He looked at me a long time, eyes huge and dark behind the glasses, face still and pale. And smiled.

  “No,” he agreed softly. “It doesn’t seem to make any difference. I have a friend down there in a drawer right now, and I can’t seem to make any sense out of that, either. I cared for her and she’s dead for no reason at all. It’s very hard to understand.”

  I waited, fingers automatically gliding up and down the peeling chrome arms of my chair. The flakes of metal felt sharp and rough at the same time. Adam’s eyes went back to the abstract art behind me, a safe distant focus.

  “Who—” I began, but he didn’t let me finish.

  “You checked her in, I think. Julie Gilmore.”

  Jesus. What a day.

  “I’m sorry, man, I didn’t know you even knew her. I would have told you,” I said, and wondered what the hell good it would have done if I had.

  Adam shook his head, not looking my direction at all, and answered my thought. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. I don’t think there was anything that could have been done that wasn’t done, and my presence—well, it might have been disturbing for her, considering.”

  “Considering the rape?” I asked. He nodded slowly. “Was she a close friend?”

  Adam blinked and looked at me. He understood well enough what I meant, that delicate convention of our times. A close friend, a lover, a warm and intimate partner in fantasy. At least, I think he understood. It was hard to tell, sometimes, with Adam.

  “Not too close,” he told me, “but not too for, either. Listen, I’ve got to get back down.”

  “Now? Can’t I buy you a cup of coffee or something?”

  His eyes, already dark, turned the color of old blood and bitterness.

  “I can’t leave her alone with Foster.”

  I felt a chill go up my spine, both at the bleak flatness of his voice and the image he’d conjured up. I’d never heard him speak about Foster—or anyone else—in a tone that close to hatred. As if he’d caught my thought, Adam smiled slightly and made an effort to lighten his voice.

  “Foster doesn’t like me very much, you know. Or anyone I like. She particularly doesn’t care for you, Mike.”

  “Oh, no, I guess my life’s just over.”

  Adam’s smile took on just the faintest shadow of humor before it winked out. He stood up, a strangely disjointed and graceful move, and offered me his hand. I ignored it and pulled him into a sudden embrace. He was as tense as a piece of wood against me, and as cold.

  “Be careful,” he said, and pushed away. He didn’t look at me directly, but I had the oddest impression that his eyes were changing, growing larger and redder. No, that was the dreams again. Nightmares. “Take care of Maggie for me.” “For you?” I jibed at his retreating back. He waved and turned the corner. “Yeah, okay. For you too.”

  My dream of Maggie in the morgue hit me blindside, shooting my pulse up uncomfortably high. I stared after him for a long moment, then went back to my wife, and a long, long night.

  I slept in a chair next to Maggie’s bed, stretched uncomfortably out with my neck at an angle previously thought impossible to achieve without actual dislocation of the vertebrae. The only thing that happened, during the night or in the morning, was that I developed a bitch of a crick in my neck.

  Maggie was judged healthy enough to be cut loose on the unsuspecting city again, and I was relieved to notice that her morning mood was back in full force. She got dressed (with a little help from me—no hanky-panky involved, though) and hummed her way through two Mozart somethings on the way to the car.

  “So,” I asked as I pulled out into the rush-hour traffic, “do you think you’ll ever play the violin again?”

  Maggie muttered something that might conceivably have been derogatory, leaned over, and kissed me on my rough cheek. Her good hand scraped over the aspiring beard.

  “You’re feeling better today,” she observed. And tilted her head to one side, golden hair glowing in the morning sun. Her skin looked gilded, her eyes depthless. She didn’t even look tired, the wretch. “Why’s your head at that funny angle?”

  “Ha ha,” I said sourly. “You think hospital beds are bad, try sleeping in a hospital chair. That’ll make a believer out of you. Sorry about the bristle this morning; I thought I’d clean up when we got home.”

  “For?”

  “For whatever thrills life has in store today. Listen, are you okay?”

