Page 61 of Bad Luck Vampire

“Apparently it was, because it was gone by the time I recovered enough to look around,” Colle said grimly.

“You didn’t see who hit you?” Alasdair asked with surprise.

Colle shook his head. “I was concentrating on the tow truck driver at the time. The kid was young and pretty new on the job. It was a flatbed tow truck. We had to put the SUV in neutral and steer it out of the parking spot and onto the street so the tow truck had room to do what it had to do.

“Everything was fine at first. He got the flatbed tilted into a sort of ramp, and got the SUV up on the flatbed using the winch, but when he started to untilt the bed back to the flat position, the chains popped off the SUV and it went sliding backward. The back end of the flatbed was already about a foot off the ground when it happened. The SUV rolled off and hit the road hard. Not hard enough to do damage, but enough I could hear things crash around inside. We both rushed to the SUV to try to stop it, but the kid got to the driver’s door before me. I thought he glanced into the back as he rushed to get the door open and get inside to stop the SUV from rolling down the road. But I wasn’t sure.

“When I looked in the back after he stopped the SUV and went around to hook it up again, both the cooler and the weapons locker had been knocked over by the jolt, and blood bags and guns were strewn all over the floor of the back of the SUV.”

“So, you were reading his mind to see if he had actually seen that and needed a memory wipe,” Alasdair said quietly.

Colle nodded. “I was searching his memories when we were hit. As far as I can tell, some kind of large vehicle came out of a side street at speed and plowed into us, slamming into the passenger side door.” He shook his head. “Fortunately, it happened in an industrial area between two huge parking lots. I don’t think anyone even noticed it had happened. At least no one came up to check that we were okay before Eshe and Mirabeau arrived to help.”

“The driver was dead when they got there,” Connor told him. “And the lasses had to peel the metal away to get Colle out. Other than his head and one arm, he was just a sliced-up body bag with shattered bones and crushed organs rattlin’ around inside. It’s why it took so long fer him to heal and us to get here. He’s been frettin’ o’er ye in the meantime.”

“I’m fine,” Alasdair assured them, and then scrubbed his hands over his face before considering the men and what they’d told him. “So, you think the detached battery cables and the car accident are connected. That the battery was disabled so that the vehicle would have to be towed, and someone could—”

“Kill you,” Colle said quietly, and when Alasdair glanced at him sharply, said, “I think I was mistaken for you, and someone rammed into the truck intending to kill you. Probably a mortal who thinks you’re a mortal, since an immortal would know better than to think these pesky little attempts would be anything more than a painful annoyance,” he said grimly.

“You think the shrimp wasn’t bad and the hit and run wasn’t an accident,” Alasdair said solemnly.

Colle nodded. “From what we got from your memories while you were recovering, there was too much blood with your vomit for it to have been a simple case of food poisoning. It must have been a serious poisoning for that much blood to be needed to remove it. That means, the hit and run probably wasn’t an accident either. There must be a mortal out there trying to kill you, brother.”

Alasdair was silent for a minute, thinking about that. There was no real proof that what Colle was suggesting was true. The evidence was all purely circumstantial. But it was compelling enough that he didn’t try to argue that the poisoning, the hit and run, and Colle’s “accident” were all just bad luck. Instead, he simply asked, “Why?”

“Sophie,” Ludan answered abruptly.

When Alasdair just stared and didn’t respond at first, Colle said, “Marguerite told us that there has been a lot of death around Sophie. That she’s lost a lot of people she cared about.”

“Yes. Marguerite mentioned that to me too,” Alasdair admitted. “She suggested I get Sophie to talk about these deaths to see if I couldn’t figure out if she’s just unlucky enough to have suffered so many tragedies, or if there was something hinky about their deaths.”

“And?” Uncle Connor asked. “Did you?”

“I’d just got her talking about that while we were making dinner.”

“Did you learn anything?” Tybo asked with interest.

Alasdair hesitated, and then admitted, “We hadn’t got very far. She did tell me about a brother and sister she was close to while living in the group home after the fire that killed her parents. The brother suffered a head trauma and is in a coma to this day, and the sister died from an allergic reaction. There’s nothing to suggest either was anything other than accidental, like the fire that killed her parents.”

The men were silent for a minute and then Tybo said, “After Marguerite told us about Sophie’s history, Mortimer sent Eshe and Mirabeau out to look into the parents’ deaths.”

“And?” Alasdair asked with interest.

“Turns out the fire was arson,” Tybo told him quietly.

“Arson?”

Alasdair glanced to the door with a start at that strangled cry to see Sophie standing in the doorway, a stunned expression on her face.

Twenty-One

“Sophie, love,” Alasdair murmured, moving through the other men to get to her. He’d intended to take her in his arms and comfort her, but she pushed past him to confront Tybo and demanded, “Who said it was arson?”

“I’m sorry, Sophie,” Tybo said with regret. “I never would have said that if I’d realized you were close enough to hear. You shouldn’t have learned it this way.”

Sophie waved away his apology. “Who said it was arson? It wasn’t. It was just a fire, electrical or something,” she said vehemently.

Tybo shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it wasn’t an accident, Soph. An accelerant was used and—”

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