We got out of the car, still not talking to each other. Even more awkward, Jessica and Nick had tagged along in his truck - I would have thought he'd had enough of me for a lifetime, but there wasn't room in Sinclair's SUV for me, Sinclair, Antonia, Garrett, and Jessica. Is there anything worse than being trapped in a car immediately after you've just broken up with your boyfriend? Eeesh.
Worst of all, the Ant was waiting for me on the porch, knockoff-clad toe tapping impatiently. "It's not over yet," she warned.
"Tell me about it," I snarled. "It'll never be over, until you cough up why you're sticking around." I walked through her, shivering (it was like walking through a curtain of freezing water) and opened our front door. "Why can't you go to hell like any other - "
Suddenly I was shoved so hard, I smacked into the wall and fell down. The impact forced a shower of plaster to rain down on me. There was the deafening boom of a pistol being fired several times over my head. We were trapped in the doorway like ants in a straw - nobody had any room.
"That girl," a new voice said, "had amazing reflexes. I haven't missed a shot in forty-six years."
"Chief Hamlin?" Nick asked, horrified.
I slowly sat up. The Minneapolis police chief, less than a year from retirement, was standing at the end of the foyer, smoke curling up from the barrel of his pistol. He was a tall, gray-haired man in a neat dark blue suit, with wrinkles cutting deeply into his face, kind blue eyes, and a smoking gun.
"My father told me about you over three weeks ago," he said to (ulp) me. "How you left him for dead on that God-awful farm."
"Wh-what are you - ?"
"I was just a boy when he disappeared - and died the first time, best I can tell. By the time he came back years later - last month, in fact - I was a police chief."
"But I don't understand why you - "
He was staring at me with exhausted eyes. "You were all he could think of. He was the gentlest man I'd ever known, and all he could think of was hurting people. Hurting you."
"So you set him to work," Nick said shakily. "You sicced him on perps we couldn't put away. Pretended to figure out the pattern - which I bought, because you've got a great rep as a detective. Gave your dad cold guns, so we wouldn't think it was a vampire."
"But these guys had a caretaker at the farm/mansion place." I was having a terrible time puzzling this out. "She never noticed your dad kept slipping off the property?"
"Silly boy. They killed her a month ago."
That explained why Tina and Sinclair couldn't puzzle out Alice's remains. They hadn't been fresh. And it was entirely possible they had known and kept the info to themselves. It would be typical behavior. I bit the inside of my cheeks, so I wouldn't start shrieking at them.
Secrets, secrets. Cripes. My life was stuffed with them.
"Jeez, jeez," Nick was saying, his hand on his hip. I could see his fingers wanted to pluck at a gun he wasn't wearing. "Your only mistake was sending him to me when you gave me the fake tags to check."
Chief Hamlin shook his head. "I didn't send him. He had been following your Betsy. And when he saw her on the street - "
"He snapped, and - " I almost said, "My sister killed him," but rapidly rephrased. I didn't want any of this fallout to poison Laura's life. "I killed him. But you didn't count on Nick getting his fingerprints off my purse strap. Once he had that info, it wouldn't have taken long until he knocked on your door."
The chief's lip trembled. "He was my father. He would not have hurt me."
I shook my head. "Oh, man, you're so wrong. Like, the earth is flat kind of wrong. I don't even know how to explain it to you. You don't understand what he had become."
"He was my father," the chief repeated. It was clear he was trying to convince himself, more than anyone else. "Back - miraculously - from the dead. And only I could help him." He shuddered at whatever memories of his father he had and looked past my shoulder. "A shame about your friend. I've never seen anyone move that fast in my life."
I didn't dare turn to find out whom he was talking about. "She'll be okay," I said bravely, hoping that was true. "And you won't get a second chance."
"No," he said politely. "She won't be okay. I used twenty-two longs, you see. But you're right about me. I won't get a second chance. I have only the one gun, you see - and by my count, one bullet left. I figured I'd never get the chance to reload, given the size of your entourage." He looked down at his gun. "I wish I had hit you and finished what my father started. I'll have to settle for hurting you. I hope your friend was important to you. Very, very important."
I still refused to turn around. Tears began to well in my eyes. "You're going to regret what you've done, asshole."
"No, I'm not. I have no intention of letting you turn me into what my father was."
Then he tucked the barrel under his chin and pulled the trigger.
Nobody tried to stop him. In fact, before his body hit the floor, I was already turning to find out who had taken the bullets meant for me.
