The cell phone in my pocket went off. Shit! Damn it! Why do I carry these infernal gadgets? Why does anybody in their right mind need to constantly be on call?

I glanced at my watch as I took the phone in hand. It was already eleven o'clock. What a life. So far, we knew that Andrew Cotton and Dara Grey had gone to the Rum Jungle for drinks and then a magic show at the Mirage. They were seen talking to two people, but it had been dark in the theater. That was what we had so far, but it was still early.

I had been at the Bellagio murder scene since early evening. The case was really getting under my skin. The murders were brutal, primal. I had read about similar murders in Paris and Berlin, "biting attacks," but I had never seen anything like this with my own eyes.

"Alex Cross," I said into the phone. I turned toward the picture window revealing the lake and the desert in the distance. The view was soothing, an incredible contrast with what had happened in the suite.

"It's Jamilla, Alex. Did I wake you?"

"No, not hardly. I wish you had. I'm at a murder scene. I'm in Las Vegas, staring out at the desert. You're up pretty late yourself," I said.

It was good to hear her voice. She sounded sane and normal. She was sane and normal. I was the one in trouble.

"Oh, I sometimes stay at the office late. That way I can get a day's work done after everybody else goes home. Alex, I have some information to share on the biting attacks."

From the sound of her voice, I suspected this wasn't going to make things any easier for me.

"Go ahead, Jamilla. I'm listening."

"Okay," she said. "I've been working with a couple of medical examiners from the other places where the bloodsuckers struck. I think we may have hit on something important in San Luis Obispo and then again in San Diego."

I was listening; Jam had my full attention.

"In both of the cities, the medical examiners really got into the case, really tried to help. As you know, we exhumed in San Luis Obispo. Then Guy Millner, the M.E. in San Diego, did the same. I won't bore you with all the details right now, though I can overnight them to your hotel."

"That would be great. Obviously, no faxes on any of this material."

"Here's what we've found out. In both these murders, the teeth marks are different than in San Francisco or L.A. The marks were made by human teeth, Alex. But the killers were not the same ones. The evidence is pretty conclusive.

"Alex, there are at least fourkillers out there working. At leastfour. We've identified four different sets of human teeth so far."

I was trying to make some sense of what I'd just heard. "These are bodies that were exhumed? Human teeth could leave bite marks on bone?"

"Yes. The M.E.s agreed on that. The enamel on teeth is the hardest substance in the human body. Also, as you know, the killers might have been wearing enhancers."

"Fangs?"

"Right. There was gnawingon the bones in San Diego. That's another reason why there were clear marks."

"Gnawing?" I winced.

"You're the psychologist, not me. Gnawing entails strong, repetitive, intentional action. It could definitely account for teeth marks. The victim was in his fifties. That helped us some too. According to my sources, his bones had less density due to osteoporosis. Thus the clear marks. But why gnaw on the bones? You tell me."

I was thinking about it. "How about this? Inside the bone is the marrow. And the marrow is rich in blood vessels."

"Oh, Alex, yuck," Jamilla said. "That could be it. How perfectly awful."

The murders of the two actors exploded the media awareness of the case.

Suddenly we had hundreds of tips to check and way too many bogus leads to follow. According to the tips, Dara Grey and Andrew Cotton had been spotted in nearly every club and hotel in Vegas. It was just what we didn't need to deal with. We had decided not to release the information that there might be more than one set of killers. California and Nevada weren't ready for it.

Kyle Craig decided to stay out west for the next couple of days. So did I, of course. I didn't have much of a choice. The case was too hot and seemed to be revving up even more. Over a thousand local police and FBI agents were involved on some level.

Then the killings simply stopped.

The pattern that had seemed to be escalating and building ended; the killers, who had seemed to be getting bolder, just vanished. Or maybe we weren't finding the bodies anymore.

I was talking daily to profilers in Quantico, but none of them could discern a pattern that made sense to any of us. Jamilla Hughes couldn't come up with interesting leads or theories either.

Everyone was completely stumped.

The killers just stopped killing.

Why? What was going on? Had the publicity scared them off? Or was it something else? Where had the killers disappeared to? How many were there?

It was time for me to go home. That was the good news, and I took it for what it was. Kyle agreed, and I headed back to Washington with the uncomfortable feeling that I had failed and that maybe the murderers would get away with what they had done.

I got to the house on Fifth Street at four on a Monday afternoon. The home front looked a little worn but also comfortable. I made a mental note that I had to paint the outside. The gutters needed work. Actually, I looked forward to it.

Nobody washome. Nobody was there. I'd been away for fourteen days.

I had wanted to surprise the kids, but I guess that was another bad idea. They seemed to be coming in clusters lately.

I wandered around the house, taking it all in, noting little things that were different since I had left. The kids' all-the-rage Razor scooter had a broken back wheel. Damon's white choral robe, sheathed in a plastic dry-cleaning bag, hung over the banister.

I was feeling guilty as it was, and the quiet, empty house didn't help. I looked at a few framed photos on the walls. My wedding photo with Maria. School portraits of Damon and Jannie. Snapshots of little Alex. A formal picture of the Boys' Choir taken by me at the National Cathedral.

'"Daddy's home, Daddy's home,'" I sang an old sixties tune as I peeked into the upstairs bedrooms. "Shep and the Limelites," I muttered.

Nobody was around to care that I was singing old rock and roll tunes and trying to lighten the mood. The Capitol and the Library of Congress were within walking distance, and I knew Nana liked to take the kids there sometimes. Maybe that's were they were?

I sighed and wondered once again whether it was time for me to get the hell out of police work. There was one catch: I was still passionate about the work. Even though I'd failed on the West Coast, I usually got some kind of results. I had saved some lives in the past few years. The FBI brought me in on some of their toughest cases. I figured this was my bruised ego talking, so I stopped the internal bullshit, cut it right off.

I took a hot shower, then I changed into a Men's March T-shirt and jeans, flip-flops. I felt a lot more comfortable, like I was back in my own skin. I could almost make myself believe that the lurid vampire killers were gone from my life for good. I think that's what I wanted to happen. Just let them crawl back into their hole.

I went down to the kitchen and grabbed a Coke from the fridge. Nana had taped a couple of the kids' masterpieces to the door. "Inner Galactic Encounter" by Damon, and "Marina Scurry Saves the Day — Again" by Janelle.

A book was laid out on the kitchen table. 10 Bad Choices That Ruin Black Women's Lives. Nana was doing a little light reading again. I peeked inside to see if I was one of the ten bad choices.