Blood Harvest: Two Vampire Novels (9 page)

“Peg, come on. I know you better than that.
What’s really going on?”

“It’s just… Brendan, no! Just because Mommy’s
dropping food on the floor doesn’t mean you can too.”

“Is it the dinner thing? Honestly it’s not
that big of a deal.”

“No, that’s not…” She took a moment to get
her fork off the floor and clean up the mess that Brendan had made.
“If you keep that up Brendan you are not going to get any more
cookies for desert.” She wiped up his mess with a napkin, but it
took an inordinate amount of willpower to not just stop right there
and curl up on the floor. Being a family woman was a hard enough
job on a regular basis. Taking care of all these minor crises while
a major one was brewing secretly literally below everyone’s noses
was already proving more taxing than she thought she could
handle.

Bullshit. You’ve handled a lot worse than
this
, she thought.
You’ve also lied a whole lot better than
this. So why don’t you start flexing some of those old atrophied
muscles a bit, huh?

“It’s about Zoey,” Peg said.
Oh, this
ought to be rich. I can’t wait to hear this
, the voice in her
head challenged. Sometimes she really had to wonder if she was
schizophrenic.

“Zoey?” Tony couldn’t have sounded more
surprised if she had said she had decided to invest all their money
in Nevada shrimp farms. His next words, however, were spoken with a
great amount of care. Peg hadn’t openly talked with him about Zoey
in a very long time, and he knew very well what a sensitive subject
it was. “Has there been something new in her case maybe?”

Ooh, good idea. Thanks Tony. Way to do all
my work for me
, she thought, although she hated the snarky tone
in her head. She instantly came up with something that she knew
would work perfectly and she was a little upset with herself for
being able to pull him along so easily. She was also a little
proud, whether she wanted to be or not. After all, she’d learned
long ago that the best lies were the ones that had a strand of
truth in them, and it felt strangely comforting to use those skills
again.

“Yes,” Peg said. She couldn’t bring herself
to look him in the eyes, instead focusing on her half-eaten plate
of food. She knew, though, that it would look less like she was
keeping something from him and more like she was uncomfortable with
the subject. Which of course she was, albeit for completely
different reasons than he thought. “I got a call from my mother.”
She looked up just enough to see his reaction. That appeared to
startle him even more than the idea that there had been news about
Zoey. And it should, too. Anita Sellnow had not called her
remaining daughter in the entire time they’d been married. The
woman hadn’t even attended their wedding.

“What did she say?” Tony asked. Brendan,
apparently realizing that his parents were in a very intense
conversation that had nothing at all to do with him, slid out of
his chair in what must have seemed to his young mind to be a very
stealthy fashion. Peg knew she should probably make him get back in
his chair and finish his dinner, but he ran off into the living
room to play before either of them could say anything. That was
probably for the best, considering the nature of the lie she was
spinning.

“That the police had called her,” Peg said.
“They’ve connected some other disappearances over the past couple
years with Zoey’s. They think whoever did this might still be
active.” Maybe that wasn’t even a lie. It certainly seemed
probable, especially considering what Peg now knew or
suspected.

“But no solid leads?” Peg wasn’t sure whether
he sounded more upset or relieved. She couldn’t blame him if it was
the latter. He probably had visions of the one time he’d seen her
rip roaring drunk. It had been on the anniversary of Zoey’s
disappearance just a couple weeks after they’d started seeing each
other. While Peg had no memory of that night, Tony had told her
later that’d he’d found her sobbing and babbling on the front stoop
of his apartment, an empty vodka bottle in one hand, an exacto
knife in the other, her dinner in a greenish-brown puddle in front
of her, and the sleeves of her t-shirt stained with her own blood.
She only remembered waking up the next morning on his couch, her
arms inexpertly but thoroughly bandaged and one of his own shirts
on instead of her own. The blood still soaked through on her
shoulders from cuts that were deeper than she usually went.

