Hoping to salvage the afternoon, I swung by Katz Meow's town house. It looked more deserted than the first time I visited. With every passing day I was certain I'd never see her alive again.

At 5 P.M. Veronica called. "We still on?"

Her voice lightened my gray mood and made all the good parts of me tingle. "It's the only reason I got out of bed."

"Where are you?" she asked.

"On the Golden State Freeway. About a half hour from your place."

"Great. I'll wait out front. See you then." She hung up, and the screen on my cell phone blinked. My date with Veronica would make up for the frustration of what turned out to be a wasted afternoon.

I finished a coffee frappe mixed with the rest of the blood I'd brought and gobbled Skittles to hide any trace of vampire breath.

I rounded the corner onto Veronica's street. She stepped from the breezeway of her apartment building. After my time with the uber-voluptuous JJ Jizmee, Veronica looked down-right anorexic. But only for a second. She had plenty of natural padding in all the right places.

Veronica wore sunglasses and her usual capris, in white, that brought out the caramel tan of her shapely legs. She wore a light blue sleeveless blouse. Veronica exercised, and she liked to show off the results.

I slowed and honked the horn. I lowered the window on the passenger's side and called out, "Can Veronica come out and play?"

She slung a canvas musette over one shoulder and bounded down the front steps with the eagerness of a girl let out from school. Veronica paused by the Chrysler and peeked over her sunglasses. "Nice wheels."

"Don't be impressed. It's a rental."

She got in and set the musette on her lap. She pointed south. "That way."

"What's there?"

"The beach."

"And your plan?"

"Visit my mother's."

Oh great. Why not let all the air out of my tires and feed me saltpeter?

Veronica leaned over the center console, kissed my cheek, and pinched my side. "She's not home. I gotta feed her cats."

Veronica gave directions to Venice, and we arrived at a modest cottage on Dell Avenue. I maneuvered the big 500M into a narrow space between the cottage and the newly built yuppie monstrosity next door.

We squeezed out of the car. A late afternoon breeze whisked through the neighborhood, rustling trees and palms and bringing the heavy scent of ocean air. I put on a black hoodie for the growing chill. Veronica pulled a windbreaker out of her musette and zipped up.

She unlocked the front door and we entered the cottage. The living room was filled with a lifetime's accumulation of bric-a-brac collected from every souvenir shop between here and Mount Rushmore. Veronica filled pet dishes-commemorating a visit to Flagstaff, Arizona-with cat food and water, and we left for the beach.

"There's something I don't understand about Roxy," I said. "I keep hearing that her involvement in Project Eleven is what got her killed. She got the media attention, but stopping Project Eleven was your baby. Why has no one has come after you?"

The breeze played with Veronica's hair. She snagged loose strands behind her ears. "Never occurred to me."

"Never?"

"Let me tell you why," she replied. "If you're a community activist, then you'd better be rattling cages on behalf of your constituents. You make enemies. But that's not a bad thing. It builds respect. Street cred."

"And these 'enemies' never threatened you?"

"Not a physical attack," Veronica said. "There's a lot of bluster and bullshit. Plenty of mind games and backroom maneuvering. But I never felt someone wanted to kill me."

"Then what made Roxy different?"

"She knew where to get the real dirt on some very powerful people."

"And that's why you think she was killed?"

"It's a guess."

We crossed a bridge over a shallow canal. A pelican on the bridge railing flexed its wings and took off.

"Did it bother you what Roxy was up to?" I asked.

"Felix, politics is a dirty business. When our opponents made her character an issue, then their character was fair game in return."

We stopped at Pacific Avenue and waited for a gap in traffic.

"So you approve of what Roxy did?"

"Hell yes," Veronica replied. "It's because of her that we made the city ditch Project Eleven."

"Even if that meant Roxy being murdered?"

"So it's my fault she's dead?"

We trotted across the street.

"Of course not," I answered. "In her digging through the dirt, did Roxy ever learn anything dangerous?"

"Explain 'dangerous,' " Veronica said.

"Something worth risking murder to keep quiet."

"I don't know. Roxy discovered plenty and aired it all. If she had found something dangerous, she never told me about it."

We reached the boardwalk and walked past the pier.

Veronica hooked her arm into mine. "Felix, I appreciate you confiding in me, but I didn't watch the clock today waiting for this conversation."

"Me either."

The sun settled into the gray haze above the ocean. The day's remaining vendors along the boardwalk sat bundled in jackets behind card tables piled with candles, tarot cards, and homemade trinkets. All of the crazies were gone except for one diehard who sat on a plastic crate and bellowed, "I need money. I gotta buy some pot."

Veronica stopped at the window of a pizza stand and asked if I wanted some.

I did, but only if drenched in blood. Otherwise, it'd be like eating paste on newsprint. "No thanks."

I rested my arm on the counter. The sudden, pungent odor of garlic stabbed my nostrils like tear gas. I yanked my arm from the counter in a bee-sting dance. I scrambled for a napkin to brush dirt-colored grains of garlic powder from my sleeve.

"Are you okay?" Veronica asked.

Carefully, I balled the napkin and dropped it into the trash. "This is going to sound weird, but I'm allergic to garlic. Hives. My face swells up. I get gas like nobody's business."

"That would kill the evening." She took a slice of cheese and mushroom. Yellow grease dripped from the stained paper plate. "Not the same without garlic though."

"I'll make it up to you."

Veronica turned the pointy end of the slice toward her mouth. "I'm holding you to that." Her lips parted and presented teeth as iridescent as opals. Her mouth opened wide, and it should've been me instead of that pizza sliding onto her tongue.

Veronica finished the pizza and chewed a tablet of Nicorette gum. We continued past the beach shops for a block and turned around.

I pulled her close. I was going to nibble her ear when I noticed the silver pendant earring. I kissed the back of her neck instead and it smelled delicious. Those good parts of mine tingled even more.

After returning to the cottage, I sat in a leather cigar chair and watched Veronica mix cranberry juice and vodka to make Cape Codders. She filled glasses stenciled: SANDS HOTEL AND CASINO.

She walked barefoot, and her candy red toenails begged me to admire her feet. From there I worked my eyes up the curves of her calves, past the swell of her hips, her trim waist, a nicely formed back and an even nicer chest, the firm muscles of her arms and shoulders, and ending my appraisal where it should-on the smooth skin of her tempting throat. I wanted everything Veronica's body could offer.

She turned to stand against the kitchen counter with her back to me and sliced limes.

I removed my contacts.

Veronica's aura glowed like the filament of an electric heater. The fringes of her aura rippled with sexual excitement. Veronica had very naughty plans.

In my years as a vampire, this was the first time I had romanced a human female. I've bedded quite a few, of course, and used my vampire powers to shuck their panties and inhibitions. Veronica was different. I wanted this to be normal, as normal as it could get when one of us was an undead bloodsucker.