Page 8 of The Vampire and the Case of the Hellacious Hag

Sidnee pointed to a book,Banged by Bigfoot,and flipped it open. She read for a few moments then fanned herself. ‘Okay, that’s surprisingly hot. This bigfoot has a big—’

I held up a hand. ‘I don’t need you to finish that sentence. I’m more of a fade-to-black girl – you know, leave it to my imagination.’

Sidnee shook her head. ‘Nah, I like it painted out for me.’ She flashed me a mischievous smile. ‘For some reason, I’ve been reading a tonne of military based age-gap contemporary fiction.’

I laughed. ‘How much older than you is Thomas?’

‘Old enough,’ she said dreamily.

We grinned at each other, then hurried down to Hayleigh who was still happily stroking Fluffy. ‘The house is clear,’ I announced. ‘No one is here.’ I paused. ‘We’ll check in the woods in a minute, but I wondered if you could answer a few questions about the Chrome Mine.’

She blinked. ‘Sure, but I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I’m just HR.’

‘Did you meet Helmud Henderson?’

Her expression clouded. ‘I did, actually – I did his induction paperwork before he went into the mine. He seemed very nice.’ She touched a hand to her heart. ‘He had a fiancée.I keep thinking about that poor woman.’

I frowned; that was interesting because we had Helmud’s father down as his next of kin. I’d have to see if Gunnar had a number for the fiancée.

‘He got real emotional talking about her,’ Hayleigh admitted. ‘It was so romantic.’ She sighed. ‘Poor Helmud. He got the days muddled up – he turned up at the mine a day early. I didn’t have the heart to send him away after he’d travelled in from Anchorage, so I just let him get on with his job. And now I keep thinking that if I hadn’t, he might have been around people when he had his heart attack…’

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ Sidnee soothed. ‘You couldn’t have foreseen that.’

‘Absolutely,’ I chimed in. ‘And it was his fault for getting muddled up.’ I patted Hayleigh’s shoulder. ‘We’ll go and check the woods now.’

Hayleigh smiled gratefully, her hands still tangled in Fluffy’s fur; he was valiantly putting up with belly scratches and a side order of baby talk. ‘Have you thought of getting a dog?’ I asked gently.

She gazed at Fluffy, her eyes contemplative. ‘No, but having him here like this sure is comforting.’

‘You never know, the animal shelter might have a large dog. Maybe it would be nice to have company.’

‘PerhapsI’ll go look,’ she said noncommittally.

Sidnee and I went through the back door. ‘You know there is no bigfoot or nantinaq here, right?’ Sidnee rolled her eyes. ‘Besides the ones in her monster-porn books.’

I wagged my finger at her. ‘Don’t kink-shame! Don’t yuck someone’s else’s yum. Each to their own and all that.’

‘Is this your way of telling me you read space romance? Aliens with all sorts of tentacles covered with suckers…’

I snorted but my cheeks warmed. ‘Not yet, but the day is young.’ I tried to get into a businesslike mindset. ‘I’m going to grab Shadow from the car. Worst case scenario, he gets a nice walk.’

‘I think that's the best case scenario,’ Sidnee pointed out.

‘Good point.’

I opened the car door and Shadow jumped down with a judgemental yowl to show he hadn’t liked being left behind, but he trotted after us obediently enough – for a cat. We crossed into the back garden and Shadow continued to follow us with only one essential detour to swat at a raven that had been cheeky enough to land and watch us. The raven evaded him with ease, then returned to his perch on an old stump with a vibe that said, ‘nah nah nah nah nah nah’.Shadow ignored him.

We scanned the backyard but it was typical for the area: mostly overgrown and untended. Other than anoverturned wheelbarrow and a stack of wood under a roof built to protect it from the weather, it was empty.

As we walked towards the edge of the woods, Shadow bounded ahead to chase a squirrel. He didn’t appear concerned or cautious, and I counted that as a good sign; previously he’d reacted when the beast was around.

I put my finger to my lips in a ‘shush’ sign and signalled to Sidnee that we should spread out a little. We melted into the woods.

This patch of forest was thick and spooky. The bright lights from the house faded from view as I scanned the surrounding area. Nothing. A broken branch sounded like a shot to my left and I jumped. A whispered ‘Sorry’ from Sidnee made me smile and calmed my heart, which had felt like it wanted to give an extra beat.

When I heard rustling up ahead, I unsnapped my holster and drew my service weapon. I kept it down, pressed against my leg.

‘I don’t see anything,’ Sidnee muttered.

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