It rang and rang. My stomach sank.
And then someone answered. The line went live, but with no sounds.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Do you know what time it is?” came the response.
I knew that voice. I
“I’m already up. What do you want?” the voice said, in an unhappy tone.
“I need a lawyer. A vampire lawyer. I’ve been summoned to the next tribunal.”
There was a pregnant pause. “The case against you is?”
“Murder.”
“And you are?”
“Edie Spence.”
“And the reason you’ve been summoned?”
“Swear to take my case, please,” I said, all in one rush.
The vampire at the other end chuckled to himself. “I swear to offer you no-obligation legal advice and that everything you say to me during the course of this phone call falls under client-attorney privilege, seeing as I have not so far declined your case.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Let us say that for now you are my client and thus protected. I cannot promise that you will remain my client after this phone call, but the protection will remain.”
“First off—if I’m up for murder, what happens if I’m convicted?”
“Your death. Perhaps worse.”
I swallowed. He didn’t sound like he even knew how to joke.
“Tell me everything,” he continued.
I told him my story as quickly as I could—and also Paul’s theory about entrapment.
“Doubtful. Still—the solution is easy. Find the girl, and have her speak on your behalf.”
“I have no idea where she went.” The last time I’d really seen her, she was leaping away over a dead vampire’s flaming corpse. “How do you find a vampire who doesn’t want to be found?”
“With difficulty.”
There was a long pause, during which I was unsure what to say. “So you’ll take my case?” I prompted.
“You don’t have a case, unless you find the girl.”
“But if I find her?”
“Then I’ll represent you, yes.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then it will all be rather one-sided, won’t it?” He cleared his throat. “This is my personal line. Don’t call it again until you know where she is.”
And the phone went dead.
I turned off my cell phone, crawled into bed, and stared at the ceiling. Minnie tugged at the sheets with a paw until I let her underneath the comforter. What would become of her if I was convicted? The image of Mr. November’s refrigerator was still fresh in my mind, as was the knowledge that Jake could not be trusted with her care. He’d sell her on Craigslist for weed. I sighed and she purred. What had I gotten myself into?
I tossed and turned, until Minnie gave up on sleeping next to me. This was exactly the sort of situation it would be nice to have someone around for. Not that I wanted anyone else to share my problems—and who could I tell about things, really?—but someone would be nice. I thought about Asher’s phone number stuck to my fridge, got out of bed, and brought it into the bedroom with me. I toyed with the idea of calling it, before reminding myself that it was daytime. People like Asher had a normal life and a daytime job. I set it down on my nightstand and gave myself permission to call him in a day or two, maybe once I had a plan. I didn’t want to need him—I didn’t want to need anyone,
I gave up and took an Ambien, God’s gift to night shift workers. A thousand different things I woulda-coulda- shoulda occupied my mind for the three minutes it took to kick in, but after that, quality pharmaceuticals saved the day.
When I woke up it was dark. I panicked and grabbed my phone. Eight forty-two P.M. I wasn’t late to work— yet. Or on trial. Stupid winter. Stupid vampires. Stupid depression making me sleep too long. I sat on my bed and stared out my window while I woke up. There was a light covering of fresh snow dusting the tops of all the cars outside, making them look like a row of worn-down teeth. I found the shape of my Chevy underneath the snow. I could put everything I owned in my car, even Minnie, and drive away now. But then there was Jake. What would happen to him if I broke my contract with County and Y4 and there was nothing keeping him a junkie-superman anymore?
I pulled up my blinds and pressed my forehead against the window, so that the chill outside could cool my fevered thoughts. I saw small footprints chasing down the side of the complex from the street, up to the front of my place and away again. I could see an instep in the prints, and a clear separation of toes. My breath fogged the glass, and I swiped it clean to stare again, as a wind struck up outside.
Could they—what was it Jake had said, about my neighbor’s creepy kid? Only my neighbors didn’t have a kid. Unit nine had a baby boy—but unless they were feeding him mutant growth hormones, there was no way he’d made that trail, without shoes, no less.
My phone’s loudest and longest alarm went off, the absolute last “you need to get your ass out the door, now, to clock in on time” alarm. I turned it off, and ran for the bathroom to brush my teeth.
I trotted outside, coat and bag in tow, to stare at the footprints outside my door. There was a small patch of earth outside my window where dandelions grew in the summer. The wind had drifted snow into the shallow footprints, enough to make me pause and question myself. I felt sure I’d seen them clearly. I was almost sure I had, I thought, as they completely disappeared.
“Edie?” someone said, and I whirled. I took a step backward, wishing I hadn’t already locked my door. Asher was there, getting out of a warm car. He had flowers. Bright expensive tropical ones. I stood there for a moment, stunned.
“Hey there,” I said, when I remembered how. He couldn’t see, but I was smiling from ear to ear.
“I thought we could maybe go on a date.” He held the arrangement out to me.
“I’d like that.” I stepped forward into the parking lot’s lights. “But I have to work tonight.”
He got one good look at me, in green scrubs, my hair in a ponytail, and his flower-holding hand faltered. “I should have known,” he said. The birds of paradise sank down to the level of his perfect thigh.
“Known what?” I asked. My guard, which sometime between last night and today I’d let drop, due to either sentimentality or exhaustion, rushed back to me. My smile evaporated and serious nurse Edie took over.
“What are you?” he asked.
“I’m a nurse,” I said. And then I put it all together. The accent, the money, the car—the attitude. “Oh, God. You’re a doctor, aren’t you?” There was no one I wanted to date less in the world than a doctor. They could fake seeming human at first—medicine doctors more so than surgeons—but it never lasted. Whatever pleasant shyness they’d begun their careers with when they were your resident and needed your help was gone by the time they returned as an attending, knowing everything. I’d met a ton of older male doctors. The years of being right on most things, compounded by an interest in hearing their own voice be loudest, were like layers of nacre over a center of shit. They might look like pearls on the outside to people who’d never have to call them at three A.M. begging for an important test—but when you were a nurse you began to feel like most of them were swine.
I’d never known a doctor-nurse relationship to survive—unless one of them was a shrink, or a dentist.
“Where do you work?” he asked, as I got my keys out and edged around him.
“Look, it’s okay. You don’t date nurses, I don’t date doctors. I get it. We’re even.” I opened up my Chevy’s door, and threw my bags inside. “I’m going to be late, I’ve got to go—”
“Where do you work?” he repeated as I sat down. He caught the door before I could close it, flowers shaking in his opposite hand.
