Startled, Rebecca turned to see Cindy Ruger and her volleyball friends huddled on the sidewalk in a cluster of curious neighbors, and a monstrous “what if” snuck up on her.
What if she’d stayed at the party? Would she have come home in the morning to find Erica dead, too? Or would her parents simply be making weekend pancakes in bloodstained pajamas, setting the table for four, instead of six?
Why Laura and John? Why not Erica?
If Rebecca had been at home, would they have killed her, too?
“What happened?” Cindy called from the sidewalk, where she and the rest of the neighbors were being held back by yellow crime scene tape and two uniformed police officers. “Are you okay?”
“You don’t have to talk to anyone.” Dr. Emory put her arm around Rebecca again and guided both girls to a police car, where another uniformed cop opened the rear door for them. The Essig sisters climbed into the back of the car, while Dr. Emory got into the front passenger seat.
Minutes later, Rebecca watched through both the rear window of the police car and a film of her own tears as her parents were led out of the house in handcuffs. Their feet were bare and they still wore blood-soaked nightclothes.
An audible gasp echoed from the neighbors gathered on the sidewalk.
“Where are they going?” Erica leaned forward to peer around her older sister, while police loaded their mother and father into the back of another car.
“To jail.” For the millionth time in the past hour, Rebecca wondered what her sister had seen. She’d clearly walked through the blood, and there’d been small streaks of it smeared over her nightshirt, but she hadn’t been drenched in it, like their parents had been.
Maybe Erica hadn’t actually seen anything. She might not even know that the footprints in the carpet were made from blood.
But she hadn’t asked about Laura or John. Not even once.
“Jail?” Erica shifted onto her knees on the bench seat for a better view out the window. “Is that where we’re going?”
“Not exactly. You’re going to the police station.” Dr. Emory twisted in her seat to face the girls through a metal mesh barrier separating the front of the car from the back. “The police need you to answer some questions. Then your grandmother will pick you up and take you to her house.”
“Grandma Betty or Grandma Janice?”
“Grandma Janice and Grandpa Frank,” Rebecca told her. “Grandma Betty lives too far away to get here tonight.”
Erica pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t like Grandma Janice. Her house smells funny.”
“Why don’t you lie down and try to get some sleep,” Rebecca suggested. “This might take a while.”
Erica resisted the idea for about ten minutes. Then she got bored and curled up on the bench seat with her head in her sister’s lap. Minutes later, she was snoring softly.
Rebecca brushed hair back from her baby sister’s face, over the shoulder of the clean nightshirt one of the female cops had brought out for her when they’d taken the bloody one she’d been wearing as evidence. They’d also taken swabs from the bottoms of both girls’ feet, to test the dried blood in a lab, for all the good that would do. All of the Essigs had the same blood type.
In the house, more cops were gathering evidence, taking pictures and dusting for fingerprints. But their efforts seemed pointless to Rebecca. She knew what had happened.
What she did not know was why.
Rebecca leaned her head against the back of the seat, but the moment she closed her eyes, she was right back there, in the doorway of her twelve-year-old brother’s bedroom. Staring in horror at John and Laura.
At what was left of them.
The driver’s door creaked open, startling Rebecca from the beginning of a nightmare she would have over and over in the coming years, and a uniformed cop leaned down to look in at her, his arm propped on the roof of the car. He had eerie yellowish wolf eyes with pinpoint black pupils, as well as wickedly pointed canines. But his smile was kind.
“Okay, girls, we’re going to take you to the station in a couple of minutes, and after you’ve answered a few questions, your grandparents can take you home.” The cop grimaced when he realized what he’d said. “Well, to their home.”
Rebecca rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, smearing eye makeup she’d applied ten hours earlier. “Erica’s out cold, and it’s the middle of the night. Can we just let her sleep for now?”
“I don’t...” The cop gave the sleeping child a sympathetic glance. “I believe that’s up to Dr. Emory, but usually we like to get information while it’s fresh.” He stood again and called to another cop over the car. “Edwards. We clear to go?”
Footsteps pounded against the pavement as another cop jogged closer, and through the windshield, Rebecca got a good look at his shocked-pale face. “You’re not gonna believe this, but they need Dr. Emory across town. We got another one. Just like this.” He gestured at the Essig house.
“You’re shittin’ me,” the werewolf cop swore. Then he glanced at Rebecca and closed the car door.
