’ll move her to another spot here in the Spivey plot.”

“No. Why should I care if there’s somebody buried here anyway? It’s not like I’m planning to use the grave. And who knows? Maybe someday Norcomb will figure out who she is, and her people will take her home.”

“Maybe,” Mark said doubtfully, knowing that the majority of cold cases were never solved. What had Norcomb said? That there wasn’t enough time or money to pursue an investigation forever. Mark considered it. Time wasn’t a problem for him, thanks to the eternal life clause of vampirism, and neither was money. Stella was loaded and, as was customary, had settled a big chunk of change onto him when she brought him over.

“Stella, did you ever read the Nancy Drew books?”

“Why?” Before he could answer, she said, “Are you seriously suggesting we go snooping around like Nancy Drew to find out what happened to Jane?”

“Why not? We’ve got no plans for the next few days.”

“And you believe you can solve a murder in a few days when the police haven’t been able to in two years?”

“I don’t think it’s any more ridiculous than believing in vampires.”

She gave him a look.

“Okay, maybe it is,” he conceded. “But how about this? We snoop around for a few days, and if nothing comes of it, we’ll hire a private investigator. How does that sound?”

“Ridiculous.” Then she smiled. “Let’s do it.”

Mark still didn’t believe Jane Doe’s spirit was watching, but he sketched a salute toward her tombstone as they left, just in case.

“What first?” he said once they were in the car.

“Are you admitting that even though this was your idea, you have no plans about what we should do first?”

“I’m a big-picture guy. I leave the details to you.”

“I see,” Stella said dryly. “In that case, I think I’d like to meet my third-cousin once removed, or whatever relation Officer Norcomb is to me.”

They decided making another call to the police station to track him down might provoke unwelcome attention, so rather than drive back to get to Mark’s laptop in Raleigh, Stella called Ramon in Boston and asked him to find Norcomb’s address and directions to his house.

After hanging up, she said, “By the way, Ramon said—”

“I know, he said to remind me to put dirt in my bed. Smug bastard! I’ll come up with a way to get him back one of these days.”

“Would it help if I mentioned that Ramon is afraid of snakes?”

“Is he?” Mark said with just the kind of fiendish grin a vampire was supposed to sport. He was happily plotting revenge when they passed by Norcomb’s house. A squad car was parked in the driveway, making it a good bet that Stella’s cousin was at home.

Stella drove a few blocks farther and parked outside a dark house. “Does he live alone?”

“No wedding band, so he’s not married, and he mentioned calling his mother, so he doesn’t live with her,” Mark said.

“Good. I don’t want to risk anybody seeing the car, so you take it and keep circling the area. I’ll call you on the cell when I need you.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

“Don’t get lost!” She scooted out and was gone in a blink, while Mark moved to the driver’s seat to randomly drive up and down the streets of the housing development, hoping nobody would notice him. An hour and a half later, his cell rang.

“Stella?”

“No, it’s dear old Aunt Estelle. Do you remember that big red house right after we turned onto Norcomb’s street?”

“Having driven past it approximately twenty-eight times tonight, I doubt I’ll ever forget it.”

“Pick me up there.”

“Aye aye—”

“Once was funny. After that it gets old.”

“Yes, beloved.”

“That one never gets old.”

“Neither do we,” Mark said, and broke the connection.

Stella wasn’t in sight when he drove up but appeared at his window almost immediately. “Move over.” She climbed in and, as she got the car moving, tossed a yellow legal pad and a videotape into his lap.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“My notes from my talk with Norcomb and a copy of the Wal-Mart security tape. Or rather the copy of his copy that I had him make. If he’d had a photocopier, I’d have copied the case files, too.”

“He had all that at his house?”

“For one, your talk today got him thinking about Jane again, and for another, I think he’s a little obsessed with her.”

“Clearly.” Then a thought occurred to him. “He didn’t kill her himself, did he?”

“Nancy Drew would be proud of you,” she said approvingly, “but no, he did not. I asked.”

