Sunset Rising (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 5) Read Free

to
you-know-where,” Paige said, lowering her voice, “the sooner we can
start to figure out why Caleb was attacked.”
    “ You know, it’s not so
much about why they attacked him, but who attacked him,” Kat
said.
    “ Yes,” Alton said. “After
the Slovene conference, there’s more than enough who’s to pick
from.”
    I fumbled with my fork, nearly dropping
it.
    “ Look, can’t it wait for
just half an hour more?” I asked. “Let’s just talk about something
else.”
    Kat patted me on the thigh. “Fine. What
would you like to talk about?”
    “ I don’t know. Anything,”
I said. “The plural of moose.”
    “ Easy,” Paige said.
“Mooses.”
    Everyone stared at her.
    “ What?” she said. “It’s
like fish and fishes, and goose and gooses.”
    “ The plural of fish is
fish,” Kat said.
    “ And the plural of goose
is geese,” Alton said.
    Paige shook her head. “Fine, so it’s meese
then.”
    I laughed. “No, it’s moose.”
    She frowned and looked at Ethan, who smiled
and nodded.
    “ Whatever,” she said,
folding her arms before her. “Who the hell cares about moose
anyway? Pick another damned topic.”
    “ What color are you
painting your toenails next”? I asked her.
    “ Oh, well, there’s this
new salmon-colored polish I bought just the other day,” she
said.
    “ Please spare me,” Alton
said.
    Paige gave him a dirty look. “In fact, I
bought two bottles since they were on sale.”
    “ Salmon, huh?” I asked.
“Hey, I bet you don’t know what the plural of salmon
is.”
    Kat chuckled while Ethan reached up to hide
his grin with one hand.
    Paige gave me an evil look and leaned across
the table toward me. “I’m fixin’ to bite you.”
    “ So, dessert anyone?” Kat
asked.
    After our meal, while on our walk out to our
vehicle, Alton tossed the car’s keys to Paige. “As only you know
our destination, you’re the chauffeur. Please remember it’s a
rental.”
    She scowled and muttered something
indistinguishable under her breath in response.
    “ I should point out, we’ll
need to make a couple of stops for some specialty items,” Ethan
said.
    Following stops at both a twenty-four hour
pharmacy and a Wal-Mart, we drove east out of New Haven city limits
on the Governor John Davis Lodge Turnpike.
    “ Everyone turn your phones
off. We won’t want to risk our phones being used to track us any
further,” she said while powering down her smartphone.
    As I powered mine off, I realized that such
a thought hadn’t even occurred to me. There seemed to be an awful
lot of angles to consider when heading out to dig up bodies in
remote locations.
    Eventually, we passed a sign for Guilford
and made our way south; it was territory far outside my scope of
familiarity.
    After traversing a series of gravel and dirt
roads, we finally stopped near a rather remote, seemingly desolate
area that hosted sporadic copses of trees.
    In truth, the location had an eerie sort of
feel about it.
    I exited the vehicle with everyone else and
visually scanned my surroundings. A cold wind sent a chill through
me and I quickly zipped up my coat.
    “ It’s only a short
distance on foot from here,” Paige said.
    “ I’ll help carry some
stuff,” I said.
    “ Get back in the car,
young man,” Alton said.
    “ But—”
    “ I don’t want to risk any
of your stray DNA getting left behind. Unlike yours, ours would
simply burn up during daytime,” he said, pulling on a pair of
leather gloves.
    I started to protest again.
    “ And, mark my words, if I
hear even one more attempt at argument over this, I’ll put you over
my knee,” he said.
    For some reason, that really irritated
me.
    “ Hate to disappoint you,
but I’m just not into that,” I said.
    Paige laughed aloud. “That’s not what I
heard.”
    I glared at her, but she stuck her tongue
out at me.
    “ Paige, please retrieve
the shovels from the trunk,” Kat said.
    Ethan appeared amused as he opened the
driver’s side door and reached