"I believe she was a good girl, Sheriff St. John. Being murdered doesn't make you a bad person."
He nodded, but his eyes were sort of wild, too much white showing. I wanted to ask how many murders he'd seen, but didn't. Whether this was his first or his twenty-first, he was sheriff.
"What do you think happened here, Sheriff?" I'd asked the question once, but I was willing to try it again.
"A vampire raped and killed Ellie Quinlan, that's what happened here." He said it almost defiantly, like he didn't believe it either.
"This wasn't rape, Sheriff. Ellie Quinlan invited her killer into this room."
He paced to the far window and stood like Larry had, staring out into the darkness. He wrapped his arms around himself like he was hugging himself. "How am I going to tell her parents, her kid brother, that she let some... thing make love to her? That she'd been letting it feed off her? How can I tell them that?"
"Well, in three nights, two counting tonight, Ellie can rise from the dead and tell them herself."
He turned back to me, his face pale with shock. He shook his head slowly.
"They want her staked."
"What?"
"They want her staked. They don't want her to rise as a vampire."
I stared down at the still-warm body. I shook my head. "She'll rise in two more nights."
"The family doesn't want it."
"If she was a vampire, it would be murder to stake her just because her family doesn't want her to be one."
"But she's not a vampire yet," St. John said. "She's a corpse."
"The coroner will have to certify death before she can be staked. That can take a little time."
He shook his head. "I know Doc Campbell; he'll speed it along for us."
I stood there, staring down at the girl. "She didn't plan to die, Sheriff. This isn't a suicide. She's planning on coming back."
"You can't know that."
I stared at him. "I do know that, and so do you. If we stake her before she can rise from the dead, it's murder."
"Not according to the law."
"I am not going to take out the head and heart of a seventeen-year-old girl just because her parents don't like the lifestyle she's chosen."
"She's dead, Miss Blake."
"It's Ms. Blake, and I know she's dead. I know what she'll become. Probably better than you do."
"Then you understand why they want it done."
I looked at him. I did understand. There was a time when I could have done it and felt good about it. Felt like I was helping the family, freeing her soul. Now, I just wasn't sure anymore.
"Let her parents think about it for twenty-four hours. Trust me on this. They're horrified right now, and grief-stricken; are they really in a position to decide what happens to her?"
"They're her parents."
"Yeah, and two days from now would they rather have her on her feet, talking to them, or dead in a box?"
"She'll be a monster," he said.