Lauren was perched by her friend’s side.
Bobby was standing, hands on his hips, looking like a crouched tiger ready to spring in any direction.
Sean walked over to the bed. “She all right?” he asked Lauren.
“No change,” she told him.
As he nodded, Mark Davidson returned to the room. “We have to get Deanna out of here,” he said flatly. “Sean, there’s a Judy Lockwood across the hall with Leticia. She wants to talk to you.”
Sean walked to the door, pausing on the way to ask Mark, “And what the hell do I tell her?”
Mark took a deep breath. “I have absolutely no idea,” he admitted, then smiled. “Hey, you’re the cop.” Then he turned serious again. “But we have to get Deanna out of this place.”
Sean, wincing, strode across the hall.
What the hell was he going to say to the woman?
He just hoped he wouldn’t end up having to stake her.
Lauren wasn’t quite sure how Mark managed to convince Deanna’s doctors that she would be better cared for her at home. At first the doctor in charge—called back in from a day’s fishing excursion, wearing a cap with a bouncing bass—was adamant that she wasn’t ready to be released, not while she was still in a coma.
Lauren swore she could care for her, but the doctor kept shaking his head.
Then Mark began to talk. He didn’t say anything she hadn’t said herself, but somehow he was more convincing. Maybe it was a guy thing.. She usually hated that. But at the moment she couldn’t be too upset, because she was getting what she wanted.
The release papers were signed, and arrangements made for a registered nurse to come by three times a day. An ambulance was hired to transport her from the hospital to the house on Bourbon Street.
Lauren rode in the ambulance with Deanna. Sean, Bobby and Mark followed by car. The paramedics helped settle Deanna in, then left.
Heidi was still upset and on edge, but she was behaving normally again, and she was ready to be a little mother hen, clucking over Deanna. She assured Stacey and Bobby that she would be taking over Deanna’s care and would make sure they didn’t impose on anyone, and that she would protect her friend against any evil.
Lauren noticed that Mark seemed to find that final claim, especially, doubtful. He had a hushed conversation with Stacey in the hallway, and Lauren suspected Stacey was assuring him that she had gotten Heidi to understand the danger facing them.
“I really think Heidi is going to be okay,” she whispered to Mark, as he came back into the room. She kept her voice down because Heidi was close by, concentrating on making sure that Deanna’s pillow was properly plumped.
He stared at her as she spoke, seeming distant and tense.
“Really,” she said, catching his arm and leading him toward the door. “She’s herself again.”
Mark sighed, shaking his head. “And Sean told me about Judy Lockwood saying Leticia wouldn’t stay out all night or miss work. Don’t you see? He gets to the people he uses. He literally gets into their blood.”
Sean Canady came up the stairs, staring at Mark. “We’ve got another corpse,” he said.
“Headless?” Lauren asked, swallowing.
“No. And found in a courtyard, not the Mississippi.” He turned back to Mark. “They’re having a hard time discerning how she originally met her demise. She’s pretty well decayed. Apparently she’s been dead for months.”
“A fraternity prank?” Lauren asked, hoping against hope. But then she saw the way Sean and Mark were looking at one another.
“Vampires only explode and turn to dust if they’ve been dead long enough that their body would have decayed already. Apparently we have a few fairly fresh kills on our hands.”
“I think Lauren’s idea of a fraternity prank makes sense. At least, that’s the story I’d go with for the press,” Mark told Sean.
“Hell,” Sean groaned.
“We should go, don’t you think?” Mark said to him.
“To the morgue?” Sean asked.
“To the hospital. We’ve got to see if we can talk to Leticia.” He turned to Lauren. “Stay here. And please, Don’t leave this house.”
“I won’t. Deanna and Heidi are both here,” she said.
“And Bobby and Stacey,” Sean told her. “And I’m going to tell Big Jim that the band will have to do without him for a few nights. Call me if anything, anything at all, happens.” “Absolutely,” she swore.
She nodded, turned and took a seat on the bed next to Deanna, as if to show both men that she wasn’t going anywhere.
Sun streamed in from the balcony. The air-conditioner hummed.
The only odd thing at all was the fact that Stacey had strung cloves of garlic all the way around the windows and the French doors that led to the balcony.
The room smelled like a pizzeria. But there were far worse scents, Lauren had discovered.
