Kiss of Death (The Briar Creek Vampires, #1) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse (2 page)

“Gerti has just always had a habit of butting
into other peoples’ business,” Eileen answered bluntly. “That’s why
we stopped coming here after your father disappeared. The woman
wouldn’t stop asking me questions about what happened.” Eileen
refolded her napkin with her long, manicured nails. “There are
always lots of busybodies in small towns like this.”

“Do you think that dad’s still in Briar
Creek?” Lexi asked her mom, as casually as she could.

“I don’t know, Lexi. Don’t get your hopes up.
We check out of the hotel around three on Sunday. Even if your
father is around, I don’t think you’ll be able to track him down
too quickly. He has a habit of staying well hidden.” Noting Lexi’s
disappointment, she added, with a hopeful smile on her face, “I
thought maybe we could do some shopping before we go home, after
dinner at your aunt’s. I know how much you used to love the Briar
Creek Mall when you were little.”

Lexi sighed. Having a mom who was a
pediatrician in one of New Jersey’s most prestigious hospitals had
its drawbacks; it meant that Lexi had to learn a long time ago how
to fend for herself. She knew her mom cared about her, but she
tried to comfort her with material objects too often – so much so
that Lexi had grown tired of it.

Her mom glanced up as Gerti placed a plate of
salsa scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in front of Lexi. Gerti
placed a cup of coffee in front of her mom, before hurriedly
placing a plate of food in front of her as well. Lexi nearly burst
into laughter when she realized that Gerti had brought the roast
beef sandwich and French fries that she would have ordered if she
had not been a vegetarian.

“I just thought ya might be hungry,” Gerti
said, shrugging at the food. “Y’all need to keep your bellies full
durin’ times of stress. And don’t you worry, Neddy told me to tell
y’all that this here food’s on the house!”

“Thanks,” Lexi’s mom muttered, the anger
rising in her cheeks. Once Gerti strode back into the kitchen,
Lexi’s mom harshly whispered, “I never would have come here if I
knew that woman was still working!”

Not letting her mom change the subject just
because Gerti had interrupted them, Lexi went on, “Well, maybe
you’d know that she still worked here if we didn’t move.” She took
a huge bite of her salsa scrambled eggs. It tasted just as good as
she remembered it tasting when she was a kid.

Lexi asked, “Is Dad the reason why we moved?”
and braced herself for the lecture that was bound to follow.

“Lexi, we’ve talked about this before,” her
mom warned from across the table.

“No, we haven’t. I’ve been asking you why we
moved my entire life, and you’ve always managed to change the
subject.”

Sighing loudly, her mom said, “No. He’s not
the reason why we moved.”

“Then did it have to do with Aunt Violet or
Uncle Tommy?” Although the house that Lexi and her mom had moved to
was only about two hours from Briar Creek, they had never returned
to their old town. Lexi’s mom and her Aunt Violet had been super
close as kids and throughout their early twenties. But these days,
her mom and aunt didn’t even call each other. Despite their lack of
communication and Eileen’s refusal to talk about it, Lexi knew that
her mom missed Violet; she still kept a photograph of them together
as teens on her nightstand. Lexi had always wondered what had
happened, but knew better than to ask about it.

“It’s complicated, Lexi” Her mom sniffed and
went back to playing with her glass. Lexi knew that look. The last
time her mom had had it, she had scolded Lexi before walking around
the house like a teary-eyed zombie for the next week and a half.
Deciding that she didn’t want a repeat of that week, Lexi abruptly
dropped the subject.

While Lexi crunched on a strip of bacon, her
mom drank her coffee. She had claimed she was too nervous to eat
her fries, and, if that were true, Lexi wouldn’t have blamed her.
But she knew her mom well enough to know that she was just being
spiteful to Gerti’s insisting that she should still eat her roast
beef sandwich.

Grinning, Lexi shoved the last piece of bacon
in front of her mom’s face and jokingly asked, “Want some?” Her mom
wrinkled her nose distastefully and batted her hand away. “Cute,
Lexi,” her mom said, laughing.