“You’re sure? How thoroughly did you bespell him?”

“Deeply enough that he won’t remember me, you, or Aunt Estelle. I could have made him forget his own address while I was at it, but that seemed a bit excessive.”

“You’ve got to teach me how to do that.”

“It just takes practice,” she said.

“What else did he tell you?”

“Everything he knows about the case, but there wasn’t a lot more than what he told you, unless you count the forensic details: decomposition, tissue damage, lividity. I’d have been done half an hour sooner if I hadn’t had to ask what all the terminology means.”

“You’ll have to watch more CSI. Any leads we can use?”

“Possibly. It turns out that Jane was at Benny’s the day she went to Wal-Mart.”

“That’s where I met Norcomb. Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Not really. How many restaurants do you think there are in Allenville?”

“Good point. Was she there before or after her shopping spree?”

“Before, when her outfit was still noticeable. Black on black, with a skull ring.”

“No wonder she threw it away.”

“A good thing she did, or the murderer would have disposed of it along with the clothes she was wearing when he killed her.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, it turns out my cousin is one devoted investigator. He went to the dump and found Jane’s old clothes, still stuffed in the shopping bag.”

“Don’t tell me he had that at his house, too?”

“He did. Having a boy like that in the family does my heart proud.”

“And well it might. Did you learn anything from the clothes?”

“I didn’t want to handle them too much—I’ve watched enough CSI to know about contaminating evidence—but I did get a good whiff of them. Of course, I got a good whiff of garbage from the dump, too, but still, I’ve got Jane’s scent.”

“Stella, how good do you smell?”

“Sweet enough to make bees give up roses, according to the perfume bottle.”

“Granted, even without the perfume, but I was referring to your sense of smell. Compared to, say, a bloodhound’s.”

“I’ve never made the comparison,” she said, “but I am considered gifted, even for a vampire.”

“Gifted enough that you’ll be able to track her after two years?”

“It’s a long shot, but since this whole idea is a long shot…”

“True enough.”

It took a while for Stella to find a secluded parking place somewhat near where Jane’s body had been found, though it was still a long enough walk that Mark was glad they were wearing running shoes. Even vampires got blisters on their feet from walking too far in dress shoes.

Finally they found the spot Stella was sure matched the description in the police report, just past a decrepit wooden fence. The neon of Benny’s was visible as a glow above the tree line.

“Now I know why you reeked when you came to bed today,” she said.

Mark inhaled deeply and regretted it. “I see what you mean about chicken farms. They’re foul. Or fowl, if you’d rather.”

“It’s not the chicken,” Stella said. “Yes, I smell them, and yes, they are foul, but there’s something else.”

He started to ask what she meant, but she was leaning over, sniffing at the ground. Mark decided further bloodhound references would not go over well, so concentrated on staying out of her way as she wandered this way and that, sometimes breaking into a run so fast that he’d have lost her if he weren’t a vampire, too.

Finally, after he’d chased her over what seemed like half the state, Stella came to a dead stop. “Here.”

“You actually tracked her?” he said incredulously.

“No, you were right. It’s been too long. I caught a trace of Jane’s scent back where the body was, but that’s it.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“I smelled somebody else. There’s another body here, Mark—we’re standing on the grave.”

“Are you sure?”

“Can’t you smell it?”

“You know I’m new at this,” he grumbled, but leaned over and tried again. She was right. The stench of death was there, though masked by the chickens’ stink and several feet of earth between them and the corpse. “It’s not fresh.”

“No, but I think the one over there is.” She pointed a little bit away.

“There’s another?”

“More than that, I think.”

“Jesus, Stella, what have we gotten ourselves into?”

Between their sense of self-preservation and the realization that dawn was coming, they made their way back to the car and drove back to the hotel, arguing as they went. Mark was in favor of an anonymous call to Norcomb about the bodies, along with another bout of be-spelling him if necessary, but Stella wasn’t willing to risk their involvement coming to light.

