Nashville
11:40 p.m.

Taylor was only a mile from home, but the succor of the hearth fire wouldn’t be hers for a few hours yet. McKenzie yawned in the seat next to her, long and loud.

“Where are we headed?” he asked.

“I thought we could try Subversion, see if he went there. Do you have any other ideas about where he might go?”

“Does he know Juri Edvin’s in the hospital?”

“I don’t know.” She called Marcus. He answered on the first ring. She filled him in on the situation with Ariadne and Schuyler Merritt, then asked him to go over to Vanderbilt. Juri Edvin needed guarding, at the very least. If Schuyler decided to drop in on his friend, they’d be ready for him. He told her the BOLO was out on Schuyler Merritt’s car, a silver 2000 Hyundai Elantra. Good, all units were aware to be on the lookout for him, at least.

She was flying down Interstate 40. The only real traffic at this hour was long-haul eighteen-wheelers and a few drunks wheeling their way home from the bars. Cars and trucks alike scattered out of her path, leaving her the far left lane open. She drove fast, the speedometer topping ninety. Running away from Ariadne.

“Damn it, what was that woman thinking, going out there by herself?”

McKenzie shook his head. “She thought she could handle him.”

“Yeah, right. The kid’s already in the bag for seven murders, plus his parents, and God knows who else. Sure, she could handle him, a lone woman, in the dark, with no backup. I wish to God people wouldn’t be so stupid.”

“She thought he was one of her kind. She’s very powerful. I’m sure she thought he would bow to her authority. It was misguided, yes. But surely you can see, she was trying to help.”

“And nearly got herself killed in the process. She was raped, McKenzie. You know how that affects a woman. She’ll never sleep easy again.”

“She won’t, or you won’t?” He said it kindly, but her nerves flared.

“This isn’t my fault,” she said. They were passing the Hustler store on Church Street. Taylor went up to Broadway and turned left. She wanted to hit Lower Broad, the strip, look through the faces on the streets, see if she could spot her fledgling vampire among the masses.

“Of course it’s not. That doesn’t mean you aren’t blaming yourself. You couldn’t have stopped this.”

“I could have figured out who Schuyler Merritt was sooner. If I’d listened to Ariadne in the first place…” Her voice drifted off. Instinctively, she knew that wasn’t the case. My God, they were only forty-eight hours in and hot on the trail of the final suspect in the case. It was damn fine police work, a group effort, and she knew that. But she still felt like a failure. She was going to carry the image of blood on Ariadne’s thighs with her forever.

They drove around for two hours, stopping into Subversion, which only existed once a month, not nightly, as she’d imagined. No one in the building was a part of that particular venue tonight—a dead end. At 2:00 a.m., she turned around at Second and Lindsley, took one last pass up the street, scanning faces and cars. When they hit Hooters, she turned to McKenzie.

“I give up. He isn’t here.”

“Let’s call it a night. We need sleep. Every overnight patrol is on alert, looking for him.”

“Do you mind stopping at the hospital before I drop you off?”

“Of course not.”

She powered the Lumina up Church Street, turned right at Baptist and pulled into the emergency room entrance parking. They left the car out of the way and went inside.

She flashed her badge at the desk, said they were looking for the rape victim. Ariadne had become a statistic, was forever labeled. Taylor realized what she’d done after the words were out—damn, it was habit. This was why they were trained to distance themselves from the victims, this searing feeling of guilt. She’d never sleep, never eat, never rest if she didn’t. But Ariadne felt like a friend, and treating her as a number hurt.

The nurse behind the desk pointed them toward an exam room—at least she’d gotten some privacy, rather than being examined out in the curtains. Under the cacophony of beeping and shouting, Taylor heard the small noises of pain echoing throughout the E.R.—someone was vomiting, a despondent child cried quietly, a woman grunted in the pangs of early labor. Misery, on an epic scale, that’s what the emergency room felt like to her.

She knocked on the door to Ariadne’s room, entered without waiting for a response.

The witch was in the bed, a soft blue-and-white-checked gown tied at her throat. Her face was a mass of mottled bruises, the cut on her forehead sporting a few stitches, black against the swelling purple bruise. Her eyes were closed, but Taylor could hear the shallow breathing—she wasn’t asleep. She went to the bed, resisted the urge to reach out and grab the woman’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said, low and quiet.

Ariadne opened her eyes, the cerulean gaze infinitely sad. “So am I,” she managed. Her jaw was swollen and dark with suffused blood. There was an X-ray on the lit radiograph box that showed what looked like a hairline fracture in the lower left mandible.

“They’re going to wire me shut for a few weeks,” she slurred.

“Don’t talk,” Taylor said. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Ariadne rolled her eyes. “Hey, I might lose a few pounds. Can’t be all bad.”

Taylor cracked a smile. If she was okay to joke, she’d live. A weight crashed off her shoulders. She stepped closer to the bed to avoid its fall to the floor.

“I will find him,” she vowed.

“I know. He will be punished. So will you, if you’re not watching. Go careful, Lieutenant.” Ariadne was done in. She closed her eyes again. Taylor was certain they’d given her a powerful sedative, something to alleviate both the physical and emotional gashes.

Taylor patted her awkwardly on the hand and walked out of the room. McKenzie stayed behind for a few minutes, then joined her in the hall.

“What did she say?” Taylor asked.

“Nothing. She’s asleep. I was just…”

He broke off, and Taylor nodded at him. She knew what he’d been doing, she’d done the same thing. Silently pleaded for forgiveness.

“Let’s go.”

She’d never felt so wretched as she did at this moment, pulling into her garage, the house lights burning brightly on their new timer, designed to turn on the outside lights at dusk and off at dawn, gaily welcoming her back. The sorrow in her gut wasn’t just for Ariadne, but all of the victims—the children who’d been taken, Brittany Carson and her giving rush of life, the boy, Brandon Scott, betrayed by a lover. Nashville wouldn’t be the same after this Halloween weekend, would forever be marked by the twisted desires of a teenage boy. The Green Hills massacre would be remembered forever—Ariadne was right; so long as there were living people to remember the dead, they’d reanimate, live on forever.

Would that be her feeling about Fitz, were he never found? Would a memory of the man be enough to suffice?

If she lost it now, there might not be any going back. She opted for being strong, grabbed a Miller Lite from the refrigerator, and went up to the bonus room. Her beloved pool table sat quietly in the dark room, waiting.

She pulled off the cover and drained the beer, grabbed another from the small refrigerator she kept up here for just this purpose.

Racking, breaking, shooting, the rhythm soothed her. She cleared the table in five minutes, playing eight ball against herself, then lined up the balls in a triangle for a game of nine ball. When she sank the seven she had a thought, glimmering in the back of her mind. By the yellow and white striped nine, she felt a peace steal over her limbs. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the pool, maybe it was knowing that no matter what, Baldwin would come home and they’d be together. She forgave herself and went to bed.

The phone was ringing. Taylor heard it, some part of her brain recognized the noise. She was so tired, sleep dragging her back into the clutches of darkness. She glanced at the clock—6:40 a.m. Damn.

She answered, forcing her voice to sound alert.

“Lieutenant? Commander Huston here. You need to report to Hillsboro High School. They’ve gotten a threat against the students. We’ve put them on lockdown. Looks like your suspect is there, waggling a gun around. He’s got a class full of kids hostage, and I’ve gotten reports that the security officer was disabled, though I don’t know details. Get yourself over there. And Lieutenant? Be careful. This boy sounds like he has nothing to lose.”

She was already out of the bed. “I’m on my way,” she said, breathless, then threw the phone down.