Third Strike (10 page)

It was a huge relief to Joss that Santa Carla wasn't a really big town and that he was in good shape, because if he'd required a car to reach the coroner's office on the other side of town, he might not have made it to the unassuming building that housed it. He was glad that Henry wasn't tagging along, because there was no way his cousin would go along with breaking and entering—especially in the name of the Slayer Society. Not to mention the countless questions that Henry would ask if Joss lied about their destination. But mostly, he was glad that Henry wasn't with him because Joss was relatively certain that if he got caught, his dad was going to skin him alive.

The office was winding down business for the day, and for several minutes, Joss stood outside on the sidewalk next to a bus stop, looking expectantly down the street, hoping that no one would give him a second glance. After all, who suspected anything criminal from a clean-cut teenager waiting for the bus? He'd learned from his online research that a person had to be eighteen years of age to request medical records or a coroner's report, and since Joss wasn't yet that old, he was going to have to get creative.

The office closed at 5:00
P.M
. And that's when his creativity would kick in.

A police officer passed by on the sidewalk and nodded a hello to Joss, who smiled in return and went back to pretending that he was waiting for an overdue bus. After a while, no one else exited the building, and Joss couldn't see any lights on inside. He glanced around casually to make sure he was in the clear. Once he was certain he was alone, Joss slipped around the side of the building, under the cover of several large bushes that obstructed the view of any passersby. He walked along the brick wall until he spied his golden opportunity—a window fan that had been left wedged in an open window. It had been warm lately in Santa Carla, and apparently the person in that office had thought that a window fan was a wise move. Joss imagined their boss would be furious if they found out. But he wasn't here to teach anyone a lesson. He had to get in, get a glimpse at Tilly's coroner's report, and get out.

The great thing about old buildings is that they're generally built to be sturdy, and architects who appreciated sturdiness also appreciated large windowsills. Joss jumped up, gripping his fingers on the windowsill by the fan, and pulled himself up, until he was perched outside the window of one of the first floor offices. Holding his breath and hoping that the open window meant that this office didn't have an alarm at the ready, Joss gently pushed the window open. When no alarm sounded, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief and set the window fan inside on the floor before climbing in after it.

The office itself was boring and plain. Steel desks, too many stacks of papers, and big, gray filing cabinets lining the walls. After looking around for a bit, Joss realized that he was in the wrong place entirely. As quietly as possible, even though he was relatively certain that the building was empty, Joss moved out into the hall and checked a small directory hanging on the wall. The sheriff's office was on the third floor, so he could only hope that the coroner's office was as well. He climbed the stairs quickly and when he reached the third floor, he was greeted by a small green placard next to the door that read
CORONER'S OFFICE
.

He tried the knob, but someone had remembered to lock the door when they left, so Joss reached into his backpack and cursed under his breath. His lock pick set was sitting at home on his nightstand—forgotten there after its recent thorough cleaning. Picking a lock without the right tools wasn't impossible, but it sure as hell wasn't easy. What he really needed was a hairpin, and maybe an Allen wrench. Moving down the hall, he tried a few doors, but each was locked, so he made his way back down the stairs to the office he'd entered the building from. Sitting on the desk there was the only thing close enough to a lock pick that was going to get Joss inside the coroner's office, so he grabbed it and headed back upstairs, cursing in his mind the entire way.

There's something jarring about the sound of broken glass, and as Joss smashed the small window with the heavy paperweight he'd found two things happened: One, he hoped like hell that he was right about the building being empty, and two, he turned his head to the side and squeezed his eyes shut, fearing that a splinter of glass might fly out and cut him, despite the fact that the window of that particular door was made of tempered glass. The moment the paperweight made contact, the entire window cracked in a zillion tiny zigzag lines before crumbling to pieces all over the floor. It was a messy job, but Joss thought it was probably better to do a smash and grab and get out of the building as quickly as possible, rather than take his time performing a seamless, undetectable entry. He was quite certain, however, that his uncle Abraham would disagree.

He pushed open the door and, after just a few minutes, located the cabinets holding the files of the recently deceased. Luckily, the files were kept in pristine alphabetical order, so it wasn't long before Joss had Tilly's file in his hands and was poring over its contents. Most of what the coroner had to say about Tilly's death had been expected, but one small note gave him pause. Pause enough to realize that maybe the Slayer Society did know what they were talking about, and that maybe it really was a vampire that was responsible for the recent deaths in Santa Carla.

Deceased showed signs of acute, severe anemia.

Anemia. Which meant the lack of red blood cells. Which was exactly what happened when a vampire drained a person.

Joss returned the file to the cabinet and headed back downstairs, his thoughts heavy. If the vampire that he'd killed in the woods wasn't the one responsible for the recent deaths, and he'd seen no evidence that had suggested another vampire was in the area, then it had to be Sirus. This meant that Sirus was lying to him . . . again. And it meant something else, too. It meant that he was going to have to take Sirus down. He was going to have to kill his friend all over again. What was it that people often said about history repeating itself?

As Joss dropped outside of the open window that had been holding that fan, a voice greeted him, startling him some. But it wasn't a voice that he knew. As he turned around to face the speaker, he realized that he was dead the moment he saw his dad again. Standing there before him was the cop that he'd seen earlier out at the bus stop. With his hand on the gun on his hip, the officer said, “I'm betting you don't have any business being in there, now do you, son?”

Fear sent a chill through Joss's limbs. He held his hands out to the side, so that the officer wouldn't think he was trying to resist at all. “No, sir. But then again, I've never been a betting man.”

