misplacing the damned thing), I found my cell in the bottom of an old Louis Vitton purse Jessica had bought me for my twenty-?first birthday.
I noted not only the address but precise directions (I knew Tina would make sure she could track down a Blade Warrior if necessary), and got ready to make the long drive to the Delk family farm.
Chapter 28
Jon Delk's parents lived in a St. Paul suburb, but lately he was spending a lot of time at his grandparents' farm in Burlington, North Dakota. I made the fourteen-?hour drive in nine hours, mostly because I didn't have to stop to pee or eat, and because I went ninety on the interstate almost the whole way. I was pulled over three times, all three times by single male state troopers. Didn't get a ticket once.
It was the next evening—I'd had to get a motel room just before sunrise, but was on the move again by 5:00 p.m. the next afternoon.
Long gone were the Minnesota cornfields I was used to; out here, close to the Canadian border, it was all wheat fields and sloughs. Got kind of monotonous after a while. At least cornfields were an interesting color.
I pulled into the mile-?long drive and shut off the engine (I'd picked Sinclair's banana yellow Ferrari for this drive. . . ninety felt like fifty), staring at the neat, large cream-?colored farmhouse with not a little trepidation. I wasn't at all looking forward to what was coming next.
For one thing, it was late—for farmers, anyway. Ten o'clock at night. For another, Delk and I had not exactly parted on good terms. Specifically, he found out we'd stomped around inside his head and was not at all pleased. He expressed this by shooting me. (It was astonishing how often this sort of thing happened.) Then he'd stomped out, and we hadn't seen him since.
Making him a pretty good suspect for all the weird goings-?on.
I stumbled up the gravel driveway, regretting my choice of footwear. I was wearing lavender kitten heels to go with my cream linen shorts and matching cardigan (sure, it was eighty degrees outside, but I felt cold almost constantly).
I went up the well-?lit porch steps, inhaling myriad typical farm odors on my way: manure, wheat, animals, rosebushes, the exhaust from Sinclair's car. There were about a zillion crickets in the back field—or at least, that's what it sounded like.
I knocked on the porch door and was instantly distracted when a shirtless Delk answered.
“Betsy?” he gaped.
Farm Boy was built. Too young for me (not yet drinking age), blond, nice shoulders, fabbo six-?pack. Tan, really tan. Blond hair almost white from being out in the sun all day. He smelled like soap and healthy young man. His hair was damp from a recent shower.
“What are you doing here?”
“Huh?”
His blue eyes went flinty and he squinted past me, trying to see past the porch light into the dark driveway. “You didn't bring anyone with you, did you?”
“I came by myself.”
“Well, I'm not inviting you in.” He crossed his (muscular, tanned) arms across his (ripped, tanned) chest and glared.
I opened the screen door and pushed my way past him, gently. “Old wives' tale,” I said. “Got any iced tea?”
Chapter 29
“My grandparents are asleep upstairs,“ he said, keeping the crossbow pointed in my general direction, while I dropped six sugar cubes into my tea. ”Twitch in their direction, and I won't take the arrow out.'
“I tremble and obey. Got any lemon?”
“Yes, and you can't have any.”
“Crybaby.” I took a sip, then dropped in two more cubes. Delk knew that a stake (or wooden arrow) to the heart wouldn't kill me like it would any other vampire. . . but until he pulled it out, I'd do an excellent impersonation of a dead girl. “Don't worry, I grabbed a snack on the way.” From that pig of a Sleep E-Z Motel front desk guy who'd actually goosed me while I signed the register. I'd nearly bitten his fingers off. Settled instead for hauling him behind the registration desk and helping myself to a pint.
Delk shifted in his chair, the arrow point never wavering. “What do you want?”
“Oh, the usual. World peace, a pair of Christian Louboton heels, a perfect wedding.”
He tried not to wince, and I pretended not to notice. “Still marrying King Psycho, huh?”
That remains to be seen. Did you kill him, Delk?“ Fraid so,' I replied with a cheerfulness I sure didn't feel.
“What do you want?”
“Info.”
“So take a community ed course.”
“I don't want to learn how to throw clay, Delk. Some extremely weird things are going on in St. Paul. I was wondering if there was anything you wanted to tell me.”
“Why don't you just mind fuck me and get it over with?” he sneered, but the tip of the crossbow shook.
“Why don't you just answer me?” I deliberately looked away. I didn't want to take a chance on even accidentally mojoing him. The poor kid had been screwed over enough by me and mine. “People are getting hurt. Some of them are victims. My dad's dead. My stepmother's dead, and I'm Babyjon's new mommy. Vampires have gone missing, and people are acting weird. Jessica's trying not to barf out all her guts from chemo.”
Delk's jaw dropped in what I hoped was unfeigned surprise. “Jesus Christ!”
“Something's going on. And. . . well, I couldn't help wondering.”
“You think I killed your parents?”
“She wasn't my mother,” I said automatically.
“I didn't have anything against your dad and your stepmother. I never even met them. And you thought I —”
“Well. You and I didn't exactly part on good terms.”
He snorted and leaned back, and the crossbow dipped until it wasn't quite pointing at my chest anymore. “You mean when I found out that I'd written a book about you— your Goddamned biography!—and then Sinclair and Tina made me forget all about it, all to protect the precious vampire nation? Except for some reason this book, which I don't remember writing, ended up getting submitted to a publisher and is a fall title? A fall fiction title?”
“Well, yeah,” I admitted. “But anything sounds bad when you say it like that.”
“I take it Sinclair is gone, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Well. I didn't do it. I doubt any of us did. The Blade Warriors disbanded.”
I giggled, the way I always did when I heard the name of their kiddie club.
“Knock it off. My point is, I haven't talked to any of them since Ani and Tina broke up. You know about that.”
“I also know that we were kind of friends once, and then I let Sinclair and Tina do something I knew was wrong, and then we weren't anything.”
“Do you blame me?” he asked quietly, setting the crossbow between the sugar bowl and the cream. You had to admire your North Dakota farms. . . good food, sturdy furniture, checkered tablecloths, crossbows.
“No! Heck, no. I never blamed you. I'd have done the same thing. Possibly discharging a few firearms before I left town.”
