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He paused for a s out in the desert Chupacabras? Rogue humans and unhumans are scarier, and human predators are worst of all, because they have no need to kill to live"

"You found more victims this trip?" Personally, I meant These weren’t numbers, statistics; these were lost bodies and souls he dowsed for

"Twelve, so as fourteen The oldest enty-two They’ll be identified and catalogued and buried again in the desert, with only a crude headstone It’s beginning to feel sadistic to dig the each new death will nail sole maniac killer who can die for the sins of all the opportunistic rapists who fill the border cities"

We were out of the city now and driving on the dark, alhway toward the distant faint twinkles of mountain habitations We were silent for a while, lulled by the eine

"Itout of you to find all these bodies," I said finally

"It always has" His glance slid towardto decide whether to tellRelentless reporter, that’sNow I didn’t know about taking on whatever Ric was holding back I sensed still-raounds underneath that smooth, defensive exterior I didn’t know if I was one of them Or could be

He decided to let me in a little more "I’ve always maintained a certain control, a certain distance, when I work Ric Montoya, hu Ever since Sunset Park, I don’t have that distance I don’t just find them and deal with the dead I feel theive, like they’re reaching out of the earth to grab -dead -dead e"

"And my fault?"

He wouldn’t look atelse A conduit A medium I don’t knohat you are and I doubt you do either It’s not your fault, but I can’t just dowse anyfork I vibrate to their presence as if they were alive and I were dead, a mere medium to be activated I feel their pain, their undone deeds, and their broken hearts It’s too ht that I didn’t know anything when it came to these matters So I asked

"When you dowse for the dead now, do you feel the saether?"

"No That’s ours And theirs, the dead couple’s Oh, I’ve sensed lust and greed in these sex killings, but nothing as positive as that"

"It was positive, for us, then, wasn’t it? I’ve never felt anything like that, over a grave or anywhere, with anyone" I putwheel "Ric I missed you"

He turned to see me, really see me, and his mouth ht"

I saw the despair in his dark eyes and nodded I knew a prinment when I heard it, and I wanted this one very, very ed from our own professional problems into an unspoken need to shake ourselves loose of the in his soft, expensive clothes, which I now recognized as a defensive barrier against the death he wrested daily froirl, all soft and silken folds and uncertain emotions He read me like a book, dowsedto give Only I didn’t really knohat that really was So I also felt nervous, as usual

The Los Lobos parking lot looked h to be interesting Ric’s was low, sleek, sexy, a quick getaway Another barrier against death

This ties of the country-es in the wood plank floor

I ordered an Albino Va the waitress scribble down the directions Ric ordered the sa a dark eyebrow at et et home, hombre"

"Su casa orDo you have uno Spanish dictionary?"

"Si"

Truinning to get the rhythm One-two-three Oomph I didn’t care this time what the onlookers would think I was desperate to distract Ric from the awful job he’d had to do Werewolves did the two-step, but so didto soothe hist

When he jerked my elastic waistband down over my hips, below my navel, I put my hands on his shoulders One-two-three, seduce He buried his face in my neck and shoulder, pushed my torso into his I so wanted this man to find salvation in ar Allan Poe kept searching for, surcease Was this sex? Or so that ate at my stomach and burned in my throat I had to tell Ric, warn hiht be evenlike what you experienced in Mexico, but while you were gone-"

"What happened?" His profile had grown sharp before his face turned to ated hundreds of suspects He knehen they were aching to conceal so How? Why?"

"When I was investigating the Inferno I ran into one of the Seven Deadly Sins’ lead singer’s groupies"

"Cocaine Yeah, I’ve heard of hiroupies are crazy This one and I had a brief encounter"

"You into girls, chica?"

"Not that kind" I slapped his shoulder playfully

Making a joke oftechnique Ric could sense the tension inthem even as we danced

"Short story: this Cocaine character was out pressing the groupie flesh in person and stopped to play withThe video caet a lock of my hair afterward as a souvenir That creeped me out, so I told her back off She turned up dead the next e and arrested "

"Arrested? Just for questioning? That’s not procedure Oh You don’tso we just stood there while other couples flashed their moves around us We stood motionless, in each other’s aretting harder to pretend I’d shrugged off an ugly and traumatic moment

I just nodded "I knew a very personal pat-doasn’t procedure"

"How personal?"

"For the barrel of his gun, very"

Ric droppedbecause his had become very hard fists He muttered some Spanish curses too low and too fast for me and my handy little Street Spanish book to translate

"Hector’s security syste to defuse hi manhandled?"

"Hector’s destroyed every security tape but a copy he gave es Or destroy I’ht be a little twitchy about being touched right now"

"Querida" Ric pulledto a slow dance, a slow- couples

"Forget that Forget Haskell You’re with ered ht not be what you expect or want Too ht The kind that et out of here I know just the place to soothe all your cares and woes"

"Really? Where?"

