Jane Bites Back_ A Novel - Michael Thomas Ford [16]
“I’ll do my best,” Jane assured him.
She hurried through the crowd, pulling Miranda behind her. Seeing that the door to the hallway bathroom was closed, she detoured into Walter’s bedroom. She bypassed the bed, covered in coats, and dragged Miranda into the en suite bathroom. Closing the door behind them, she turned to Miranda.
“Now then,” she said. “Let’s take care of you.”
“But we didn’t get any seltzer,” Miranda objected. She turned the water on in the sink and started wetting a hand towel. “It’s going to set.”
“First things first,” said Jane. She spoke in a low voice, concentrating on clouding Miranda’s mind. Glamoring was one of the few vampiric tricks Jane had at her disposal. She very rarely used it, saving it for times such as this. Now she concentrated on manipulating Miranda’s thoughts.
Miranda hesitated, the towel in the stream of water. Slowly she let it fall into the sink, then turned and looked at Jane. “First things first,” she said softly.
Keeping her eyes on Miranda’s, Jane put her hand on the back of the woman’s neck. “Relax,” she said. “This will take just a minute.”
She bit into the soft skin beneath Miranda’s left ear, where her long hair would cover the bite marks until they could heal. Miranda slumped against Jane as she lost consciousness. Blood slipped into Jane’s mouth.
As she drank, the cramps subsided. Miranda’s blood was bitter, which surprised Jane not at all given the woman’s literary preferences. But it did the trick and, more important perhaps, prevented Jane from drinking more than she needed. When the pain in her had abated, she released Miranda, who slumped to the floor. Wiping her hand across her mouth, Jane giddily murmured, “Austen one, Brontë zero.”
Opening the door a crack, Jane peered into the bedroom. It was empty. Lifting Miranda in her arms, she carried her to the bed and placed her on it. Then she arranged the coats around her, not covering her but obscuring her enough that anyone taking a casual glance into the room would not immediately notice her. And if they do, she thought, they’ll just assume she’s sleeping off her wine.
When she returned to the living room, she found Sherman on the sofa exactly where she had left him. Smiling broadly, she sat beside him. “Here I am,” she said. “As promised.”
“I trust Miss Fleck has been taken care of?” Sherman said.
Jane nodded. “Yes, but I’m afraid she’s decided to abandon our company for more agreeable friends,” she said.
“Pity,” Sherman replied. Jane noticed that in her absence he had gotten himself a new drink. She also noticed that Walter was missing.
“Walter was called away by his duties as host,” Sherman said, as if reading her mind. “I’m so glad you’re back. It’s been dreadfully dull.”
“Well then, let’s make up for lost time,” Jane said. “Tell me everything you know about everyone here.”
In short order Jane learned that both Mr. and Mrs. Primsley were having an affair with the high school debate coach; that Miranda Fleck’s dissertation was late not because of her need to research more primary sources but because her original work had been found to be not at all original; and that a surprising number of the party guests had at one time or another been arrested for shoplifting, driving under the influence, indecent exposure, or a combination of all three.
“Next you’ll tell me that Walter has a sordid past,” Jane remarked.
Sherman waved one hand and laughed. “Walter has no past,” he said. “I don’t think he’s had even one date since his wife died.”
“His wife?” Jane coughed, choking on her wine. “I didn’t know he’d been married.”
Sherman nodded. “Evelyn,” he said. “She died, oh, it must be almost fifteen years ago now. It was quite a tragedy. They’d been married only a few years.”
“How did she—What happened to her?” asked Jane.
Sherman sighed deeply. “She drowned,” he said. “On the Fourth of July. There was a picnic at the lake. She went swimming. No one knows exactly what happened. One minute she was waving to us, and the next we couldn’t see her. By the time anyone realized something