Charlaine Harris - Many Bloody Returns

“I’m selling the condo. Nobody stays long in Florida. You know that. Will you be here tomorrow night? May I see you again?”

“Three o’clock,” I said. “Same time, same place.”

There. I’d done it. I’d made a date with another man. My marriage was over, except for the legalities. It was time to face the future. Maybe, if I was lucky, I’d have Michael in my life. If not, I’d find someone else. He’d shown me that I was still attractive. I was grateful for that. I’d let Eric destroy my confidence.

I turned around for one last look, but Michael was gone. Only then did I realize he hadn’t asked if I was married. I wondered if he knew. Or cared.

Eric was waiting for me when I returned, tapping his foot like an impatient parent.

“Where were you?” he said.

“I could ask you the same question,” I said.

“I was with a patient,” he said.

“Administering more special injections?” I said. “Patricia says they’re wonderful for the complexion. I wouldn’t know. It’s been so long I’ve forgotten.”

“You’re certifiable.” Eric turned the attack back on me. He was good at that. “Jack is dead. Murdered! Some freak drank his blood. And you’re roaming the streets at night like an Alzheimer’s patient. I should hire a keeper.”

I should hire a hit man, I thought. But I held in my harsh words. I didn’t need Eric now. I had Michael.

“Good night,” I said. “I’m sleeping in the guest room.”

“You can’t—”

I didn’t stop to hear what I couldn’t do. I locked the guest room door and put fresh sheets on the bed. What I am doing? I wondered. I have a three a.m. rendezvous with a man I don’t know. There’s a murderer running loose in my neighborhood. Yet I’d never felt safer or more at peace. I slept blissfully until ten in the morning. I woke up with just enough time to get ready for my literacy board meeting.

As I walked into the dark paneled board room, I caught snatches of conversation: “he was drained dry…don’t know when they’ll have a funeral…Margaret is devastated.”

All anyone could talk about was Jack’s murder, at least until the board meeting started. Then we had to listen to Nancy blather on about bylaws changes. She’d kept the board tied up with this pointless minutiae for the last eight months.

Once I saw myself as a philanthropist, dispensing our money to improve the lives of the disadvantaged. But I’d sat on too many charity boards. Now I knew how little was possible. Here I was in another endless meeting, listening to a debate about whether the organization’s president should remain a figurehead or have a vote on the board.

How did this debate help one poor child learn to read? I wondered.

“Katherine?”

I looked up. The entire board was staring at me.

“How do you vote on the motion: yes or no?” Nancy asked.

“Yes.” I wasn’t saying yes to the motion, whatever it was. I was saying yes to a new life.

Mercifully, the board meeting was over at noon. I dodged any offers of lunch and went straight home. I spent three hours on the Internet, looking at my career options. Work couldn’t be any worse than board meetings. Then I’d get ready for my date with Michael.

By four that afternoon, I’d decided to become a librarian. It would only take another three years of college. The pay was decent. The benefits were not bad. The job prospects were good. I’d be a useful member of society, which was more than I could say for myself now.

I pushed away the memory of Elizabeth’s dreary apartment and made an appointment with a feminist lawyer. Tomorrow, we would discuss my divorce. Today, I wanted to think about my date with Michael.

I washed my hair, so it would have a soft curl. I applied a mango-honey face mask and swiped Eric’s razor to de-fuzz my legs. Eric hated when I did that. I hoped the dull razor would rip his face off tomorrow morning. I sprayed his shaving cream on my long legs. I was now covered with goo from head to toe. Naturally, the doorbell rang.

Who was that?

I looked out the peephole. A young woman with a cheap blond dye job was on my doorstep. Her skirt was some bright, shiny material, and her tight halter top barely covered her massive breasts. I’d seen her before, at Eric’s office.

“Just a minute,” I called, and quickly wiped off the shaving cream and the mango mask.

When I opened the door, I was hit by a gust of perfume.

“Yes?” I said. “You’re from Eric’s office. Is there a problem?”

“There is.” She boldly walked into my home and sat down on my couch. “My name is Dawn. I’m Eric’s office manager.”

And his lover. The recognition was a punch in the face. Eric was leaving me for this big-titted cliché. I stood there in silence, hoping to make this husband-stealing tramp squirm. She’d have to do the talking.

Dawn came right out with her request. “We want to get married,” she said.

“We?”

“Eric and I.”

“He’s married to me,” I said.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Dawn smiled. She had small, feral teeth, and smooth skin. Eric would revel in that flawless skin. How my husband would love to put a knife into it. He had the gall to try to improve perfection.

“If you make it easy for me, I’ll make it easy for you,” Dawn said. “I’ll make sure you get a nice allowance. You drag us through the courts, and I’ll fight you every step of the way.”

“You’re threatening me in my own living room?” I said.

“It won’t be yours for long,” Dawn said. She looked around at my carefully decorated room. “No wonder Eric doesn’t like to hang here. It’s like a funeral parlor. White couches in Florida. Hello? Can you say corny? This place needs some life.

“Oh, dear, you’ve got some gunk on your forehead. Those do-it-yourself beauty treatments don’t work. Should have gone to your husband for help. You might still have time. But maybe not. He can only do so much.”

I sat there, speechless, while the little slut sauntered past me. I picked up the first thing I could find, a delicate gold-trimmed Limoges dish—a wedding present—and threw it at her. Too late. She’d already shut the door.

The dish shattered with a satisfying sound. Plates, glasses, candy dishes, even a soup tureen followed, until the hall’s marble floor was crunchy with smashed crockery and broken glass. It took me an hour to sweep it up and drop it down the trash chute. I knew Eric wouldn’t miss any of it. He wouldn’t even notice anything was gone. These were the things I loved. I wondered if the slut would be dining off my best china and drinking from my remaining wedding crystal. Over my dead body. Better yet, over hers.

I cleaned off the remnants of the mango-honey mask and shaved my legs with a shaky hand. I had a date with a man at three o’clock in the morning. What kind of time was that? I nicked my leg and watched a small drop of blood well up. Blood.

Three a.m. was a good time for a vampire.

That’s what Michael was, wasn’t he? Who else had drained Jack dry but a vampire? What else could Michael and his sleek, night-loving friends be?

I expected to feel shocked and horrified, but I didn’t. Michael and his friends did me a favor by killing Jack. If they’d killed Eric, I would have been the center of a murder investigation. Instead, they gave me a little more time to arrange my life before it self-destructed.

Was Michael a danger to me? I didn’t think so. If he’d wanted to kill me, he’d had many opportunities. No, Michael wanted more than a quick kill. But what, exactly? His conversation was full of innuendoes, invitations, and explanations.

“I feel your yearning. It makes you very beautiful—and very vulnerable.”