Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 64030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Did I mention that Sheriff Idiot was my ex-boyfriend from high school? He cheated and then blamed me. Said I drove him to it because I wouldn’t put out. “Your big titties drive me crazy, Masie. I got calluses as thick as baseball gloves on my hands,” he’d said.
Funny how I’d always thought Thomas was the worst boyfriend ever. That was because I hadn’t gotten involved with a vampire yet, one who now hated me with every undead fiber of his being.
“Masie, please.” Thomas took the seat across the table from me in the tiny interrogation room. “Tell me why you sliced him up. There must be a reason.”
My hands fidgeted under the table while I focused on the dark bags under Thomas’s eyes. He was way too young to look so worn, but he’d married Lizzy, my best friend in high school. Yes, the one he cheated on me with.
I could pretend I was still angry, but the truth was, I felt sorry for him. Living with a woman who thought her only job was lookin’ perrty had to be miserable. Not that I objected to taking personal pride. I was known to put on a little lip gloss now and again, and I always braided my hair, but that was to keep it out of the food at work.
Lizzy, on the other hand, refused to get a job, lift a finger to help anyone, or even read a book. She was about as useful as a pile of pig turds. Thomas had to do everything himself or pay someone else. Not so easy on his meager salary.
I folded my arms over my chest, still wearing my pink satin jammies. I was dirt poor, but I liked to pamper myself where it counted. Silky sleepwear was the equivalent of fine wine in my book. A girl’s gotta sleep. And to sleep, you had to be comfy.
“Yeah, I have a reason,” I said. “But you’re not gonna believe me, so what’s the point?”
“The point is I can help.”
I choked down a laugh. Did Sheriff Idiot really think his badge and gun were a match for a vindictive vampire?
On the other hand, what did I have to lose?
“You want to help?” I asked. “Then go to the morgue.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re missing a body.”
“Masie, what’re you talkin’ about?” He frowned.
“He’s. Not. Dead!” I slapped my hand on the table. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
Thomas arched a dark brow.
“I knew you were a waste of time.” I looked away and directed my fuming at the plain white wall.
“I saw the body with my own eyes,” he whispered. “God help me, but I did, and it ain’t something I’ll be forgettin’ anytime soon.”
That was because Montgomery Stark had put on a big ol’ show in my living room this morning with his organs—heart, lungs, liver—all laid out around the edge of an open wound in his chest, like a buffet for vultures. His face had been peeled halfway off, too. Completely unrecognizable. But I knew exactly who he was. No one could forget a nice body like Stark’s. Also, his arms were covered in tattoos of vines, snaking up from the wrists toward his wide shoulders. On those vines were random symbols, almost like a charm bracelet.
Still don’t know what they mean.
“You know what else you won’t forget?” I turned my head and offered my sincerest rage. “The moment I fry like bacon in the electric chair because you wouldn’t help me, Thomas.”
He leaned closer, across the table, to whisper, “Just between you and me, Masie—why’d you kill that man? Who was he?”
I leaned forward, whispering back, “That man, that disgusting, violent creature, isn’t what you think. And if you’d get up off your ass and take two minutes to go down the hall to the morgue, you’ll find an empty body bag.”
Thomas leaned back in his chair, not bothering to hide his skeptic smirk. “And if it’s not empty?”
I held out my wrists. “Send me to prison. But if I’m right, you let me go.” Because Montgomery Stark isn’t dead, and I won’t stop until he is.
Thomas stared for a long moment while my heart thumped inside my chest. Would he check? Was there a tiny piece of this man that could tell the difference between a woman who’d gone insane and a woman well on her way but not quite there yet?
Thomas shook a finger at me. “I’ll go look, but when I get back, I want the truth. I want to know why you eviscerated that poor man, Masie.” He got up and left the room, dragging my confidence out with him.
Poor? Now that’s funny. Montgomery Stark had more money than he had minutes alive.
But what if I was wrong? What if he hadn’t already skedaddled before anyone noticed he was healing? What if he wasn’t out looking for a snack to replenish the blood he’d lost before the sun came up?