A Girls Guide to Vampires(89)

And he was insanely jealous of the man I loved.

The police arrived before I worked out a solution of what to do about Christian. Black-and-white police cars swarmed the far end of the hotel parking lot, their lights flashing as they formed a semicircle around the area where I stood. I was surprised to see so many police there, figuring Raphael might only have left a warning that there was a body to be found; then I felt guilty for thinking so poorly of him. He might be no stranger to the police, but that didn't mean he would shirk his duty.

An older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a big mustache sauntered over to me. He asked me something in Czech. I shook my head and pointed to Tanya, answering him in German. "Raphael, the man who called you, told me to stay here with her while he went to the fair to let the owners know what is going on."

"Raphael?" the man asked in heavily accented English. He consulted the notepad one of his cohorts pushed in his hand. "Raphael Saint Johan?"

"St. John," I answered. "It's pronounced 'sinjun' actually. He's British, you see."

The man stared at me.

"They do things like that. With their names, I mean."

He stared a little more, then with deliberate movements pulled a pencil from his pocket, licked the end, and made a notation. "I am familiar with the British, madam. I attended Oxford University in my youth."

"Oh. Sorry."

He inclined his head in acceptance of my apology. "I am Inspector Jan Bartos of the Brno police. Your name?"

I told him. He took down the information that I was staying at the hotel, my home address, and what I was doing in the Czech Republic, then warned me that he would check the information against my passport.

"Fine, I have nothing to hide," I said, glancing over my shoulder to see if Raphael had returned. "I was on my way back to the hotel to take a bath when I found Tanya. Raphael ran into me after calling you guys. That's all."

"Tanya? You know the victim?"

"Just slightly. That is, I've met her, and talked to her a couple of times"—if you could call the threats and curses she tossed at me talking—"but I didn't really know her. She worked at the fair. I'm just here as a tourist."

He made another note. "You do not work with the fair?"

"No." As soon as I said the word, I felt the need to explain, just in case the police questioned people attending the fair who'd had me read the runes for them. "That is, I don't actually work for them, but I did read rune stones there tonight."

"You read—?"

"Rune stones. They're little stones with runic graphics on them. It's kind of like reading tarot cards, only different. Here, I have my set, I can show you." I pulled the black velvet bag out of my purse and plucked an amethyst stone out. "See? These are amethyst. I was reading these at the fair tonight, but I haven't done it there any other time. Well, except a couple of nights ago, but that was special."

"I see." He didn't look like he understood, he looked like I had a neon light over my head blazing PRIME SUSPECT for everyone to see.

"It was a wager, just a stupid bet my friend had with Tanya."

Inspector Bartos frowned at the tip of his pencil, tucked the pad of paper under his arm, and patted his pockets until he extracted a small black object. Carefully he inserted the tip of the pencil into the sharpener, rotating the pencil with exacting precision. His tongue peeked out of the corner of his mouth as he worked. I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling.

"Now," he said, having finished with the task of sharpening his pencil. I waited for him to lick the sharpened end. He looked like he was going to, then thought better of it. "You will tell me, please, about this wager you had with the victim."

I looked again over my shoulder, hoping to see a large man with beautiful amber eyes charging up the hill from the meadow, but there was nothing but the police swarming the area, roping off a large section around Tanya's body.

"It wasn't my wager, it was my friend Roxy's. Roxanne Benner. We're traveling together. Tanya was saying some nasty things about me, so Roxy bet all of her money that I could read runes. It's as simple as that."

"Is it?" he asked, taking notes. It was a weird feeling knowing that everything I was saying was being taken down.

"Yes."

"Tanya lost a great sum of money to your friend, no? She was angry?"

I gave him a wry smile. "Not with Roxy, no. It wasn't really between the two of them, you see, it was because of—" I closed my mouth on the word "me" and swallowed nervously.

"Yes? Who was the cause of the wager?"

"Um. Well, it really wasn't any one person; there were a bunch of us there at the reading."