  “Perfect, except for a nice sore shoulder and a bullet scar to show everybody downtown. Nick probably has everybody thinking I’m one of the walking dead, you know.” Maggie gave me a sidelong look and a warm smile. “Not like some doctors I know. Thanks for staying by me, Mikey.”

  “I’ll always stay by you. I love you,” I said, and for some reason it was hard to say it, harder to realize that if things had worked out differently yesterday, I might be saying it to her as she was being lowered into the ground. I cleared my throat, but the lump there stayed. “Maggie, what do you say to a vacation? Just the two of us. No careers, no buddies, no beepers. Just you and me on a nice, long, extended holiday.”

  Maggie didn’t say anything, just tucked her hand into mine. I looked over at her, ignoring the traffic, and saw a glitter in her eyes that didn’t come from the harsh sunshine.

  “I’d like that,” she finally said, in a distant voice. “After all this is over, I’d like that very much.”

  “After all what’s over?” I asked. She shook her head, blindly; a tear spilled over and rolled down her cheek. “Maggie, are you all right? Really?”

  “Things are just getting complicated, Michael. I can’t tell you any more than that right now. You’re going to have to trust me for a while? She turned her face to me, and her fingers tightened on mine. “You can do that, can’t you?”

  “You know I can, and I will. Is this about work?”

  “No questions,” she said softly. “I may ask you to do some strange things for me, but when I do you’ve got to do them without pushing me for answers. Agreed?”

  What choice did I have?

  “Agreed.” I turned the Volvo into our street and coasted up into the driveway. After I’d shut the engine off, Maggie just sat there, staring out at the yard. “What’re you thinking?”

  “Maybe after our vacation I’ll plant some flowers there. What do you think? Some nice purple ones.” She was trembling all over. I leaned over and hugged her close, feeling the sobs shaking her even though no more tears came down her cheeks. “And I want—I want to put in—”

  “Anything,” I promised her softly. “We’ll do it together, no gardeners, no landscapers. Be a shock to our neighbors, seeing somebody working in the yard who isn’t hired help. Now come on in the house and I’ll make you breakfast.”

  “You will?” she whispered, and clung to me like a child.

  “Anything you want,” I said again. I meant it.

  “Pancakes. Lots of syrup. Bacon.”

  She was trying to kill me with cholesterol again, and I didn’t mind one bit.

  I’m not the greatest at pancake flipping, but I managed. My pancakes came out in a variety of sizes and an even greater variety of shades, but Maggie didn’t seem to care. She watched me work with intensity, and when I set the plate down in front of her she reached out and grabbed my wrist.

  “Too much butter?” I asked, surprised. She didn’t smile.

  “I know what I want to do for vacation,” she said. I looked interested. “You might want to sit down, Michael.”

  I slid into my chair.

  “I want to get pregnant. I want to have your baby. Let’s spend our entire vacation in some cool mountain cabin making love.” She searched my face anxiously. “What do you think?”

  What did I think? What did I think? After all, I’d had Maggie all to myself for eight years. I’d enjoyed the freedom of not being tied down to kids. Was I willing to give that up yet?

  The feeling welled up from somewhere under my heart, hot and sure. Yes. Hell, yes.

  “I think,” I said slowly, and stood up to put my arms around her, “that if you didn’t have a bullet hole in you and need all your strength, I’d start on this project today. Oh, God, Maggie. You’re serious? Really?”

  “Really,” she affirmed softly. I kissed the top of her head, then laid my cheek on it and closed my eyes.

  “I’ll make the reservations,” I promised, and then straightened up. “Eat.”

  “I want to talk.”

  “Eat and talk. I’m not your mother, you can talk with your mouth full.” I was suddenly, ridiculously happy. “Boy or girl?”

  “I don’t think that’s up to us.” Maggie put a forkful of pancake in her mouth. She was smiling too hard. She almost lost it. “Girl.”

  “Okay. Girl. You can teach her how to fire a gun and I’ll teach her how to patch up the holes.” I finished stacking my pancakes and sat down at the table facing her. “Boy would be nice, too. Somebody to take fishing with me.”