Tony wasn’t the first person to see her like
this, but he was the first that had done anything to indicate he
cared. That was the morning she resolved to give AA another try,
because if there was someone like Tony who was willing to help her
despite what a mess she’d made of her life then she didn’t want to
end up pushing him so far that he couldn’t do it anymore.

“No, nothing,” Peg said. “It doesn’t really
mean anything. It’s just, you know, bringing up things I’d rather
forget.”

“You’ll talk to me if you need to, right?”
Tony asked. “Or V? Just talk to someone.”

“I’ll be fine,” Peg said. The next words came
out of her mouth before she had a chance to realize how much she
would regret them. “I just have to call my mom back after
dinner.”

Tony almost choked on his wonton. Apparently
he thought that was as bad an idea as she did. “Why?”

Because V was right. As much as she didn’t
want that vicious creature shrieking in her ear, Anita might know a
few things about the investigation that Peg would need. She was
just really uncomfortable about what she thought she might need to
do to get through the conversation.

“She wasn’t in much condition to talk. I told
her I’d call her back and we’d finish.”

“That doesn’t mean you actually have to do
it.”

“Maybe she’s changed a little after all these
years.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at her. Zoey sighed
and shrugged.

“Or maybe I can make millions by shitting
into an ice cube tray and selling it as Pudding Pops,” she
said.

“Jesus Christ, honey, I’m trying to eat here.
Look, if that’s really what you feel you need to do then do it.
Calling her, I mean, not the Pudding Pops. But don’t go thinking
you owe her something. You don’t. Not after everything she did to
you.”

Peg resisted the urge to say that she’d
actually done all that to herself, but they’d had that conversation
too often to count and he tended to win. While Peg may have been
the one who’d nearly driven her life off a cliff, Anita had been
the one to give it a good hard push in that direction.

“I’ve got to do it,” Peg said. “It’s just…
anything to get a few answers, you know? No matter how little.”

Tony nodded. He stared at his plate for
several seconds then looked into the living room. Brendan had
turned on
Adventure Time
, which Peg wasn’t sure he was ready
for at this age, but his understanding of it seemed to begin and
end with how funny it was when Jake’s arms went all noodly. He was
laughing his sweet little boy laugh, a strange counterpoint to the
solemn look on Tony’s face. He stood up, walked over to her seat,
and then took a knee next to her like he was about to propose
marriage again. Peg already had an idea, though, about what he was
going to say and there was decidedly nothing romantic about it.

“Peg, I need you to be honest with me,” he
said quietly, looking in the direction of the living room to make
sure that little ears couldn’t hear. “I know what happens to you
when you talk to her. I even knew about it the last time you talked
to her, even though you thought I didn’t.”

Peg wanted to look him in the eye. She really
did. But she couldn’t.

“So tell me the absolute truth. When you
talked to her earlier, did you… did you do anything?”

“No. You know I have better control over it
now.”

“And when you call her later?”

She couldn’t answer that.

“Peg, do I need to hide the knives and razors
tonight?”

“No. Its fine, Tony. I’ll be okay.”

She hugged him before he could say anything
else. He hugged back, but she hadn’t done it because she needed to
feel him against her. She’d hugged him because she didn’t want him
to see her face and know that she was lying.

She went into the
living room and played with her son for a while, but she knew she
couldn’t procrastinate too long or else she would lose her nerve.
She also wanted the call to Anita to be over tonight. Anything she
could pick from that woman’s brain might help Zoey, so it was
better to do this sooner rather than later. She desperately wanted
a bottle of Jack next to her when she made the call, but she liked
to think she was strong enough now to resist such temptations.

Other temptations, on the other hand…

Peg told Tony she was going in the basement
to make the call because she wanted privacy. She expected him to
ask why she didn’t just go upstairs to their bedroom while he
stayed down with Brendan, to which Peg knew she would have to come
up with another lie. He didn’t, however, and Peg was spared.

