Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,3

overly long curl of dark brown hair falling into his face. "Always the best idea to play to your strengths." Then his eyes went past her to the body. "Give your statement to Dave." Behind him, his partner waved two fingers. "I'll talk to you later. This your coat?"

"Yeah, it's mine." Vicki watched him lift the edge of the blood-soaked fabric and knew that for the moment nothing existed for him but the body and its immediate surroundings. Although their methods differed, he was as intense in the performance of his duties as she was- had been, she corrected herself silently-and the undeclared competition between them had added an edge to many an investigation. Including a number neither of them were on.

"Vicki?"

She unclenched her jaw and, still scrubbing at her hands, followed Dave Graham a few meters up the platform.

Dave, who had been partnered with Mike Celluci for only a month when Vicki left the force and the final screaming match had occurred, smiled a little self-consciously and said, "How about we just do this by the book?"

Vicki released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "Sure, that'd be fine." Taking refuge from emotions in police procedure-a worldwide law enforcement tradition.

While they talked, the subway train, now empty of passengers, pulled slowly out of the station.

"... responding to the scream you ran down onto the southbound platform, then crossed the tracks in front of a northbound train to reach the body. While crossing the tracks ..."

Inwardly, Vicki cringed. Dave Graham was one of the least judgmental men in existence, but even he couldn't keep his opinion of that stunt from showing in his voice.

"... you saw a man-shaped form in what appeared to be a loose, flowing garment cross between you and the lights. Is that it?"

"Essentially." Stripped of all the carefully recorded details, it sounded like such a stupid thing to have done.

"Right." He closed the notebook and scratched at the side of his nose. "You, uh, going to stick around?"

Vicki squinted as the police photographer snapped off another quick series of shots. She couldn't see Mike, but she could hear him down in the tunnel barking commands in his best "God's gift to the Criminal Investigations Bureau" voice. Down in the tunnel... The hair on the back of her neck rose again as she remembered the feeling of something lingering, something dark and, well if she had to put a name to it, evil. She suddenly wanted to warn Celluci to be careful. She didn't. She knew how he'd react. How she'd react if their positions were reversed.

"Vicki? You sticking around?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, that they knew where to find her if they needed further information, but curiosity-about what the police would find, about how long she could remain so close to the job she'd loved and not fall apart-turned the no into a grudging, "For a while." She'd be damned if she'd run away.

As she watched, Celluci came up the stairs onto the platform and spoke to the ident man, sweeping one arm back along the tracks. The ident man protested that he needed a certain amount of light to do his job, but Celluci cut him off. With a disgusted snort, he picked up his case and headed for the tunnel.

Charming as ever, Vicki thought as Celluci scooped her coat off the floor and made his way toward her, de-touring slightly around the coroner's men who were finally zipping the body into its orange plastic bag. "Don't tell me," she called as soon as he was close enough, her voice carefully dry, almost sarcastic, and hopefully showing no indication of the churning emotions that had her gut tied in knots. "The only prints on the scene are mine?" There were, of course, a multitude of prints on the scene, none of which had been identified-that was for downtown-but the bloody handprints Vicki had scattered around were obvious.

"Dead on, Sherlock." He tossed her the coat. "And the blood trail leads into a workman's alcove and stops."

Vicki frowned as she reconstructed what had to have happened just before she reached the platform. "You checked the southbound side?"

"That's where we lost the trail." His tone added, Don't teach Grandpa to suck eggs. He held up a hand to forestall the next question. "I had one of the uniforms talk to the old man while Dave was dealing with you, but he's hysterical. He keeps going on about Armageddon. His son-in-law's coming