A/N: I'm mean, aren't I, for leaving you all off like that? Eh, well, I do what I can, haha. Forgive me? I love you all! Really! big eyes

Patricia

Jolene sat up, moaning. It was now incredibly dark outside, and a few hours had probably passed. She felt her fangs still on edge…the danger was far from gone. She supported herself with her elbows and looked around the room at the haphazard scene.

Leslie was gone.

So was the gun.

Gabriel and Joanna, though…

Jolene rocked onto her knees and began to slowly crawl to a form lying in the corner, hissing with pain. Gabriel. She shouldn't help him, shouldn't do anything to contribute to his health. But she couldn't help it, just as much as she couldn't not aid him.

"Daddy?" She felt herself say softly, as she poked him in his jugular. The man rolled over, snarling, and sat up, his eyes bloodshot and wild. "It's me, Daddy, me. Jolene," She felt herself shaking. "Your…your daughter." Gabriel's focus faded and came back again, and he peered into his daughter's eyes, confused.

"Jolene…" he reached out and pulled her into his arms, so they were laying haphazardly side by side. Jolene fixed her head in the crook of his arm, and looked him in the eye.

"What have you done with Mom?" she asked. A look of incredible disbelief came over Gabriel's face, and his eyes squeezed shut, trying hard. Within seconds, he disappeared without so much as a 'thank you'. Jolene felt the color drain from her face as she struggled to her feet to look down on her mother's corpse lying on the bed.

It was almost surreal, the way Joanna looked. Her blonde hair was parted perfectly down the middle; somebody must have taken it down from the ponytail it had been in. Joanna always had her hair up in a ponytail. Her arms crossed on her chest, like an Egyptian mummy in a coffin.

Her eyes had been shut by someone else's hand; Jolene could tell that she had died with wide-eyed fear. She wasn't wearing what she had been wearing before, either. She had been put into the long black dress that she loved to wear to dinner parties and, ironically, funerals. Someone had applied the eyeliner perfectly to her eyes, and her favorite shade of eyeshadow as well.

Jolene slowly sat down on the bed next to her mother's lifeless body, and felt a shaky sigh reach her lungs. How had she been killed? She wondered, gently lifting various body parts in search of an answer, which she found buried in the heart of Joanna Evanheurt: a silver bullet.

"Mom…" she found herself saying softly, reaching out and entwining her fingers with her mother's own cold, lifeless ones. Throwing back her head and letting loose with the broken sobs of loss, Jolene Harris let her mother go.

Down the hall in the lobby, Zeke stopped what he was doing at the mailboxes and turned in the direction of the stairs.

"Fabian? Fabe!" He hissed. Fabian turned around, staring blankly at Zeke.

"What?" He asked, irritated. "I'm trying to file these reports, and the bloody cash register won't open, and-"

"Listen!" So he did. Both Fabian and Zeke took steps toward the stairs, listening, as Sasha tore down the steps, two at a time.

"You've gotta go help miss Harris. She's howling like a banshee," Sasha said, tears shining in her eyes. Fabian and Zeke exchanged looks that said You do it, I'm busy. "Please!" Sasha screamed, pressing her back to the desk and sliding slowly to the floor, tears running down her cheeks.

"Are you okay?" Fabian asked, taking a step toward Sasha, who put up a defensive hand.

"I walked by the Evanheurt's room, and…" her voice trailed off. Both of the men were instantly captivated, and they leaned in, hooked on each of Sasha's words.

"And?"

"And Gabriel was lying on the bed, breathing heavily…Joanna wasn't around. You know that Jolene knows them, and I think…I think…" when she opened her eyes again, Fabian was gone and Zeke had his hands pressed to his eyes, crying.

Fabian opened Jolene's door with his spare key, and was immediately hit in the gut with the immediate sadness of the situation.

"Jolene?" he asked softly, taking a few steps toward her. Jolene brought Joanna's hand to her eyes to mop off her own tears, and gave Fabian the piteous look that a homeless puppy gives people that walk by it and throw garbage in its general direction.

"She used to like steak," Jolene said flatly.

"We'll make steak for dinner, then. It's on the house, I'll talk to Jerome. He's the chef." Fabian took Jolene's other hand, trying to distract her, trying to get her out of the room so he could call the police.

"And swimming pools and puppies…she collected china dolls and postcards. Her favorite place in the whole wide world was Greece; she said that she would take me there one day when Leslie had moved out,"

"Steak for dinner poolside, with puppies and dolls and postcards from Greece…" Fabian tried to drag Jolene to a standing position, but she would have none of it.

"Back when I was little, eight or nine, I would sit on her bed, and we would spend hours looking at scrapbooks Mom would make of places she wished she could go. We would even write up itineraries that made no sense…like half hour flights between California and Paris. We planned on having our own private jet…we would call it the Jolna, we decided, and the stewards (never stewardesses, we wanted boys), would have lots of chocolate milkshakes and hamburgers…" Fabian gave another halfhearted tug, gave up, and sat down next to her, figuring it better to listen to the girl than drag her away from the last person she had left who would understand her.

"She went to every school event we ever did…every parent night, every mother's day luncheon, and even some father's day ones. She was always a room mother, and a chaperone on all of our field trips. She was the cool mom, too, everybody wanted to be in our chaperone group when we went places with our class. But, when I became a teenager, suddenly she wasn't cool anymore, and I hated breathing the same air as her…and now…" Fabian seized her just in time for her to pitch forward, sobbing, and he eased her off of the bed and down to the lobby, a boneless blob.

Once in the lobby, Sasha got down on Jolene's level, holding the girl. Zeke called the police, and Fabian tugged on gloves and began taking all of Jolene's things out of it, transferring them to a luxury suite near the penthouse. The officers soon walked in: a portly young man and a woman, both of whom looked as if they were fraying at the edges.

"Officers Muldoon and Henries." They introduced themselves as Zeke led them upstairs to the crime scene. Jolene lay on a couch in the lobby, eating ice chips in a zombie-like state whenever Sasha pushed one into her mouth.

"Come on honey, please, eat it…" Sasha coaxed, patting Jolene's jaws softly and begging in her ear. Fabian stood with his arms crossed by the door, insecure and afraid.

Who had dressed Joanna…?