Page 63 of Vampire so Virtuous

Walked out. Let her go.

Just like that.

The memory of the officer’s words returned.

“Do you know who Anthony Du Pont is?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d say that.”

Her stomach twisted. They’d said his name like it was the answer to everything, as if it explained why the interrogation ended so abruptly, why she was free. And maybe it did.

Covering up vampiric activity, even with the police involved. Who had that kind of power?

He’d done it once—yesterday. Had he done it before, twenty years ago?

She set the coffee cup beside her laptop and opened it, fingers hovering above the keyboard.

Let’s find out who you are, Anthony Du Pont.

*

Cally leaned back in her chair, staring at the screen.

It had been surprisingly easy to find an answer. Or at least a partial one.

She’d barely been at it an hour and had already collated a dozen references: charity galas, where Anthony Du Pont was mentioned by name for ‘giving generously’; a new hospital wing, with the mayor thanking the esteemed Mr. Du Pont, ‘who sadly couldn’t be here today.’ And various others in the same vein. Do-gooder causes, always with a political angle.

Probably laundering his dirty creepy stalker money.

She pulled up the image of the hospital wing and the smiling mayor, curious what time of day it had been, and how bright the sun was. Was that what kept Antoine away? A picture taken in mid-summer, the sky blue. Maybe there something to the sun theory after all.

The article was old, from the archives of a local newspaper, and that mayor wasn’t William Long. Must’ve been the one before.

She frowned, checking dates. No, not Long’s predecessor, or evenhispredecessor.

A new search told her the hospital wing had been built twenty years ago.

Anthony Du Pont would’ve been in school. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. How the hell had he pulled it off?

She found the answer in the Boston Public Library archives. He wasAnthony Du Pontthe Third,son to Anthony Du Pont Jr., and grandson to Anthony Du Pont Sr.

How oldwashe?

A ninety-year-old vampire that looked barely thirty, hiding in plain sight, using his money and political connections to make every inconvenience disappear. No record of a mother or siblings, just a line of single ‘fathers’.

How had no one seen this before? It was soobvious, like he was daring them to question him.

Yet why would they? What reason was there to investigate a family like his? Old money, Boston elites, celebrated patrons of the city’s progress. Who’d see a conspiracy buried under all that good PR?

Perhaps this was the image he wanted—a carefully curated disguise—but now she knew the truth, and it painted a much darker picture.

She dug deeper, bouncing between public records and half-buried archives. But there was only so much Google could do; everything older than a couple of decades was frustratingly incomplete. She’d have to dig into the archives at City Hall.

The thought gave her pause. Older records would lack modern data protections. If she could get her hands on something concrete, there’d be nothing shielding Anthony Du Pont Jr—or even Sr—from exposure. He’d take his mark off her to avoid that, wouldn’t he?

She rose, thinking quickly. If she could find an address, she could… wait, would that be online?