*

Lexi followed her mom into the Stillwater Inn
& Suites. Glancing around, she found herself unimpressed by the
tacky salmon colored carpet and clashing mocha painted walls in the
hotel lobby – but reminded herself that it was the best that the
town had to offer. Lexi and her mom had searched online and found
that the Stillwater was the only hotel in Briar Creek with at least
a four-star rating.

“Good day, ma’am. How may I help you?” a
short man with a thick mustache who was working behind the front
desk asked Lexi’s mom. Lexi tried to ignore the dark red stain on
his shirt, which she assumed he must have spilled on himself during
his lunch break – classy.

“I have a reservation,” Eileen answered,
pulling out her Coach wallet and reaching for one of her many
credit cards.

“May I have your name?” the man, whose
nametag said Steve, asked.

“Eileen Hunter,” she replied. Feeling
impatient, Lexi tapped her foot.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t have a
reservation under your name,” Steve said. “How did you book your
stay? Online or by phone?”

“I called,” Eileen answered, with a puzzled
expression on her face. “Are you sure there’s no reservation? Would
you please double check?”

Steve tapped on the computer for a few
moments before glancing up at her. “No reservation ma’am. I’m
terribly sorry,” he said.

“Well, do you have any vacancies?” Lexi could
see how annoyed her mother was becoming.

Shaking his head, Steve replied, “No, ma’m.
We don’t. I’m sorry. We’re booked for the next two weeks.”

“Thanks,” Eileen said turning away and
opening the hotel door. Lexi followed her and heard her mutter
under her breath, “Like that many people visit Briar Creek.”

When they went back to their car, Eileen
opened the rear passenger side door and stuffed their luggage in
the back seat. Lexi sat in the front seat and turned to look at her
mom. “Now what are we going to do?” Lexi asked.

“We’re going to have to stay with Aunt
Violet,” Eileen answered hesitantly.

“Well, I thought we should stay with them all
along,” Lexi said, pointedly.

“I know you did, Lexi,” Eileen pacified her.
“I’m just going to give your aunt a call to make sure it’s okay
that we stay first.”

Dialing the phone, Eileen waited for her
sister to answer the phone. When she didn’t pick up, Eileen decided
against leaving a message. “She’s expecting us over there soon
anyway,” Eileen said, turning to Lexi. “I guess we’ll just let her
know when we get there.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine with it, mom,” Lexi
said. “She is your sister, after all.”

“I hope so,” Eileen said, pulling out of the
hotel parking lot.

*

Lexi’s breath caught in her throat as her mom
pulled their silver Ford Focus onto the gravel road that lead to
Violet and Tommy’s house. Before her stood the daffodil yellow,
three-story house, imprisoned by the white picket fence that she
had been too afraid to climb as a child (despite Austin’s many
attempts to convince her to jump over it when they pretended they
were Power Rangers). Inside the fence had always felt like the
safest place to Lexi; it was Austin who had always seemed like he
was trying to break free.

The house brought back an array of childhood
memories: holding lemonade stands at the end of the driveway,
baking cookies with Grandma Jean, and climbing the snow banks that
encircled the lake she wished she knew how to ice skate on.
Thinking about her past made her feel a twinge of emptiness. Maybe
Briar Creek could help her open the door to the life she had missed
out on when she and her mom had picked up and left.

Unfortunately, the house also brought back
bad memories, like the night her father went missing. They had
searched for a few hours before coming to the assumption that he
had left on his own accord. No one had even bothered to file a
police report. At the time, her mother had told her that the police
wouldn’t look for a grown man so they shouldn’t waste their time on
filing a report. Still, the search (or lack thereof) struck Lexi as
odd years later, when she was old enough to know that you wouldn’t
just let someone you love disappear without trying to figure out
where they went, with or without the help of the police.

Lexi had always wondered if her mom and dad
had had deeper problems than she was aware of, but it was yet
another item on her list of things not to ask about. Lexi’s
resources were limited. She couldn’t ask her mom, and they didn’t
have contact with any other family, since Lexi’s grandparents were
dead and Violet was her mom’s only sibling. Lexi knew that her dad
had a sister, Simone, who she had met a few times when she was a
kid, but her mom hadn’t kept in touch with her any further than
sending her a Christmas card every year.

