Page 42 of Immortal by Morning (Argeneau #37)

a bag every other day if they are not going out in sunlight or doing anything else to set the nanos to work. However, newly

turned immortals need much more blood for the first little while after they are turned.”

“Right,” Abril nodded. “Well, a human body holds eight to ten pints of blood, and those bags you say you consume are usually around a pint if they’re from a blood bank.

So, with the twelve mortal bodies outside, and the one inside that would add up to somewhere between one hundred and four to one hundred and thirty pints.

That’s a lot of blood to consume in just a week or so, even for two people. ”

Every man there stared at her with surprise until Crispin asked, “A week or so?”

“Hmm.” She grabbed a piece of bread and started to butter it. “They held a street party out here last year at the end of August.

I think it was mostly a welcome to the neighborhood barbecue for Gina really. Anyway, Gina didn’t want to go alone and asked

me to come with. So, I did. I accompanied her, met this neighbor and that, ate, and so on. But, at one point, I was chatting

with a lovely older lady, probably that Mrs. Jamison you mentioned, although she told me her name was Lois and didn’t mention

her last name.”

“Mrs. Jamison’s name is Lois,” Crispin told her.

Abril nodded. “Well, she told me the history of Gina’s house. Sort of. What she told me about was the people. The Bransons

were nice. Mrs. Branson loved to garden. Their children were so polite. That kind of thing.”

She waited just long enough for the men to nod, and then continued, “What she told me about the family that lived here before the Bransons was that it was a tragic tale. They’d lost their child and the wife had been paralyzed.

She too loved her garden and used to work on it daily in the summer and Lois used to stop and chat with her on occasion on her morning constitutional.

But after the accident the wife obviously couldn’t work in the garden anymore.

Still, she could be found outside every morning, sitting in her wheelchair either supervising the people her husband had hired to tend to the garden in her stead, or just enjoying it.

And they were usually both sitting outside, enjoying a coffee together when Lois and her husband went for their after-dinner walk around the crescent.

“However, just about a year after the accident, the wife stopped appearing in the garden in the mornings. There were still

lights and movement in the house at night when Lois and her husband took their after-dinner walk, but the couple no longer

sat out having coffee in the garden. Lois suspected the husband had left his poor wife. Especially since the husband’s truck

was no longer seen leaving or returning, but other vehicles and people began to show up. Sometimes it was couples, sometimes

a man or a woman, and once even a couple with children. Lois decided they must have been family helping the wife pack up,

because a week after those ‘comings and goings’ started, a moving truck was in the driveway and a for sale sign was in the

front yard.”

“So,” Crispin said slowly as everything he’d learned began to coalesce in his head. “An immortal somehow showed up in their

life a week before the house sale, and...” He paused briefly, considering everything again, and then guessed, “Something

happened that ended with the immortal and the husband being killed and the wife getting turned.”

“What?” Bricker asked with surprise. “You think the husband is the mortal inside?”

“They were the only ones buried there,” he pointed out. “They must have been buried at the same time if they were close enough

to each other in the indoor garden for you to find the mortal while digging up the immortal.”

“Yeah, they were pretty close. One of his legs was over hers,” Bricker admitted, and then said, “And the immortal’s head was actually down by her feet.”

Crispin winced, his mind immediately going to the conversation he’d had with Abril. He wondered now how long the poor immortal’s

head had survived knowing she had been decapitated and was dying. Had she watched her grave being dug? Had she hoped the woman

would place her head near the neck when she tossed her in, so her body could heal itself? Only to lose that hope when she

found herself thrown down by her feet? Was she aware when the dirt started to cover her?

“That doesn’t guarantee they were not buried a day apart or something though,” Bricker argued. “I mean the immortal could

have died first, and then a mortal was lured to the house for feeding and the garden dug up again to put him in it.”

Crispin shook his head with certainty. “Human corpses start to stink pretty quickly. I think it only takes something like

a day or two if they are not refrigerated, so I doubt the immortal was buried and then the garden was dug up again to bury

someone else. The smell would have been unbearable, especially for a newly turned immortal unused to the increase in their

olfactory senses.” He paused briefly, but then added judicially, “Although, the mortal in there could have arrived with the

immortal and may not be the husband.”

“Or,” Bricker said now, “maybe two immortals came to the house for some reason. Something happened to kill the female immortal that was in the indoor garden, and possibly the husband, and the other immortal took control of Mrs. Foley for some reason, or turned her because she was a possible life mate.”

Lucian shook his head. “I suspect Crispin is right and it was a lone female immortal here, and that she and the husband died

while the wife was turned.”

“I think so too,” Abril agreed. “But my decision is based mostly on a hunch. I suspect you don’t do hunches, Lucian, so what

makes you think that?”

When Lucian merely scowled at Abril, Crispin answered for him. “Because one hundred and four to one hundred and thirty pints

of blood in a week for one immortal, even a newly turned immortal, is excessive. It can cause terrible pain and sickness.

If an immortal had been present after the mortal was turned, they would have known that and prevented the new immortal from

consuming so much. That immortal would also know better than to feed off mortals and risk being labeled rogue and suffering

the punishment. While a newly turned immortal with no one to train them would have no idea of our laws and the punishment

for them.”

When Lucian grunted an agreement, Abril glanced to Crispin and asked, “So if it is Mrs. Foley and she had no idea of your

laws—”

“As with the mortal legal system here in Canada,” Lucian said, interrupting her, “ignorance of the law is not an excuse for

committing an offense.”

“It could still be just an immortal who lost his mind, went rogue and is now on an endless blood orgy,” Bricker argued.

Abril looked at him with interest. “So, you’ve had a lot of mortals going missing or other signs of rogue activity in the area over the last twenty years and are only now doing something about it?”

“No,” Crispin said quickly, scowling at Bricker for saying anything that might make Abril think they’d allow something like

that to happen without doing anything about it. Turning to Abril he assured her, “It has been pretty quiet here. In fact,

this is the only sign of rogue activity we have had since I joined the London police force seven years ago.”

“There was that business with Armand and Eshe some time back,” Bricker pointed out. “I think it was before you and Roberts

started in London though.”

“That was not in London,” Lucian snapped. “It was in a small town farther out, and that rogue was dealt with.”

“Abril brings up a good point though,” Crispin said. “Whoever killed the people here could not have been active in the area

since or we would have a very high number of missing people on the books. Either they have moved elsewhere, which makes it

doubtful that they would have heard that the house had sold and renovations were being made that would include digging up

the bodies. Or they learned how to feed without killing their meals.”

There were grunts of agreement around the island, and then slowly everyone began to eat again.