Something was wrong.
The bar was dark, only a single car in the parking lot beside his when he pulled in just after sundown. Mary's car. She tensed when his Jaguar's headlights illuminated her where she sat on her front step. He felt her fear rise up. It was palpable, even when he wasn't trying to read her thoughts. He quickly killed the engine and doused the lights, so she could see him.
Even then, though, her fear only eased a minute amount.
He opened the door and got out, and she got to her feet and came toward him. Her face was puffy, eyes red, as if she'd been crying.
"What's happened?"
She held his gaze. "Tommy. You remember Tommy, from last night?"
He nodded.
"He's dead. Someone killed him."
He went to her, put his arms around her to pull her close, the instinct to comfort her overriding his certainty that she was afraid of him all over again. But she didn't let him. She pulled away, and he let his arms fall to his sides as a clod dread settled over his heart. She suspected him.
"The police suspect me," she said.
It was the last thing he'd expected to hear. "What? Why on earth...?"
He was killed around 5:00 a.m. they said. I was the last person to see him alive. The last they know of, at least."
"My God."
She kept her eyes on her shoes. He looked past her, noticing the sign taped to the entrance. "Closed due to death in the family." He shook his head in disgust. Tommy had been young, early twenties at most. And while Michael had found the boy mildly annoying, he was certain the kid had done nothing to deserve this.
He looked at Mary again. She was barely holding herself together.
"How did it happen?"
"He was tied to his bed and set on fire." She met his eyes briefly. "You're supposed to be some kind of psychic. Why didn't you see this coming?"
He shook his head. "I don't see everything, Mary. I don't have any connection to Tommy."
"You don't have any connection to me, either."
"Yes, I do. You know good and well I do. You feel it just as strongly as I do, Mary. Don't deny that. Not now."
She lifted her brows. "Why shouldn't I deny it, when you refuse to explain it to me! I know you aren't telling me everything, Michael."
He was silent for a moment. She wanted to know everything. The last mortal he'd trusted enough to tell everything to had blasted a hole though her own head in reply. Mary might not react as badly as that. But she would certainly pull away from him, and if she did, the killer would find her alone, unprotected.
He couldn't tell her everything. But clearly, he had to tell her something. "The bond we share is one of blood," he told her choosing every word with care. "The antigen."
"You have it, too?"
He only nodded. He would not tell her the rest... what he was. "Mary, I had no reason to want to harm Tommy."
She licked her lips
"You shouldn't have come here, alone like this," he went on. "You could be in danger, you know that."
She shrugged. 'I brought the gun. I knew you'd be looking for me here. And I needed to see you. Besides, the police think Tommy might have been the stalker. Apparently that's my motive for killing him."
"What makes them think that?"
She shook her head. "They wouldn't say. I'm not even suppose to know that much." Clearing her throat, she walked toward her car, parked beside his black Jag. "The police wanted to know if anyone was with me when I dropped Tommy off last night. Anyone who could verify that he was alive when I left him. But I didn't tell them about you."
It as good that she hadn't told them. He didn't need the kind of snooping and investigation that would have resulted if she had. But if it would clear her of suspicion...
"It wouldn't have mattered, anyway. He was killed after you left my place. You couldn't swear that I hadn't gone back and done this thing... any more than I could swear you hadn't."
He chose to ignore the latter comment. "What evidence do they have against you?" he asked.
"I already told you, I was the last person to see him alive, and if he was the stalker, then..."
"That's circumstantial. Is there anything physical?"
She frowned. "I don't know. How could there be, Michael? I was never there."
"Never mind. I'll find out. But first, we need to get you somewhere safe."
She was dangerously close to tears. "I'm not suppose to leave town."
He thought about that a moment. If he took her away and the police couldn't reach her, their suspicion would increase exponentially. "Do you have a cell phone?" She nodded. "And did you give the police the number?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I want you to get into your car and follow me back to your apartment, all right? We'll leave your car there, and you can come with me."
She shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere with you, Michael."
He held her gaze for a long time, then finally sighed, giving up. "You think it's me. You think I killed Tommy don't you?"
"No. I don't think that at all, but part of me thinks that maybe I should-that maybe this... this... chemistry between us is clouding my judgment." She sighed, shaking her head in frustration. "Hell, I don't know what to think. I only know that you're a stranger. As much as it feels like I've known you forever, you're a stranger to me, Michael. I don't even know your last name."
He swallowed hard. Why her lack of trust in him should cause him pain was beyond knowing. That it did was beyond denying.
"I don't suppose I an blame you for being cautious. You're right. God, it seems to me that you know me better than anyone ever has, but that's just... that's just this." As he said it, he trailed the backs of his knuckles over her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pushing closer to his touch
Then she opened them again and met his. "Its' powerful, Michael. Everything in me believes in you. But I have to be sure." She frowned. "Isn't there some part of you that wonders if I might be guilty? If your feelings aren't clouding your judgment?"
His eyes probed hers. "No. Not in the least. But then again, I'm more used to trusting my senses then you are. All of them tell me you're no killer. And they've rarely steered me wrong." He nodded slowly. "We'll go back to your apartment. I'll see you safely inside and leave my cell phone number with you. Program it into your phone, so you can call me quickly if you need me. You can stay there, and I'll go see what I can find out about Tommy's murder, and then I'll come back and fill you in."
