Undead and Unreturnable

"Wait a minute, wait a minute." Jessica made the time-out sign. "You made up after your other fight, but now you're fighting again?"

I nodded miserably.

"You guys. Seriously. I really think you should get married already-talk about prewedding jitters! You're tearing each other apart!"

"Perhaps my father could help," Laura suggested. "He has counseled many couples before their special day."

Oh, right. I could just see Sinclair and me sitting in the minister's office. "Thanks anyway, Laura."

"What are you doing here?" Jess demanded. She was jealous of any woman who took up my time, even relatives. "Weren't you just here?"

"I had to let George feed again," she said glumly. She pulled back her coat sleeve to show us the neat bite marks and reddened flesh. "He's pretty much healed up now."

"Oh. Well, good work." I tried an encouraging smile, which felt like an embalmed leer. "Don't almost kill him anymore. Let that be a lesson to you. Etcetera. Time to get back to my problems: can you believe that bum?"

"Well. He did go to Europe to keep a bunch of scary old vampires from coming over here and killing you," Jess pointed out.

"You just like him because his rent checks have never bounced."

"No, but frankly, I figure that other hurdle-whatever it was-if you got over that, you can get over anything."

"Excuse me," Cathie said, right next to my ear, and I yowled and knocked over my tea. "But if we're going to get back to anyone's problems, we're getting back to mine."

"There's a ghost in the room," I told Laura and Jess.

"Oh, honey. Not this again." Jess didn't believe in ghosts (funny 'tude for someone who lived with vampires). No matter what I did, I couldn't get her to see them. So she just...

"I'm out of here." She got up, ready to put her cup and saucer in the sink, when Laura opened her mouth. I shook my head, and we sat in silence until Jessica left.

"What does it want?" Laura practically whispered.

"I can hear her fine," Cathie snapped.

"She can hear you fine," I translated. "She's the latest victim of the Driveway Killer."

"The one who's missing? Mrs. Scoman?"

"There's another one?" Cathie cried. "Dammit, dammit! This is why I'm floating around this dump, trying you to get your head out of your ass! This is exactly what I was trying to prevent! Son of a fucking bitch!"

"All right, don't yell." I put my hands over my face and shivered for a minute. "She's mad because there's another victim."

"Well... another lady who's missing. She got pulled out of her driveway tonight; they've already put an alert out on her." Laura was obviously trying to sound encouraging to the dead woman she couldn't see or hear. "She hasn't actually shown up, um, dead."

"Then let's go get him! Right now!"

"She wants to go after the bad guy," I told Laura.

"Of course she does! It's Mrs. Robinson, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, let's go!"

"Wait wait wait." Cathie, halfway through the wall, backed up and looked at me. Laura, halfway to the door, also stopped. "Where are you guys going? Do you know where he lives? All Cathie knows is that she got conked in her driveway-that's not exactly news. And she has a vague idea of being in 'some old house' and then she woke up dead. We have to tell Nick all this stuff-"

"How?" Laura asked. "Of course, you're right, we must tell the law, but how will we explain our knowledge?"

"We could say we got an anonymous letter or something."

"Which he will then wish to see." Laura sounded apologetic to be thinking up problems. "At least, I know I would."

"A phone call?"

"Why would they call you? Or me, for that matter?"

"Because Jessica's going out with him?"

"You could pretend to be a victim who got away," Laura suggested, "and then tell them everything the ghost tells you."

"That's not bad," Cathie said, "but there's no damn time. Don't you get it? He doesn't keep us very long; he's scared."

"Scared of getting caught?" I asked, so far over my head.

"No, scared of us. The victims. He'll kill her tonight and dump her in some awful public parking lot where everyone will see her naked and laugh and point."

"Nobody-" I began, shocked.

"No, that's what he thinks. It's what he wants. Now can we come up with how to explain it later? At least let's go drive to where I remember the house!"

"An address, anything?"

"No, but at least we can get in the area. Maybe I'll remember more. It's worth doing, goddammit!"

"You're right," I said, after I'd told Laura everything that had been said. "It's worth doing."

"Now, now, right now!"

"She's right," Laura said, and I assumed it was in response to what I had said, not because she could hear Cathie. "It's worth doing. Let's go at once."