"Maybe the next step," Veronica said, "will be to find out what demons brought Roxy Bronze to the barrio."

Veronica said, "We need privacy."

We certainly did.

She scooped her cell phone from atop her desk and slipped the phone into the small cargo pocket of her capris. "Let's go outside."

That wasn't the privacy I had in mind, to be honest. I was hoping for a room with a locked door. And a bed.

I followed her out to a side hall, through a cluttered but clean kitchen, and to a door between a refrigerator and the pantry. Veronica turned around and pushed against the latching bar of the door with her round and attractive rump.

We stepped onto a concrete slab surrounded by scruffy grass and picnic tables. Veronica led me to a concrete bench beneath a carob tree.

The hot California sun pressed through the thin spots in my makeup and sunscreen. The shade under the tree was a refreshing shelter.

With her attention away from me, I removed my contacts and put them in their plastic case. Veronica's red aura glowed like the filament of an electric bulb.

Veronica sat and dug a packet of Nicorette gum from her pocket. She popped a tablet into her mouth and turned to face me.

Our eyes locked. Her aura pulsed in surprise. Her eyebrows arced and her pupils opened like twin camera apertures. I caught her at midchew, and the ball of gum sat between the teeth in her open mouth. The look was unbecoming, so I flicked the wad away and closed her jaw.

I sat beside her and grasped her hands to massage the webs of flesh between her thumbs and index fingers. I stared into the concentric brown and black circles of her irises and pupils. Now to get the obvious questions out of the way.

"Veronica, did you kill Roxy Bronze?"

She took one slow breath. Then another. "No."

That answer was comforting. I had plans for Veronica other than seeing her cuffed and taken to jail.

"Veronica, do you know who killed Roxy?"

Another breath and another comforting "No."

"What about vampires?"

Another no.

At least I knew enough to cross her off my list of suspects.

Veronica remained still, her mind pliant as clay. Her smooth and elegant neck beckoned. My fangs protruded.

The lot behind Barrios Unidos faced the back fences of neighborhood homes and their cluttered yards. Other than a few cars passing on the side streets, we were alone.

This was going to be easy. If I embraced her, we'd look like we were necking. Really necking.

I brushed the hair back from her collar to bare her neck. The top two buttons of her blouse were open, revealing a nice crease between her breasts. A lacy, powder blue brassiere cupped her full bosom. I fought the temptation to undo the rest of the buttons and slip a hand into her blouse.

Okay, so it was creepy of me to hypnotize a woman and think about copping a feel. But I'm a vampire, not a Boy Scout. I bite people on the neck and suck their blood. Occasionally I even kill them. Compared to that, putting my hand under Veronica's blouse would be like swiping a pen from work.

Besides, sex with a vampire was an extraordinary thrill. At least, that's what I told myself.

Desire pumped into my crotch. Feeding on her wouldn't be enough. But out here in the open? No, the rest would wait for later. I held Veronica by the shoulders and brought my fangs to her neck.

She was a fountain of appetizing aromas. The sweet shampoo, lilac soap, her morning coffee, peppermint from the gum, and an underlying scent of pheromones. The anticipation of tasting her skin and blood made my mouth water.

The sudden and loud caw of a crow grabbed me by the ears.

I pulled away from Veronica and wiped the drool from my lips. A crow stared from the rain gutter along the eave of the Barrios Unidos roof. The bird cawed again, louder this time. I didn't know if it was the same crow that delivered my orders from the Araneum back in Denver. Even if it wasn't, I got the message.

We're watching you, Felix. Get your ass back to work.

My fangs retracted. The warm swelling in my crotch ebbed with frustration. I smoothed Veronica's hair over her collar.

The crow sidestepped along the rain gutter, its claws ticking against the metal. Its beady eyes gave me the harsh glare of a zealous chaperone.

I closed Veronica's eyes and massaged between her thumbs and fingers again. Her aura dimmed as she relaxed. I commanded her to awake.

In the moment that I waited for Veronica to come to, I put my contacts back in and thought about what clues I hoped to find here.

Veronica opened her eyes. "What was I saying?" She touched her forehead in an absentminded gesture. "I lost my train of thought."

"We were going to talk about Roxy Bronze and her demons."

Veronica nodded. Her face took on a dark hue. She reached for a pod of carob seeds on the ground and picked at it. As Veronica shared what she knew about Roxy, the crow lifted from the rain gutter and flew off, the feathered bastard.

Veronica repeated what I had already learned on my own. When she was done, Veronica kept quiet until the gloss from the tears in her eyes faded.

She dropped the carob pod. "Know what 'Freya' means?"

"It's the Norse goddess of love and beauty," I replied.

"An appropriate name." Veronica blotted her eyes and wiped her fingertips across one thigh.

I was a vampire, supposedly cold and hard like iron. But the sincerity of Veronica's affection for Roxy warmed me. I wanted to share that affection, and suddenly I felt myself wanting to know Veronica as man to woman, not vampire to prey.

She asked, "Do you know what happened to Dr. Freya Krieger?"

"Roxy… Freya was accused of negligence in the death of a patient and had her license suspended by the state medical board," I said.

"That was the official version. A guy I dated…"

Dated? Past tense I hoped.

"… a lawyer…"

Sleep with the dogs, why don't you?

"… told me of cocktail gossip among the attorneys. Roxy had been railroaded by the medical board to protect the head surgeon and staff at La Brea."

"I read about the investigation in the LA. Times" I said. "There was also a long feature in one of the weeklies."

"The controversy was that there were three different versions of what happened." The quickening tempo of Veronica's words matched the rising emotion in her voice. "The first was that the patient died of complications. It was supposed to be a routine bypass. It didn't help that he was a smoker. And two hundred pounds overweight. Despite 'heroic measures' by the team, he died on the operating table."

"That's the first version," I said. "The second concerned Roxy's trouble with the hospital's report of the patient's death."

"That's right," Veronica said. "She confronted the staff and the head surgeon, Dr. Mordecai Niphe. Then she filed a complaint with the state board."

"Roxy took on the head surgeon?" I asked. "As an intern? What made her do that?"

"Duty, if you knew Roxy. She said Dr. Niphe was negligent. He ignored the anesthetist's warnings. The patient suffered pulmonary arrest and died needlessly. Roxy accused the hospital of fabricating records. You know, to protect the surgeon and themselves."

"And the inquiry turned against her?"

"Yes. Suddenly every doctor who had ever known Roxy came forward with the same testimony. That she was arrogant. That she was brash. Reckless with protocol. Incompetent. These were the same people who had praised her before." Veronica's voice cracked. "Now they said you couldn't trust Roxy with a Q-tip, let alone a scalpel. La Brea changed its story, too. They admitted to 'therapeutic misadventures.'"