“Me, too. I knew I was being set up, so I got out of my place as fast as I could and went to Ian’s, vengeance on my mind. He wasn’t there, as you know, and when I was going by the neighbors’ house …” I took a deep breath and told her about discovering Ford with Cricket’s body and how he’d hit his head and the men in the black van who took me away.

“The Poindexters’ deaths were never reported to authorities,” she said. “I know this dude who tracks 911 calls for alien abduction stories, and I had him scour records for anything abnormal when you vanished.”

“Did your pal catch Ford’s phone call about vampires?”

“No, which proves that your abductors have lots of pull. I got in touch with Gabriel to see if he knew of anything.”

“And?”

“And he said everyone’s gossiping about you and Wilcox, but as far as he knew, the Council was keeping out of it. You have gone out of radio contact before.”

“Only when pursued by maniacs, not as a general practice,” I said. “I was held in a building south of here in one of those mostly abandoned industrial neighborhoods. They had an autopsy room and they were after vampire intel.” I loved throwing in new jargon. “They worked for Ford’s father, because there was someone they called the Professor who was running the show.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“Because he looked like an older version of Ford and because that bastard cloned Señor Pickles and didn’t tell his wife. He thinks cloning is too elementary, so he’s using the cat parts to try to revive the original Señor Pickles,” I said. “He’s trying to reanimate human bodies for use as soldiers in warfare.”

Mercedes sat down on the bed beside me and hugged me tight. Then the strangest thing happened. I felt her shake and heard a choked sound. Stoic Mercedes was crying. She took off her glasses and pressed her face hard against my shoulder and bawled for a long time.

When she seemed to calm down, I reached for the carton of Barton’s tissues on the fake-marble bedside table. “‘It’s not worth sneezing at if it isn’t Barton’s,’” I said, handing her a tissue.

While Mercedes blew her nose, I finally noticed the purplish circles under her eyes and the hollowness in her freckled cheeks.

“Oh, Mercedes, I’m sorry to put you through this.”

She looked up at me with her big amber eyes and said, “I thought I lost you this time.”

I squeezed her hand. “It takes more than mad scientists and armed guards to get rid of Milagro de Los Santos.”

“What did they do to you?”

I smiled and said, “I don’t want to talk about it. I never want to talk about it.”

“How did you get away?”