“You go on ahead,” I say to Michael, his heartbeat bleating in my ears. It isn’t safe for us to be alone like this.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he says.

When I’m sure he’s out of reach, I stumble into the nearest bedroom, searching through tangled piles of dirty laundry strewn across the floor, desperate for something that will fit me. Something more than just a jacket.

I find it turned inside out, pushed to the back of a mildewed dresser. A pale muslin dress with tiny red flowers stitched along the neck. Another of Daisy’s secondhand treasures, no doubt. Hopefully, she won’t care that I’m borrowing it. Hopefully, she’s still alive to care about things at all.

My body quivering, I pull the dress over my head and step into a pair of woven sandals in the corner. Now here I am, looking like a girl who belongs in the Haight. Like someone other than me.

Unless this is me now, what I’ve become. After all, I was a socialite once. Maybe that’s what I could be again. A girl who’s part of the world rather than just standing outside it.

From the street below, voices float up like ghosts, too far away to see. I gaze out the window, daylight fading away, as a voice rises within this room too. A whisper, as familiar as my own.

Dracula.

He’s long gone, but in spite of himself, he left something behind. It’s in the back of the closet, tucked away like a dirty secret. Another spot in the wall where a furnace grate used to be. On my tiptoes, I reach inside and wrench it out. The last urn, right where Daisy must have hidden it.

Dracula should have heard it, but this has always been the quiet urn. The one that caused me the least grief. Now it’s the only thing standing between him and everything he wants.

Downstairs, Bee, Jane, and Michael are gathered together in the empty living room.

Leaning against an open window, Bee looks at me. “We have to get Daisy.”

“I know,” I say, and hold the last urn tighter.

Another thing I know: whatever happens next, I can’t let Dracula find this. I can’t lose the rest of him.

I also can’t let anyone else get hurt.

“I need you to head home,” I say to Michael. “Back to the drive-in.”

“And what about you?” he asks.

“We’ll follow you in the Buick,” I say. “After we get Daisy.”

“And me?” Jane’s watching Bee. “Where am I going?”

Bee won’t answer her. She won’t even look her way.

“You go back to L.A. too,” I say. “It’ll be safer for both of you.”