Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 27)

“Six ways to Sunday. I haven’t heard that expression in years.”

He gave the small laugh that I was hoping for and said, “How would you say it?”

“Sheriff Leduc is fucking emotionally compromised.”

“My grandmother would kick a fit at how much you cuss.”

“Mine would, too,” I said.

“I can’t break my early training. How do you do it?” he asked.

“I’m still rebelling against my family.”

“By saying the f-word so much?”

“By doing a lot of fucking things,” I said.

“What are we going to do about Duke?” he asked.

“I think I’ll start by calling another marshal,” I said.

“Do you think we need more backup?”

“No, but I’d like someone besides us to know what happened tonight.”

“You going to call Ted Forrester?” he asked.

“How did you know?” I asked, but I was already getting my cell phone out of the pocket it lived in when I was wearing work clothes.

“He and you are partners, or as much partners as this lone-wolf crap lets us have.” And again, there was that note of discontent about how the preternatural branch was run.

I didn’t argue or debate it. I just went to my favorites list on my phone. Ted’s name was near the top of my list. His cell phone number was the one attached to his contact in favorites, because when you’re calling for backup, you don’t want to talk to the kids or the wife. One, it was business, not social, but two, just like Newman didn’t want to have “the talk” with Leduc’s family, I didn’t want to have it with Edward’s family either. It was easier not to think about the finalities of the grave when we just talked to each other.

8

MY CALL WENT to Ted’s voice mail. I left a very vague message, because I didn’t know if he’d play it where one of his kids could hear it. Okay, where his stepson, Peter, would hear it. The two of them didn’t seem to have any secrets from each other, which should have been a good thing, but I didn’t want Peter joining the family business or feeling that he needed to ride to my rescue if Edward was unavailable. Peter had nearly died saving me from a weretiger when he was only sixteen. He was about to turn twenty. I did not need more heroics from him. If I didn’t want to tell Donna, Edward’s wife, that he had died in the line of duty, I sure as hell didn’t want to tell her that her son had gotten himself killed.

Newman parked behind the sheriff’s car on a wide gravel area beside the main road. The only streetlight I’d seen for miles shone down on a gate and a wall that peeked out from the trees on either side, as if the wall had been there long enough for the forest to grow up around it.

Sheriff Leduc was punching a keypad, but nothing was happening. He pushed a larger button and yelled into an intercom.

“We have the code to the gate,” Newman said.

“Who could have changed it?” I asked.

Newman shook his head. “No one but one of the other deputies is supposed to be at the house.”

We both started to get out of the car, but my phone rang, and it was Edward’s ringtone, “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood.

I answered with “Hey, Ted.”

“You talk to Forrester,” Newman said. “I’ll find out what’s going on at the gate.”

I gave him a thumbs-up as Edward said, “Anita, I take it you’re not alone.” He sounded slightly out of breath, which was unusual.

The car door closed, and I was suddenly alone in the quiet, night-dark car. “I am now.”

“Social or business?” He still sounded out of breath.