"Did this supposed contact have a name?"

Scavetti snorted a dismissive laugh. “I asked him the same thing. He says she's very secretive about her work. We took a hard fucking look at the husband, I'll tell you, but I don't think there's anything there. As in nothing's there. I got the impression they don't spend that much time together. No heat, if you know what I mean."

"He's a doc at the University too,” Felder added. “Heads up a big psychiatric clinic or something. He seemed awfully certain his wife was going to get her samples, though. Says she had drug companies lining up to sponsor her. A lot of money, too."

"How much money?” Raj asked curiously.

"The good doctor almost choked on his own tongue trying to avoid answering that question, but I got him to admit we're talking well into the tens of millions."

"Interesting,” Raj said, concealing his rising concern. “I'll check into that angle for you,” he said. “Someone may have been playing her along, either human or vampire, and if that's true, I'll find him. Or her. I'd like to talk to Edwards's husband,” he said. “And maybe visit her lab."

"I'll set something—” Felder started to say, but Scavetti interrupted, ignoring his partner's look of surprise.

"That's not gonna happen, Gregor. We appreciate the cooperation and all, but I can't have you contaminating my case, going around talking to people, muddying up the investigation."

Raj didn't bother arguing. It no longer mattered what the detective did or didn't want. Krystof had sent him here to cooperate with the police in their investigation and he'd done so. But Raj had assumed going in that there was no vampire involved in these crimes, that all of this cooperation was just for show. He'd learned enough tonight to make him doubt that assumption, and that meant any real cooperation with the authorities was now over. If vampires were involved, it was an internal matter and it would be handled accordingly. If Edwards's husband was right and a vampire was providing blood for this research—well, there was only one possible outcome for that vampire and any humans involved with him. And that outcome probably wouldn't be acceptable to the human authorities.

Raj glanced once again at the board, memorizing the salient facts of all four missing women, before turning away to stroll around the table.

"I guess we're done here, then?” He glanced at Scavetti, who seemed surprised by his quick capitulation even though he'd been the one insisting Raj get off the case and out of his life. “Excellent,” Raj said, when no one objected. He started for the door, but a sudden thought made him stop and turn. “If there is a vampire mixed up in any of this, I will find him and he will be dealt with. For your own safety, gentlemen, leave that part of the investigation to me. If I learn anything that might help your own efforts, I'll let you know. In the meantime . . .” He pulled a slim, gold case out of his inner jacket pocket. “My numbers,” he said, opening the case and dropping a few thick, white business cards on the table. “Call anytime, although night is always better,” he said with a quick grin.

Scavetti was still growling when Raj walked through the lobby and out into the dark night to begin searching for answers.

Chapter Fifteen

The temperature had dropped a few more degrees while Raj had been inside. Damn Buffalo and its weather. It reminded him of his hometown on the Baltic coast of Poland. The cold and wet had seemed to last forever there too, days passing one after the other without even a glimmer of honest sunshine. His father had been a dock worker and every once in a while, especially in winter, a crate of oranges from Italy or Spain would just happen to break open, spilling its cargo all over the dock. On those days, his father always brought home a few of the ripe, succulent globes wrapped in thin tissue paper like priceless treasures. The thick perfume of the citrus oil as his mother peeled away the skin, the sweetness of the juice as they savored each portion—a much younger Raj had dreamt of sun-drenched hillsides filled with beautiful women in skimpy dresses plucking the golden rounds into their aprons.

A bus drove past on the street, spewing exhaust and crashing into his reverie. Raj sighed. It had been centuries since he'd seen the sun. On the other hand, there had been no shortage of beautiful women in skimpy dresses. He thought of Sarah Stratton and her red dress. Unfortunately, Sarah would have to wait until tomorrow. He had a vampire to talk to tonight.

The drive to Krystof's was a short one, the streets mostly empty of traffic. It was late for mortals, but the middle of the workday for vampires. Raj pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through the stored numbers, finding the one he wanted.

"Yeah,” Jozef answered.

"We should meet,” Raj said.

There was a moment of silence. “Give me a couple of hours."

"I'll be outside.” Raj hung up. Two hours to kill. The luscious Sarah Stratton came to mind once more, but she was probably tucked safely into her bed by now, all toasty and warm. Ah, well. Two hours. He might as well check out the house where Patricia Cowens was last seen.

