Page 116 of Road Trip with a Vampire

“I know I’m not great at marketing—” I began.

“You’re not,” Lindsay agreed, giving the freshly applied goat a firm tap on the rump. Probably to make certain it was adequately attached to the window, though her motivations weren’t completely clear.

I tried not to bristle at how quickly Lindsay had agreed with me. “As I was saying,” I tried again, “I admit I’m not great at marketing, but I don’t understand why we’re advertising a sold-out event. If we keep hyping an event with no tickets, won’t people get annoyed?”

“Oh, my sweet summer child.” Lindsay walked over and patted me—patronizingly, I thought—on the arm. “We don’t just want to be sold out. We want people who can’t come to feel like they’ve missed anexperience.”

“It’s about scarcity,” Becky explained. “The marketing class I took last summer had a whole section on it. The scarcer something is, the more people will want it if youtellthem to want it. Just look at Taylor Swift.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What does Taylor Swift have to do with goat yoga?”

“Notbeing able to get tickets to her Eras Tour was the best publicity she could have asked for,” Becky explained. “There were never enough tickets to meet demand. It kept the fans wanting more.”

“Just like advertising our goat yoga event, even if tickets are gone, will keep people wanting to take classes at our studio,” Becky concluded.

This sounded like nonsense to me, but I was too tired from being up late the night before to push the issue. Also, if I kept objecting to what my friends were doing, they’d be justified in asking me to come up with promo ideas of my own. Which I did not want.

I nodded at the windows. “Those baby goats are cute,” I capitulated.

“They’re called kids,” Becky corrected.

“Fine.” I yawned and stretched my arms overhead. “Can you handle goatifying our windows without me? I’m exhausted and need a nap.”

“We’ve got this,” Lindsay assured me. “Go home.”

“But before you go,” Becky said. “A package came for you earlier. It’s waiting for you upstairs.”

“A package?” I frowned. “Package delivery isn’t usually until the afternoon, is it?”

“That’s what I said to the delivery kid,” Lindsay said. “He said this was averyspecialdeliveryand that the sender had paid extra to have it sent this morning.” She shook her head. “He pronouncedvery special deliveryjust like that, too. With extra emphasis on each word. Kind of strange, honestly.”

“Yeah, he was definitely a strange one,” Becky said. “He covered his mouth with his hand the entire time he spoke and wore mismatched pajamas.”

He covered his hand with his mouth?Andhe was wearing strange clothes?

Perhaps the delivery person was just an eccentric coastal Californian. But my suspicions were officially aroused. Getting an unexpected delivery at an unusual time from someone wearing odd, vampirecore clothes so soon after what had happened in Indiana…

“Let us know what it is,” Lindsay said. But I was already heading for the studio’s back exit, bracing myself for whatever I might find when I got home.

My mind raced with dark possibilities as I took the stairs to my apartment two at a time. Could the surviving members of TheCollective have shipped me an incendiary device? I wouldn’t put it past them. I was one hundred percent letting my imagination run away with me, but after what had happened in that warehouse, I couldn’t help myself.

When I got to my front door, though, all that was there was a white baker’s box and a handwritten note on plain white stationery. The high alert I’d just been on melted away, replaced by feelings I understood far less. I didn’t have to read the note to know who this was from. After all, I’d just seen Peter’s handwriting the previous morning.

The note was full of cross-outs and rewritten words. My heart crashed against my rib cage at the image of him sitting at a table somewhere, pen in hand as he agonized over what to say.

DearHello Zelda,

I hope these cookies find you well.

I baked these cookies just for you

Here are some cookies that are left over from a large batch I baked last night for an unrelated purpose having nothing to do with you.

I miss you

I am so sorry for what I did

I hope you enjoy them.