Undead and Unwelcome

Chapter 40

Dude,

Not only is Tina gone, but her laptop is missing as well. I had hoped to use her e-​mail address to get Betsy and Sinclair’s attention, but a room-​to-​room search revealed nothing.

I was far too distracted at the hospital to do a reliable job, so I was taking unpaid sick time as I tried to figure out what the hell to do.

I managed to keep it casual as I asked Laura what she’d done with Tina’s stuff, but just got another one of her insipid smiles and assurances that I didn’t need to worry about a thing.

Ha. Worrying was more or less all I was doing. And each time Laura tried to assure me she hadn’t lost her mind, she sounded a little less sane.

“Marc, vampires are—with the possible exception of my sister—evil by nature. Betsy’s life would be so much simpler if she didn’t have to spend so much time policing monsters. And,” she went on with the fervor of an evangelist, “not only am I helping Betsy, I’m keeping the peace in the Twin Cities, keeping the devil worshippers busy doing God’s work—it’s all good.”

“Having me followed every minute of the day or night is God’s work?”

She had the grace to flush a little at that. Maybe she wasn’t entirely gone. “Marc, you don’t know any better. You’ll give Betsy all the wrong ideas. I want her to come home, too, but not until I’ve finished working on the surprise.”

“The surprise? You mean there’s more to come?” I tried not to sound as horrified as I felt.

“Sure! Lots more. You’ll see, Marc. Besides, they’re for your own protection. We can’t have anything happen to you, now can we?”

“Will you at least consider the possibility that you’ve gone insane?” I asked, and got a soft laugh in response. She had thought I was kidding.

“You worry too much.”

“What are you going to tell Betsy and Sinclair when they get back?”

“That I kept things safe for them,” she replied promptly.

That you’ve gone looney tunes, I thought, but prudently kept that to myself.

I tried arguing with her for another ten minutes, and kept getting that sweet smile for a response. Dude, after a while I just wanted to whack that smirk off her face.

At least we still had an Internet connection, though what I knew about such things could be carried in an emesis basin. E-​mails were about all I knew. Sure, I could have gone to an expert, a real techno geek . . . except I had Satan’s Minions constantly on my heels.

In desperation I waited until she and the devil worshippers had left on another kill-​all-​vamps mission, then typed out a quick e-​mail to Betsy. And sent it. And sent it. And sent it. And sent it.