Sweet Last Drop. Melody Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ do Lydia’s injuries resemble the dozen or so other animal attack victims you’ve pronounced dead and their injuries?”

      Berry sighed. “No, they don’t.”

      “What’s different about Lydia?”

      “Her injuries are far more severe. Typically, an animal feels threatened, is protecting her young, or has rabies. In any of those circumstances, the victim may sustain a life-threatening injury, such as blow to the head. Once the victim is unconscious, the threat is neutralized, and the animal goes on its way. Signs of a struggle are sometimes visible and can be substantial, like cuts, bruises, and bites. But Lydia—” Berry’s voice caught. He shook his head.

      I touched his shoulder softly. “I know.”

      He cleared his throat. “She was torn apart.”

      “I’m sorry. I—” I opened my mouth to find a delicate way to ask my next question, but Berry met my gaze. His eyes were red and shone from his welling tears. I reminded myself that these weren’t my people. My acquaintance with Walker might encourage their friendliness initially, but if I made grown, weathered men cry after every interview, no one would want to talk to me, about the investigation or otherwise. My next question wasn’t an end-all anyway, so I swallowed it. “I’m very sorry. It’s especially hard when they’re so young.”

      Berry nodded.

      Walker returned empty-handed from scanning the scene. I bid Berry a final thank you for his time, and Berry pounded Walker’s back in that same rough handshake-hug they’d greeted one another. One look at Berry’s watery, flushed expression, however, was enough for Walker. He narrowed his eyes on me over Berry’s shoulder. I blinked back, exuding unperturbed innocence the best I could considering the circumstances, but the moment we were tucked in the privacy of his Chevy pickup, Walker exploded.

      “What the fuck was that?”

      I matched his glare with an admonishing look of my own. “You said I could interview the coroner, did you not?”

      Walker opened his mouth.

      “When you brought me here you knew full well I’d ask questions,” I said before he could answer. “Apparently, you even warned people. I’m good at what I do because people connect with me. I become a person to talk to, a person to confide in, but if you warn people that I’m a reporter, it only makes me one thing: a reporter. And people don’t open up to reporters.”

      “I warned them for good reason! Berry was crying, for heaven’s sake!”

      “My questions didn’t make him cry, Walker.”

      “I saw him! He—”

      “But it wasn’t my questions.”

      He ran his hand roughly over his face. “I know.”

      I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

      Walker raised an eyebrow.

      I smiled. “Not about my questions. I’m sorry about Lydia.”

      He nodded. “Me too.”

      Walker started the ignition and followed Berry’s van through the narrow gravel road out of the woods. Outstretched branches slapped the windshield and scraped against the side doors as we dipped and popped in and out of man-sized potholes. I winced in sympathy for his tires. The road could hardly be considered a road, even for Erin, and I remembered from Walker’s brief tour of the town this morning that it led somewhere specific.

      “What’s at the end of this drive?”

      Walker’s jaw tightened.

      “If we drove deeper into the woods would we—”

      “You can’t let it go, can you?”

      I blinked. “I’m just making conversation.”

      Berry pulled out onto the paved road, and his arm lifted from the window frame in a backhanded wave. Walker waved back, turning right out of the woods.

      He sighed. “The trail leads to Gretel’s Tavern. It’s not technically a road. It’s his driveway.”

      “His?”

      “Buck McFerson.”

      I opened my mouth to push my luck with another question, but a shadow moved on the edge of the tree line up ahead.

      We still had a few hours of daylight. The sun’s rays streamed across the expanse of the road and dappled in glowing spots over the median and into the woods, but on the inner edge of the woods, where the tree line darkened from its leafy canopy and sunlight couldn’t quite reach a shadow within the shadows, two glowing orbs blinked through the leaves.

      “Walker, there’s—”

      “Don’t start,” he snapped. “I’d like to escape from work sometime during the day, and preferably with you, but if you can’t separate church from state, then—”

      I squeezed my nails into his bicep. “There’s a vampire up ahead.”

      Chapter 2

      Walker’s muscle flexed under my hand. He stared ahead for a moment, and I knew the moment he caught sight of its reflective eyes. Walker’s hand tightened in a trembling vise around the steering wheel. “We can’t catch a fucking break.”

      “The sun hasn’t set. How is it out?”

      “She keeps to the shadows.” Walker took his foot off the gas and sighed. “Daylight doesn’t impede her or her abilities anymore as long as she avoids direct sunlight.”

      I glared at Walker’s speedometer. “Why are we slowing down? Do you know her?”

      “Of course I know her.” His grip on the steering wheel creaked. “There’s an old train overpass up ahead.”

      “Walker, I don’t think stopping is the best—”

      “Bex can’t withstand direct sunlight without bursting into flames, but she’ll make short work of us if we cross into the shadows under the overpass.”

      Bex. I glanced at her again and the road up ahead, and sure enough, the overpass cast its shadow across both lanes, effectively road-blocking our drive.

      “So speed up! What could she possibly accomplish in the few seconds we’re under the overpass?”

      His jaw clenched. “This truck is fairly new. I don’t want her denting its grill again.”

      I blinked. “She’s done this before?”

      “If we don’t stop on our own, she’ll make us stop.”

      I shook my head, both aggravated and impressed. As per my usual experience in dealing with vampires, Bex left us with very few choices, all of which ended in her favor. “She chose this position to deliberately block us, knowing you would stop.”

      “Or СКАЧАТЬ