She blinked, clearly uncertain. "How do you think you can find anything out?"
He licked his lips, unsure how much to tell her. "I was a cop, Mary. For ten years, I was a cop."
"In New York?"
"In Chicago."
"Why did you quit?"
He hesitated. "I was shot in the line of duty. The injuries were... life altering." He wasn't about to tell her that he'd been on the wrong end of a Capone-era tommy gun, or that he'd been pronounced dead in a hospital, only to wake up in its morgue forever changed.
He'd been offered a choice then-live or die. He'd chosen to live.
"I sorry. Is it still a painful memory for you?"
He shook his head. "It's in the past." Further I the past than she could ever imagine. "But I do know something about police work. I know where to look for the answers we need, and how to get them without anyone being the wiser." He'd visited a great many police departments since his change. There were always unsolved crimes-things he picked up on through his ability to read the thoughts of mortals, to move about almost silently. There were always wrongs he could help right. And he did. Had for years. Evidence would turn up where none had been before; missing weapons would be located; witnesses would come forward. And the police never knew they'd had a helping hand-a cold, pale helping hand. In a lot of ways, he was a better cop now than he'd ever been before.
She pursed her lips, then nodded. "If you really think you can learn anything, then... then yes. Let's do it. Here, take my extra gate key so you can get back into my parking lot." She turned away, walking toward her car.
"Gray," he said to her back.
She stopped and turned to face him again. "What?"
"My name is Michael Gray."
"Oh." She smiled at him, weakly, shakily. "Thank you for that."
He nodded and then she got into her car and he got into his.
After he left her, Michael went first to the building where Mary had dropped Tommy off the night before. There was no security no key card required to get into the building, and it wasn't difficult to find the right apartment. Even without the yellow police tape marking the door, he would have known. He could still feel the lingering chill of death in the air. And there was the stench. Burning flesh did not emit a pleasant aroma.
The apartment door was locked. The lock gave without much resistance to the pressure of his hand, and he went inside and closed the door behind him. He didn't turn the lights on. He didn't have to.
The place reeked of smoke and charred flesh, but the only sign of fire was in the bedroom. A ring of black surrounded the bed-it had burned through the carpet and charred the floor underneath. The headboard had been destroyed, leaving only a bit of charred wood at its base. The wall behind it was blackened, as well, and the ceiling above. The mattress was missing, probably in a crime lab by now.
Oddly, the rest of the room showed very little damage. The firefighters must have arrived in time to contain the blaze, saving most of the apartment and the rest of the building. And probably a lot of lives in the process.
The room had been ransacked. Many items, he sensed, were missing.
He went to the bed, bracing himself for the onslaught of sensations the acts would bring before he placed his hand on the bed springs.
He expected horror. Pain beyond endurance. Heat and searing torment. It wasn't what he got. He got nothing at all other than an image of a body on fire. No thoughts. No sensations. Tommy hadn't been conscious when he'd gone up in flames.
Frowning, he searched the apartment but found no clues, got no other images. It wasn't until he left the building, on his way to the police department, that he felt that death energy again. Not from within, but from the alley just below Tommy's window.
He followed his senses into the garbage-strewn alley. Rats skittered from his approach. And then he smelled it.
Blood.
Moving closer, he located the source, a dark spatter on the brick outer wall of the building next to Tommy's. He pressed his hand to the stain and immediately felt a stunning blow to his forehead, right between the eyes, and what felt like an explosion at the back of his skull. He smelled the hot sulphur scent of gunpowder, and though he didn't hear a shot his ears rang as if they had.
Someone had been shot in the head. Right here in this alley.
A young man. Early twenties, small and wiry, with brown hair.
God, Tommy had been shot right here. This was where he'd died.
It made no sense, Michael thought as he returned to his car and drove away. Someone had lured or forced Tommy into the alley only to then return him to his apartment. The risk of being seen carrying a body should have been enough reason not to do such a thing. And then to bind the boy to his own bed and burn the body-it was insane.
He was still no closer to learning what the police had found to implicate Mary, he realized. Whoever had done this had known where Tommy lived. Perhaps it was someone he knew, then. Or perhaps it was simply someone who had watched him enough to have learned that minor detail.
Hell, they could have figured that much out from the address on his driver's license.
But why? Why kill the boy at all, much less burn the body?
He found out more when he slipped into the police station and played mind games with the officers on duty to keep them away from the places where he needed to snoop. The place was no small-town PD, but it wasn't an overwhelmed, understaffed urban one, either. No, this was a wealthy community, and their police department was well funded.
There were the usual drawers full of paper files, but each folder had a pocket in the front, containing a CD-ROM. A quick check told him everything in the folder-from the crime scene photos on down-had been recorded on the CD. It couldn't have been any easier.
He found the box of unused CD-RWs and made a copy of the official records. Then he put everything back where he'd found it and slipped quietly out of the police department.
Easy. When you could plant thoughts in people's minds, convince them they needed to be elsewhere and move too fast for human eyes to detect more than a blur of color it was almost too easy.
He got into his Jag and drove back to Mary's apartment, eager to examine the evidence he'd found.
More eager, though, just to be close to her again