impressed. The doc might specialize in mind games, but she knew a bit of forensics too.
Her gaze drifted to the white door that stood between them and the den, between them and the body. “There is so much rage here,” she whispered softly. “I can feel the echoes.”
And just how the hell could she do that?
The doc was a bigger mystery, and a hell of a bigger threat to him, than he’d originally thought.
“You have to find this guy.” She swallowed, straightened her shoulders and seemed to shake off a heavy weight. “Before he does this again.”
Colin stiffened. “Again?” He repeated softly. So far, they just had one body. Sure, the killer had obviously been in a fury—there was blood everywhere, pooled near the victim, smeared on the walls, the furniture, but that didn’t mean they were dealing with a serial—
“He’ll do it again.” She sounded absolutely certain.
McNeal swore beneath his breath. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
Colin stepped toward her, stepped right in front of her so that barely an inch separated them. “And how do you know that?”
“Because now he’s gotten a taste for the kill.” Her gaze held his. Her breath blew lightly across his skin. Her scent, the light, fragrant scent of roses, filled the air around him. “Once a creature like this gets a taste, there’s no going back.”
The good doctor sure as hell sounded like she knew what she was talking about. But he hoped, hoped with every fiber of his being, that she was wrong.
Because if one of his kind really was off on a killing spree, then the humans were screwed.
Chapter 2
She couldn’t get the dead man out of her head.
Emily stared blankly at the flickering TV screen, a bowl of Dutch chocolate ice cream in her lap, a spoon gripped tightly in her fist.
She’d left the crime scene long ago. Been driven back to her office by one of the patrolmen on duty. She’d thanked the fellow, very politely, then gotten into her car and traveled home. And she’d been shaking the whole time.
Dammit. It wasn’t as if that had been the first dead body she’d ever seen.
She’d found her grandmother after her heart attack, and her father after his suicide.
She stabbed the spoon down into the rapidly melting chocolate. No, it hadn’t been her first dead body, but the sight had still hit her like a punch in the gut.
Jesus. There had been so much blood.
And she currently had four vamps as patients, so it wasn’t as if she weren’t used to dealing with blood. Every time she touched their thoughts, images of blood took center stage.
But tonight, that man…he’d been different. The vamps she saw treated blood like it was sacred. To them, blood was life.
Yet when she’d seen the crime scene, the blood had meant nothing more than death.
I have to stop thinking about the body. Emily took a big bite of the ice cream, feeing the cold, delicious chocolate slide over her tongue.
Her toes curled into her carpet. Oh, that was better. That was—
A flash of headlights lit up her living room.
What in the hell?
She pushed the bowl of ice cream onto her coffee table, rose quickly, and turned toward her window. Through the thin curtains, she could see a vehicle pulling into her driveway.
The purring of the engine reached her ears, followed by the faint crunch of gravel beneath the tires.
Her gaze darted back toward her TV stand, locking briefly on the VCR clock. Two-thirteen A.M.
Who would be coming to visit her at two A.M.?
A car door slammed. Footsteps rapped against her sidewalk.
The image of a blood-soaked room flashed before her eyes. The image of death, of a man’s final, terrified scream.
Her doorbell rang.
Emily crept toward the door, moving almost soundlessly over the carpet. She pressed her hands against the wooden door, leaned forward, peered through the peephole, and saw—Detective Colin Gyth. He was standing just on the other side of her door, illuminated by the porch light.
Her breath expelled in a nervous rush. Okay. She should probably be glad that a cop—instead of a robber or some kind of crazed killer—had come to see her in the middle of the night. But Detective Gyth…
He just wasn’t your average cop.
And the guy made her very, very uneasy.
She opened the bottom lock but kept her security chain in place as she opened the door two inches. Enough room for them to talk, but nothing else. “Detective Gyth?”
He stepped closer. The light dipped across his face, making him look somewhat sinister.
Oh yeah, like she needed that visual right then.
“I need to talk to you.”
She’d figured that out, considering the guy had driven all the way to her place—and really, just how had he known where I lived? He must’ve had her checked out, she realized. Probably when Danny had first told him to contact her.
“Dr. Drake?” He lifted his hand, touched his palm to the door. “Let me in.”
She didn’t want to. Every instinct she had screamed at her. Letting Gyth inside would be a very serious mistake.
“I don’t want to cause a scene”—his dark voice was pitched low—“but if I have to wake your neighbors to get inside, I’ll do it.”
Her chin lifted. “I don’t like being threatened, Detective.” She started to push the door closed. She had only two immediate neighbors. One was out of town—the family had gone on a vacation to Disney World. The other, well, there was no way Shirley was home yet.
“Wait!” His palm shoved against the door, effectively halting her movement. His eyes met hers. “Would you please let me come inside?”
Umm, now that sounded like it must’ve hurt. But she still wasn’t budging. “What do you want?”
“I told you, I need to talk to you.”
Yeah, and so did all of her patients, but she wasn’t inviting them inside her house in the middle of the night.
“It’s about the case.”
He had her attention.
“All right.” Her fingers fumbled with the chain. “You can come in for five minutes.
