Blood Debt

even be in that condo. We might've spent the day a hundred feet from him."
    "I doubt it. The selling point for these units is the security system.
    They've got full video coverage. It would be far too dangerous for her to take him there."
    Her fingers dimpled the back of the chair. Metal creaked. "She's still going to know where he is!"
    "She's probably with him." He didn't need to say why. Glancing back down at the paperwork, Henry frowned. "She bought the unit from Swanson Realty."
    "Swanson? His name just keeps coming up," Vicki snarled. "On that cable show, regarding transplants, donated computers to street clinics, here…"
    They got the idea at the same time, but Vicki made it to the keyboard first.
    His name did, indeed, keep coming up, and it got them into Dr.
    Mui's system.
    "What are you looking for?"
    "Swanson's home address." It came out sounding like a threat.
    "He's not going to be at the scene; he's no doctor, there's no need. The puppet master stays in the background pulling the strings." The need to rescue Celluci fought with curiosity as she raced deeper into the files; this would be her only chance to gather information, and she couldn't just walk away from it.
    Dr. Mui had extensive E-mail archives, neatly categorized and most of them going to financial institutions.
    "Swiss bank accounts," Henry hazarded.
    "Among other things not quite so old-fashioned. The doctor appears to be sending a great deal of money into off-shore tax shelters."
    "Doctors make a great deal of money."
    "Yeah, well this is considerably more than you can explain by extra-billing even in BC—and there's still the car and the condo. I'd say we can safely assume Swanson's bought her and that she didn't go cheap.
    He must be charging a fucking fortune for those kidneys in order to make a profit on it."
    "What price life?" Henry asked her quietly.
    Vicki turned and met his gaze. After a heartbeat, after the slow, languorous beat of an immortal heart within a body that would never see the day again, she nodded. "Good point."
    For a moment, Henry thought they might be able to touch, without blood, without passion, in friendship. The moment passed, but the feeling lingered. "Let's not forget that Swanson can reinvest the money he offers to his donors."
    "Another good point." Lips pressed into a thin, white line.
    Vicki -shut down the system. "Now we know where he is, let's go…"
    They heard the life approaching the office in the same instant.
    Leather soles slapped against tile, coming closer, cutting off their escape.
    "What about heaving the desk through the window?"
    Henry shook his head. "It'd attract too much attention. They'd see us leave and trace the plates, so we'd do it only if we wanted to abandon the car, and we don't."
    The office door opened into the hall. Vicki moved to the right and waved Henry to the left.
    Sensitive eyes turned away from the fluorescent glare streaming in from the hall, Vicki grabbed the hand that reached in for the light switch and yanked the stranger into the room.
    Henry closed the door.
    Dr. Wallace believed there was very little he hadn't seen. He'd joined the Navy at seventeen, gone to Korea, came home in one piece unlike so many others, gone to university on his military benefits, spent time in Africa with the flying doctors, and finally settled into a comfortable family practice in North Vancouver. He'd seen death arrive without warning, and he'd seen death settle in for a long, intimate final journey, but he'd never seen it wear the face that bent over him in Dr. Mui's office.
    The diffuse illumination from the parking lot defined only shadow features around a pair of silvered eyes. Cold silver, like polished metal or moonlight, and they drew him in to depths much darker than logic insisted they should have been.
    He'd always hoped he'd face death calmly when it finally came for him, but now he realized that given any encouragement at all, he'd do whatever he had to to stay alive.
    "What do you know about Ronald Swanson?"
    Not what he'd expected. Too mundane, too human.
    "Did you hear me?"
    No mistaking the danger. "He's rich, very rich, but he's willing to spend money on causes he considers worthy." Maintaining a clinical detachment, a lecturing tone, helped keep the panic from ripping free.
    "After his wife died of kidney failure, he began supporting transplant programs. He buys them advertising, pays for educational programs—
    many doctors haven't a clue of how to deal with the