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  Jeremy shook his head. “Between a safe room and blood-soaked earth to protect me against the vampires, I’ll take the safe room.”

  “We’re protected here because of all the precautions Walker takes, not just the safe room.” Keagan hissed at Jeremy before looking sheepishly at me. “Although the underground safe room is the main component.”

  “But how does that translate to my city apartment?” I asked. “If a vampire has permission to enter, I don’t have an underground safe room to hide in. I live five stories off the ground.”

  Jeremy snorted. “Move to the country.”

  Keagan rolled his eyes. “Take as many precautions as possible. Pick an apartment with lots of windows that isn’t overshadowed by another building. In a pinch, your apartment will be exposed to the first rays of dawn. Don’t underestimate the timing of the sun.”

  I laughed. “You’re preaching to the choir. I live by the rise and fall of the sun.”

  “We all do,” Keagan said. “With enough windows, your apartment will soak in the sun’s light and warmth all day. The more windows the better. You might think that windows, since they’re breakable, would make it easier for them to enter, but if your fallout shelter is working, it won’t matter if every window is open, they can’t cross the threshold.”

  I nodded. “All right, what else?”

  “Try to find an old apartment, one that’s been soaking up the sun for years. If it has real metal door hinges and door knobs, that helps, too. The antiques are made with brass and cast iron. Don’t go for porcelain or glass door knobs; they’re pretty to look at but they don’t do shit against vampires.”

  “Why brass and cast iron? Not silver?” I asked

  “They don’t make door knobs in silver, it’s too expensive. Although Walker might if you asked nicely.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  He laughed. “There’s something about the metals, even if they’re not silver, that doesn’t sit well with vampires. They’re uncomfortable entering a house that’s filled with it.”

  Jeremy scoffed. “That’s bullshit. How will that prevent a vampire from entering her apartment?”

  “It’s not guaranteed to work, but the sunlight combined with antique metals and human blood gives you a chance. Even if he can still physically enter the apartment, your vampire might at least hesitate, and in that moment, revoke your invitation.”

  My skin prickled in anticipation. I might actually regain a measure of control in my life. “You mentioned soaking the earth with human blood,” I said thoughtfully. “How does that help? Wouldn’t blood actually attract vampires?”

  “Vampires are attracted to our scent because new night bloods mean potentially new vampires. They’re attracted to human blood for food, but specifically, they’re hunting warm, circulating human blood in a live human. Stagnant human blood is unappetizing, like stale bread, so pouring human blood into the ground, or in your case, smearing it around the perimeter of your apartment, will keep you off their radar.”

  I blinked, and a sudden rush of understanding swept over me. “So smearing blood around the perimeter of my apartment, across door frames, will help ward off vampires?” I asked, thinking of the blood smears around the entry of Ronnie’s old house. Someone was using her house as a fallout shelter.

  Keagan nodded. “For sure.”

  “And Walker knows about all this stuff? About fallout shelters and smearing blood across doorways to keep vampires at bay?”

  He nodded. “Of course. He taught me.”

  “Are you good now?” Jeremy asked impatiently. “Because I heard you say something about Lydia and the Dunbars, and anything to do with Lydia I—”

  “No, we’re not good.” Keagan snapped. “I get one more question, so you can just—”

  Someone knocked on the door.

  The three of us stared at each other, startled into silence.

  Jeremy opened his mouth, and I covered it with my hand.

  “Just another minute,” I said through the door. “Sorry.”

  “Take your time, darlin’,” drawled an unmistakable twang.

  I closed my eyes in embarrassment. Shit, I thought. Now what?

  Jeremy disappeared from under my hand. I opened my eyes only to witness Keagan dragging him into the shower stall. I shook my head at the ridiculousness of it.

  Keagan nodded back at me.

  I rolled my eyes, but despite my better judgment, I didn’t have a better idea. I flushed the toilet.

  Keagan pointed at the sink and rubbed his hands together.

  I waved him off and washed my hands. Jeremy slowly and silently slid the shower curtain closed, hiding from plain view. I took my time drying my hands, only delaying the inevitable, but hoping Walker would wander back into the kitchen. I could hear the plodding creak of footsteps, but in a home this old and housing so many people, the noise could be anyone.

  Taking a deep breath, I twisted my hand around the doorknob and opened the door.

  Walker was leaning against the door jam, his arms crossed.

  I smiled. “It’s all yours.”

  Walker smiled back. “Funny, I could have sworn I heard someone talking back to you in there.”

  I snorted. “Speakerphone works better than my regular phone.”

  “Using speakerphone is pretty inconvenient in your line of work,” Walker said. “Conversations tend to be confidential.”

  I nodded. “That’s true.”

  Walker’s hard, locked gaze was unwavering.

  He waited what felt like a full minute before breaking eye contact, reaching behind me in a quick lunge, and yanking the shower curtain wide open. I closed my eyes, mortified.

  “I know Keagan was in here with you.”

  I turned sharply at the accusation in his voice and stared at the empty shower, stunned. “Keagan?”

  Walker turned back to me with a hot glare. “And Jeremy, too, if I’m not mistaken. I could hear those two bozos through the door, clear as day.”