He made a quick U-turn and drove back to his lair, staying there just long enough to get rid of the suit and pull on his usual cold weather ensemble of sweater, jeans and leather jacket, all in black.

Back in the BMW, he called up the address of the missing girl's last known location from memory and entered it into his dash GPS for directions. There was a time when these streets had been as familiar to him as the docks of Poland, and this part of the city hadn't changed much in the intervening years. But unlike the streets of his childhood, Buffalo had no nostalgic hold on his memories. He'd let them go as soon as he'd left. This was no longer his town, if it had ever been.

Cruising down the silent streets, he parked a couple of blocks away from the house where Patricia Cowens had attended the vamp-wannabe party. No one knew exactly where or when she'd disappeared. She'd left the house a little after eleven, telling her roommate she intended to catch the bus back to campus. But she'd never made it back to the dorm and the driver on the only bus running that night didn't remember picking her up. Of course, after awhile every passenger probably looked the same to those guys, but the police were going on the assumption she'd been taken between the house and the bus stop, probably before she ever reached the busy main street.

The area was quiet when he climbed from his car and looked around. Nearby, a dog barked briefly but quickly gave up the effort as Raj moved down the street. The neighborhood was older, rows of modest houses on lots just big enough to give the illusion of privacy. They were well-kept for the most part, the driveways filled with minivans and mid-size cars. It was a work night, so all the good citizens were sound asleep, their houses locked up tight, with only the occasional gleam of a nightlight through a window or the rare porch light to chase away the dark.

Raj walked right up to the house where the party had been held, climbing the stairs and turning around to stand on the porch and stare outward. There were street lights here, but plenty of trees, too. In the summer, the trees would block much of the light from the overhead lamps, but with winter only a couple of weeks gone, most of the trees were still bare, their branches casting twisted skeletons of shadow on the sidewalk and empty front yards.

There'd been no sign of a struggle, he remembered from the report on Scavetti's board. No blood—not that the human police could find anyway—no torn bits of clothing or discarded possessions. More significantly, no one had heard anything at all. The dog down the street hadn't barked enough for the owner to notice and there'd been no screams, no shouts. But if William Cowens was right and his daughter's abductor was a vampire, she would have gone willingly. And if that vampire had hung around long enough, the dog would have grown used to him and stopped barking, just as he had for Raj tonight.

He studied the silent street. Whoever had taken the girl had been waiting. Not for her specifically perhaps, but for someone from the party. And if Scavetti's working theory was correct, the abductor had done it at least twice before. So he'd have found someplace dark where no one would notice him, but with a clear view of the house so he could see people coming and going, waiting for a woman who left alone, a young woman like Patricia Cowens.

Raj concentrated on the pattern of shadows and light, places where one of his own could have hidden. Three houses down and across the street, in between two older brick homes, was a space of roughly ten feet. The far house had a porch light burning, but none of that light made it to the dark canyon between the two houses.

He scanned the neighborhood slowly and stepped off the porch, striding down the cracked walk and across the street. As he drew closer to the hide, his head came up and his already enhanced vampire senses snapped to attention. He drew a breath deep into his lungs, tasting the air as he moved closer, his boots nearly soundless on the dry grass.

If a vampire was powerful enough, he could wrap himself in darkness and all but disappear, especially at night and with no direct light. In shadows as deep as these . . . There. Some sort of cologne. It was faint, but Raj's sense of smell was far stronger than a human's and, though it had been cold, there'd been no rain or snow since Trish had been kidnapped only a few days earlier. He inhaled again and wrinkled his nose in distaste. Too sweet. But mingled with the cologne was the old blood scent of Vampire. Damnit. He'd come here hoping to prove himself wrong, to find evidence that it was a human preying on his own, not some rogue who'd decided to break every rule of vampire society in the new age.

He drew another breath, fixing the scent in his memory. It took power to hide in the shadows, to come upon the victim without her seeing anything. Other than Raj himself, Krystof didn't generally keep people around who were strong enough to do something like that. If anything, the vampire lord's newest minions were weaker than ever, probably because Krystof knew his control was weakening as well.

Had an outsider sensed this vulnerability and moved in without Krystof's knowledge? Someone who was scouting the area in preparation for a takeover? If so, the intruder would have no choice but to hunt in order to feed. The human donors at the blood houses would be unavailable to an outsider, someone who wasn't supposed to be here and had to hide his presence. But why abduct the women? Why not simply find a willing companion and wipe her mind as Raj had done earlier?