2

Leaving the terminating I-80 at Bryant Street and pulling into the police department parking lot was like slipping into familiar old clothes. All the months away might never have existed. His feet automatically fol­lowed the familiar path into the building and up the elevators to the Homicide section, where the faces were exactly as he remembered: Rob Cohen with half-glasses riding the end of his nose, Evelyn Kolb with her ever-present pump thermos of tea on the corner of her desk, Art Schneider. Schneider appeared to be wearing the same brown suit he had worn the day Garreth cleaned out his desk. And the room smelled the same beneath the blood scents . . . of coffee and cigarette smoke and the acid tang of human bodies sweating in frustration and anxiety.

One new face at a desk near the door looked around from talking to a red-eyed female citizen. "May I help you, sir?"

"I'm looking for Harry Takananda."

The detective glanced around the room. "Sergeant Takananda and Inspector Girimonte aren't here right now. Can someone else help you?"

Girimonte must be Harry's new partner. Garreth did not recognize the name. "Maybe. Thanks. Hi, Evelyn, Art," he called.

The double takes around the room were classics. "Mikaelian?"

"My god." A grinning Schneider loped around his desk, with Kolb and Rob Cohen close behind. He pumped Garreth's hand. "Harry wasn't kidding when he said we wouldn't recognize you."

Cohen slapped his shoulder. "If you're an example of Kansas cooking, remind me not to eat there."

"I think he looks great," Kolb sighed. "What's the name of your diet?"

Garreth grinned back, warmth spreading through him. This was like another family reunion. And why not? The department had been his family, too, the Homicide inspectors his brothers and sisters. "You're all looking great, too."

"Well, well. The wanderer." Across the room Lieutenant Lucas Serruto had appeared in the doorway of his office, as dapper as ever and still with the dark good looks of a TV cop-hero. "Of course we all want to welcome Mikaelian, but remember that we're here to serve and protect the taxpayers of San Francisco. Let's get back to it as soon as possible. Mikaelian, grab a cup of coffee and join me when you're through saying hello." He disappeared into his office again.

Garreth followed in five minutes or so with a mug of Kolb's tea.

Serruto motioned him to a chair. "That Danner business was a good piece of work. I take it you're enjoying rural life?"

"Oh, yes." Garreth sank gratefully into the chair. Lord he hated daylight. "You might say cattle are in my blood now."

As Serruto's brows rose Garreth kicked himself for the wisecrack, but the lieutenant did not pursue the subject. He leaned back in his chair. "Don't think I'm being hostile, because it really is nice to see you again, but let's have something straight from the beginning, Mikaelian. Despite the understandable score you have to settle with Lane Barber, she isn't your case any longer. You don't work for this department now. You're just a guest, a ride-along. Remember when you resigned and we had a chat about how much I dislike vigilantes? I still do. So leave all action in this case to official personnel. Is that understood?"

No, the lieutenant had not changed a bit. "Understood." Garreth sipped the tea. Its heat soothed the burning in his throat. "Do you mind if I ask how you found the apartment, though?"

Serruto smiled wryly. "The way we get most of our really big breaks . . . sheer blind luck. We had a hit-and-run and when we found the vehicle and checked it against the list of cars involved in other accidents and crimes, lo and behold, the computer announced that the Vehicle Identification Number matched the one on the car you found in the Barber woman's garage. We hoped we'd get a lead backtracking the car through the used car lot where the hit-and-run driver bought it, but she sold it the day after she attacked you, using her Alexandra Pfeifer alias and the Telegraph Hill address. So that went nowhere. But when the lab examined the car for evidence on the hit-and-run, they found a section of apartment rentals from the want ads down behind the passenger seat. The yellowing indicated it had been there a while so we took a chance and checked every apartment listed."

Garreth leaned forward. "Some neighbor or leasing agent identified the Barber woman's picture?"

Serruto grinned. "Give the man a cookie. We found a guy she'd sweet-talked into carrying a box of books up the stairs for her. She hadn't even disguised herself, just used an alias, Barbara Madell, and put her hair up under a kerchief." He paused. "That bothers me. It's like she wasn't trying to hide at all. Like she wanted to be found."