Or so she said, but Mark suspected that she just didn’t want to give up their investigation, and when he said so, she pulled rank on him. He objected, and by the time they got back to the hotel, they were no longer speaking.

Mark was still angry when he woke the next day, and both ignored Stella and pretended he’d never heard of Jane Doe. It was only when he’d gone out for lunch, defiantly eating a large bowl of chili with onions on top, that his resolve weakened, as it always did with Stella. She was older, richer, stronger, and faster than he was, and had other vampiric abilities he was just beginning to discover, and he still felt protective of her. He had no idea if it was a man-woman thing, a vampire-sire thing, or just a Mark-Stella thing. Whatever it was, he went to buy something they were going to need, and nearly had it set up when Stella woke.

Her nose wrinkled, so he knew she smelled his lunch despite his using a whole bottle of mouthwash, but she refrained from comment. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I got a VCR so we can watch the security tape.” He made the last connection, turned on the TV and VCR, and reached for the tape.

Stella got to it first. “We don’t have to do this,” she said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know.”

“All that ‘I’m your sire and I say so!’ stuff is bullshit!”

Mark blinked at that—Stella rarely swore—and repeated, “I know.”

“Then why did you get the VCR?”

“Consider it a belated birthday gift.”

She smiled. “Only if you come here and let me give you an early birthday gift.”

He started to join her on the bed but then stopped. “My lunch was kind of smelly.”

“So I won’t kiss you. Not on the lips, anyway.”

An hour later, they got around to watching the video. Norcomb had put together a greatest hits tape, with snippets from various camera views that showed Jane. The film quality was mediocre, but they got the general idea.

Jane arrived dressed in urban Goth glory—black cargo pants, a black T-shirt ripped at the neckline, scuffed black boots. Her hair was, of course, black with the flat look of a cheap dye job. It was short, but Mark couldn’t tell if it had been styled to look asymmetrical or just hadn’t been brushed recently. She must have used half a tube of mascara to ring her eyes so thoroughly, and she was wearing a fine selection of heavy-looking Goth adornments: a skull ring, a bat wing necklace, and other less visible chains and rings.

“She doesn’t exactly blend in, does she?” Mark said.

“But she doesn’t seem to mind being stared at,” Stella commented.

Even though nearly everybody who saw her did a double-take, Jane strode through the store confidently, not seeming to notice them. She headed out of range of that camera, and the view switched to the juniors department. Jane went through the racks to pick out a pair of jeans and a light blue pullover sweater. After a trip to the dressing room, which was not documented, she went to the shoe department to try on sneakers in blinding white. She got socks, too—the ones she was wearing had holes in both big toes. Next she got panties and a bra.

“Granny panties,” Stella said thoughtfully.

“Beg pardon,” Mark said.

“The female equivalent of tighty whities. Waist-high briefs, instead of a bikini or a thong.”

The next scene was of her standing next to a rack of hats, and she settled on a light blue sun hat, the kind of modified ball cap Mark saw girls wearing in the summer.

She went to the register with her gleanings, still ignoring the curious looks she was getting, and once it was all paid for, headed toward the bathroom. There was a break in the film, and it started up again with her coming out again. Now Jane was dressed in her new outfit, and with her face scrubbed clean, her hair hidden under the hat, and the jewelry gone, she looked like a new person. The people walking past her didn’t give her a second glance, except a high school boy who flashed a grin.

Jane walked toward the front of the store, carrying the Wal-Mart bag that presumably carried her old things. But just before she stepped out, she looked at the bag, then stuffed it into a trash can by the door. She walked out the door, and after ten seconds more, the tape ended.

“Kudos to your cousin for spotting her,” Mark said. “I wouldn’t have known it was the same girl.”

“I don’t know that I would have, either,” Stella said. “Not by sight anyway. So how did her killer recognize her?”

“He must have known her well.”

“What about the other bodies?”

“Norcomb thinks drugs were involved,” Mark said, “and drug dealers make lots of enemies. Though I have to say that Allenville doesn’t seem like the place for that kind of activity, even with the big city nearby.”

