Blood Trail

friend talked me out of it." Bertie sighed. "Waste of diminishing natural resources driving that speed." She dropped another five kilometers as she spoke, just to prove her point.

    Vicki sighed as well, but her reasons were a little different.

Fourteen
    Bertie Reid lived in a small bungalow about a ten-minute drive from the range.

    Ten minutes had anyone else been driving, Vicki sighed silently as she got out of the car and followed the older woman into the house. "May I use your phone, I'd better call - Oh, hell, what do I call Celluci? - my driver and let him know where I am."

    "Phone's right there." She pointed into the living room. "I'll just go put the kettle on for tea.
    Unless you'd rather have coffee."

    "I would actually."

    "It's only instant."

    "That's fine. Thank you." Vicki was not a coffee snob and anything was better than tea.

    The phone, a white touch-tone, sat on of a pile of newspapers beside an overstuffed floral armchair with a matching footstool. A pole lamp with three adjustable lights rose up behind the chair and the remote for the television lay on one wide arm, partially buried under an open TV Guide.

    Obviously the command center. Vicki punched in the Heerkens number and looked around the living room while she waited for someone at the farm to answer. The room bulged with books, on shelves, on the floor, on the other pieces of furniture, classics, romances - she spotted two by Elizabeth Fitzroy, Henry's pseudonym - mysteries, nonfiction. Vicki had seen bookstores with a less eclectic collection.

    "Hello?"

    "Rose? It's Vicki Nelson. Is Mike Celluci still there?"

    "Uh-huh, Aunt Nadine invited him to dinner. I'll get him."

    Dinner. Vicki shook her head. That should prove interesting, a little alpha male posturing over the hot dogs. She heard voices in the background, then someone lifted the receiver.
    "Great timing, we just sat down. You ready to be picked up?"

    "No, not yet. Ms. Reid arrived late. I'm at her place now and likely to be for some time. She doesn't know who the marksman is, but she thinks we can find out."

    "How?"

    "Anyone as good as this guy is has to have left some kind of a record and if someone made a record of it, she says she has a copy. But," she glanced around the living room, nothing appeared to be shelved in any particular order, "it may take a while to find it."

    "Do you want me to come in?"

    "No." The less time she spent with him, the less likely he'd re-stage the afternoon's fight and she just didn't want to deal with that right now. Letting Celluci tie her in knots wouldn't help anyone. Her job was to find the killer and stop him, not argue the ethics of the case. "I'd rather you stayed there and kept an eye on things."

    "What about Henry?"

    What about Henry? She wondered how his absence had been explained. Celluci swore he always knew when she lied so she chose her words carefully. "He hasn't any training."

    "Christ, Vicki, these are werewolves; I haven't any training." In her mind's eye she saw him tossing the curl of hair back off his forehead. "And that wasn't what I meant."

    "Listen, Mike, I told you what I think of your organized crime theory and I haven't got time to pander to your bruised male ego right now. You and Henry work it out." The best defense is a good offense - she didn't know where she'd first heard it but it made sense. "I'll call you when I get done." She could hear him speaking as she hung up. He didn't sound happy. Odds are he'll repeat it later so I haven't missed anything.

    The early evening sunlight stretched long golden fingers into the living room. Almost two and a half hours remained until dark. Vicki found herself wishing she could push that pulsing golden ball down below the horizon, releasing Henry from the hold of day. Henry understood, unlike Mike Celluci who was trying to apply rules to a game no one was playing.

    And wasn't I just thinking it was nice to have Celluci around, lending an aura of normality to all this? When did my life get so complicated?

    "Cream and sugar?" Bertie called from the kitchen.

    Vicki shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs. "Just cream," she said, moving toward the voice. Nothing to do but keep going and hope it all untangled itself in the end.

    The second bedroom had been turned into a library, with bookshelves on three of the four walls and filing cabinets on the fourth. A huge paper-piled desk took up much of the central floor space. The desk caught Vicki's eye.

    "It's