“I’m sorry. I apologize for hurting you, Mr. K,” I said. “It’s inexcusable, and I’ll make it up to you another time.” Think, think. “Could Ian have changed his flight?”

Mrs. K shook her head. “When I phoned Miss Ilena’s housekeeper today to confirm that his luggage had arrived on the next flight, Lord Ducharme was there. I spoke to him. He said he would be going on to Lviv tomorrow and didn’t know when he’d return.”

So Ian hadn’t killed Wil. I turned and walked away.

Mrs. K asked, “Would you like us to give Lord Ducharme a message?”

“Yes, please tell him that I said he can go straight to hell. I’ll probably meet him there.”

I walked in a daze back along the dark street toward the service parking lot. When I heard painful sobs, the sound was so close to my own heart that I took a moment to register that the weeping came from Cricket and Ford’s house.

I could have walked on and I should have walked on, although Don Pedro would have made some crackpot claim that I was destined to be there at that moment and destined to follow the sound.

My steps were silent on the granite brick drive as I passed between the dense privet hedges. The Poindexters’ house was a beautiful old brown shingle with white trim. A lantern on a post illuminated the glossy green front door. Now I could hear the choking, guttural cries more clearly; they sounded how I felt.

I knocked, and when no one answered I opened the front door and went into the house. I called, “Ford! Cricket! Is everything all right?”

I found them in the elegant farmhouse-style kitchen. Cricket’s body was sprawled on the limestone floor and her young husband knelt beside her. I saw shards of broken glass and blood everywhere. An unwanted craving surged through me at the rich, rusty iron scent of blood.

A bloody X-Acto knife had rolled under a butcher block cart.

“Oh, my God, Ford, what have you done?”

It was then that I saw the phone in his blood-covered hand. He held it to his ear and choked out, “Vampires killed her! Vampires wanted her blood!”

I grabbed the phone from him, dropped it on the floor, and stomped on it, making sure it was thoroughly crushed. “What the hell happened here, Ford?”

“Can’t you see!” His eyes flitted from me to his wife. He held up Cricket’s wrist revealing a deep ugly gash across it and dozens of scabs. “She wanted to give Ian her blood when he came back. She was draining herself every day because she …” He clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Breathe, Ford, breathe.”