Blood Price

identical litany to the one she'd read herself earlier. "You can't have forgotten everything in eight months."

    "And what would you have done?" she spat through clenched teeth.

    "I wouldn't have tried to kill myself just to prove I still could."

    The silence that fell landed like a load of cement blocks and Vicki gritted her teeth under its weight. Was that what she'd been doing? She looked down at the toes of her boots, then up at Mike. At five ten she didn't look up to many men but Celluci, at six four, practically made her feel petite. She hated feeling petite. "If we're going to rehash my leaving the force again, I'm out of here."

    He held up both hands in a gesture of weary surrender. "You're right. As usual. I'm sorry.
    We're not going to rehash anything."

    "You brought it up." She sounded hostile; she didn't care. She should've followed her instincts and left the moment she'd given her statement. She had to have been out of her mind, putting herself in this position, staying in Celluci's reach.

    A muscle in his jaw jumped. "I said I was sorry. Go ahead, be superwoman if you want to, but maybe," he added, his voice tight, "I don't want to see you get killed. Maybe, I'm not willing to toss aside eight years of friendship. . . ."

    "Friendship?" Vicki felt her eyebrows rise.

    Celluci drove his hands into his hair, yanking them through the curls, a gesture he used when he was trying very hard to keep his temper. "Maybe I'm not willing to toss aside four years of friendship and four years of sex because of a stupid disagreement!"

    "Just sex? That's it?" Vicki took the easy way out, ignoring the more loaded topic of their disagreement. A shortage of things to fight about had never been one of their problems. "Well, it wasn't just sex to me, Detective!"

    They were both yelling now.

    "Did I say it was just sex?" He spread his arms wide, his voice booming off the tiled walls of the subway station. "It was great sex, okay? It was terrific sex! It was . . . What?"

    PC West, his fair skin deeply crimson, jumped. "You're blocking the body," he stammered.

    Growling an inaudible curse, Celluci jerked back against the wall.

    As the gurney rolled by, the contents of the fluorescent orange bag lolling a little from side to side, Vicki curled her hands into fists and contemplated planting one right on Mike Celluci's classically handsome nose. Why did she let him affect her like this? He had a definite knack for poking through carefully constructed shields and stirring up emotions she thought she had under control. Damn him anyway. It didn't help that, this time, he was right. A corner of her mouth twitched up. At least they were talking again. . . .

    When the gurney had passed, she straightened her fingers, laid her hand on Celluci's arm and said, "Next time, I'll do it by the book."

    It was as close to an apology as she was able to make and he knew it.

    "Why start now." He sighed. "Look, about leaving the force; you're not blind, Vicki, you could have stayed. . . ."

    "Celluci. . . ." She ground his name through clenched teeth. He always pushed it just that one comment too far.

    "Never mind." He reached out and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Want a lift downtown?"

    She glanced down at her ruined coat. "Why not."

    As they followed the gurney up the stairs, he punched her lightly on the arm. "Nice fighting with you again."

    She surrendered-the last eight months had been a punitive victory at best-and grinned. "I missed you, too."

    * * *
    The Monday papers had the murder spread across page one. The tabloid even had a color photograph of the gurney being rolled out of the station, the body bag an obscene splotch of color amid the dark blues and grays. Vicki tossed the paper onto the growing "to be recycled"
    pile to the left of her desk and chewed on a thumbnail. Celluci's theory, which he'd grudgingly passed on while they drove downtown, involved PCPs and some sort of strap-on claws.

    "Like that guy in the movie. "

    "That was a glove with razor blades, Celluci."

    "Whatever."

    Vicki didn't buy it and she knew Mike didn't really either, it was just the best model he could come up with until he had more facts. His final answer often bore no resemblance to the theory he'd started with, he just hated working from zero. She preferred to let the facts fall into the void and see what they piled up to look like. Trouble was, this time they just kept right on falling. She needed more facts.

    Her hand was halfway