Sweet Last Drop by Melody Johnson Page B

I’m fine . What happened with the Dunbars? What did Berry and Sheriff Pitston say about the case?”
    “Had you stayed with Alba, you could have interviewed them yourself.”
    “Had I stayed with Alba, someone else would have been abducted.”
    Walker crossed his arms stubbornly. “Exactly. Someone else might have been abducted, but not you.”
    I pinched the bridge of my nose and prayed for more patience. I was sorely running low, and although I struggled with the existence of a graceful, omniscient deity, it would take a miracle to get through this conversation without losing my temper. Walker and I had argued over who was to blame for my abduction from the moment he caught me limping back from the woods, while he helped me to his truck, and as he drove us back to his house. From the stubborn clench of his jaw, the argument wasn’t ending anytime soon.
    Despite his temper, Walker insisted on replacing the icy-hot patches on my hip when we reached his house, and since I couldn’t step without wincing, I wasn’t in much of a position to resist when he led me back to the bathroom.
    Without much room to maneuver, he had me sit on the toilet seat to reapply the icy-hot. I tried to find a position that I could sit comfortably without shards of my hip digging into nerve endings. I had the feeling that my efforts to convince Walker and sit comfortably were a lost cause, but until he included me on the details of this case, I wasn’t letting it go.
    I took a deep, calming breath. “We’re lucky I was the one adbucted. Had it been anyone else, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
    “They would have been fine. Bex’s vampires don’t kill their prey. As a powerful Master, she controls her vampires,” Walker said. I narrowed my eyes, not liking the subtle dig at Dominic, but Walker continued before I could comment. “They would have fed, clouded the person’s mind, and returned him generally unscathed.”
    “I was returned generally unscathed, but Bex obviously doesn’t have the iron control over her vampires that you’re giving her credit for, bless her heart . Lydia and the Dunbars were completely scathed.”
    Walker snorted. “Bex has been Master of her coven since before we were born—”
    “So I’ve been told,” I muttered.
    “—and in all my experience dealing with her—over thirty years of learning about them, nearly becoming one of them, and eventually hating them—none of her vampires have ever left evidence of their victims. Our experience in the city with Kaden was the first time I’d ever witnessed such a public display of vampire kills. That’s rare, not the norm.” Walker scrubbed his palm over his face. “These murders are not vampire attacks.”
    I snorted. “Both victims were attacked at night,” I ticked off one finger. “The Dunbars were attacked in the exact location that Bex stopped your truck earlier this evening,” I ticked off a second finger. “And you said so yourself that if we didn’t stop the truck voluntarily, Bex would stop it for you,” I ticked off a third finger and stared at Walker, my point solidified. “Something obviously stopped the Dunbars’ car for them, and that something screams vampire to me.”
    “They seem like vampire attacks to you because of your experience with Kaden in the city, and if we were in the city, I’d be inclined to agree with you. But we ain’t in the city, darlin’, and I’m telling you that Lydia and the Dunbars were not attacked by vampires.”
    I sighed heavily. “Fine, I’ll play along. What else could it be?”
    Walker opened his mouth and then hesitated. “Off the record?”
    I rolled my eyes. “You do realize that you brought me here under the pretense of writing a newspaper article?”
    Walker stared at me with those velvet brown eyes, and I could feel my frustration and anger slip away into the depths of his gaze.
    I shook my head at my own weakness. “I have to write something worth publishing while I’m here,