"My place"

We left before the olves had really begun to dance, but it wasn’t a full-er door The car was a low-riding hammock with rocket power The seat was already half-reclined by design, but at least he didn’t bother snapping the seat belt forbelted in didn’t worry me Ric drove as if he was one with the car, fast and powerful, outrunning everything Juarez, Haskell,the asphalt as it wove its way out of theto every curve with a dreaine vibrations ain Ric’s hand moved on the stick shift, up, down, across, and I felt my body sith the motion After a while, all my cares and woes had been outrun I was only here, only now, only with hiy interest

No full lass roof No olves haunted the hills as they ran through the freedoht, and this ti e door

This ti me home with hi The end ofme up and out My ankles wobbled as my hands returned to his shoulders, his to ated entry and were in a newer housing development, nice but not palatial He waltz-walked e central fountain made aural love to each other

Inside the house was dark, quiet It wasn’t that large, but everything about it felt chosen, sensual, perfect A huge stainless steel refrigerator purred against one wall Faint light glinted off dark granite countertops and other stainless steel appliances Ric paused at a long kitchen island, where he caressed the granite, black with glittering silver and blue veins, like precious ores "It’s called blue pearl You Me Here"

"Horizontal," I protested Besides, it looked like a sacrificial altar

We were in another roo like tiny coins in fountains It was cool there, hu with an air-conditioned serenity Ric sat e of an interior fountain He slipped off my Cinderella slippers, set -princess soles were burning until then My soul, burning His fingertips dribbled fountain water on my chest, which he licked off until his mouth had pushed my neckline down My nipples blossomed in his mouth and exploded at the touch of his teeth

He pulledme down on a velvet sofa to putether, and all the while the dark, soft sound of his unseen rooms ate away at my composure

Bedrooh, tinkling, glittering, hue? All of the above

I noticed a low bed on a pedestal, satin sheets Mirrors

"Is this a va about hiain, inwhy

He dancedus as if ere in a photo studio

The ranite hot tub sunken in a ri mirror over the double sinks

"See my reflection?" he asked "Do I look like va overlove to this woman in the mirror, my double with her clothes half off and still hidden, still private

He finger-walked my skirt up to my hips In the s like a cop doing a very personal arrest A shattering memory of Haskell drowned in a sudden liquid shot of desire Ric wasn’t, never would be, Haskell, and I was finally able to make distinctions between my fears and ain," Ric said "Make you just the right height for me"

I was pretty non coht for hiainst each other all night, hip to hip, so I just purred a little

"This is the e stood in the park You re, into feeling, into wanting to do with you It was just the usual water-witching demonstration, except you were so soft, so asm"

So I’d felt more than a hard-on back then I leanedhis hands on e, not quite revealing myself to me, or to him I saw faint auras, reen and purple where they touched

"Nice cologne" I inhaled deeply I’d first scented it in the park when all ht," he murmured into my hair

"Is that with a K?"

"No I’m definitely not that noble"

Below the line of thewith my inner silk, a movement so easy, so natural An action only in the ers delved where we both could only feel His left forefinger reached up to tease the spaghetti straps off each of ernail edged hth inches until only the swollen precipices of my nipples held up the soft fabric

"You like to tease yourself," I ed to say

"You too"

"I teased you?"

"You didn’t know it but what do you think it was like, this strange lush woainst ht toin the dark"

Even aspoint, a s with Irma, uncoiled You’re ruined You can’t escape the past you don’t know And I re failure of my so-called life The Reporter stirred, came forward, said objectively

"Forty percent of woasmic"

And, as far as I could re zero percent in uys who could dowse for the dead weren’t involved There were no dead bodies here now

Ric looked so good in the mirror as he h cheekbones His fingers pulled out of me Warned maybe They lifted before ht thelisten I inhaled his fingertips, pulled theas," he breathed in my ear "I don’t believe in odds My whole life has been bucking the odds"

He pushed rasped the s for the depths within ourselves I heard the hiss of a zipper, the notched touch of metal teeth, felt the brush of silken linen, then pure soft silk, and velvet flesh stretched taut to push ho, "the wand had never driven so hard and strong and deep for the ground, but it was driving somewhere else, too Not just down and back, as we passed over it, and as the rod will do It ached to enter you I couldn’t blae too, but I couldn’t let that raood violate you It took all th to control it To keep it away To keep you untouched To keep you tointo the most wounded part of me, a no man’s land of mystery and perhaps even hysteria, on the soft friction of velvet against silk Velvet had nap Silk would give first, as scissors cut paper

"I hurt," I said But it wasn’t his i presence; it was as if a rubber band had shrunk between ood, Delilah," he murmured, "and I can lanced up at Ric in the mirror His face was cast down to watchme until I said so Somehow that reflected face seeh or into for a long, long ti lovely ache inside ateould evaporate with his entry

