I closed the phone and turned back to the group. "Okay! Where were we?

Right, we were leaving."

"Dr. Trudeau's lover." Carolina, looking very relieved, glanced around at the others. "Of course! We should have guessed much sooner."

"What, you're happy?"

"No, just… reassured. Vengeance for a loved one is—"

"An understandable motive," Tina interrupted. "Like being interested in taking over his properties."

"Right," Carolina said, completely missing the sarcasm.

"We're going," I said.

Chapter 30

"Wow!" Jessica said. "That is—wow! Liam! Sneaking over and icing the vampire—who'd have thought?" She answered her own question. "In retrospect, everyone. And it'sso slick."

"Slick?"

"Well, Bets, what are you going to do?" I opened my mouth, but Jessica rushed ahead. "Punish him? You can't do anything to him—he's human. If he was a vampire, you could do something, but he's not in your, what do you call it, jurisdiction. Turn him over to the cops? For what, killing a dead guy? Assuming you could find the body—which I bet, thanks to Sinclair's little gray men, I bet you can't—you sure don't want a forensic guy poking around in it."

"You're giving me a headache," I muttered.

"Sophie didn't do it, so you guys can't be pissed at her or punish her or anything. And someonedid kill Alonzo, avenging Sophie. The Europeans won't expect you to do anything—they gave you a big hint when they were all uncaring about what to do with his body. In fact…" She shot Sinclair a sly look. "Am I right? Did you tell her?"

"I haven't had the chance, and besides, you're obviously dying to."

"I hate when you go all Sherlocky on me," I grumbled.

"They're gone! Aren't they gone?" she asked Sinclair. "I bet they beat feet out of here this very night."

"They are gone," Sinclair confirmed.

"What? Already? It's only—" I looked at my watch. It was eight-thirty the next night. Once we'd left the hotel, the evening had been a bust. Sinclair made feeble mention of tracing Sophie's cell through Alonzo's cell, but I waved that away (could it even be done? I didn't know from cell phone technology). Let it go. They were long gone from here, anyway, and Liam probably wouldn't have been dumb enough to hang on to whatever phone he'd used to taunt me from Alonzo's pants. "How do you know?"

"I have been keeping an eye on them, of course," Sinclair replied, looking surprised at my abysmally stupid question. "They departed as soon as the sun set."

"They just took off? Without a word to anybody?"

"Of course." Sinclair was looking like the cat that had eaten fifty canaries.

"But it was such a big deal when they came. And now they're just—what?

Sneaking out of town? Aren't they afraid that'll make us mad?"

"They know it won't." "It won't?"

"Look at it from their point of view, Majesty," said Tina. "They are not remotely sure of your power base. They wait almost a year before coming to pay tribute. While they are here, you show evidence of fasting, prayer, powerful allies—vampire and human—live through an attack by a vampire killer—"

"Delk wasn't trying to kill me," I protested. "He was just having a really shitty day."

"—publish your life story, maintain a cop and a doctor as blood-sheep—" "The hell!" "—kill a zombie sent here for obviously sinister reasons—" I'd told them about Zombiefest in the car on the way to Alonzo's hotel. They

had both been flabbergasted. Both denied ever seeing a zombie in their long, long lives. "We don't know if it was sent, or just wandered in."

"And, when presented with a moral dilemma, you arranged for the death of a contemporary."

"But I didn't!"

"From their point of view," she reminded me.

"Well, how dumb are they?" Imuttered .

"Frankly," Sinclair said, smiling, "I am surprised they did not skulk out of town quite a bit earlier."

"So—you're happy? You're happy that those guys think I'm a royal murdering jerk."

"You should be very happy they think that—if you can bear it, Miss

Congeniality."

I stuck a finger in his face. "I told you about that privately. It's private.

Private information!Not for sharing with the class!"

"You should never have told Jessica, then," Tina piped up, "because she told everyone that story."

"What?" Jessica cried when I looked at her. "You were in the Burnsville paper, for God's sake. It's not like it was a Pentagon secret."

I turned to Sinclair. "So do we ask Sophie and Liam to leave? Banish them?"

"They banished themselves," Sinclair said quietly. "They did not return to their home in Embarrass; no one has seen them in days. Too bad; I have questions."

"Questions like what?"

"Like how a farmer of modest means could have killed one of the oldest, most powerful vampireson the planet."

"A classic assassination," Tina pointed out. "He just walked up to him and—well. Alonzo was distracted, apparently. Perhaps Liam got close to him with a lie—I'll be your driver tonight, orders from the Queen, she's the one who had me call. Something. Anything."

"And he isn't a farmer," I said. "He lives in a small town, on a farm, but he doesn't work the land. He's retired from the Air Force, Sophie told me." I nearly groaned as I rememberedwhat she had told me. "Where he used to teach small arms."

"Small arms?"

"Handguns," Tina clarified. "Hmm. In hindsight, someone should have been watching those two."

"I guess I thought Sophie would just wait around for—"What? For me to make a move? For justice ? "Indefinitely," I finished. "I should have known none of this would sit well with Liam. And he wouldn't think killing Sophie's killer—I mean, I don't get the idea that it's going to be weighing heavy on his mind, you know?"

"Did killing Nostro weigh heavily on yours?" Sinclair asked.