  I shrugged. “I told you, I was on speakerphone. And as you can see,” I said, spreading my hand out for his perusal, “No one’s here except me.”

  He stared at me for another moment, willing me to break, but I crossed my arms and met his gaze without flinching. Knowing how vulnerable I felt in my city apartment, he could have told me about fallout shelters, but he’d kept that information to himself.

  Well, I could keep information to myself, too.

  Walker sighed. “I guess I was mistaken,” he said. He touched my shoulder, and I could feel the solid warmth of his touch through my leather jacket.

  I eyed him skeptically. “Why would Keagan be in the bathroom with me?”

  Walker’s laugh was self-deprecating, but I kept my anger wrapped around me like a blanket against the chill of my guilt.

  “Just something he said to me earlier while you were touring the house with Ronnie.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “What did he say?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “He had some questions about my time in the city, about you, and how you survived when you didn’t have other night bloods at your back.”

  “It certainly hasn’t been easy, especially these last few weeks. I can’t remember the last time I felt safe,” I admitted.

  “You can feel safe here.” He said, but his smile was a little deflated.

  Walker stepped out of the bathroom. As I turned with him, a shard of sunlight pierced through the window next to the shower. Dawn. The longest stretch of safety we ever had in a day was the moment the sun broke the horizon.

  I narrowed my eyes on the window. The sunlight dabbled on the bathroom floor as it shone through the lacy white curtain, but the corner of the curtain was caught in the window and fluttered outside.

  I smiled silently to myself, thanking God for the fearless spontaneity of teenage boys.

  Chapter 8

  Of course Walker knows eve
rything I know about fallout shelters. He taught me.

  I was lying on my bed in the guest bedroom, staring at the twirling overhead fan. Keagan’s words replayed over and over in my mind. Walker had taught Keagan about fallout shelters, but he hadn’t taught me. We’d pondered the smeared blood across the doorways of Ronnie’s abandoned house, but he’d recognized the blood for what it was all along.

  And once again, he hadn’t told me.

  I’d confided in Walker several times over the last three weeks about how violated I felt in my apartment. I told him how excited I was to see him, to get away from the city and escape the invasion of privacy I felt from Dominic’s constant presence. Granted, Dominic hadn’t taken advantage of the privilege. He often requested entrance, and lately, he even knocked, but we both knew the truth. His politeness was an act. He’d call it something less conniving, like a concession, but a spade is a spade whether it’s a seven or an ace. Dominic had access to my home, and he’d utilize that access if necessary whenever he wanted. He simply hadn’t found it necessary to break our tremulous truce, but there would be a day—and I suspected it would be sooner rather than later—when he would break that truce and break into my home. When he did, I wanted the arsenal stockpiled and prepared to fire. I’d thought Walker was the biggest asset to loading my arsenal.

  Obviously, I’d thought wrong.

  A commotion was brewing downstairs. If I wasn’t mistaken, a conversation between Ronnie, Walker, and Logan had turned heated. Their shouts had woken me after only an hour of restless sleep and had kept me awake for the past fifteen minutes.

  A door slammed, and a minute later, Walker’s motorcycle rumbled to life. I peeked out the window just in time to catch the tail end of his bumper disappear into the woody trail between his house and Ronnie’s.

  Curiosity finally got the best of me. I climbed out of bed, changed into a fresh, fitted t-shirt and jeans, masked the bruises on my throat with makeup, and ventured downstairs to do what I did best: snoop into things that were none of my business. Except when I reached the kitchen, the only person still there was Ronnie, and she was sobbing hysterically.

  She was doubled over with her elbows on the counter, a hand over her mouth, and tears poured from her eyes like geysers. I’d never seen someone with tears so physically large. They rolled out of her eyes and down her cheeks the size of dimes to splatter onto an expanding puddle on the counter.

  I stomped on the last step to make her aware of my presence, but she didn’t notice. She continued sobbing, her eyes fixated on the space of countertop in front of her.

  “Ronnie?” I ask softly. “Are you OK?”

  She let loose a particularly loud sob.

  “Ronnie!” I said, a little louder.

  Her head jerked up, and she blinked at me in shock, the tears still flowing.

  “I heard the commotion a few minutes ago,” I said, gently this time. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  She breathed in a shaky breath. “No. I’m not all right.” She grabbed the bowl of pancake batter and the whisk next to her and started beating the mixture furiously. “I… they….” She stuttered, her chin quivering, and the twin geysers erupted again in fresh sobs.

  I looked around, feeling awkwardly self-conscious by her emotional display, but for the first time since arriving, no one else was in the kitchen or living room. We were alone. “Do you need me to get Walker? I could call—”

  “No!” Ronnie shouted.

  She reached out as if to stop me, and then realizing her outburst, she covered her mouth again with her hand. But at least she had stopped crying. She turned her back to me, her spine ramrod straight, and poured little blobs of batter onto the steaming griddle.

  “I hope you’re hungry. You’re the only person in this house who hasn’t tried my banana nut pancakes, and you can’t avoid it this time. You’re the only one here to eat them.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her avoidance. “Why don’t you want me calling Walker?”

