His immediate task was to interview Shaw's employer and coworkers. He didn't expect to learn much; at most he might find out if Shaw was known to be Gifted. That was the way of investigations. Most of what you learned wasn't useful.

But his gut had a different priority.

He'd do both, he decided. It wouldn't take long to swing by the apartments, and Kai wouldn't have a client this early. She'd be home.

Minutes later, he parked and ran lightly up the outside stairs. His shoulder barely twinged. He'd tell her that. She'd be glad to hear that her surgery had worked so well.

He knocked. Nothing.

Knocked again. No answer.

Fear was a startling acid. It flushed thought from his system so fast that for a moment he stood stock-still and saw her bloodless body instead of the bland metal of the door.

Only for a moment. Then his mind performed one of its more human tricks and sneered at him. Was he going to imagine her dead every time she wasn't where he'd expected?

His mind was less amenable to order than his body, but he hushed it as best he could. After a second it produced a more useful thought: She might be running.

Of course. Kai ran when she was stressed or upset. It helped her deal with her Gift as well as her emotions, and both had been given a workout last night.

She'd have her phone with her, he thought as he padded back down the stairs. His was in his car. He could call her, find out where she was. Or he could track her.

The decision floated up from his middle without input from his brain. Tuning in to her scents – both the physical and the psychic – was as automatic as adjusting the focus of his eyes. He set off at an easy lope.

Sweat stung Kai's eyes. She had her contacts in, so she blinked furiously instead of rubbing and wished she'd remembered her sweatband. One corner of her mind contemplated laser surgery for the hundredth time, but most of her remained cradled in the steady, reassuring thud of her feet against the ground.

When she ran, when she focused on the physical, her thoughts stayed close, tight to her body. She scarcely noticed them at all, and the residue of others' thoughts slipped past, unseen. The world turned crisp, its edges purely material and lovely to her.

"Kai."

The voice behind her jarred her out of her near-trance. She lost the rhythm, found it again, and raised a hand to acknowledge Nathan's greeting. Though she kept moving, she couldn't find the smooth, centered place she'd been floating in. Her thoughts rose around her in a mist of worry-gray.

Why was he here? He was on duty. Was this official? He could have called, but he'd come to find her. Had they misidentified the body earlier and it was someone she knew, after all?

Punctuating the gray were pops of yellow: Nathan. Nathan's here.

She lacked the wind to sigh. She'd pushed herself hard enough this morning, she supposed. Her thighs were burning. She slowed to a jog.

"What's up?" she asked as Nathan drew alongside her, not the least bit winded. He never was, which had irritated her at first. She was more resigned now. He did sweat, at least. In the summer. If he ran more than a mile or two, that is, and it was really hot. Like a hundred.

"You're out running. A killer wants to drink your blood, and you're out running."

"My blood?" Startled, a little frightened, she looked at him. He faced ahead, his features set in an odd frown. But his thoughts – ! They weren't muddy – Nathan's colors were always clear – but they were sure jumpy. Indigo twitched into purple, slid back to blue, flashed into green flickering with tips of angry red.

"You'd make a good meal for it. You've a strong Gift."

"But you don't have any reason to think it's after me, personally. Do you?"

The thought-fish around him slowed and flattened. His voice turned wry. "No. I was... generalizing."

Overreacting, more like. Which was very interesting. She jogged along in silence for a moment. "I take it the newest victim was Gifted."

"I suspect he was, but a body drained of life and blood doesn't tell me that."

"Does it tell you other things?"

"Almost always. This one... didn't." Trouble bubbled beneath the even surface of his voice. She saw it in the dark swirls that lifted from him, then fell again. His breath huffed out in a rare show of frustration. "This wasn't at all what I came here to tell you. I don't know why I... no, I do know. It just... surprises me."

He was seesawing, saying one thing, then another; and that was not like him. When he fell silent she wanted to stop, grab him, and shake a few more words out. She settled for a civilized prompt. "And that reason would be... ?"

His feet hit the ground three more times before he answered. "I was frightened. I went to your door and you weren't there, and I was afraid for you."

She could have sworn her heart slid around in her chest in an unnatural way. "That's natural, I guess. You'd just come from a murder scene."

"I'm not used to it. Sometimes I... friends are rare. I don't find one often."

Now he was squeezing the heart he'd just sent sliding. She couldn't think of what to say. The urge to grab him hit again, but this time she wanted to hold him. To just hold on.

He discovered smiles again and offered her one. "Usually I'm the one who has trouble with words. I seem to have stolen yours this time."

"They'll come back." Eventually.

"I didn't know. That you were my friend, that is. Until last night, I didn't realize you had... come inside me that far." He paused. "This isn't what I wanted to talk about."

"I'm enjoying the subject."

"Are you?" This smile arrived so quickly and so lightly it was almost a grin. "Am I inside you, too, Kai?"

The flush of heat hit too fast for her mind to have any chance of controlling her tongue. "Don't I wish."

He stopped, and he did the grabbing, seizing her shoulders and making her stop, too. "I'm sorry. I should have thought about how that would sound."

Humiliation rolled over her with its very different heat. "Joke. That was a joke. You're supposed to grin and say something stupid back."

"Stupid, I might be able to handle, but I'm not good at jokes. I'm not good at sex, either."

She rolled her eyes. "So not believing you here. About jokes, maybe. You don't always get them, or sometimes you think something's funny that I don't get. But sex?" She shook her head and found her own smile. "Come on."

"I can do sex, of course. But it's too..." He shook his head, clearly frustrated. "This doesn't fit into words well. I need a connection. Sex without that connection is too lonely."

Her heart was pounding and it had little to do with her run. "Friendship is a connection."

"Yes."

She searched his face, seeing something different there, but unsure what. She tried to speak lightly. "You're giving me ideas, you know. If that isn't what you had in mind – "

"My mind has become strange territory. I don't know what's in it myself, so I can't tell you." He dropped his hands. "But you'll get chilled, stopping like this when you're sweaty. We should keep moving."

"I need to stretch first." Stretching helped with lactic acid buildup in taxed muscles, making them less likely to stiffen. It would also give her a few minutes to locate her brain, which had to be around here someplace.

Kai untied the jacket she'd fastened around her waist, shrugged it on, and moved to the curb so she could stretch her hamstrings. "So why did you track me down?" Automatically she reached for his shoulder to balance herself. This kind of touching they'd done often.

"I need to let you know about the killer."

"What about him?" She dropped her heels off the curb. "Or it."