Joss smiled, hoping that a bit of humor might help him get off with a warning. When the officer didn't smile back, he thought that a different approach might be better. “I'm sorry, sir. I was just curious.”

As the cop gripped Joss's arm and led Joss away from the building, he said, “Curiosity killed the cat, son. You should be more careful not to be so curious. Come on. Let's get you home.”

Joss had never been in the back of a police car before, and the moment he was, he hoped that he'd never be there again. There was something about knowing that he couldn't escape, that he was at the mercy of the officer that sent a sick feeling through his stomach. Or maybe that was just because he knew that once he got home, he was dead.

The officer put the car in gear, and after a few moments of silence, he said, “You want to tell me what you were looking for in there? The sheriff's office isn't exactly a place for teenagers. No drugs in there.”

“I don't do drugs.” Joss's words cut off the officer's last spoken syllable. Joss didn't do drugs, had never done drugs, would never do drugs. He didn't need a foreign substance to get a rush. His daily existence gave him all the rush he could handle. He didn't need to poison his body. Clarity was key when it came to slaying vampires.

“That's good. Drugs will mess up your life.” The officer glanced at Joss in the rearview mirror. His eyes were sharp blue. “So what was it?”

Joss could have lied. But he was tired of lying. Besides, something in the officer's eyes said that if Joss lied, he'd know, somehow. So Joss went with the truth—no matter how strange it felt to do so. Shrugging, he said, “I heard about the death of this woman named Tilly by gardening shears, and I wanted to know if the coroner knew anything that the papers didn't.”

In the mirror, Joss saw the officer frown. After a moment, he said, “I knew Tilly. Nice lady. Her death was pretty shocking. But trust me, kid. There's nothing else to know. Certainly nothing else to warrant a boy your age breaking into the coroner's office.”

Joss disagreed, but he didn't offer up that bit of information. “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry you did it, or sorry you got caught?” The officer met his eyes again, and this time, the crinkles by his eyes suggested a smile on his lips.

“Honestly?” Honest. The way non-Slayers had the freedom to be all the time. “That second one.”

“Promise me you'll stick to the library the next time you get curious.”

Joss shook his head. It wasn't that he wanted to be a lawbreaker. It's just that sometimes, in order to do his duty as a Slayer, he was forced to ignore the laws of mankind. “I'm afraid I can't do that, sir.”

“Well, then at least promise me that you'll stay away from the coroner's office. Next time I catch you, it'll be handcuffs and paperwork.”

Outside the window was a blur of green as they passed trees and grass and greenery. Joss bet that if they slowed down a bit, it would be really beautiful scenery. Life was like that, he imagined. If he could just slow down, maybe he could see the beauty in things.

“Okay.” He met the cop's reflection again. “I promise.”

“Where do you live, exactly?”

Joss was tempted not to tell him. Prison might be a better option than facing his dad's wrath. But eventually, he told the officer where he lived, and after what felt like a long car ride, they pulled into the driveway, where Joss's dad looked up from the woodpile with surprise, fear, and then fury. Joss sank down in his seat, watching as the officer got out and spoke with his dad, kicking himself for not thinking to lie and give the policeman Paty's address instead.

Then he came back to the car, opened Joss's door. “No more trouble, son. You hear me? Next time, this will be serious.”

Only it was already serious.

Joss was in very real trouble with his dad, and he wasn't exactly sure how to face it. As the cop pulled away, he turned back to his dad and tried. “Dad, I'm sorry. I was ju—”

“Don't talk to me. I don't want to hear it.” He shook his head, his eyes burning with anger.

Joss understood that. He did. Who wouldn't be angry at their kid for coming home in the back of a cop car? It was a perfectly sensible reaction. But he hadn't even given Joss a chance to explain.

Not that Joss had really taken the time to come up with a believable explanation. The truth wasn't an option here. “But Dad, I—”

He tossed another log on the woodpile, but did it with such force that he might have been tossing it more
at
the pile than
on
it. “First you attack Henry and now you get brought home by the police? What's
wrong
with you, Joss?”

More than he would ever know. Joss was a liar. He was a secret keeper. He was a killer. But all for the right reasons . . . or so he thought. What if the reasons that he'd deemed to be right were actually wrong? Then he was just a liar, a secret keeper, and a killer, without good cause. Then he was just a terrible person.

Joss shrugged, shoving his thumbs in his front jeans pockets. “A lot, I guess.”

“You guess.” His dad snorted then and tossed another hunk of wood onto the pile before turning back to Joss and pointing an accusing finger at him. “You're damn right, a lot. Why can't you be more like Greg or Henry? They'd never be so reckless.”

Joss stood there, stunned. What was he supposed to say to that? How was he supposed to respond to the admission that his dad wished that he were someone else, rather than his reckless, imperfect self?

Fighting tears, Joss turned toward the house and hurried away. He could only leave his dad with the words that he feared most. “You're right.”

Echoing after him were his father's angry words. “Don't you walk away from me when I'm talking to you!”

As Joss stepped inside the side door, he passed by Henry, whose wrist was in a brace. With his uninjured hand, Henry squeezed Joss's shoulder sympathetically, but Joss shook him off and hurried upstairs. He wasn't sure where this unexpected bout of empathy had come from, but it was a case of too little, too late. He didn't want Henry's sympathy. He didn't want his father's approval. All he really wanted at the moment was to be left alone.