Blood Trail - By Tanya Huff Page 0,2

the water. Her mother, infinitely practical, would probably ask what type. It took a lot to disrupt her mother's view of the world.

She'd just dumped a pan of scrambled eggs onto a plate when the phone rang again.

"It figures," she muttered, grabbing a fork and crossing into the living room. "Damn thing never rings when I'm not doing anything." Sunset wouldn't be for a couple of hours yet - it wasn't Henry.

"Vicki? Celluci." With so many Michaels on the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force, most of them had gotten into the habit of perpetually referring to themselves by their last names, on duty and off. "You remember the name of Quest's alleged accomplice? The guy who never got charged."

"Good evening, Mike. Nice to hear from you. I'm fine thanks." She shoveled a forkful of egg into her mouth and waited for the explosion.

"Cut the crap, Vicki. He had some woman's name... Marion, Maralyn... "

"Margot. Alan Margot. Why?"

Even over the sounds of traffic, she could hear the self-satisfied smile in his voice. "It's classified."

"Listen you son of a bitch, when you pick my brains 'cause you're too lazy to look it up, you don't come back with 'it's classified.' Not if you want to live to collect your pension."

He sighed. "Use the brain you're accusing me of picking."

"You pulled another body out of the lake?"

"Mere moments ago."

So he was still at the site. That explained the background noise. "Same pattern of bruises?"

"Near as I can tell. Coroner just took the body away."

"Nail the bastard."

"That," he told her, "is the plan."

She hung up and slid into her leather recliner, eggs balanced precariously on the arm. Two years ago, the case had been hers. Hers had been the responsibility of finding the scum who'd beaten a fifteen-year-old girl senseless and then dropped the unconscious body in Lake Ontario. Six weeks of work and they'd picked up a man named Quest, picked him up, charged him, and made it stick. There'd been a another man involved, Vicki had been sure of it, but Quest wouldn't talk and they hadn't been able to lay charges.

This time...

She yanked her glasses of her nose. This time, Celluci would get him, and Vicki Nelson, ex-fair-haired girl of the metro police would be sitting on her duff. The room in front of her blurred into an indistinguishable mass of fuzz-edged colors and she shoved the glasses back on.

"Shit!"

Breathing deeply, she forced herself to calm. After all, what mattered was catching Margot - not who made the collar. She scooped up the remote and flicked on the television. The Jays were in Milwaukee.

"The boys of summer," she sighed, and dug into her cooled eggs, giving herself over to the hypnotic accents of the announcers doing the pregame show. Like most Canadians over a certain age, Vicki was a hockey fan first but it was almost impossible to live in Toronto and not have baseball make inroads into your affections.

It was the bottom of the seventh, the score three to five, the Jays behind two runs, two out and a man on second with Mookie Wilson at bat. Wilson was hitting over three hundred against right-handers and Vicki could see that the Brewers' pitcher was sweating. At which point, the phone rang.

"It figures." She stretched a long arm down and dragged the phone up onto her lap. Sunset had been at eight forty-one. It was now nine-oh-five. It had to be Henry.

Ball one.

"Yeah, what?"

"Vicki? It's Henry. Are you all right?"

Strike one.

"Yeah, I'm fine. You just called at a bad time."

"I'm sorry, but I have some friends here who need your help."

"My help?"

"Well, they need the help of a private investigator and you're the only one I know."

Strike two.

"They need help right now?" There were only two innings left in the game. How desperate could it be?

"Vicki, it's important." And she could tell by his voice that it was.

She sighed as Wilson popped out to left field, ending the inning, and thumbed the television of. "Well, if it's that important... "

"It is."

"... then I'll be right over." With the receiver halfway back to the cradle, a sudden thought occurred to her and she snapped it back up to her mouth. "Henry?"

He was still there. "Yes?"

"These friends, they aren't vampires are they?"

"No." Through his concern, he sounded a little amused. "They aren't vampires."

Greg gave the young woman a neutral nod as he buzzed her through the security check and into the lobby. Vicki Nelson, her name was, and she'd dropped by a number of