call and let him know you'll be coming his way."
"Thanks, man. I appreciate it."
"No problem," he said. "Now get off my scene."
She gave him a half-assed salute and booked it.
Four
So then he says, 'I'm sorry, ma'am, but you have to leave.' He actually called me ma'am." Tanya imitated the greenhorn's serious tone, and then stabbed a forkful of mac and cheese. It was her favorite, especially when her mom made it. No matter how grown-up she had become, there were some things that never changed.
She was regaling her parents with the story of last night's investigation. She'd stayed up late to write her fake article, slept in, edited and emailed it around noon. After that, she'd texted her dad to say she'd be joining them for dinner and hit Interstate 44.
"Well maybe he was just trying to be polite," her mother offered, ever the optimist.
"Yeah, but ma'am? What happened to miss?" she complained.
Her dad chuckled. "You said he was young, was he younger than you?"
Tanya thought about it. If he was fresh out of the police academy and still in his probationary period, he could be twenty-two, maybe twenty-one. She was twenty-three. "Couldn't be by much..." Then she noticed the amused looks on her parents' faces.
Oh god, I'm getting old. Up to that point, she could easily assume that anyone in a position of authority would be older than her. From now on, that wouldn't necessarily be true.
"It's probably just how you wear your hair." Her mother tried to console her. "You'd look younger if you'd let it grow out a bit."
Self-consciously, Tanya touched her auburn curls. They were about chin-length, the longest she could afford to let them get. When she was young, her hair reached halfway down her back. It had been a pain to take care of, but she was an only child; her mother had spoiled her, combing out the mess twice a day and turning it into a river of waves. That and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose were the only contributions from her dad's Irish background. The rest of her was a carbon copy of her Russian mother.
"It's way easier to take care of this way." Tanya dredged up the familiar excuse. She was in no mood to tell the truth: long hair was a great handle for an opponent. Her scalp ached with memories.
"Spending time on your appearance is a good investment," her mother countered.
Tanya resisted the urge to roll her eyes. How many times had they had this argument?
Her mom went on, though. "I know we taught you that it's what's inside that counts but—"
"But the rest of the world is pretty shallow and will judge me by my appearance, yeah, I know," Tanya finished. In truth, it was a good concept, and she had used it in ways she was sure her mother would not approve of.
Stabbing at her macaroni, her mother sighed. "Well, as long as you know, Tanya."
Her father, who had wisely stayed out of the small spat, changed the subject. "So who did you submit your story to this time?"
"The Enquirer." She grinned.
"Ooh." He looked impressed. "I'll have to keep an eye out next time I'm at the grocery store!"
They laughed together, although her mother didn't join in. Tanya knew her mother didn't approve of her line of work. She told her friends at the hospital that her daughter was an investigative journalist. Tanya and her father had decided a long time ago, right after the attack, that she just didn't need to know what her daughter was really up to. It would only upset her.
"Any idea where you'll find your next story?" he asked.
Tanya shrugged. "I was thinking I would head up to Chicago. There's some funny business going on at one of the museums." Her investigation of the name she had gotten, Seth Walker, had turned up a couple articles about a permanent exhibit at the Field Museum.
"Chicago?" her mother lit up. "Sharon went up for a weekend last month, and she had a blast shopping. I should come visit you!"
Tanya and her father exchanged a brief look. She was torn. A shopping spree with her mom did sound like fun. She wasn't much of a shopper herself, but her mother was a real enthusiast, and her excitement had a way of rubbing off on others. "I dunno, Mom... I'm gonna be really busy..."
"Just for a weekend?" she suggested.
Tanya smiled. It would be kinda nice. "Okay, just for the weekend. I'll tell you where I’m staying when I get up there." She would probably check into a different place when her mom arrived. Tanya wasn’t picky about where she stayed—as long as they had wifi she was happy—but her mom would probably freak at some of the dives she’d crashed in.
Her dad gave Tanya a concerned look, and she shrugged. Yes, she was going to Chicago to hunt vampires, but there were always a couple weeks at the beginning when she did pretty simple recon. It wouldn't be too dangerous for her mom to be around.
After dinner, her mother hugged her and went off to bed, since she had to get to the hospital at four the next morning. Tanya and her father wandered out to the garage and talked about nothing and everything while he messed around with the engine on the old 66 Camaro he had been "fixing up" since she was in high school. Eventually, it got late enough that he wanted to turn in, too.
"Sure you don't want to stay over?" he asked. "We can pull out the hide-a-bed from the couch."
She made a face. That old thing was so lumpy she'd have better luck sleeping on the floor. "Nah. Thanks, Dad, but I'd like to get back to my place and get some laundry done." She yawned.
For a moment it looked like her father was going to offer to let her do her laundry there too, but last time she had insisted that doing laundry at your folks' house was for jobless moochers. He must have remembered because he closed his mouth and smiled. "All right. Drive safe, there's idiots out there."
Tanya smiled back. It was his usual goodbye, even though they both knew there were worse threats than idiots out in the night. She gave him a hug and then walked out to her Beretta, the same car that her dad had fixed up for her sixteenth birthday. He still fixed it up whenever it (frequently) broke down. One of these days, she was going to need to get something more reliable, but that would require a steadier source of income than she had right now.
The drive from her parents' house to the apartment she rented was short, so she rolled down the windows and breathed in the Missouri night air. The breeze carried a host of memories in its wake, and she indulged herself in a little bitter-sweet nostalgia. Driving at night always gave her a wild sense of freedom tinged with anxiety, carried over from teenage years when she and Jake would 'explore' the moonlit back roads. It was good to be back home, but at the same time she was antsy to get working on the next hunt.
Once she unlocked the front door and got her things inside, though, she knew she had made the right choice. The whole place smelled like her Nana—lilacs and homemade bread. Nana was her great-aunt Ulyana. As a baby, Tanya hadn't been able to pronounce ‘Ulyana’ and had shortened it to ‘Nana’ and it stuck. Nana, in turn, continued to call her Tatiana long after everyone else shortened it to Tanya, in the Russian fashion.
Sometimes she wondered how Nana would