Stella rewound to the part where Jane emerged from the bathroom. “She looks a lot younger like that. Even her body language changed. Before she was so sure of herself—now she looks almost timid.”

“Part of the disguise?”

“Maybe.” Stella watched to the end again, shut it off, and announced, “I’m getting hungry.”

They decided not to risk returning to the lakeside park from the previous night and instead went to the North Carolina State Fair, which was in full swing. After Mark won a stuffed version of Seasame Street’s Count from the milk bottle throw, they started looking for a likely target.

“There,” Stella said, nudging Mark in the side. A group of women who looked like college students was discussing what ride to go on next, and when they decided on the Ferris wheel, one of them begged off, saying she wanted to get something to drink. The others kidded her for being afraid of heights and joined the long line for the ride.

“Perfect,” Mark said. They followed the acrophobic girl for a few minutes, then flanked her, and Stella made eye contact to bespell her instantly. It took only a few minutes to find a secluded spot between trailers, and Stella fed while Mark kept watch. Then they escorted the girl back, Mark bought her a Coke, and Stella implanted the idea that a very attractive man had flirted with her.

They were halfway back to the hotel when Stella said, “That’s it!”

“That’s what?”

“Why did we pick that girl to feed on?”

“Because she was temporarily alone.”

“Because she was vulnerable. Now think about how Jane looked. Before she changed clothes, she looked tough and streetwise. People stared at her but nobody messed with her. Afterward, she looked vulnerable.”

“Okay.”

“Norcomb thought she changed clothes as a disguise, and that may be it, but maybe that’s not why she was killed. What if she was killed because she was vulnerable? What if somebody saw that and marked her as his prey?”

“Another vampire?”

“No—the autopsy report had nothing about her being drained. But we’re not the only predators around.”

“Meaning what?” Mark said, thinking uncomfortably of those other things Stella had referred to before. “Werewolves? Zombies? Ghouls?”

“I’d have smelled any of them at the graves we found,” Stella said matter-of-factly, and Mark didn’t know if she was kidding or not. “I’m talking about a human monster.”

“A serial killer,” Mark said, momentarily relieved, “with a penchant for young girls.”

Stella nodded. “We know Jane was at Benny’s before she went to Wal-Mart, but we don’t know where she went next. If she was passing through, wouldn’t she go back to the truck stop to look for a ride? And if you lived in Allenville and wanted a steady supply of victims, wouldn’t you hang around Benny’s to find them?”

“May I point out that Benny’s isn’t far from where Jane’s body was found and from where the other bodies still are.”

“Right you are, Ned.”

“Ned?”

“Ned Nickerson. Nancy Drew’s boyfriend.”

“So what would Nancy and Ned do in a case like this?”

“Set a trap for the killer.”

“A trap requires bait.”

“Who do we know who looks younger and more vulnerable than she really is?” Stella said, batting her eyelashes.

Despite his teasing before, Stella really did look older than the eighteen she’d been before making the Choice. Mark didn’t understand how—something about the way she moved, or her clothes and makeup—but she looked like a woman, not a girl. At least, she always had until retreating into the bathroom with the bag of stuff she’d bought at Target on the way back to the hotel.

Mark was watching CNN when he heard, “Excuse me?” in a timid voice.

He looked up to see a girl in khaki crop pants with a peacock blue cami that did nothing to hide the pink bra strap beneath or her generous bosom. Her soft brown hair was held off from her face with a glittery headband, and her makeup was frosted pastels. Her necklace said “Princess,” with a heart dotting the i.

“Stella?” he said wonderingly.

“How do I look?” She spun around.

“Like jailbait. If you were my daughter, I would order barbed wire for the fence and a chastity belt for you.”

She dimpled—he hadn’t known she could dimple—and said, “Do you think you could, you know, let me use your car?”

“Dear Lord, you even speak young! I’ll drive—you don’t look old enough to have a license.”

Damned if she didn’t dimple again.