She tried to tell herself that the reason she
was really going to the basement was to check on Zoey, but she knew
perfectly well that would be a lie as well.

Peg closed the door at the top of the
basement steps behind her, making sure to lock it. They’d installed
the lock on the door when Tony had been down here working on one of
his projects and a two-year old Brendan had somehow managed to
reach the door knob and almost tumbled down the stairs. It was
useful now, since she didn’t want anyone, not even Tony, walking in
on any of this.

She did check on Zoey first. She was still
sleeping and looked decidedly more peaceful than she had earlier.
Given how traumatized she’d seemed by whatever had happened to her,
Peg had expected her to jerk and twitch in her sleep, maybe
whimper, like troubled people always did in the movies. She didn’t
though. She looked calm and tranquil, like a little pixie that had
gotten drunk on honey or something and crashed from a sugar coma.
She even made tiny whistling sounds through her nostrils that, dare
Peg say it, were actually cute.

She didn’t look like a blood-sucking monster,
nor did she look like someone who had spent the last eleven years
in some sort of unbelievable hell.

Peg didn’t realize she was staring until she
looked at her phone and realized half an hour had passed. There was
really no way she could put this off any longer.

She felt weak as she went back to Tony’s side
of the room. There were only two ways she could possibly call her
mother, and booze was right out. She wasn’t strong enough to make
this call without some help. Under Tony’s table, behind an old
metal toolbox that was rusted shut and practically forgotten in the
corner, Peg had long ago pulled away a small piece of the drywall.
If Tony ever found the hole he’d probably think the toolbox had
punched it at some point, or maybe that a mouse had chewed it open.
She pushed the toolbox aside and reached into the hole, feeling
around the corner until she found the black case she’d stashed
there. After she pulled it out she set it on the table next to her
phone she stared at them both.

She shouldn’t do this. She understood what
the black case really was to her. It was really no different than
alcohol. As strange as it would sound to anyone who had never done
it, the things she could do with that case were more seductive than
drugs. She’d even tried cocaine on a couple of occasions, but coke
hadn’t done anything to calm the demons in her brain. This was
different. This was better. And yet, this was almost more frowned
upon.

Tony would know. It would be impossible to
hide this. She would crawl into bed with him later and he would
see. He would get upset. He might even scream at her, although
knowing him she thought it more likely that he would cry. He
wouldn’t be able to trust her with herself again, just like in the
old days before they’d been married. She didn’t want that. But
wants had nothing to do with this. It was all about a need that no
one else understood. And if she had to call her mother, then that
need had to be fulfilled.

Peg took out her Bluetooth headset, put it on
her ear, and then went into the contacts on her phone. Anita
Sellnow’s number was filed under “B.” Every so often she would get
it in her head that she would finally delete the woman’s number.
She didn’t have it written anywhere else, partially in the hope
that something might happen to her phone and the number would be
lost forever. But she could never make herself get rid of the
number completely. She didn’t know why. It would have been a sweet
relief. Maybe Peg didn’t think she actually deserved that
relief.

After too many more seconds of hesitation she
finally hit the call button. The phone began to ring.

Please don’t pick up. Please don’t pick
up. See that it’s me and don’t pick up. Please please
please
.

One ring. Two rings. Three.

Go to voicemail. If it goes to voicemail
I’ll hang up before I have to speak and then I’ll just say I tried.
I won’t have to try again
.

Fourth ring.
Click
.

Silence from the other end.

Hang up, Peg
, she thought.
It was a
pocket dial. You didn’t mean to call her. It was an accident. Hang
up
.

Another moment of silence. And then-

“Peggy?”

“Hi mom,” Peg said. She closed her eyes.
Blindly she groped for the black case on the table. It was a faux
leather travelling case for toiletries, something she’d picked up
for cheap at Walmart. She hadn’t opened it in years, but she’d
stowed it because she knew the day would come again when she had to
have it. She undid the zipper.

Don’t make me pull anything out of it,
mommy. Please don’t
.