to kill me and eat me. And every night, he'd bite me. And then he'd just change back and leave. I could tell it was hard for him, after he'd smelled the blood... but he never did more than bite."
"They'll kill him tonight," I said. "In return for us not going to the police."
"Good deal," said Jason, and he meant it.
Chapter 15
15
Jason was able to stand on his own long enough to take a shower, which he said was the best one he'd taken in his life. When he was clean and smelled like every scented thing in my bathroom, and he was modestly draped with a big towel, I went all over him with Neosporin. I used up a whole tube on the bites. They seemed to be healing clean already, but I could not stop myself from trying to think of things to do for him. He'd had hot chocolate, and he'd eaten some hot oatmeal (which I thought was an odd choice, but he said all Felton had brought him to eat had been barely cooked meat), and he'd put on the sleeping pants I'd bought for Eric (too big, but the drawstring waist helped), and he'd put on a baggy old T-shirt I'd gotten when I'd done the Walk for Life two years before. He kept touching the material as if he was delighted to be dressed.
He seemed to want to be warm and to sleep, more than anything. I put him in my old room. With a sad glance at the closet, which Eric had left all askew, I told my brother good night. He asked me to turn the hall light on and leave the door cracked a little. It cost Jason to ask that, so I didn't say a word. I just did as he'd requested.
Sam was sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of hot tea. He looked up from watching the steam of it and smiled at me. "How is he?"
I sank down into my usual spot. "He's better than I thought he would be," I said. "Considering he spent the whole time in the shed with no heat and being bitten every day."
"I wonder how long Felton would have kept him?"
"Until the full moon, I guess. Then Felton would've found out if he'd succeeded or not." I felt a little sick.
"I checked your calendar. He's got a couple of weeks."
"Good. Give Jason time to get his strength back before he has something else to face." I rested my head in my hands for a minute. "I have to call the police."
"To let them know to stop searching?"
"Yep."
"Have you made up your mind what to say? Did Jason mention any ideas?"
"Maybe that the male relatives of some girl had kidnapped him?" Actually, that was sort of true.
"The cops would want to know where he'd been held. If he'd gotten away on his own, they'd want to know how, and they'd be sure he'd have more information for them."
I wondered if I had enough brainpower left to think. I stared blankly at the table: the familiar napkin holder that my grandmother had bought at a craft fair, and the sugar bowl, and the salt- and pepper-shakers shaped like a rooster and a hen. I noticed something had been tucked under the saltshaker.
It was a check for $50,000, signed by Eric Northman. Eric had not only paid me, he had given me the biggest tip of my career.
"Oh," I said, very gently. "Oh, boy." I looked at it for a minute more, to make sure I was reading it correctly. I passed it across the table to Sam.
"Wow. Payment for keeping Eric?" Sam looked up at me, and I nodded. "What will you do with it?"
"Put it through the bank, first thing tomorrow morning."
He smiled. "I guess I was thinking longer term than that."
"Just relax. It'll just relax me to have it. To know that..." To my embarrassment, here came tears. Again. Damn. "So I won't have to worry all the time."
"Things have been tight recently, I take it." I nodded, and Sam's mouth compressed. "You..." he began, and then couldn't finish his sentence.
"Thanks, but I can't do that to people," I said firmly. "Gran always said that was the surest way to end a friendship."
"You could sell this land, buy a house in town, have neighbors," Sam suggested, as if he'd been dying to say that for months.
"Move out of this house?" Some member of my family had lived in this