Mark was still a bit unnerved when, halfway to Allenville, Stella reached over and stroked his thigh. “Do you want to, like, park somewhere before we go in?”

“God, no!”

“I beg your pardon?” she said as she drew her hand back, sounding like her old self.

“No offense, but I never cared for Lolita, and you’re just too damned convincing.”

“I thought all men fantasized about young girls.”

“I prefer women.”

“I see,” she said, sounding more thoughtful than offended.

“Were you like this when you were eighteen?”

“Well, I probably would have dressed in comparable fashion, given the choice, but for one, we didn’t have the money, and for another, Mama would never have allowed it.”

“Good for her,” Mark said self-righteously. “Now, if you could make yourself up as a coed, maybe midtwenties…”

“Pervert,” she said amiably.

Mark exited at a rest area they’d seen a mile before the Allenville exit, and parked around back. Stella got out and, after checking to see that nobody was watching, slipped into the bushes to make her way to Benny’s over land. Mark returned to the highway to drive the rest of the way.

The truck stop was bustling with vacationers, locals, and truckers. Mark snagged the last open booth and ordered a cheeseburger with no onions, fries, and a beer. Then he pulled out his laptop and a stack of paperwork so it wouldn’t look suspicious if he stayed around for a while.

Mark knew Stella had arrived before he saw her, thanks to their sire-vampire, or dam-vampire, relationship. But he tried not to watch as she found a seat at the counter, made a show of counting out how little money she had, and asked for a burger and a small Coke. When he finally risked a glance in her direction, he saw that she’d let herself get a touch grubby during her trip through the woods, making the illusion of a runaway that much more convincing.

For the next hour and a half, Mark ate, sipped his beer, fiddled with papers, and watched as people wandered past Stella. She made eye contact with every lone man she saw, and some of the women, but while reactions included delight, disgust, and lust, nobody reacted like the predator they were looking for. She even asked a couple of the men for rides, but nobody took her up on it.

The crowd thinned, Mark was running out of things to do, and Stella had been nursing the last quarter inch of her Coke for half an hour when Mark decided that their quarry hadn’t come in that night. They might well have to stake out the place for weeks, especially if the killer was a trucker or commuter. Stella’s repeated presence would be noticed, even if she changed her look, so he’d started considering other young-looking vampires they could enlist to play bait when he saw the cook coming out of the kitchen.

The man looked like he was in his midthirties, stocky, with greasy hair Mark hoped was caused by his own body chemistry and not the food he prepared. He slipped an order of fries in front of Stella along with another glass of Coke.

She tried to thank him, but he scurried away before the waitress could see him.

Stella, still in character as a hungry runaway, scarfed the fries down. Mark was impressed. She could still eat regular food, but her body gained no nutrition from it, and since her senses were so refined, she rarely enjoyed the taste. Eating the burger must have been a strain, and to add fries on top showed how seriously she was taking their investigation.

Another half an hour passed. Mark was about to gather his belongings and give Stella their prearranged signal to call it a night when the cook snuck back out of the kitchen and placed another full glass in front of Stella, again not meeting her eyes when she tried to thank him.

The hairs on the back of Mark’s neck prickled. Random generosity wasn’t unheard of, but something about the man’s furtive movements bothered him. Besides which, the man was supposed to be working in the kitchen, not watching customers.

While Mark was trying to work it out, Stella drank down the Coke and left enough money on the counter to pay her check. Then she stood up and wobbled, as if she’d lost her balance. Mark’s eyes narrowed. Vampires, at least vampires as old as Stella, didn’t lose their balance.

Their plan had been to leave separately, with at least five minutes between their exits, so Mark stayed put, despite his consternation. What was Stella playing at anyway? Trying to look more available by pretending to be drunk, even though all she’d had was Coke? Cokes, he corrected. Two of which had been given for free by a man who was acting decidedly odd. “Jesus!” Mark whispered. The bastard had put something into Stella’s drinks!

He shoved his things into his briefcase, threw money onto the table, and headed for the door. He stopped by the car, hoping Stella had used her key to get in, but when she wasn’t there, he tossed the stuff into the trunk and grabbed a tire iron.