"Yes," I said, loving hoaited until h before he didmusical, sexy Latin words now Their sibilant alien sound pierced me to the bone The swollen ache became an eruption as he rocked intoplain The outer li explored So cataclyslish "Let yourself go"

I was running with the wolves Werewolves Whole-weres Running like quicksilver or ht fullfor observation of its wonders

I threw backrod delve me like a dream lover, and howled my freedom to the star-sprinkled skies

My face was turned into Ric’s shoulder again We were upright, I pressed against hiainstabout yourself? Not really

Like rown a protective shell, only mine was thicker than most Hard as nails The phrase meant the , but I always thought of wo part of us that is such slight protection, brittle enough to break at one wrong glancing word or gesture; tough enough, if we’re driven enough or desperate enough, to wound

Oh, soernails, paint thin clear enamel carapaces over them, sometimes tinted as pink as rare littery like jewelry But they are still a fragile element of our bodies, no matter how thick the shell over the exposed nerves and thin-skinned flesh beneath, and pulling them out was an ancient for, but as impervious as shellac

The Wichita, Kansas, TV studio had the usual food roo h the on-camera women were supposed to be uniforht hoathered around the treats to nibble or gorge, depending on our metabolisms and moods of the moment One time a woman had exclaiar was "better than sex" A quick poll named the top better-than-sex dessert: carrot cake A lone vote for banana creah, and the wolazed donuts was told with giggles and knowing titters that she could coh I only got the reference now My own fave had been lost in the hullabaloo: gourmet coffee and chocolate

Now I knew that little office coffee klatch conversation for an exchange so shallow that even Ir the enors of trust involved dazzledtrust on such an inti alive I’d never iined All the happy TV commercial couples, the hyper-passionate romance-novel couples, had seemed part of some elaborate play everybody else liked to pretend they were now starring in What I felt here and noas real Was it love? That fast and easily? I didn’t know I’d just have to trust that, whatever it was, it was right for us both That, beyond the first-ti �C that I’d be tender, delicado the next day, as long as I felt this inner conviction, I’d never be sorry Trust It meant that Rick would not hurt me, and if he ever did, I knew the pain would be mortal

That’s how I felt as I beachedwall behind es A wall A wave

His shirt collar was still open In the limpsed a shadow, blue-black, the only dark place on him besides his hair and eyelashes My open mouth swiveled to that sole entry to hiainst er, so I felt deliriously surrounded I let s like a paper doll on pushpins

The shadow at his throat, his collarbone, teased my eyes

My head lolled on his shoulder "What’s this?"

His face was close, focused down on htly open collar

"What do you think you feel, what do you see?" he asked

I brushed his collar aside Frowned "You’re wounded"

He ainst the shadow Puffy flesh, darkening as I touched it

"Ric! Did I do that?"

"Yeah When you zoned out over the dead zone in the park You spasmed All over I felt every tremor Then you turned your head into my neck and shoulder And bit You did that"

I stared at his bruised skin just peeking beyond the white starched corner of his shirt

"I bit you?"

"Yeah"

"No! I’m not a vampire! I hate those bloodsuckers I’d never do that"

He touched er onto the ticklish top of e sort of lassitude

"Maybe you’re a olf I don’t care It’s okay It’s a totally hu, called a love bite, a passion mark, a hickey"

What was I?

"A deliciously passionate woman," he told me in the kitchen, where he applied an ice pack and antibiotic ointarded as a scary untreated wound he seemed to consider a sensual trophy Weird But what did I know about any of this?

"But I need a little R &R until our next round Waiting e warm

Not me! I resisted, not insisted I feared, not dared I was a nice person

Not hot

Ric caain, pulled me hip to hip "We could share a shower A bed Sleep Or we could do what I really, really want to do"

"And that is?"

"I want to drive you hoht of that low, leather-lined car withroad feel undid ht Drive me home The reins were back in his hands Drive er seat, sans seatbelt, would have been tolerable, but Ric didn’t lower it Instead, he pulled me down sideways once ere on the road, across the central coh that any woely out of it, dreaers teased my skirt up over my bare hip, and then caressed ain I was lulled by that easy, fringes sort of love, what pleased hi to the drone of the engine, the

We e door; only Ric stopped us at the bottom of the shallow steps to the front door

"I hate to say this, believe ain"

I didn’t will it, but ers curled hard into his jacket lapels

"Just a quick trip to DC to report on the Juarez situation I’ll be back in a couple of days"

"What’ll I do for a couple of days?"

"Keep checking out the Sunset Park killings That ought to keep you in the libraries and out of trouble Besides, you’ll be tender"

"So you want one?"

"I want you so about when I coot it," I said Proes of his lapels

I was so besotted at that instant that I wanted tothat he leave irls had coveted and worn their boyfriends’ letter jackets Or leather jackets, depending on what crowd they ran with I had been so retarded! But Ric was catching me up fast Hickeys Letter jackets Lust