The Traveling Vampire Show

“Like hell.”

Slim said to Bitsy, “This has to be a secret, okay? We’ve let you come along tonight, but if you ever want to do anything with us again ...”

“Ever in your whole life,” Rusty added.

“... you’ll have to keep quiet about what goes on. We can’t have you going home and telling your parents about everything we do.”

“About anything we do,” Rusty said.

Bitsy raised her right hand as if taking an oath. “I promise.”

Looking disgusted, Rusty shook his head and muttered, “She’ll tell.”

“Will not.”

I gave Slim the nod.

She nodded in return, then said to Bitsy, “We think somebody’s after us. Maybe someone from the Traveling Vampire Show.”

“What for?”

“To shut us up,” Rusty said.

“We don’t really know what they’re up to,” Slim explained. “I saw them ... do something horrible to a dog today. Maybe they want to scare us into keeping quiet about it. The thing is, weird stuff has been happening ever since. Someone was in my house this afternoon. They chewed up a book in my bedroom....”

“Like a dog,” Rusty added.

“The book was Dracula,” Slim pointed out. “Which is about vampires.”

“Not that we think a vampire did it,” I said.

“But maybe someone from the show. Also, there was this flower vase in my mother’s room. It had yellow roses in it. Somebody broke the vase and took the roses. Then one of the roses turned up in Dwight’s room.”

“At your house?” Bitsy asked me, looking shocked.

I nodded. “They put it on my pillow.”

“Now we’ve got this with Lee missing,” Slim continued. “She and Dwight drove over to Janks Field this morning looking for me and Rusty, and they talked to the main guy of the Vampire Show.”

“Julian Stryker,” I said.

“Lee bought tickets for tonight’s performance, but she paid with a check. The check had her name and address on it. So Julian and his bunch had an easy way to find out where she lives.”

“You think they took her?” Bitsy asked.

The question made me go cold inside.

“We don’t know,” Slim said.

“She ain’t here,” Rusty added.

“But there’re no signs of foul play.” I wanted to talk myself and the others out of believing that Lee had been taken away.

“Not unless you count the open door,” Slim said.

“She might’ve left it like that for the breeze,” I said. “Anyway, she isn’t expecting us for a couple more hours, so maybe she did go somewhere.”

“Without her truck?” Slim asked.

“She might’ve walked over to ...”

“Without her purse?”

“Purse^?” I asked.

“It’s on a counter in the kitchen.”

“I saw it,” Bitsy threw in.

Slim said, “I think Lee would’ve taken it with her if she’d gone off on her own.”

“You hardly ever take a purse with you,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well ... I’m a little different. Most women take their purses everywhere.”

“Maybe she took a different one,” I said. “She has more than one.”

“Let’s have a look,” Slim said.

All of us followed her into the kitchen. Nodding at Lee’s brown leather purse, she said to me, “Why don’t you do the honors? You’re family.”

“Sure.” I moved Lee’s purse from the counter to the kitchen table, where the light was better. Then I frowned at Slim. “Do you really think we oughta do this? It’s sort of invading her privacy.”

“I’ll look,” Rusty volunteered.

“No you won’t,” I said. “We don’t need you going through her stuff.”