  “You could take your daughter fishing. Besides, you don’t even like to fish.” Maggie chewed and swallowed. “You know something, Doctor? I feel better than I have in years. Thanks.”

  “Nuts. I haven’t done anything yet.”

  “No.” Her smile widened wickedly. “But you will. Believe me.”

  I hate it when she’s right.

  Interlude

  Adam

  It was night, and Adam Radburn’s eyes came open in one quick snapping motion. They were red.

  It took him a minute to remember who he was, where he was, why he was. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and rested his head in his hands. His train of thought, derailed at morning sunrise, chugged slowly back up to speed, and he wished it hadn’t.

  He hadn’t been so stupid, or so frightened, in more years than he could remember. Why had he done it, knowing what was in the balance?

  Why had he let Michael Bowman live?

  Mike had looked at him with some kind of knowledge, that much was sure—but not too much, or he couldn’t have come so close to him again, couldn’t have hugged him there in the waiting room. Adam was still surprised about that, and uncomfortably, unwillingly moved. There was something different in Mike’s eyes. Adam couldn’t be sure he’d scrubbed the memory of the morgue properly; he’d been too unnerved, too afraid of Foster’s return. Foster. Now, there was someone he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill. But Michael … gangling, eager Michael, with his earnest beliefs … no. Adam just couldn’t think of him as an enemy.

  Fool, his less sentimental side whispered, reptilian and annoyed.

  Well, there was a more logical reason why he hadn’t killed Mike, Adam thought as he turned on the lights in his windowless room and hunted through his closet for clothes. Mike might be easy to handle, but Maggie would be very dangerous in her grief. Adam was nothing if not careful.

  He smiled. As Michael would have said, that was a load of rationalizing crap.

  The digital clock read 6:22. It had been a clear and sunny day, and he’d sat up just as the sun went down. Sun … he remembered vaguely how the sun had felt splashing on his face. The closest Adam could come to that now was the burning warmth of a living body against his, sunlight trapped under smooth skin, heat pulsing in blood. The memories—both of the sun and of other, more darkly sensual things—made him shiver and grip the closet door a little tighter. He needed warmth. He needed a lot of things, at the moment.

  In that heightened state, he heard Sylvia coming long before she tapped on the door. Adam didn’t turn, and she crossed and put her arms around him, warmth, so much warmth that he trembled in the reflection of it. He felt every curve of her so wonderfully clearly where she pressed against his back—warm soft breasts, hollowed stomach, wide strong hips.

  He’d stopped long ago being ashamed of his need for her, but the intensity of it still disturbed him. And the intensity of his hunger, which was almost the same thing. Adam rested cold hands on her warm ones where they clasped across his stomach. Her forehead rested against his back, another spot of heat through the cloth of his robe. Her scent, rich as roses, folded around him and teased him into breathing it. Air felt alien and leaden in his lungs, unwanted.

  “I wanted to be sure you were up,” she said. Her fingers opened and merged with his.

  “Have I ever overslept?” Adam asked her, and felt the movement of her head as she shook it. “Have you heard anything?”

  She tensed a little, betraying how painful the subject was.

  “Julie’s funeral is scheduled for Friday.”

  “Are you going?”

  “I will if you want me to.” Perceptive Sylvia, she knew how bitterly he wanted to go, to have that one last goodbye. So many years, so many losses, and he couldn’t have the simple human comfort of sharing his grief.

  They didn’t bury people at night.

  To shield himself from that thought—suddenly acutely painful—he turned in the circle of Sylvia’s arms and faced her. It surprised him again, as it did every day, that she’d grown older. His mind insisted on remembering her as she’d been when he’d met her; beautiful and timeless. Her Cherokee copper skin had lost some of its gleam now, and she carried tire passage of years in lines around her vivid eyes. Her eyes were unchanged—green, startling eyes. Someday soon they’d start to fade, too. Her hair, night black, contained long streaks of silver. Twenty years. So long a time, for both of them, for different reasons.

