“But if you know I can lie to you, if you don’t believe any of this, why am I still being investigated?” I asked.

“Because the council answers to higher authorities in the vampire community. Even if we cannot supply real justice, we have to give the impression that we’re trying. Otherwise, the delicate balance of power we have built since the Coming Out will topple down on our heads.”

“So I’m a cautionary tale?”

“In a word, yes.”

“I’ll be good,” I promised.

“Excellent. Good night,” she said, pinching my cheek in an extremely patronizing manner. She turned on her high heel and walked toward the door.

“Can I ask one more question?”

“Good night.” She continued out the door without looking back.

“Well, that was cryptic and unhelpful,” I muttered, walking around the counter to the mini -fridge where Mr. Wainwright happily stocked a supply of Faux Type O for me. I drank it cold, which gave it a sort of rusty aftertaste, but I was too distracted to try to find the microwave.

My genetic propensity toward denial was just keen enough to allow me to put off connecting the nighttime visitors to my house, the car vandalism, the attempted dog poisoning, and now these unholy rumors about me being the sluttiest vampire since Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. And sitting there, propped against the counter, drinking my frigid fake dinner, I finally allowed myself to mull over the circumstances that had led me here.

Fact: Bud McElray was still out there somewhere.

I didn’t know if Bud was aware that he ’d shot me, and even if he was, I doubted he would march into the sheriff ’s department to confess to driving drunk (again) and shooting some poor roadside bystander. But maybe he remembered just enough through his drunken haze, doubled back to find my car the next day, and figured out whom he’d shot.

From what I knew of Bud, he would have no qualms about poisoning an innocent dog or using blood to paint antifeminist slurs on a car. Maybe he’d recognized that I was a vampire since I survived and I was not showing up in the daytime anymore.

Maybe he was trying to intimidate me so I wouldn’t go to the police.

That was an awful lot of maybes. And I doubted that Bud had that many gossipy contacts to spread vicious lies within the vampire world.

Moving on.

Fact: This could be some elaborate plot on Jenny’s part to get rid of me and move into River Oaks.

Far-fetched? Sure. Jenny didn’t have any contacts in the vampire world, as far as I knew. But she was always doing that sales-party/social-networking stuff. There was no telling whom she ’d come into contact with. And the woman idolized Martha Stewart. God only knew what she was capable of.

But if she was going to paint “BLOODSUCKING WHORE” on my car, Jenny would have probably used a whimsical font and subdued matte craft paint.

Fact: I didn’t know anything about Andrea Byrne beyond what she had told me.

As much as I hated to suspect a new friend, it was Andrea who suggested going to the Cellar in the first place. Did I really keep track of how much she drank that night? Was the snuggly -drunk routine an act? Gabriel said vampires kept pets. Could Andrea be an operative planted by a vampire to torment me? If I could control my stupid mind-reading powers, I would know.

The question was what vampire would want to torment me.

Fact: Gabriel could have turned me just so he could play creepy James Spader mind-games with me.

I chose not to explore that last one.

Mama was master of the “psychological reset.” It went something like this: We’d have an argument. I’d hurt her feelings (or I’d disobey a direct order, pretty much the same thing). She’d sulk for a while and refuse to speak to me until I apologized. Eventually, she’d realize that I was not going to apologize. Then she’d just breeze back into my life as if the disagreement never happened. And we’d be right back where we started.

It was infuriating. It was toxic. It was evil. But damned if it wasn ’t extremely effective. How do you continue an argument with someone who claims to have no memory of the argument ever happening? That was why I could not comfortably watch Gaslight.

So, I wasn’t exactly surprised the next Monday night when Mama breezed into my kitchen just before dusk, all smiles and sweetness. She didn’t bother to knock, but why would she? It was only my house. She and Grandma Ruthie had this whole thing about the “doors of River Oaks never being closed to an Early.”

I had to get some thicker doors.

Fortunately, I had woken up insanely early when Fitz howled at the approach of some Jehovah’s Witnesses. That avoided the “Why are you sleeping through the afternoon?” questions. In the unfortunate column, I was experimenting with a synthetic-blood breakfast smoothie. I had a combination of Faux Type O, protein powder, Undying Health vitamin solution, iron supplements, a frozen pink-lemonade mixer, and orange juice in my blender. I was putting the blood back into the fridge when she walked in. I snapped the door shut and dropped a dish towel over my copy of the Guide for the Newly Undead.

