Blood Price

ridiculous angel dust and Freddy Kruger claws theory?"

    Celluci glanced down at his watch. "Thirty-two minutes and seventeen seconds." He shook his head ruefully, a thick brown curl dropping down over his eyes.” And here I bet Dave you couldn't last a half an hour. You just lost me five bucks, Vicki. Is that nice?"

    "Quit complaining." She chased a bit of green onion around the edge of her bowl. "After all, I'm paying for dinner. Now, answer the question."

    "And here I thought that you were after the pleasure of my company."

    She really hated it when his voice picked up that sarcastic edge. Not having heard it for eight months hadn't lessened her dislike. "I'm going to pleasure your company right into the kitchen if you don't answer the question."

    "Damn it, Vicki." His spoon slammed into the saucer, "Do we have to discuss this while we eat?"

    Eating had nothing to do with it; they'd discussed every case they'd ever had, singly and collectively, over food. Vicki pushed her empty bowl to one side and laced her fingers together.
    It was possible that now she'd left the force he wouldn't discuss the homicides with her. It was possible, but not very likely. At least, she prayed it wasn't very likely. "If you can look me right in the eye," she said quietly, "and tell me you don't want to talk about this with me, I'll lay off."

    Technically, he knew he should do exactly that-look her in the eye and tell her he didn't want to talk about it. The Criminal Investigations Bureau took a dim view of investigators who couldn't keep their mouths shut. But Vicki had been one of the best, three accelerated promotions and two citations attested to that, and more importantly, her record of solved crimes had been almost the highest in the department. Honesty forced him to admit, although he admitted it silently, that statistically her record was as good as his, he'd just been at it three years longer. Do I throw away this resource? he wondered as the silence lengthened. Do I refuse to take advantage of talent and skill just because the possessor of those talents and skills has become a civilian? He tried to keep his personal feelings out of the decision.

    He looked her right in the eye and said quietly, "Okay, genius, you got a better idea than PCPs and claws?"

    "Difficult to come up with a worse one," she snorted, leaning back to allow their waitress to replace the bowls with steaming platters of food. Grateful for the chance to regain her composure, Vicki toyed with a chopstick and hoped he didn't realize how much this meant to her. She hadn't realized it herself until her heart restarted with his answer and she felt a part of herself she thought had died when she'd left the force slowly begin to come back to life. Her reaction, she knew, would have been invisible to a casual observer but Mike Celluci was anything but that.

    Please, God, just let him think he's picking my brain. Don't let him know how much I need this.

    For the first time in a long time, God appeared to be listening.

    "Your better idea?" Mike asked pointedly when they were alone with their meal.

    If he'd noticed her relief, he gave no sign and that was good enough for Vicki. "It's a little hard to hypothesize without all the information," she prodded.

    He smiled and she understood, not for the first time, why witnesses of either gender were willing to spill their guts to this man. "Hypothesize. Big word. You been doing crossword puzzles again?"

    "Yeah, between tracking down international jewel thieves. Spill it, Celluci."

    If anything, there had been fewer clues at the second scene than at the first. No prints save the victim's, no trail, no one who saw the killer enter or exit the underground garage. "And the scene was hours old by the time we arrived. . . ."

    "You said the trail at the subway led into a workman's alcove?"

    He nodded, scowling at a snow pea. "Blood all over the back wall. The trail led into the alcove, but nothing led out."

    "Behind the back wall?"

    "You thinking of secret passageways?"

    A little sheepishly, she nodded.

    "All things considered, that would be an answer I could live with." He shook his head and the curl dropped forward again. "Nothing but dirt. We checked."

    Although DeVerne Jones had been found with a scrap of torn leather clutched in his fist, dirt was pretty much all they'd found at the third site. Dirt, and a derelict that babbled about the apocalypse.

    "Wait a minute ..." Vicki frowned in concentration,