A Bite of Murder Read online

  Digging the clove of garlic out of her pocket, she jumped forward and grabbed the vampire from behind, pushing the clove into his open mouth.

  The sound that came out of him next was unlike anything she’d ever heard. It was like someone getting burned and crying out for help. The vampire slumped to the floor, coughing and sputtering until he lay still.

  After a few moments of quiet, the mother stood up from her crouched position, still leaning on the wall. “Is he . . . dead?”

  “No, just knocked out, I think,” Anna said.

  The sound of the police car’s sirens echoed in the distance. Dan was on his way.

  “Better lay the cross on him now so he won’t move or try to get away when he wakes up,” Harlem suggested.

  Agreeing, Anna did as he said and put it right on William’s chest.

  “A-Are you a vampire hunter?” the mother asked quietly.

  Anna smiled, finding the comment humorous. “No, vampires don’t exist,” she said, wanting to convince her that William was, in fact, just a human who believed he was a vampire.

  “I better go check on the kids,” she said, running out of the room and down the hall.

  “What’s going on?” a man asked, stepping into the bedroom and seeing the strangers there, one of them knocked out on the floor. This was likely the father to the kids.

  Before Anna could answer, Dan had come in the open front door and up the steps to handcuff the culprit.

  Chapter 15

  * * *

  “In today’s morning news, William Percy, the suspected killer of Jason Dobbs, escaped the holding cell in Sunken Grove’s police station sometime last night. Chief Bronson said that he still hasn’t figured out how the suspect managed to get out of the cell, but that there was a strange pile of ashes on the floor this morning,” a local radio announcer said as Belle and Anna worked in the kitchen to get things ready for that evening.

  They were planning on picking up the marathon where they’d left off.

  “You know what that means, don’t you?” Harlem said, floating near the radio.

  “What?” Anna asked, picking up a red and purple frosted jelly filled donut from the nearby box. After the crazy night she’d had, doing something she never once in her life thought she’d do—hunting a vampire—she had decided that getting donuts and coffee from the local shop was a well-deserved treat.

  Belle turned around from where she was organizing ingredients and took a sip of her chocolate hazelnut coffee her sister had purchased for her. “It means he was not in his coffin before the sun rose. Poof.” She made an explosive motion with her free hand. “He turned to dust.”

  “That’s what I assume, yes,” Harlem agreed.

  “I’m glad I convinced Dan to keep the cross near him for the rest of the night. I’m sure he thought I was crazy.”

  “Probably. I mean, I don’t even think he believes in vampires.”

  “Neither do I,” Anna insisted, biting into the sugary treat.

  “How can you say that? You’re probably the only living vampire hunter ever,” Belle laughed.

  Swallowing the bite and wiping a bit of raspberry filling off her lip, Anna shook her head. “No, vampires don’t exist. William Percy just happened to have some vampire-like qualities he’d absorbed from the movie.”

  “And he absorbed some of the weaknesses as well,” Harlem pointed out, indicating that the cross and garlic had both worked.

  “Thank goodness for that,” Belle agreed, walking over to the box of donuts and selecting the traditional southern cruller. “Otherwise, how else would you have caught him? I mean, he would have either killed you or turned into a bat and flown away.”

  “Let’s just concentrate on the fact that it didn’t happen,” Anna said. “Anyway, Diane got a bit of a spook.”

  “Diane?”

  “She’s the woman who lives in that house now.”

  “Ah, yes,” Belle said.

  “Thankfully, the kids were already asleep in bed when the bat came in. I guess William just wanted to reclaim his home any way he could.”

  “That’s another thing. How did you know he would be going there?” Belle asked.

  “When I talked to Diane yesterday, she mentioned thinking she saw a lurker outside. When I realized William was still alive . . . or as alive as a vampire can be, I thought it was him. I just deduced that he was heading back there again.”

  Belle beamed, munching on her cruller. “You know, I’m proud of you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you took on this whole scary case almost single-handedly.”

  “No, I had help from both of you,” Anna indicated, nodding to her sister and the ghost. “I’m just glad we got it all figured out before more damage could be done.”

  “Yeah. Just think, we could have had a vampire living in our basement for a while and we wouldn’t have even known it.”

  “We would have found him eventually,” Harlem said.

  “Anyway, I’m just glad it’s over and we don’t have a vampire living in our basement,” Anna admitted.

  “Nope. Just on the movie screen again,” Belle said.

  “Honestly, I could do without another vampire movie for the rest of my life,” Anna joked, taking a long drink of her dark roast coffee blend.

  Belle and Harlem laughed out loud.