Glancing around, she could tell that not much
had changed since she and her mom had moved away. The houses
surrounding Aunt Violet’s house still looked the same, except for
the Kelly green house across the street. Once bright and cheery, it
now looked like a house that would be featured in a slasher
film.

One of the upstairs windows was boarded shut
and most of the shingles had begun to pull up off the roof. The
grass hadn’t been cut for some time now. In between the two jungles
of grass lay a broken pathway that led to the front screen door,
which looked like it was about to fall off its hinges at any
moment.

Lexi thought back to who had lived there.
Years ago, it had been home to a teenager named Kevin who had lived
there with his family. Lexi’s mom still occasionally made fun of
her because he had been her first childhood crush, even though he
was way too old for her. Once when he was out getting the mail,
Lexi had asked him to marry her. He said yes and she had worn a
ring pop for the next week. Her heart was broken when Kevin’s
family had picked up and moved out of Briar Creek without a word to
anyone just days before their “wedding.” Shortly after, an old man
had moved into Kevin’s old house. Deciding that he must have passed
away by now, Lexi wondered if anyone was living in the house these
days or if, by the looks of it, it was abandoned.

“Lexi, get the bags,” her mom instructed,
bringing the car to an abrupt stop and snapping her back to
reality.

Lexi got out of the car and walked around to
the back passenger side door and grabbed the plum-colored Louis
Vuitton luggage and their Coach handbags from the backseat. She
tiptoed, trying to keep her ballet flats and the luggage that she
was carrying out of the muddy patches that lined the dirt driveway.
As she walked up the front porch steps, she noticed the tiny “L.H.”
and “A.G.” – her and Austin’s initials that they had carved into
the wood when they were kids.

Unsure of what to expect, Lexi stood
awkwardly on the front porch and waited until her mom was standing
next to her before she rang the doorbell. She listened as it dinged
loudly and heard the muffled, “I’m coming!”

When the person on the other side fumbled
with the lock and flung the door open, Lexi felt her stomach lurch
into her throat.

Violet stepped out from behind the door; her
hair a shade redder and her skin a bit more wrinkly than Lexi
remembered. She also looked about thirty pounds lighter, but
otherwise, she was the same old Aunt Violet.

“You’re here! I can hardly believe it,”
Violet said, embracing Eileen in a tight hug, looking just as
nervous as Lexi felt. Lexi breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe this
wasn’t going to be as awkward as she was expecting it to be. Maybe
she and her mom would even reconnect with Violet and it would be
like old times.

“And Lexi too! I wasn’t sure if you’d come
but I’m so happy you’re here. You’ve grown so much.”

“They let her take her finals a day early, so
she’s on her summer break now,” Eileen said, answering the unasked
question of why Lexi was there when she was supposed to be in
school.

Making her best attempt at giving a
genuine-seeming smile, Lexi leaned in for a hug. She noticed how
frail Aunt Violet felt. “It’s been a long time. I’m sorry about
Austin.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. Me too.” Something in
Violet’s voice sounded cold and detached. It would be hard not to
detach yourself from the world if your only son was attacked by a
wild animal, though, Lexi thought. She couldn’t even imagine how
her mom would react if it were Lexi who had been killed. Lexi
decided that Aunt Violet must be really strong for being able to
stay so composed.

Opening the door wider, Aunt Violet invited
them in. Lexi glanced around the living room. Not much had changed,
except that there was now a huge pile of stacked boxes that was
hiding the majority of the maroon couch. Lexi assumed that the
boxes contained Austin’s stuff, and found it strange that her aunt
and uncle had packed it up so soon. Maybe it was better that they
dealt with it now instead of becoming one of those parents who kept
their child’s belongings for years, never allowing visitors into
the bedroom that their deceased child had once slept in. That was
just creepy.

A heavy breathing reminded her of Uncle
Tommy’s emphysema. She glanced up as he stepped into the room.
“Well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t expect the two of you to come.
You’re just in time for lunch. Hey, kiddo, why don’t you help me
cook the burgers? You can put the pickles on them.” Lexi grinned.
Putting pickles on the cheeseburgers had always been her favorite
childhood job.

For the first time in a long time, Lexi felt
like she was finally home…but she couldn’t help but wonder what had
taken her mom so long to come back to the place where Lexi knew
they both belonged.