Blood Price

train, now empty of passengers, pulled slowly out of the station.

    ". . . responding to the scream you ran down onto the southbound platform, then crossed the tracks in front of a northbound train to reach the body. While crossing the tracks ..."

    Inwardly, Vicki cringed. Dave Graham was one of the least judgmental men in existence, but even he couldn't keep his opinion of that stunt from showing in his voice.

    ". . . you saw a man-shaped form in what appeared to be a loose, flowing garment cross between you and the lights. Is that it?"

    "Essentially." Stripped of all the carefully recorded details, it sounded like such a stupid thing to have done.

    "Right." He closed the notebook and scratched at the side of his nose. "You, uh, going to stick around?"

    Vicki squinted as the police photographer snapped off another quick series of shots. She couldn't see Mike, but she could hear him down in the tunnel barking commands in his best
    "God's gift to the Criminal Investigations Bureau" voice. Down in the tunnel . . . The hair on the back of her neck rose again as she remembered the feeling of something lingering, something dark and, well if she had to put a name to it, evil. She suddenly wanted to warn Celluci to be careful. She didn't. She knew how he'd react. How she'd react if their positions were reversed.

    "Vicki? You sticking around?"

    It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, that they knew where to find her if they needed further information, but curiosity-about what the police would find, about how long she could remain so close to the job she'd loved and not fall apart-turned the no into a grudging, "For a while." She'd be damned if she'd run away.

    As she watched, Celluci came up the stairs onto the platform and spoke to the ident man, sweeping one arm back along the tracks. The ident man protested that he needed a certain amount of light to do his job, but Celluci cut him off. With a disgusted snort, he picked up his case and headed for the tunnel.

    Charming as ever, Vicki thought as Celluci scooped her coat off the floor and made his way toward her, de-touring slightly around the coroner's men who were finally zipping the body into its orange plastic bag. "Don't tell me," she called as soon as he was close enough, her voice carefully dry, almost sarcastic, and hopefully showing no indication of the churning emotions that had her gut tied in knots. "The only prints on the scene are mine?" There were, of course, a multitude of prints on the scene, none of which had been identified-that was for downtown-but the bloody handprints Vicki had scattered around were obvious.

    "Dead on, Sherlock." He tossed her the coat. "And the blood trail leads into a workman's alcove and stops."

    Vicki frowned as she reconstructed what had to have happened just before she reached the platform. "You checked the southbound side?"

    "That's where we lost the trail." His tone added, Don't teach Grandpa to suck eggs. He held up a hand to forestall the next question. "I had one of the uniforms talk to the old man while Dave was dealing with you, but he's hysterical. He keeps going on about Armageddon. His son-in-law's coming to pick him up and I'll go see him tomorrow."

    Vicki shot a glance across the station where the old man who had followed her off the bus and down the stairs sat talking to a policewoman. Even at a distance he didn't look good. His face was gray and he appeared to be babbling uncontrollably, one scrawny, swollen-knuckled hand clutching at the constable's sleeve. Turning her attention back to her companion, she asked,
    "What about the subway? You closed it for the night?"

    "Yeah." Mike waved toward the end of the platform. "I want Jake to dust that alcove."
    Intermittent flashes of light indicated the photographer was still at work. "It's not the sort of case where we can get in and out in a couple of minutes." He shoved his hands into his overcoat pockets and scowled. "Although the way the transit commission squawked you'd think we were shutting it down in rush hour to pick up someone for littering."

    "What, uh, sort of case is it?" Vicki asked-as close as she could get to asking if he, too, felt it, whatever it turned out to be.

    He shrugged. "You tell me; you seem to have gone to a great deal of trouble to land right in the middle of this."

    "I was here," she snapped. "Would you have preferred that I ignore it?"

    "You had no weapon, no backup, no idea of what was going down." Celluci ticked off an