Blood Lines

but the big office was empty enough that Vicki, her visitor's pass hanging off her lapel like a scarlet letter, only saw two people she knew-and one of them barely had time to call a greeting before he had to turn his attention back to the phone. Unfortunately, person number two had time on his hands.
    'Well, well, well. If it isn't Victory Nelson, returning to the fold."
    'Hey, Sid." Although a number of the other women on the force had complained that he was a bit of a tomcat, Vicki had nothing personal against Detective Sidney Austen. Professionally, she thought he didn't take his job seriously enough and was a little surprised to see him still in homicide. "How's it going?"
    He perched on the edge of his desk and grinned at her. "You know the drill; overworked and underpaid." She saw him noting the thickness of her glasses, wondering how much she could see. "So, what did you do with your seeing eye dog?"
    'I made stew."
    His shout of laughter drowned out the grinding of her teeth. "Seriously, Victory, how's life as a private investigator?"
    'Not so bad."
    'Yeah? Celluci says you're doing pretty good."
    Trust Celluci to issue bulletins. "I'm managing."
    'I hear a couple of the others have tossed a few cases your way, too." He recognized her expression and hurriedly spread his hands. "Hey, I didn't mean that the way it sounded."
    'I'm sure you didn't." Her smile felt tight.
    Sid shook his head. "Jesus. It doesn't seem like you've been gone more than a year. You could come back right now and it'd be like you were never away. Speaking of which," he pulled his brows down in an exaggerated frown, "how come you haven't been back more often? You know, just dropping in and touching base?"
    Because it sticks a knife in my heart and twists it, you asshole . But she couldn't say that to him. Instead, she shrugged and asked, "If you got out of this shithole, would you come back?" knowing he'd misunderstand the edge on her voice.
    "I've got to go. The Inspector's expecting me."
    Stepping into Inspector Cantree's office was like stepping into the past. How many times had she gone through that door? A hundred? A thousand? A hundred thousand? The last time, just before she left, they'd both been painfully polite. The memory hurt but not so much as she'd feared. She had a new life now and the place where they'd amputated the old had pretty much scarred over.
    'Welcome back, Nelson." Cantree covered the mouthpiece of the phone and jerked his head toward the coffee maker on the filing cabinet. "Get yourself something to drink, I'll be with you in a minute."
    The coffee had the thick, black, iridescent look of an oil slick. Vicki half-filled a pressed cardboard cup and added two large spoonfuls of powdered whitener, past experience having taught her that after the first couple of mouthfuls her taste buds would surrender and she'd be able to get the rest down without gagging. Someone had suggested once that offering the Inspector's coffee to suspects might convince them to confess, but the idea had to be abandoned as a potential human rights violation.
    'So." Can tree hung up the phone as Vicki pulled a chair closer to the desk and sat down. "It's good to see you again, Nelson." He sounded like he meant it. "I've been following your new career when I can. You've been responsible for a couple of nice convictions along with the lost dogs and cheating husbands. I'm sorry we had to lose you."
    'Not as sorry as I was to be lost." She managed a wry smile as she said it.
    The Inspector nodded acknowledgment, of both the statement and the delivery. "How are the eyes?"
    'Still in my head." But as he was one of the four people in the world who she felt was owed an honest answer, she continued, "Piss useless after dark but fully functional in bright light, as long as I'm willing to face the world square on. Peripheral's closed in another twenty-five percent in the last year."
    'Could be worse."
    'Could be raining!" she snapped and savagely swallowed a mouthful of coffee but, after it seared a trail the length of her esophagus, the pressure of his gaze forced her to add, "All right, it could be worse."
    Cantree smiled. "You know you're welcome back any time, but as this is the first you've darkened my door since you turned in your badge, I assume there's a reason for the visit."
    'I've been hired to look into the deaths at the ROM and I wondered what you could tell me about them."
    'Hired by who?"
    Vicki smiled in turn. "I can't tell you