Blood Debt

dropped the opportunity in her lap, and she got greedy."
    "Thin," Vicki muttered, "very thin. You were being kept in one of Swanson's guest houses, remember?"
    "That doesn't mean he knew why I was there. She could have told him anything."
    "Most importantly," Henry finished, "nothing that happened last night has had any effect on the ghosts. Not Sullivan's death, not Swanson's heart attack."
    Dr. Mui had taken Celluci's blood. Vicki was willing to condemn her on that alone. Nodding, as though she'd just been convinced, she sat back and said dryly, "So all evidence suggests the doctor's not just the hired gun, she's an opportunistic, murdering, hypocritical, amoral bitch. And if I can't kill her, what are we supposed to do about her?
    Call the police from a pay phone with an anonymous tip." She lowered her voice dramatically, "You don't know me, but you should check into Dr. Mui's finances. Make her explain where the money comes from."
    "She'll probably have an explanation. That woman's got ba…"
    Celluci paused as Vicki pinned him with a silver gaze. "… ovaries of steel. She's got an answer for everything."
    "Well, she's also got a small fortune tucked away in secure countries, and my guess is she's going to run. If she hasn't already."
    "I don't think so." Head cocked, Henry stared across a patch of thin grass delineating the boundaries between his building and Dr. Mui's.
    "A cable van just pulled up next door, and I believe that's Patricia Chou getting out."
    "How the hell can you see who it is from up here?" Celluci scoffed.
    Then he remembered. Henry, like Vicki, had very good night sight.
    "Never mind. Stupid question. If it's Patricia Chou, then the police probably chased her away from Swanson's sickbed. She's probably been hovering over him like a vulture all day."
    Vicki stared at Celluci in exaggerated surprise. "I thought she was a friend of yours."
    "Ignoring for the moment that I've only met the woman once, since when have I ignored the faults of my friends?"
    Vicki made a mental note of the pointed emphasis. He'd pay for it after he healed. "So if Ms. Chou is there, then Dr. Mui is there—so, as I said, what now?"
    Henry turned from the windows, his eyes dark. "We use Ms. Chou to make certain the doctor is in her apartment tomorrow at sunset and we let the only witnesses we have confront the accused. Isn't that what the law would require, Detective?"
    Celluci felt himself caught by darkness and jerked free; it had been too easy over the last few days to forget the law. "No, actually, it's the other way around. The accused have the right to confront their accuser."
    "All right." Henry nodded. "That, too."
    "Look, Fitzroy, you can't just…"
    "Why not? Is there a law against allowing the dead a voice?"
    "You know damned well there isn't. It's just…"
    "You can't confront her with the ghosts, Henry." Vicki cut him off, her tone suggesting this would be the final word. "If the radius of their… uh, effect was big enough, they'd have confronted her already.
    You'd have to get closer, and you can't."
    "Yes, I can."
    "They appear at sunset. That means you'd have to get closer at sunrise."
    "I know."
    This would be my territory, then. She did more than suppress the thought, she obliterated it. "Forget it. It'd be too dangerous."
    "And what of the danger of never getting rid of these ghosts, of having to ask the right question evening after evening, knowing that if I make a mistake, innocents will die?"
    "Then we bring her to the ghosts."
    "And how do we…" He'd been about to say "get rid of her body afterward" when a glance at Celluci's face changed his mind. "… bring in the police?" When Vicki couldn't answer, he said, "My plan will put Patricia Chou on the spot and so far she's certainly been…" A number of descriptions were considered and discarded. "… effective."
    Celluci grunted in agreement. Using the ghosts to spook the doctor into the arms of the media, using the media once again to inform the police—that he could deal with.
    "It also puts you on the spot, Henry. How do you plan on surviving this plan of yours?"
    Her concern was genuine; she might have been speaking of any friend, any mortal friend. As a measure of how far they'd come in so short a time, it was nothing short of miraculous.
    "Don't get all choked up on me, Henry. Answer the fucking question."
    He shook his head, a little bemused by the speed of the evolution.
    "I'll, uh, be spending the day with the doctor's neighbors,