  “Ian doesn’t like being interrupted during an investigation. Besides, I wouldn’t want him seeing me like this.”

  “I’m sure he’d want to know why you’re this upset, investigation or not.”

  Ronnie looked away. “He knows why I’m upset. It’s fine. I’m fine. I just needed to let it out.”

  I shook my head, wondering why Ronnie had suddenly changed her tune. “No.”

  She met my eyes. “What?”

  “Something horrible happened, and Walker left you here alone to deal with it. That’s not fine.”

  “He had to,” she defended. She waved a hand at me, dismissing Walker as she scrutinized the hole-pocked pancakes. “Ian didn’t want to leave, but he was needed at the scene.”

  I narrowed my eyes on her. “What scene? I thought you said he went to work on the investigation?”

  Ronnie snapped her mouth shut. “He did,” she gritted from between clenched teeth.

  “No, you just said he left for a scene. A new crime scene? Another murder?” I let that sink in before I whipped out my cannon. “I saw him ride through the trail to your parents’ house.”

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked away to flip the pancakes. “You’re twisting my words.”

  “I’m not twisting anything. I’m just telling you what I saw.”

  “It’s personal.” Ronnie pursed her lips. “Do you take syrup with your pancakes?”

  “Will you stop cooking for one second and focus on this conversation?” I snapped. “What does it matter if I take syrup with anything? There’s a crime scene at your parents’ house.”

  Ronnie met my gaze. “Do you take syrup with your pancakes or not?”

  I stared at her, taken aback by her tone. She was not budging until I made a decision on the syrup.

  I sighed. “Yes, I take syrup.”

  She turned, snatched the syrup from the shelf, and pounded it onto the counter in front of me.

  “Why did Walker leave you while you were so upset?” I pushed.

  “Ian warned me that you might press me for information. I don’t have to answer your questions if I don’t want to.”

  “I’m not asking you questions as a reporter. I’m asking you questions as Walker’s friend. I thought you two were close, like brother and sister?”

  Her face tightened into a knot. “We are.”

  “Then why did he leave? Doesn’t he care that you were so upset?”

  “Ian left because he had to, not because he wanted to,” Ronnie snapped.

  “What was so urgent that he had to leave before taking the time to comfort you?”

  “He didn’t know I needed comforting!” she shouted. “I don’t let him see how much it kills me when he leaves!”

  “What was so important that he left?” I repeated.

  “I don’t know the details of his investigation. I don’t like being involved.”

  “No, you like to hide behind the safety of these four walls and let everyone else risk their lives for your safety.”

  Ronnie snapped her eyes to meet mine. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know you haven’t left this house after dark since you were a little girl. I know that you let Walker leave every night to fight your battles alone, and that he hasn’t had someone to watch his back in years.” I waited a moment to let that sink in before I hooked her. “Until me.”

  “I’m glad he has a friend in you. He needs backup,” Ronnie said magnanimously, but her lips trembled while she said it.

  “I don’t think that’s altogether true. You want someone to have his back, so you tolerate me. But you wish that backup could be you.”

  Ronnie clenched her teeth, staring daggers at me.

  I pushed harder. “I think you wish you had the courage to leave this house, to be at his side when he needs you most, but you don’t.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes. I could tell she was fighting to keep them, but
eventually she blinked, and those abnormally large drops streamed down her cheeks.

  “It’s daylight, though. It’s safe to leave and be his backup, so why aren’t you there beside him, helping him now?”

  She crossed her arms, but instead of a power stance, it looked like she was holding herself together.

  “He doesn’t want your help, does he?” I pushed as hard as I could, pressing all her buttons. I knew that my questions were cruel, but I needed to confirm if there was another murder scene and where. I needed to know why the hell he’d left without me. “He doesn’t trust you.”

  “Fuck you,” she whispered. “I could have gone with him if I wanted to!”

  “Are you afraid to leave, even during the day?” I scoffed. “You’re worse off than I thought, and I didn’t think your agoraphobia could be much worse.”

  “My fears are not unfounded!”

  “But they have consumed your life, haven’t they?”

  “He left you out of the investigation, too! He left you behind just like he left me!”

  “Where did the murderer attack this time?” I asked softly. “It was close to home, wasn’t it? That’s why you’re so upset.”

  Ronnie’s eyes welled, and like a burst damn, she broke. “It was my home. They were killed in my home!”

  “Who are ‘they’?” I asked, sickened by the thought of more victims. “Who was killed?”

  “Ian warned them against leaving the house after dark! Logan sat them down and forbade them from playing in my parents’ house. I told them that the woods was off limits,” Ronnie said between sobs. “I promised Logan I’d watch them more closely while he was at work.”

  “Who was killed, Ronnie?” I asked softly. I suspected I already knew the answer, but I needed her to say it. It wasn’t real unless she said it.

  “Logan’s youngest sons,” Ronnie whispered. “William and Douglas are dead.”

  She blinked in a sudden flurry, the smell of burned batter startling her from her grief. “Shit, I’m burning the pancakes!” She scooped them off the griddle and onto a plate, but only the first was burned. The rest were golden brown, fluffy, and perfect.