"Ah."

He half-smiles.

"The short answer is, I fought some vampires and came closer than I'd like to losing. The longer answer - which I trust you to be discreet with - is that Reed Chandler did not die of a mysterious illness. He was abducted from Cal's birthday party and turned into a vampire. I tracked the vampires who did it. I found them. They objected to my interference. The vampire Reed attacked several members of his family, tried to turn Cal, failed, and died."