“Grab something we can smack him with if we need to. Normal human self-defense measures. No teeth.”
The guy got out of his car. In a parka, a hat, and an overgrown hipster beard, no one would be able to pick him out of a lineup.
“Should I go upstairs?” she asked. “I haven’t been around people yet.”
I shook my head. “Try not sucking him dry. Sort of a trial run before you go to the SugarBoo.” Her grand debut into Valentine society was almost upon us. No, second. She had briefly met Bob the electrician without incident. Heaven’s bloodlust had simmered down to manageable levels.
“How long till the ball?” she asked.
“Next week. It’s the first Saturday in December.”
When I opened the front door partway, our stalker smiled and said, “Sorry to bother you this time of night. I just got off work and noticed your lights were still on.”
I nodded. He needed to do better than that before I decided not to smack him.
“Hey, I accidentally got your mail, a couple of bank statements andsome other stuff that doesn’t look like junk.”
I took the handful of mail without saying a word.
“Grand Cayman, huh?” The man raised his eyebrows and looked hopeful that I would explain my apparent offshore banking activities. “What kind of business you gals up to, anyway?”
I downgraded him from stalker to nosy and pointed to the condemned building behind me.
He nodded toward the sign that we’d installed out front to replace the broken-down Valentine Bed-and-Breakfast sign. “We’ve all been talking about the new name. Radiance,” he said in a bold voice. “I don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get?” Heaven said over my shoulder. “I bet you were fine with it inCharlotte’s Web.”
He scratched his head at that. “Well, good talking to you girls.”
Girls—lol. If he only knew how old I was.
Once inside, I opened one of the statements. It was for a bank account registered to Tiffany Amanda Blair. A quick scan showed a balance of fifty-eight thousand dollars. Not bad.
Was this a windfall? Once again, I didn’t expect to inherit money from someone who had sold their identity. She shouldn’t have kept a bank account in her real name. Running Away 101 was: Liquidate your funds and pack them in a suitcase. Or maybe not. I’d never had any funds.
“What is it?” Heaven asked.
I showed her the statement. There were deposits, including regular ones from St. Nicholas Farms.
“Wait, what is Tyrone doing paying Tiffany?” I scanned the rows of numbers, blindsided by this development. On the one hand, I had money, but only because I’d found a secret stash that two people I’d trusted had hidden. Well, sort of trusted. Tyrone: I’d trusted that he was pretty much a saint. Tiffany: I’d trusted that she was probably dead. When you sell your identity, you’re supposed to stop using it. Those are the rules.
“Maybe he knows she’s alive and you’re a fake?”
I shook my head. “That would be so weird. He’s been going along withthe idea of me being Tiffany this whole time. If he were lying, he’d have to be a sociopath or something.”
I mulled over the numbers. Growing up, I’d only had to learn to count eggs and scoops of flour. The bank statement revealed nothing, but something smelled rotten.
I found Vlad upstairs where he had started using one of the guest bedrooms as an office. We hadn’t redecorated this room yet. The fluffy mauve bedspread and tiny white desk didn’t exactly say Prince of the Undead.
“I have a banking question.” Nothing was sure to bring Vlad to life more than a question he knew the answer to. “Why would Tyrone be depositing money into Tiffany Blair’s account?”
He took the statement from my outstretched hand and studied it for a minute. “This is very weird,” he said, before handing it back to me. He continued making a fire, wadding up newspapers and tossing in kindling. “It looks like she’s blackmailing Tyrone.”
Blackmail?
Tyrone thought he killed Jeff. Maybe Tiffany did too?
“Couldn’t she just blackmail him and keep her regular life, though? People do that all the time.” This all raised the question: was Tiffany with a -ya grieving fiancée or something more?