The words reverbereated in Garreth. Lane had wanted to be found, he realized suddenly . . . only not by the police. She had known that by just tearing out Garreth Mikaelian's throat instead of breaking his neck he would become a vampire. She was expecting him to come after her, was waiting for him. By finding her he would prove his suitability to be her lover and companion. Only she had over estimated him. He never thought to look for her car, had never found the planted apartment listings.

Garreth sipped his tea without either tasting it or feeling its warmth any longer. If he had done as she had expected, had followed the trail she laid and found her here in San Francisco while he was still frightened and confused by what he had become, and she so knowledgeable and assured, so seductive . . . how different the outcome of their confrontation might have been. A twinge of regret stirred in him. Whatever she might have made of him, he would at least not be alone now.

Belatedly, he realized that Serruto had said his name several times. "I'm sorry. What?"

An elegant dark brow rose. "That's my question. Did you fall asleep? It's impossible to tell through those glasses. I thought you'd want to know there's someone trying to attract your attention." He pointed toward the squadroom.

Harry waved wildly from the other side of the glass forming the upper half of Serruto's office walls.

Garreth leaped out of the chair for the door.

Outside it Harry enveloped him in a fierce hug. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow, Mik-san. What did you do, confuse the highway numbers with the speed limit?"

With the arms also came the scents of Harry's aftershave and the salty-warmth of his blood. A vein pulsed visibly in the older man's neck. Garreth broke away, covering by pretending it was to eye his old partner with mock concern. "Lien's still starving you I see, Taka-san."

Grinning, Harry slid his thumb inside his belt. "Not lately, as she would say. Oh, I'm forgetting introductions." He turned toward a woman behind him. "Old partner, meet new partner. Garreth Mikaelian, Vanessa Girimonte."

Girimonte made Garreth think of a panther . . . long, lithe, and mahogany dark with hair cropped to velvet shortness. Even her name purred.

He held out his hand. "Glad to meet you."

"Likewise." She shook the offered hand, then stepped back, dark eyes dissecting him. Reaching into the breast pocket of her slack suit jacket, she pulled out a pencil thin cigar and lit it. "I don't know, Harry. For me the lean, hungry look and mirror glasses add up to menace, not boyish charm, but I suppose you can still be right. If the old adage about cold hands holds true, he definitely has to be warm-hearted."

Garreth winced. "Harry, don't tell me you've been trying to sell her on me."

Harry grinned. "I want you two to be friends." He picked up his coat. "Come on; we'll show you the hideout."

Girimonte frowned. "Now? Harry, we—" She broke off as he raised his brows. "Go ahead. If you don't mind, though, I'll stay here to get our woman's description in circulation and see what possibles Missing Persons has."

"Sounds good." Harry headed for the door. "See you later. A fine officer," he said in the corridor, "except maybe a workaholic. A bit like you that way, Mik-san. I think she also has ambitions of being chief some day."

"She didn't seem too happy about you leaving. What are you working on?"

Harry grimaced. "The usual assortment . . . a liquor store clerk shot during a holdup, some nut case who walked into a clinic in the Mission district Friday afternoon and opened fire with a shotgun—killed a nurse and wounded three patients—and a woman found in Stow Lake this morning."

"Then you shouldn't have to bother with me right now. I'm tired from the drive to Davis anyway. I'll find a hotel, then this evening we—"

"Hotel!" Harry interrupted. "Nothing doing. You're staying with us." He punched for the elevator button.

Visions of a solicitous Lien plying him with an endless succession of the dishes he used to love ran through Garreth's head. The situation would not be like last night at home, where everyone was so busy talking that they paid no attention to anyone else's appetite or lack of it. Lien would notice he ate nothing. And she would try to find out why. Panic flickered in him. "I don't want to put you to any trouble."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You're not putting us to any trouble. You'll be saving my hide, in fact, because Lien will have it if you don't stay with us."

The argument echoed familiarly in Garreth's head. Harry had always said the same thing when dragging him home to dinner with them. He found himself reacting the same, too; mention of Lien melted away his resistance. How could he refuse anything to someone he owed so much?

He sighed as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. "All right. You have a guest." He would work out something . . . perhaps hypnotize her into thinking he ate normally. "Now tell me about Lane's apartment."