So I opened it and popped it into my computer. After a preliminary whir, the screen popped up. “The Vampire Directory,” it said in Gothic lettering, red on a black screen. Stereotype, anyone?

“Enter your code number,” prompted the screen.

Uh-oh.

Then I remembered there’d been a little Post-it on top of the case, and I dug it out of the wastebasket. Yep, this was surely a code. Bill would never have attached the code to the box if he hadn’t believed his house was secure, and I felt a pang of guilt. I didn’t know what procedure he’d established, but I assumed he put the code in a directory when he mailed out the disc to a happy customer. Or maybe he’d put a “destruct” code on the paper for fools like me, and the whole thing would blow up in my face. I was glad no one else was in the house after I typed in the code and hit Enter, because I dropped to my knees under the desk.

Nothing happened, except some more whirring, and I figured I was safe. I scrambled back into my chair.

The screen was showing me my options. I could search by country of residence, country of origin, name, or last sighting. I clicked on “Residence,” and I was prompted: “Which country?” I could pick from a list. After I clicked on “USA,” I got another prompt: “What state?” And another list. I clicked on “Louisiana” and then on “Compton.” There he was, in a modern picture taken at his house. I recognized the paint color. Bill was smiling stiffly, and he didn’t look like a party animal, that’s for sure. I wondered how he’d fare with a dating service. I began to read his biography. And sure enough, there at the bottom, I read, “Sired by Lorena Ball of Louisiana, 1870.”

But there was no listing for “brothers” or “sisters.”

Okay, it wasn’t going to be that easy. I clicked on the boldfaced name of Bill’s sire, the late, unlamented Lorena. I was curious as to what her entry would say, since Lorena had met the ultimate death, at least until they learned how to resuscitate ashes.

“Lorena Ball,” her entry read, with only a drawing. It was a pretty good likeness, I thought, cocking my head as I looked it over. Turned in 1788 in New Orleans . . . lived all across the South but returned to Louisiana after the Civil War . . . had “met the sun,” murder by person or persons “unknown.” Huh. Bill knew perfectly well who’d killed Lorena, and I could only be glad he hadn’t put my name in the directory. I wondered what would have happened to me if he had. See, you think you have enough to worry about, but then you think of a possibility you’d never imagined and you realize you have even more problems.

Okay, here we go. . . . “Sired Bill Compton (1870) and Judith Vardamon (1902).”