“One of the oddest things about it was that there was no blood in that arm. Not a drop,” Sonny confided. “You’d think there would be something. You cut off a finger, ya got blood. You cut off a guy’s dick, ya got blood. I’m no doctor, no sir, but I figure there should be some blood in those veins and arteries.”

You and me both, Jay thought, finally starting the engine of his truck, his mind turning to all the talk of vampires. “So the arm is at the morgue, and the other evidence, like anything under the fingernails, chips of the polish, for instance—that’s at the lab?”

“Yeah. You might want to call Laurent. She knows more about this than I do.”

“I will, but in the meantime, I need a favor.”

“Another one?”

“I’ll buy you a beer.”

“You bet your ass, you will.”

“I’ll buy you a six-pack,” Jay amended, hearing Sonny’s affront.

“Shoot.”

“Can you check if anyone who works at All Saints owns a dark-colored van?”

“Anyone at the college?”

“I’ll e-mail you a list of names.”

“You can’t check this out yourself?”

“I need this yesterday. I was hoping you could help me out. And I’ll need to see if any of them has a criminal record. A deep probe.”

“Might take a while.”

“Put a rush on it, we’re looking at a half-rack.”

He laughed hard, a smoker’s laugh that ended in a coughing fit. “For that much beer, I’ll do it. Let you know what I find. Probably tomorrow on the DMV records, the other as soon as I get the info.”

“Thanks.”

“And I want real beer, you hear me? None of that lite shit.”

“Real beer,” Jay promised.

“Gotta go. Another call comin’ in and it is Sunday night. You know, I do have a life.” Crawley clicked off and Jay let his mind catalogue this new information.

A chill slid through his soul. A severed arm with no blood. None whatsoever. Had it been drained and digested by the alligator, or had something else happened to it, something unworldly? As a man of science he didn’t believe for a second that there were vampires walking this earth, but if Kristi was right, there was a cult nearby with true believers and who knew what they were up to.

Of course, the severed arm might belong to someone other than the girls missing from All Saints.

But he doubted it.

Sliding the truck into gear, he dialed Kristi to give her the news, but her phone went directly to voice mail. “Hey, it’s me. Give me a call,” he said, then hung up, a feeling of restlessness overtaking him. He should never have let her out of his sight. Things were happening too fast. He needed to tell Crawley or Laurent or someone what the hell was going on at All Saints.