Page 52 of The Tracker's Revenge

I took a few deep breaths, willing the contents of my stomach to stay put. “Um, when the thing tried to attack, I shot the creature. Between the eyes,” I lied yet again, knowing that if I said that Rosalina had done it, it would just raise more questions. Tom had no idea she’d turned into a badass markswoman.

“Between the eyes, huh? Good thing I insisted on target practice, and you getting a gun.”

“Yeah, good thing.” I smiled stiffly, my face feeling as if it would crack to pieces exposing all my lies.

“I’m wondering...” Tom scratched his head. “At what point did you dial 911?”

“Right after that.”

“Right after you shot the creature between the eyes?”

“Yes.”

He pursed his lips. “Curious, I haven’t heard anything about this.”

“That’s exactly why we’re here,” Em piped in, her voice shy. “Toni and her friends did call the police. I was there. And then I came here and filed a report, but they’re doing nothing about it.”

“Toni and her friends?” Tom asked.

There was a real problem, a complaint, in what Em had said, and Tom chose to focus on us? Really?

“Yes,” Em said in an annoyed tone, also mad at the way the detective was focusing on the wrong thing.

Tom turned to me. “Which friends exactly is she talking about?”

“Um, it was just Rosalina, Eric, and I,” I said with a pleasant smile stamped on my face.

“Eric? And are you referring to Eric Cross? Or Eric Lone as some call him?”

“Yeah. He was... Damien’s friend. He wanted to be there to tell Liliana what happened.”

Tom huffed again, but he turned to Em. “What were you doing there?”

“I am,was, Liliana’s next-door neighbor. I went to check on her since she’d been ill because of rhabo.”

I cringed. This was getting worse. Tom was going to drill me after this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to throw me in jail when I didn’t tell him anything. Em was supposed to let me do the talking, but the hell?

Because I couldn’t tell him anything.

Gah, coming here was a bad, bad idea.I really hadn’t thought this through.

“So I take it Liliana was a vampire?” Tom said.

“Yes,” Em and I said in unison.

He rubbed his forehead and, for an instant, he appeared as tired as a hundred-year-old man. “This drug is out of control. So many people are dead. We’re finding it all over the city, and now it’s in the suburbs.” He exhaled and blinked up at us as if he’d forgotten we were there. “Um... now, why do you say the police aren’t doing anything about it? It seems unlikely that—”

Em interrupted, pushing to the edge of the chair, looking irate. “They said they went there, sent a patrol car or something, but they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. They entered the house and saw nothing out of place, but when we left, when we ran out of there after that creature tried to eat us then that other... guy showed up—”

Tom threw his hands up in the air. “Hold on. Hold on. The creature was still alive after being shot between the eyes and there was another guy.”

“Yes, I think he might’ve been a vampire. He had one of those UV umbrellas they advertise on TV.”

I shrank in my chair, wanting to disappear. I fingered Damien's token around my neck, wondering if I could disappear into Elf-hame. Maybe I would never come back, and I would become a legend.

The werewolf that mysteriously vanished from the police station and was never heard from again.Yeah, that would work.

Tom puffed his cheeks, then blew out the air. “Why does everything have to be so damn complicated?”