Page 89 of Road Trip with a Vampire

The last thing I remembered was lying down with Peter for a quick nap before Reg and Amelia got back home. Peter wasn’t beside me now, though.

I thought it had been around seven when I’d lain down to rest. A quick check of my phone showed me it was almost nine.

The past few nights of minimal sleep must have caught up with me.

A woman’s voice—Amelia’s?—said something that made Reggie laugh again. I opened the door and wandered down the hallway towards my friends.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Reggie said cheerfully. He sat at the kitchen table with Peter and a blonde woman in a charcoal-gray pantsuit who had to be Amelia. He was sipping something from a mug that saidKiss the Cookin bright red letters. I had a feeling I knew what was in it. “You slept half the day away.”

“She slept for two hours,” Peter said, sounding oddly surly. The mug he cradled in his hands matched Reggie’s perfectly—except this one saidI’m the Cook.

Unbelievable. Not only did Reggie live in an upscale condo with a normal human girlfriend, they owned cutesy matching mugs.

When Peter caught my eyes darting back and forth between his mug and Reggie’s, he held up a hand. “Before you ask, Reggie gave me the mug. I didn’t read it before I started drinking.”

“And I didn’t read it before pouring our dinner.” Reggie turned to Amelia and said sheepishly, “Sorry, dear. I know how much you love that mug.”

“Why don’t you take it with you?” Amelia suggested to Peter. “I won’t want to drink from it anymore.”

“Because it has blood in it?” Reggie asked, wincing.

“No, hon,” she said. “Because it’s stupid.” At Reggie’s look of mock horror, she grinned, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I have a meeting at seven tomorrow morning. I should go to bed.” To the rest of us she said apologetically, “I’m sorry I won’t get to chat more with you before you leave.”

I was sorry, too. “Hopefully next time we’ll be able to get to know each other properly.”

“I’d like that.” Amelia grabbed a black leather briefcase next to her chair and stood up. “Good night, everyone.”

Once Amelia had left, Peter picked up his mug as if to sip from it again before setting it back down and closing his eyes.

Something was wrong.

Before I could ask him what it was, he stood abruptly from his chair. “I need a walk,” he mumbled.

“Can I go with you?” I asked.

He left the apartment without answering me, without even a backwards glance in my direction.

What the hell was going on?

“Peter had a dream memory while you were both sleeping,” Reggie explained very quietly once Peter was gone. “He was completely panicking before you joined us.”

“Panicking?” The only time I’d seen Peter even come close to panicking was when he’d thought I’d been seriously injured in that convenience store. If I was concerned before, now I was officially alarmed. “What happened?”

“Panickingis probably an exaggeration,” Reggie admitted. “But he was worried enough that he told me, someone who is basically a complete stranger, about it.”

With how closely Peter held things to the chest, this did nothingto calm me down. Neither did the fact that for some reason, he told Reggie about his dream but chose to leave the apartment rather than tell me what had happened.

I tried to tamp down the hurt that rose up at that realization. We didn’t know each other that well, I reminded myself. Not really. Who Peter chose to tell things to was his business.

“What did he remember?” I prompted.

Reggie shook his head. “He only said it concerned the Indiana warehouse. That’s all. Then you showed up, and he took off.” If Peter had remembered something about the warehouse, or who sent those notes, that might explain why the dream had upset him. Before I could fully process this, though, Reggie asked, “Sorry to change the subject abruptly and all that, but are you going to tell me the real reason you’re on this trip?”

Reggie’s eyes were curious but lacked any sort of judgment. “Right,” I said, sitting back in my chair. “I guess I did promise you an explanation.”

“Mm,” Reggie agreed. “Is it because you’re in love with him?”

I jumped up from the table so fast I nearly knocked over my chair. “What?”