Page 5 (1/2)

"Do I feel like breaking down in this restaurant, crying for ive hier piece of ratefully at her instead

She pulled out her notepad "Ready to order?"

"Give us a ave hi smile and sauntered off The ood Too bad he was so unfriendly

"So, do you? Feel like breaking down?" Costa asked

I took a sip of ely cold man across from me He was handsoet his attention, but there was soent Costa?"

"Yes" His voice held no eht now

You should understand the lengths I will go to, the co I will do, in order to saveis soood at"

"Oh, I don’t doubt that" Costa leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table, and I couldn’t look away from his dark eyes He opened his mouth, and a small flash of emotion crossed his face--so quickly I couldn’t identify it--then he snapped his lips shut He shook his head and leaned back in the booth

"Are you guys ready to order yet?" Lisa rematerialized next tofor my teacup

My stomach rolled at the idea of food, but I forced rier

Fries"

The waitress jotted down our order and slipped her pen into a pocket at the front of her smock

Silence overtook us for a few brief moments after the waitress left Costa’s eyes burned into me, far more intensely than they should I was tempted to meet his stare, if only to pinpoint the exact shade of his eyes Surely they were just deep brown? They seeed on black, but that had to be because of the lighting

I cleared aze firmly affixed to my tea "Tell me more about the other cases"

He inhaled deeply, and then let the air out in a whoosh

"That could take a long tiave him a sharp look "Summarize"

"Fine Over the last couple of years, succubi have been disappearing from around the country A connection between the disappearances wasn’t ed "They took place in large cities, usually no more than one or two per city Succubi aren’t rare…as you know And the wo but species--aside fro and attractive Of course, that’s hardly a rare trait in succubi Not ers on the table "So they all just disappeared without a trace Any sign of any other connected OW disappearances, like Wendy’s?"

"No, and we haven’t connected any other disappearances to those of the succubi" He grimaced

"But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened We should look into other oh-dub disappearances around the saone " He pulled out a s on it

We sat in aard silence,to check ih his notes, until Lisa dropped off our food

"So none of them have turned up dead Do you have any evidence that…" I paused I didn’t really want to know, but I had to "Do you have any evidence that they are still alive--other than not finding any bodies?"

He hesitated "A psychic One of the best in the OWEA She’s touched several of the victims’ personal iteh, so she couldn’t get anything clear off of thees…I don’t know Whatever they get She says they’re alive"

"Touched them, huh? A psychometrist, then?"

Psycholean infor objects I hadn’t seen o PD didn’t have one on the squad and Vasquez wasn’t too keen on them They were useless with cases most of the time unless we had a murder weapon And even then, their visions weren’t always clear And unclear evidence didn’t make it to court