They were allowed to do as they pleased inside the rectangle, as long as they didn’t approach one another or talk. A row of yoga mats had even been set up along one side of the cage, and a couple inmates made use of them to do sit-ups or stretching exercises. The rest just milled around, careful not to get too close to each other. One of them, a big woman with no left ear, only a lump of twisted scar tissue, made a nasty game of it. She would start walking toward one of her fellow inmates until they would be forced to step backward. The COs weren’t timid about shouting for them to keep their space, and anyone who broke through the invisible limit was dragged off, forfeiting their exercise period for the next day. They made no attempt to stop the big woman from herding the others back and forth across the yard, however.
Back in the cell Caxton asked Stimson why the big woman would do such a thing. She was only causing trouble for the others. “She’s a convict,” Stimson said, as if that explained everything.
“So am I. So are you. We don’t pull that kind of bullshit.”
Stimson shook her head excitedly. This was another chance to initiate her celly into the ways of life inside. “No, see, I’m an inmate. There’s a difference. Inmates try to get along. We want to be model prisoners so we can get days on our good-behavior jackets. Convicts are different. They know they’re going to be in and out of prison all their lives, so they got no reason to try to be good. If they can be bad, though, like, real tough, they can get a rep for it, and that’s a good thing, how they see it.”
Caxton thought of Guilty Jen, who had been obsessed with respect and reputation to the point she was willing to kill to get it. “I think I’d rather be an inmate.”
“Yeah?” Stimson asked. “I had you pegged different. A hard case.”
Caxton climbed up onto her bunk and lay back on her mattress. She had to think about what that meant.
As usual, Stimson wouldn’t just let her be. “I’m pretty useful to you, huh?” she asked, pulling herself up onto the side of Caxton’s bunk and leaning her chin on the mattress. “I mean, I can tell you stuff you didn’t know. I can help you out.”
“I guess,” Caxton said.
“We’re connecting, right? We’re bonding. That’s good. ’Cause if I’m useful to you, maybe you can be useful to me. You can protect me. If I get in trouble, you can vouch for me. That’s how it works, right? We’re getting together?”
“Whatever,” Caxton told her.
“I am going to be so useful to you,” Stimson said. “You wait and see. I’m gonna be your road bitch. That’s what you call your best friend inside. See? Useful. I’m gonna be your best friend in the world. And then, and then, and then you can be my mama. If—if—if, you know. If you wanted to.”
Caxton couldn’t look into those trusting eyes anymore. They reminded her too much of the eyes of the dogs she used to rescue. She turned her head away. It was impossible to spend twenty-three hours a day in the cell with Stimson and not talk to the woman. To not interact with her. But the last thing she wanted to do was lead Stimson on. They weren’t friends.
Caxton couldn’t imagine ever being friends with someone like this baby-obsessed speed freak. The second she got out of SCI-Marcy she would never think about Stimson again. It wasn’t fair to pretend otherwise. “I won’t be in here that long,” she said, trying not to put too much edge in her voice. “Maybe your next celly can be your mama.”
“I didn’t mean nothing by it,” Stimson said, dropping back down to the floor. “Shit. I didn’t mean I was going to suck your pussy or nothing.”
“Okay,” Caxton said. “Good to know.”
8.
Malvern struck again and the body count was even higher this time. She’d hit a roadhouse outside of Allentown, just after midnight. One patron had managed to escape to call the local police, but by the time they arrived Malvern had slaughtered two cocktail waitresses, a bartender, a bouncer, and six good old boys who’d just wanted to have a few beers after work. By dawn Clara and Glauer were there, checking for clues. Fetlock was busy in Harrisburg, catching up with his paperwork, so for once the two of them had the scene to themselves.
“She must have had help,” Glauer said, pacing back and forth from the rear exit and the front door. “Look at the arrangement of the bodies. She got the bouncer here, and one of the waitresses—but the rest of them tried to flee out the back. They got—this far,” he said, stopping next to a bad stain on the carpet by the restrooms. The bodies had already been removed by the local coroner—which Clara appreciated, because it meant she didn’t have to see them, even if it also meant some evidence might have been destroyed. “The exit was blocked, so they couldn’t get out.”
“We know she has to have some kind of accomplice,” Clara agreed. “Someone has to drive her from victim to victim. She’s too weak to walk from scene to scene.” A vampire at full strength could outrun a speeding car, but Malvern hadn’t been that strong in centuries. “It could be a human sympathizer. Or a half-dead.” Vampires had the ability to raise their victims from the dead—for a short while. The resulting servants were called half-deads. They rotted away almost fast enough to watch, but as long as they could still stand under their own power they were forced to do the vampire’s bidding.
“There’s another possibility,” Glauer said, meeting Clara’s gaze. He held her eye for a second and then said, “The accomplice could be another vampire.”
Vampires could make more of their kind. In fact, Malvern was an expert at it. Every vampire Laura Caxton had ever destroyed had been one of Malvern’s creations.
Clara shook her head. “That’s not in our profile for her. It saps her strength to create new vampires, and she’s running on fumes as it is. It would put her back in her coffin for good if she tried that now.” Deputy Marshal Fetlock had built his whole strategy around the idea that Malvern was indulging herself in one long orgy of blood and that she had no grand scheme in mind, no master plan. That she would start making mistakes any night now.
“You know what Caxton would have said about that profile,” Glauer muttered.
“She would have said that he was underestimating Malvern. And that underestimating a vampire is the surest way to get killed by one.” She stepped behind the bar and ran a hand behind the bins of lime and lemon wedges. Her fingers touched something metallic and she drew it out. A sawed-off shotgun. She knew she’d find something there—every bar had a gun, in case things got so far out of hand that the bouncer couldn’t handle it. She cracked open the shotgun and found a pair of shells inside. She sniffed the barrel and decided it hadn’t been fired in a long while.
“Something—something occurred to me, after that last scene,” she said. “After the Tupperware party. Malvern has changed her MO.”
“Sure. She’s stopped hiding her kills so carefully.” Clara nodded. “Yeah. Fetlock thought it was because she was getting scared, and that made her sloppy. You and I had a different idea, if you recall—that it was just the opposite, that she’s stopped thinking of us, of law enforcement, as a threat.”
“Yes,” Glauer said. “I remember.” He stopped pacing and looked at her. “You think you have a better explanation?” “Maybe. I think she might be building up to something.” Glauer sighed. “I don’t like the sound of that.” “We know she’s a smart one. Every time Laura had Malvern in her sights, Malvern managed to get away almost on a technicality, or at the last minute. And even when she was stuck in her coffin, too weak to move, she always found a way to cause trouble. I can’t imagine she doesn’t have a plan right now.”
“But what could it possibly be?” Glauer asked. “She needs blood, lots of blood. More blood every night. That’s a zero-sum game. It means we’ll never stop looking for her. And no matter how inept we may be, eventually we’re going to find her. No matter how clever or how careful she is, she can’t keep doing this forever, but she can’t stop, either. What kind of plan would get her out of this mess?”
“I don’t know. I’m not as smart as she is,” Clara admitted. “I just have a feeling, that’s all. She hasn’t finished surprising us yet. Shit. Is that really the time?”