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at him and adjusted his hair back from his face. They were content to stand there for a while, and then Adam bent and touched his lips to hers, very gently. Her warm palm cupped his cheek, distracting him, driving his hunger up to a feverish intensity.

  “Dinner,” he said, and let her go. Her smile was faint and understanding. “Well, actually, a shower, then dinner.”

  “May I join you? For the shower, I mean,” she said. Her green eyes were bright and wicked. Twenty years hadn’t been enough to teach her how dangerous her games could be. She laughed, and teased, and never knew what it cost him to play at being human with her.

  He forced his lips to smile. His body ached with the effort.

  “I wish I could say yes …”

  “Then say yes.”

  “No.” The smile was gone, through no direct order of his brain. There were times when his body knew better than his mind what was necessary. “Wait for me downstairs.”

  Her head came up with a snap, green eyes kindling. For a brief, difficult moment, she seemed to be twenty years younger.

  “I haven’t taken orders since I got out of the hospital,” she reminded him. He held her stare.

  “I’m too hungry to play, Sylvia.”

  The hospital, she had said—not City Square. She meant that terrible place where he’d found her, where she’d saved him from being what he hated most. Maybe it was the mention of that darkest time in their lives, or just the bare fact that he was admitting to hunger, that made her take a step back. Whatever it was, he was grateful and desperately disappointed. Adam picked up his clothes and walked past her toward the shower.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. She wasn’t, really. To her, he knew, he was Adam, human in everything except biology. Twenty years, and Sylvia Reilly didn’t know him—not at all.

  Adam had some things to be grateful for. That was one.

  He went downstairs after his shower and busied himself in the kitchen. Sylvia managed to be absent when he opened the small concealed refrigerator and took out a chilled bottle. The liquid in it was dark and gelid, nearly tasteless. He drank it down without pleasure, except that faint sense of triumph that came from defeating his own demons. As he washed the bottle out and set it on the drain-board, Sylvia appeared in the doorway.

  “Better?” she asked. He nodded, eyes still on the sink. There were a few red drops still clinging to the white enamel. He turned the water on and washed them away. “What happened last night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You came home in a rare mood, Adam, you think I wouldn’t notice? Adam? Are you going to tell me?” That didn’t get any response, so she tried again. “Hey, you mean you aren’t even going to tell your best friend?”

  “No,” he said, a simple snap of a word. Her heartbeat speeded up as adrenaline loaded into her bloodstream, a sharp acrid scent that made him remember the taste. Fear was the greatest spice of all, no matter what he tried to pretend. Best friends? Oh, no, Sylvia, not friends, never that, Adam thought. He had no friends, having friends was suicidal and stupid. He had prey, had acquaintances, and had—rarely, and a dangerous self-indulgence—someone who was something more. Oh, but less than a friend, even at that. “I’m all right. It’s nothing.”

  It hadn’t been nothing for Julie Gilmore, raped and left for dead on the cold bloody tiles of her kitchen. She’d lain there for hours, helpless, screaming in her mind. Adam had somehow dreamed with her there in his daytime sleep while her life slowly failed and his waited to begin.

  Did he remember the rape, too? A shadow moved across his eyes, pressure, a terrible ripping pain, fear and rage in a potent mixture. Had Julie been linked to him that closely, after such a short time?

  “—four. Isn’t that true?” Sylvia’s voice suddenly penetrated the fog. Adam realized that the water was still rushing in the sink and turned it off.

  “Isn’t what true?” he asked. She sighed, exasperated, as she crossed to the main refrigerator and took out a salad bowl stuffed with shades of green.

  “Julie was your last one. You only had four, and now you’ve only got me, right? You’ll need some new donors.”

  “I’ll be fine.” The donors were just an experiment, a bad one, ill-advised and temporary. He’d been a fool to believe it could work; no vampire could exist solely on refrigerated blood, and the few humans he’d found to cooperate in more conventional drinking—from the veins—were delicate. He fought the urge to kill them every time he drank—and one by one they had died, as if his own black hunger had reached out to take them. All except Sylvia.