"I'll try to keep my pissing to a minimum," Winkler muttered.
"Piss on Kelvin," Davis suggested with a grin.
"Who do you have following him?" Winkler asked Davis.
"Glen and Hastings," Davis said. Winkler nodded. He could trust those two. "They'll give us a call but I figure he's hauling that to a lab somewhere to drop it off. Once we find which one, we can keep tabs on who comes in and goes out."
"We need to substitute something else for those samples," Weldon pointed out.
"We'll get right on that," Winkler pulled his cell out and made a few calls.
They got a message from Glen roughly an hour later; Kelvin had gone straight to Healdton Labs with the small bag of samples, dropping them off and leaving shortly after. He then drove to the convenience store as originally planned before returning to Denton. Glen, who was very experienced in tailing someone, never made Kelvin suspicious, even.
Winkler's hospital employee slipped into the lab two hours later, sniffed out the vampire samples, traded for some he'd taken just recently from a patient at the hospital and then called Winkler. Winkler arranged to meet with the technician, who handed everything over. Winkler passed quite a bit of cash to the man and carried Lissa's samples to Davis.
"Bury these," he said. "Destroy them as much as you can, then bury them where they won't be found." Davis nodded, grabbed the bag and took off.
"Get what you wanted?" Winkler came into the kitchen, finding Kelvin seated at the kitchen island, helping himself to a piece of leftover pie. Winkler forced himself to be calm, polite and interested in Kelvin's answer.
"Yes. But the convenience store didn't have the shampoo I liked, so I had to go somewhere else."
"Leave any pie?" Winkler looked inside the fridge. He pulled leftover turkey out to make a sandwich.
"There's still some pumpkin and pecan," Kelvin said. "I got the last of the apple."
Winkler wanted to strangle him just for that, but held himself and his growl back. Lissa made excellent apple pie.
* * *
"Lissa, do you want to do something tonight?" Winkler asked me later. He tried to pull me into his arms so I gave him a small hug and moved away from him.
"I need to go get a few things. I think I'm almost out of soap and stuff. Is there a Target close by?" I asked.
"If there isn't, I'll find one," Winkler grabbed his jacket, found a coat for me to wear and herded me out the door.
"You're using a black American Express to buy bath soap," Winkler rubbed my shoulders as I paid for my toiletries.
"Merrill wanted me to use it. I'm using it." I got my card and driver's license back from the cashier.
We walked to the car (Winkler had driven the Jaguar). The outside temperature had dropped to around forty, which was warm compared to what we'd dealt with in Michigan and Maine. "I think you need a warmer coat," Winkler said after getting me settled into the passenger seat. "We'll go to a couple of places and see if we can't find something."
A couple of places ended up being exclusive shops, where Winkler bought two coats for me while I tried to convince him they weren't needed and to put them back. One of them alone cost eighteen hundred dollars. The other was a little more casual and was a mere six hundred. Both were cashmere, the more expensive one ankle-length with a shawl collar. Winkler threw several scarves onto the pile and found three pairs of gloves.
"Winkler, you have to stop," I tried to slap his hands but he paid no attention to me. The long coat was in a charcoal gray, the shorter one in cognac. Winkler was picky, I'll give him that. I tried on two dozen coats before he was satisfied. He had the tags removed and dressed me in the shorter one for my trip out of the store because, in his words, the other was too dressy to wear over jeans. I just smacked his arm and gave him a nasty look. He grinned, hugged me, paid for everything and we left.
"Been shopping?" Davis eyed me, my new coat and the bags that Winkler lugged into the house.
"Is that cashmere?" Whitney came over to feel my new coat.
"They both are," Winkler announced smugly and allowed his sister to pull the other things out of the bags. The long coat was inside a nice garment bag, the scarves and gloves inside a regular paper bag with handles. You can always tell which shops have the exclusive items just by looking at the bags they hand out with a purchase. My little plastic Target bag felt like an orphan, I'm sure.
"We're leaving tomorrow morning," Winkler informed me before letting me go to my bedroom to put away my things. "You may want to pack up before you go to bed."
"I will," I said. Everything was done before I slept at dawn and I went to bed in my usual fleece outfit.
* * *
"She looks like she's sleeping," Sam helped Winkler place Lissa inside her body bag.
"She is sleeping," Winkler said. "She just isn't breathing while she's doing it," he added. He'd set the hidden alarm in Lissa's room when she went to bed, just to make sure she didn't get any more visits from uninvited guests. Kelvin was happy with what he'd done; he'd gone to bed and slept like a baby.
"It must be hard for them to trust anybody like this," Sam said, watching Winkler zip up the bag.
"I don't know that many of them would allow this," Winkler said. "I don't think for a minute that Gavin would allow anyone to touch him. Lissa is still new. She doesn't like this, I know, but right now we don't have a choice."
"The Grand Master said she took down one of the Des Moines Pack and moved faster than he could see her move when she did it."
"She did. That one never knew what hit him, it happened so fast." Winkler lifted Lissa inside her bag. "Let's go get her packed in with the rest of the bags." Sam followed him out of the bedroom.
The nearest airport that wasn't too tiny to handle Winkler's jet was in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The pilots stayed there with the plane while the rest of them packed luggage into a rental and headed for Buckhannon, first.
* * *
"Look who's back among the living," Winkler was holding out a bag of blood when I woke in the seat next to him on the drive to Buckhannon.
"Just stop already," I said, nipping the top off the bag so I could drink. Merrill had arranged for my supplies to be replenished while I was in Dallas so I was stocked up for the present. When we drove into Buckhannon, I discovered there wasn't a lot to pick from, hotel-wise. We ended up at a rustic bed and breakfast, taking up half of it with our usual three rooms. Gavin called while I was trying to dress for dinner with Weldon and the others, in order to meet the new Packmaster.