Rusty and I both stared at her.
Head down, she kept wiping her face with both hands. It took her a long time to calm down. Then she said, “After that, that’s when I figured it was time to go.”
We were silent for a while longer. Then I said, “God almighty.”
After more silence, Rusty said, “So you think somebody in the hearse ate the dog?”
She shrugged her shiny, tanned shoulder. “I don’t know,” she muttered.
“Or drank its blood,” I suggested.
“Valeria is supposed to be a vampire,” Rusty reminded us.
“I don’t know who was in the hearse,” Slim said.
“Maybe nobody,” I said. “Maybe they just put the dog in there to get it out of sight.”
“I don’t know,” Slim muttered. “Anyway, that’s what happened. And I thought if they got their hands on me ... I might get it like the dog. So I turned around and belly-crawled to the back of the roof and jumped down and ran like hell.”
“Did they see you?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe not. I didn’t hear any shouts. No one came after me. I don’t think so, anyway. When I got into the woods, I kept changing directions to throw them off. Just in case someone was after me. Then I hid for a while.”
“Where’d you hide?” Rusty asked.
She shrugged again. “Under some old tree. It had fallen over and there was a space between it and the ground. I just barely fit in.”
“How long do you think you stayed in there?” I asked.
“Seemed like ages.” She shrugged again. “Maybe half an hour, I don’t know.”
“I bet that’s where you were when Lee and I were at Janks Field.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Did you hear anyone calling your name?”
She shook her head.
“I called out for you and Rusty.”
“When was that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe around twelve-thirty, I guess. Twelve-fifteen, twelve-thirty, something like that.”
Slim frowned as if thinking about it, and shook her head again. “I must’ve been somewhere in the woods.”
“You weren’t on the roof.”
Surprise on her face, she said, “You looked?”
“Yeah. I went over and jumped up and ...”
“Went over to the shack?”
“Yeah.”
“What about all those people?”
“They weren’t paying much attention to us. Julian had gone into the bus ...”
“Who’s that?”
“Julian Stryker. He’s the owner of the show.”
Looking surprised but not at all pleased, Slim said, “You met the owner?”
I nodded.
“What’d he look like?”
“I can see this coming,” Rusty said.
I glanced at him, then looked back at Slim. “He wore a black shirt....”
“They all wore black shirts, numbnuts,” Rusty reminded me.
Ignoring the remark, I said to Slim, “He had long, black hair. He was ... I guess women would probably think he was really handsome.”
“Gorgeous?” Slim asked.
“I didn’t think so, but...”
“Was he carrying a spear?” Rusty asked.
I glared at him.
“Did he wear silver spurs?” Slim asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s him,” she said.
“Knew it,” said Rusty.
Me, too. But I asked, “The guy who ... picked up the dog and took it to the hearse?”
Slim nodded.
“Oh, man,” I muttered.
“What?”
“We asked him about you and Rusty.”
“What’d he say?”
“That he hadn’t seen you.”
“Wait’ll you hear the good part,” Rusty said, a strange smile on his face.
“Lee bought tickets from him,” I explained. “Four tickets for tonight’s performance of the Traveling Vampire Show. One for each of us.”
Chapter Twenty
Slim stared at me. She looked a little stunned. “You’re kidding,” she said.
“They cost her forty bucks,” I said.
“But nobody under eighteen’s allowed.”
“Julian made an exception for us.”
“He’s got the hots for Lee,” Rusty explained.
Slim’s upper lip lifted slightly. Eyes turning toward Rusty, she said, “Maybe that’s why. Or maybe he did see us. Me, anyway. If he saw me running away—if any of them did—he might figure I watched them kill the dog. Maybe he wants to get me.”