He slowly walked through the parking lot, checking for Stella’s scent, and caught it leading out across the field in the direction of the chicken barn. There was another scent mingled with hers, the strong sweat from the truck stop cook.

They’d lured out their predator, and in normal circumstances, Mark would have had no doubts about Stella’s safety, but the way she’d been weaving as she went out the door worried him. He couldn’t have been too far behind, and he was moving with the speed even a young vampire could muster, but he couldn’t see them, and he quickly lost the scent.

Had his nose misled him? Had the man gotten Stella into a car or even met up with a confederate? Where were they? He was alone in a field, with nothing in sight but the truck stop behind him and the chicken barn before him, when he realized where they had to be. He ran toward the barn.

As he got closer, he heard talking and recognized Stella’s voice, even though it was slurred.

“Where are we? Who did you say you were anyway?”

“Just a friend,” a man’s voice said, and Mark guessed it was the cook. “I thought you might need a place to sleep. See, there’s a bed here.”

“It smells funny.”

“That’s just the chickens. If you lay down, you’ll be asleep in no time, and it won’t bother you anymore. Here, let me help you take your shoes off.”

Stretching up, Mark could peer into the window of the room where Stella and the man were, and even from the outside, he knew the smells in that room had nothing to do with chickens. While he watched, he saw Stella’s eyes drift shut, and she slumped to the floor.

“That’s my girl,” the cook said, and reached for her.

Mark had seen enough. He ran around the building until he found the door. It was locked, but he shoved his shoulder against it, splintering it. More chickens than Mark had ever seen at one time fluttered wildly, clucking and shrieking and making even more protesting noises as he ran through them to get to the door that lead to Stella. The man had heard him coming, of course, and was waiting behind the door as Mark burst in. Mark had been expecting it and dodged at the last minute, which was enough to deflect the knife thrust from his back to his arm.

Unfortunately it was the arm with the tire iron, which slipped from Mark’s grasp as he whirled around to face his attacker.

It took Mark only an instant to take in the scene, the man standing in front of where Stella lay sprawled on the bed. He was about to launch himself when a hand moving so fast it seemed to appear from nowhere latched itself onto the killer. Between his legs. Gripping his genitals.

He crumpled with a sound that would have been a scream if he’d had enough breath for it.

Stella went down with him, still squeezing. The expression on her face had nothing to do with the nymphet she’d been pretending to be and everything to do with a vampire.

“All right, you son of of a bitch,” she said. “Tell me who Jane Doe is before I rip your prick off!”

“I don’t know,” he wheezed.

“Are you telling me you don’t know one of your victims is buried in the Spivey family plot?”

“I know she’s there, but I don’t know her name. I don’t know any of their names.”

“You lying sack of shit,” Stella said, squeezing harder. “You kept her clothes, didn’t you? I bet you jacked off in them. There must have been something.”

“Nothing. I swear. Only a little money.”

“Tell me!”

The man’s face was starting to change colors.

“I don’t think he knows,” Mark said.

She didn’t let up.

“Stella, he doesn’t know. Trust me—no man is going to let you keep doing that if he has any way to stop you.”

For a long moment she still didn’t react; then, with a last squeeze, she let go. The man rolled into a ball and whimpered.

“Are you all right?” Mark asked.

“Of course. You know drugs can’t affect me.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Mark admitted. “You’re a very good actress.”

“What about you? That bastard stabbed you,” Stella said, and Mark finally noticed that his arm was bleeding freely. “Does it hurt?”

“Quite a bit, actually.”

Stella stepped over the killer, touched the blood with one finger, and brought the finger up to her mouth. Then she gave Mark a kiss that almost made him forget the pain.

“You’re welcome,” he said breathlessly. “What do we do now?”

“First we take care of your arm,” she said, and leaned over to start lapping at his wound. Not only did it stop the bleeding, but it felt damned good, too.

