Page 48 of Cooper’s Passion

Reno, Nevada, twenty-one years earlier

Anita shot up from her bed. Around her it was dark. Only the nightlight near the door was casting a little light on the carpeted floor meant to help her find the bathroom if she needed to pee in the middle of the night.

Something had woken her. A sound. She heard two voices, one was that of her mother, the other she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t her father’s. He was on duty at the sheriff’s department and wouldn’t be home until it was time for her to go to school. Or had her father come home earlier?

There was no clock in her bedroom, and she had no idea what time it was. Only dressed in her nightgown, Anita got out of bed and walked toward the door. She turned the knob and opened the door by only a sliver, when a man’s voice drifted toward her.

“You have no choice!” he ground out, the menace in his voice impossible to ignore.

Anita shivered despite the warm temperature in the house.

“No, please, take all the money and go,” her mother begged, her voice laden with tears. “There’s more hidden in the bedroom.”

A growl sounding like that of an animal came from the living room, and despite the fear Anita felt, she had to help her mother. On tiptoes, she left her room and walked into the dark corridor. At the bend, she stopped and peered past the corner.

“I don’t want your fucking money, bitch!”

The angry words came from a tall man, a stranger she’d never seen before. He had dark hair and a chiseled face, but she barely looked at that, because what captured her attention was the fact that he’d snatched her mother by the throat, lifting her in the air, his face only inches from hers.

He glared at her mother, his eyes like red beacons, his teeth sharp like those of a lion or a tiger. Frightened, Anita reared back, slamming her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

“I’m taking you, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” He hissed like a beast warning its prey. “And if you don’t come quietly, I’m taking your girl too.”

Anita’s heart thundered in her ears, and tears filled her eyes. No! She had to save her mother from that beast, that monster. Frantically, she thought of how to help, and remembered that she had a baseball bat in the bedroom. She rushed back to her room, and grabbed it, then hurried back to the hallway. When she went around the corner, ready to charge the intruder, she heard the front door slam shut. She rushed to the door and ripped it open, only to see a white van race away.

Her mother was gone. A monster had taken her. A monster with glaring red eyes and sharp, white teeth. A monster that shouldn’t exist. A creature that only existed in lore and myth, in fiction and on TV: a vampire.

San Francisco, today

Anita was still staring at the black-and-white drawing. As far as police sketches went, this one was as accurate as they came. The only thing that she couldn’t explain was the fact that the man hadn’t aged. After two decades, he should look more like a man in his fifties. But perhaps even that could be explained, now that the old memory of her mother’s abduction finally resurfaced with every detail. She’d suppressed the horrifying incident because her father hadn’t believed her, no matter how often she’d told him. He’d claimed that she was making up this story because she didn’t want to face the fact that her mother had left them without a word.

But now she was certain: her mother had been abducted. She’d been taken by the same man who’d taken many other women looking like her mother, and killed them. Everything about the victim profile matched. Her mother was blonde, blue-eyed, tall, and she’d been a school principal of a small elementary school in Reno, a woman in a position of power.

“Anita? You okay?”

Cooper’s voice drifted to her, and she ripped her gaze from the sketch. “Yeah, yeah, it’s just…” No, she couldn’t say that she suspected the man of being a vampire. Cooper and his colleague would think she was crazy. And she certainly wasn’t ready to tell him about what she’d seen when her mother had been abducted. After all, she wasn’t sure she could trust Cooper right now. He was keeping secrets from her. But she needed to know if she was the only one who looked at the drawing and saw the face of a vampire. “Bad teeth, what do you think?”

Cooper exchanged a look with Benjamin, then both shrugged as if they were performing in a synchronized swimming contest.

“Maybe a little,” Cooper agreed. “Could also be that Ginger was scared and projected her fear onto him. Happens.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Benjamin agreed.

“Well, let’s get copies of this sketch out to everybody, and send a few teams canvassing the neighborhoods. Let’s concentrate on the neighborhoods around where Janet’s body was found.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Send me a copy to my cell,” he instructed Benjamin and added, “Anita and I will take North Beach east of Columbus Avenue up to Telegraph Hill.”

When the elevator opened, they exited, and Cooper turned to her. “I’ll bring you to the lounge, where you can eat a bite, while I’ll quickly check in with my boss. Won’t take long. Then we can head out.”

Anita was about to protest, when she thought better of it. She was hungry, and she needed some time to herself to contemplate her next steps.