I opened my Internet browser and went to the college's Web site. No matter how I searched, I could not find a Dr. Fortescue in any of the science departments. I even tried the political science department. Nothing.
I chewed on my thumbnail, listening to Ophelia continuing to rant from the porch. I felt sorry for the German speaker on the other end of the line. I called Morgan's cell phone, using Jane's "ghost phone."
"What is it with you using landlines now? Are you becoming Amish? Is that where you are? Pennsylvania Dutch country?"
"Yes, I'm becoming Amish. It's like that old movie Witness but with more fangs."
Morgan snorted. "Are you calling because you need me to order you a fancy new bonnet on the forbidden Internet?"
"No, I'm calling you because I am going to ask you to use your remote access to the school's intranet to find some information you probably shouldn't be looking up."
I could hear her typing, so I guessed I had caught her near her laptop when I called. "That's fine."
"No, you could probably lose your job over this. This will be considered an abuse of the newspaper staff's access to the school's internal servers."
"Yeah, probably, but I'd rather go out for helping a friend than, say, playing ‘Candy Crush' on my workstation, which is probably how I'll be fired."
I nodded. "That's true. Can you look up someone called Allan Fortescue? F-O-R-T-E-S-C-U-E? Allan with two Ls. The name seems really familiar, but I can't put my finger on where I would know it from."
"Ummm . . . he's showing up on the personnel server but not as a current employee. Dr. Fortescue was let go about three years ago for being a complete wackadoo. He attempted to publish a bunch of journal articles with reputable academic publications, claiming that he could find a way to change vampires' genetic makeup through chemical intervention, whatever that means. His supervisors asked him to drop the research interest a couple of different times. He was written up for insubordination, showing up to class late, or skipping classes altogether without making them up. He earned himself a rating of negative two on Rate My Professor."
"I didn't know they did negative numbers," I said.
"They do when you forget to give a final in two of your classes and then count the grades as zeros."
"Ooooh." I winced. "Any forwarding address on his file?"
"According to the HR rep who handled his exit interview, he wrote, ‘I will see you all in hell.' "
"So, a no, then."
"Is that helpful?" she asked.
"No. But I appreciate the effort. Just clear your browser history and blame Joanie the hyper girl if anyone asks."
"I'm using Joanie's login." Morgan snorted. "I would say it's for plausible deniability, but honestly, she ate the last of my emergency desk ramen last week. She has this coming."
///
"Agreed."
"Welp, I have to go, because my mom is trying to force me into meaningful bonding moments at least every forty-five minutes. And it's been forty-three. She has not handled empty-nest syndrome well."
"You love it."
"I do," she admitted.
"See you, weirdo."
"Talk soon," she said, just as Ophelia came back into the dining room, a troubled expression on her face.
She flopped into her chair and stroked her hand over face. Ophelia never flopped. This was bad.
"Hey, sweetie." I slid my still untouched coffee toward her. "Why the face?"
"My friends, they're all gone," she said, frowning.
"Is this an existential crisis about your origin story, or am I seriously misinterpreting?"
Ophelia lifted a brow.
I shrugged. "It's a reasonable question."
"My vampire friends in the Lexington area, the friends who were listed on the information I gave to Tina. Four of them are missing. Disappeared from the face of the earth. None of my contacts has any clue where they might be. And that's not like, well, at least two of them."
"Are you sure they didn't just duck out because they owe somebody money or something?"
"I'm sure," she said.
"When was the last time you heard from any of these vampires?"
"Michael I spoke to a week or so before I arrived on campus. We'd meant to meet up for dinner, but he traveled a lot for his business, and that made scheduling complicated. David I met every once in a while for . . ." She paused and glanced toward her boyfriend, who was playing video games in the parlor with Georgie. "Uh, coffee, but that was before Jamie. Clara? I hadn't spoken to her in years-or Joanna, for that matter. I only included them on the list because of proximity. And I haven't seen Marco in a century. Honestly, I'm not sure I would recognize him if I saw him."