With that done, Stella dragged the killer from the floor, grabbed his chin to make him look her in the eyes, and bespelled him so thoroughly he’d have laid still for her to finish squeezing his balls off, if she’d asked him to. Then she told him exactly what he was going to remember about this night. How he’d drugged the girl at the truck stop and brought her to his nest, meaning to rape and kill her the way he had the others. But the girl had fought back, gotten in a lucky blow, and left him unconscious on the floor. Meanwhile Mark did a bit of stage decoration, leaving threads from Stella’s clothes on the bed and dropping the princess necklace on the floor. Then they picked up the tire iron and made their way out through the still-agitated flock in the barn.

Their next stop was the pay phone outside the truck stop, where Stella called the police to tell them who had attacked her and where. When they asked who she was, she hung up.

Mark already had the car running, and they lost no time in taking off, driving away just as the first police car arrived, siren blaring.

Despite the lingering pain in his arm, Mark was feeling pretty pleased with himself. “What do you know? We solved the case.”

“No, we didn’t. We still don’t know who Jane Doe is.”

“But we did catch a serial killer. Nancy Drew never did that, I bet. Not only will he not kill anymore, but now they’ll find his other victims. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Of course it does. I’ve been thinking of all those mothers who must have been wondering what happened to their daughters. It’s made my coming home worthwhile. I just wish we could have found out who Jane is. Her mother needs to know, too.”

They were quiet for a few miles.

Then Mark said, “Stella, about coming home. Why now?”

“I told you. For my birthday.”

“You’ve never come back for your birthday before, and eighty-two isn’t a particularly meaningful birthday.”

“No, but it’s been a meaningful year. Because of you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re the first vampire I’ve sired. Or damned. My first child.”

“I’m not a child.”

“No, but you are the closest thing I’ve got to a child. You’re my bloodline. Is it any wonder that I’ve been thinking about my human bloodline?”

“And about your mother?” he guessed.

She nodded. “Granted that my feelings toward you aren’t precisely maternal—”

“Thank God for that!”

“But it has made me think about being a mother and how I’d feel if anything happened to you. How Mama must have felt when I died. God, Mark, I was a terrible daughter!”

“Why would you say that?”

“I told you—when Vilmos gave me the Choice, I never looked back. Ever. I lived the high life in Europe for decades, and by the time I even thought to check on Mama, she’d been dead for years. I forgot she existed. And I guess she forgot me, too.”

There was no way Mark could answer her, no way he could comfort her, so he didn’t even try.

Only when they were in bed did he say, “If I’m your child, does this mean I’ve got to give you a Mother’s Day present?”

Her smile was his reward. “Damned straight! I want breakfast in bed, flowers, and a bottle of perfume, too.”

“It’s a deal.”

The results of the night’s adventures were all over the news the next morning, and Mark spent most of the day watching the story unfold, as the newscasters put it. He was still watching when Stella woke for the night.

“Did it work?” she asked him.

In answer, he pointed to the TV screen, where the local news was discussing the case, complete with film of Officer Norcomb with the killer cook in cuffs. “They’ve found two bodies already. This guy has been working at the truck stop for several years, so there’s no telling how many more there are.”

“Has he said anything about Jane?”

“Only that he killed her but got interrupted by hunters before he could bury her, and she was found before he had another opportunity. Nothing about who she was.”

“Oh.”

“We did good, Stella. You did good.”

“I know.”

“Besides, with all the extra publicity, maybe somebody will come forward with new information. You know Norcomb isn’t going to give up now. And if he does, you can bespell him into changing his mind.”

“True enough. Are you hungry?”

“I am. Hey! I didn’t eat any food today—I didn’t even think of it.”

“My little boy is growing up.”

He gave her a determinedly Oedipal kiss and said, “There’s an NC State game this evening. Should be a good place to get a bite. I’ll hit the shower. Want to join me?”

“No, thanks. I want to get dinner before midnight this time.”

“Spoilsport.”

When Mark was done, he saw Stella was watching TV but not the news. Instead she was watching the security tape of Jane.

