Blood Price

cause of the scream.

    Nine years on the force and she'd never used her gun. She wanted it now. In nine years on the force she'd never heard a scream like that.

    "What the hell do you think you're doing?" the more rational part of her brain shrieked. "You don't have a weapon! You don't have backup! You don't have any idea of what's going on down there! Eight months off the force and you've forgotten everything they ever taught you! What the hell are you trying to prove ?"

    Vicki ignored the voice and kept moving. Maybe she was trying to prove something. So what.

    When she exploded out onto the platform, she immediately realized she'd chosen the wrong side and for just an instant, she was glad of it.

    A great spray of blood arced up the orange tiles of the station wall, feathering out from a thick red stream to a delicate pattern of crimson drops. On the floor below, his eyes and mouth open above the mangled ruin of his throat, lay a young man. No: the body of a young man.

    The dinner she'd so recently eaten rose to the back of Vicki's throat, but walls built during the investigations of other deaths slammed into place and she forced it down.

    The wind in the tunnel began to pick up and she could hear the northbound train approaching. It sounded close.

    Sweet Jesus, that's all we need. At 12:35 on a Sunday night it was entirely possible that the train would be nearly empty, no one would get off, and no one would notice the corpse and the blood-spattered wall down at the southernmost end of the northbound platform. Given the way of the world, however, it was more likely that a group of children and a little old lady with a weak heart would pile out of the last carriage and come face-to-face with the staring eyes and mutely screaming mouth of a fresh corpse.

    Only one solution presented itself.

    The roar of the train filled the station as, heart pounding and adrenaline singing in her ears, Vicki leapt down onto the southbound tracks. The wooden step over the live rail was too far away, almost centered in the line of concrete pillars, so she jumped, trying not to think of the however many million volts of electricity the thing carried turning her to charcoal. She tottered for a moment on the edge of the divider, cursing her full-length coat and wishing she'd worn a jacket, and then, although she knew it was the stupidest thing she could do, she looked toward the oncoming train.

    How did it get so close? The light was blinding, the roar deafening. She froze, caught in the glare, sure that if she continued she'd fall and the metal wheels of the beast would cut her to shreds.

    Then something man-height flickered across the northbound tunnel. She didn't see much, just a billowing shadow, black against the growing headlight, but it jerked her out of immobility and down onto the track.

    Cinders crunched under her boots, metal rang, then she had her hands on the edge of the platform and was flinging herself into the air. The world filled with sound and light and something brushed lightly against her sole.

    Her hands were sticky, covered with blood, but it wasn't hers and at the moment that was all that mattered.

    Before the train stopped, she'd flung her coat over the body and grabbed her ID.

    The center-man stuck his head out.

    Vicki flipped the leather folder in his direction and barked, "Close the doors! Now!"

    The doors, not quite open, closed.

    She remembered to breathe again and when the center-man's head reappeared, snapped,
    "Have the driver get the police on the radio. Tell them it's a 10-33 . . . never mind what that means!" She saw the question coming. "They'll know! And don't forget to tell them where it is."
    People had done stupider things in emergencies. As he ducked back into the train, she looked down at her card case and sighed, then lifted one gory finger to push her glasses back up her nose.
    A private investigator's ID meant absolutely nothing in a case like this, but people responded to the appearance of authority, not the particulars.

    She moved a little farther from the body. Up close, the smell of blood and urine-the front of the boy's jeans was soaked-easily overcame the metallic odors of the subway. A lone face peered out through the window of the closest car. She snarled at it and settled down to wait.

    Less than three minutes later, Vicki heard the faint sound of sirens up on the street. She almost cheered. It had been the longest three minutes of her life.

    She'd spent them