“Hi, Mama. What—what are you doing here?”

“Do I need a reason to drop by?” Mama asked, peering into the blender. “What are you making?”

“It’s a health shake,” I said, hitting the frappe button before she noticed the streaks of red. The resulting mixture was a garish vermillion that practically screamed, “There’s fake blood in here!”

Mama pinched my cheek as the blender whirred. “Honey, you might want to think about a new shade of makeup. This one makes you look awfully pale. You know, your cousin Junie just started doing Mary Kay. She could come over and show you how to make yourself up properly. She’s been looking for someone to practice her at-home demonstrations on.”

“I don’t think I want makeup tips from a day-shift dancer at the Booby Hatch.” I shook my head as I let the blender grind to halt. “But thanks.”

Mama ignored me in her special way as I poured some smoothie into a glass. “Your daddy mentioned you turned down pizza the other night. You’re not going on some weird vegetarian diet, are you? I don’t want you going anemic on me. It would explain why you’re so pasty.”

I laughed. “No, I’m definitely not a vegetarian. This is very good for me. Lots of vitamins, minerals, see? ” I took a big sip.

“Mmmm.”

Mama arched a brow and took the glass and sniffed.

“Mama, I wouldn’t—”

Before I could stop her, she’d brought the glass to her lips and taken a sip. All right, I probably could have stopped her with my lightning-fast reflexes. But I kind of wanted to see if she would actually do it. There was nothing in there that could hurt her.

Fine, fine, I let my mother drink fake blood. I was going to hell.

“Oh, my, that’s awful!” she said, gagging as she swallowed.

“There’s a lot of iron in it,” I said, taking the glass back and draining its contents. “It takes a while to get used to it.”

“Well, I’ll just dump it out while you’re getting dressed,” she said, pouring the contents of the blender into the sink.

“What would I get dressed for?”

“I thought we could all go out for a nice dinner,” she said brightly, pushing me toward the den.

“We all?” I arched an eyebrow at her.

Mama marched me into the den, where my older sister and Grandma Ruthie where checking over the contents of my china cabinet.

“Oh, boy.” I sighed, prompting Grandma to bobble the little china cow she was holding. Jenny’s lip curled instinctively at the sight of me and my sloppy PJs. She was wearing pressed white linen slacks and a peach scoop -neck sweater paired with Grandma’s heirloom pearls. Pearls that had been Aunt Jettie’s until I foolishly left Grandma unsupervised during Jettie ’s funeral luncheon at River Oaks.

I declined to sit across from them as they made themselves comfortable on my couch. Frankly, it was a better defensive position to have them looking up at me.

“Jane.” Grandma Ruthie sniffed, toying with her purse strap. “I haven’t seen you in so long I hardly recognize you. Have you put on a few pounds?”

Was that two or three insults in one shot? Sometimes I lost track. I offered a thin -lipped smile but said nothing. I think we can all agree this was the wisest course of action.

“Now, Mama,” my own mother warned in a tone that would ultimately do nothing to stop Grandma Ruthie.

Mama had her moments, but she was a rank amateur in terms of good old-fashioned offspring manipulation compared with my Grandma Ruthie. Guilt and passive-aggression were Grandma Ruthie’s weapons of choice, all wrapped up in pastel dress suits and a cloud of White Shoulders. Miss a Sunday dinner at her house, she developed a debilitating migraine. Go to the movies with a boy she didn’t approve of, and she ended up in the hospital with chest pains. Announce you were planning to study library science instead of elementary education, as she had planned for you, she checked herself in for exploratory surgery. All the while, she moaned from underneath her soothing gel eye mask that she “doesn’t want to be a burden” with all of her demands, but “who knows how long I have left?”

Jettie appeared near the window, surveying the little tableau we presented and grinning from ear to ear. “And it’s not even my birthday.”

Aunt Jettie danced over to the china cabinet a few feet behind Jenny and Grandma and began levitating various bric-a-brac over their heads. Fortunately, Mama was rearranging the photos on my mantel to keep hers at the forefront, so she didn’t notice. I clenched my jaw and shook my head at my ghostly great-aunt, who was making spooky “Ooooooo” noises that nobody else could hear.

Jenny, who had obviously been waiting patiently for this opportunity, was unaware of the candlestick floating over her head.

She quirked her carefully painted lips (which matched her twin set) and said, “So, Mama says you haven’t gotten another job yet.”