“Stella…”

“I’m not brooding. There’s just something about Jane that’s not right. Or rather about Norcomb’s explanation of what she was doing in Allenville.”

“How so?”

“He figured she was tied into drug dealing, but all we really know is that a girl who looked like a runaway came to Wal-Mart and bought new clothes. If she wasn’t disguising herself, why the makeover?”

Mark thought about it. “Could she have been doing the same thing you are?”

She cocked her head at him. “Meaning what?”

“You were sort of a runaway but eventually you wanted to come home. Right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Hear me out. When you came back to Allenville, suddenly you had an accent again. You kind of reverted to who you used to be. Maybe Jane was reverting, too. She’d been this Goth creature of the night, but now that she was coming home, she wanted to become a normal girl again. So she stopped at Wal-Mart, dressed like her old self, and threw the Goth identity away. She wanted to go home.”

Stella looked at him, eyes wide. “You’re a genius!”

Mark tried to look modest and pointed out, “Of course, that doesn’t really help us figure out who she was.”

“It might. Jane only bought one set of clothes, and she put them on right away. That means she expected to get home that night or the next day at the latest—otherwise the new clothes would have gotten dirty. She may not have been from Allenville, but she was local. This could narrow Norcomb’s search enough to find her!”

“It must be hereditary—you’re a genius, too! Shall we call in another anonymous tip?”

“I’ve got a better idea.” Stella got ready in record time, and they took yet another trip to Allenville. It took a while to track down Norcomb, what with his working the biggest case of his career, but once they found him, it didn’t take long for Stella to bespell him and plant both the idea about finding Jane and the conviction that he’d thought it up himself. As Stella put it, it was the least she could do for family.

They stuck around Raleigh for a while longer as the police continued to find bodies, celebrating when two of the victims were identified by personal effects kept by the killer. But the big celebration came when Norcomb announced that Jane’s real name was Leah and that her family lived in nearby Cary. They’d heard about Jane Doe, but between the poor quality of the Wal-Mart security tapes and the changes in Leah’s appearance during the four years she was gone, they’d never made the connection between Jane and their daughter.

The next day, the newspaper reported that an anonymous donor was paying for Leah’s body to be moved closer to her family and that a tasteful granite monument would be included. Mark was among the many who attended the funeral, making sure that Leah finally got back home.

Stella was ready to head back to Boston, maybe stopping in New York to see some shows, but Mark put her off, pointing out that the state fair was still going on, and they hadn’t ridden all the rides. Though he knew that she knew he was up to something, she played along.

The next night, Mark drove them back to Allenville, and parked outside the Spivey family plot.

“Okay, why are we out here?” Stella asked.

“I want you to show you something.”

He led her through the gate toward where her parents were buried, and she couldn’t resist looking over toward Jane’s, or rather Leah’s, former grave. “Why did they leave the tombstone?”

“Let’s look.”

He was watching her face as she got closer and realized it was a different stone.

She turned to him. “You bought me a tombstone?”

“I was going to,” he admitted, “but somebody beat me to it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I went to see Bob Henry. He’s the man who donated Jane’s tombstone, and I thought a little karmic payback was in order, so I was going to order one for you from him. When I told him where it was to be placed, he mentioned that his family had been in the business for several generations, and that they’ve done all the monuments in this plot. And when I told him the name to put on the stone, he told me the story.”

“What story?”

“Do you remember the tree that used to be over your grave? Lightning hit it years after you were buried and knocked it down.”

“So?”

“So it fell on the tombstone your mother had put up for you and broke it.”

“Then she did get me a stone?”

He nodded. “She had Bob Henry Senior take it back to repair it, but she was already ill and died before she could finish paying for the work. It was still in the storeroom. All I did was pay the balance and a rush charge to get it out here tonight.”

“Then Mama bought this?”

“It was her last gift to you.”

Stella knelt down on the grave and ran her fingers over the stone’s inscription. Not her name, or the dates of her birth and death, but the two words under her name:

Beloved Daughter