“Careful, there was plenty of security back there. Lots of cameras.”

“Felix, the night I can’t sneak into a morgue and steal a corpse is the night I’ll start wearing a chastity belt.”

“What about the computer records?”

Carmen showed her fangs. She extended the talons from her index fingers and brought them together. A spark jumped from each tip. Zap. “Jane Doe? What Jane Doe?”

“How did you do that?”

“The answer will cost you, Felix. The poses on pages 29, 46, and 92 of my Kama Sutra manuscript.”

“I’m not that limber, Carmen.”

“Then sign up for Antoine’s yoga class.”

I undid the bowline and tossed it on the boat. Carmen hopped into the fantail. Thorne gunned the engine and the Bayliner rocked backward from the dock.

Carmen faced me and flashed a vampire’s smile of pointed teeth. She looked ready to meet Johnson again. Al dente.

The Bayliner cruised out of the harbor. Carmen waved good-bye. She joined Thorne at the helm and cupped his butt. No doubt she’d be getting a nooner on the high seas before they arrived at Houghton Island.

I returned to the medical examiner’s office. My plan was simple. Catch Johnson privately, zonk him with hypnosis, and cull the secrets from his brain. But I didn’t know when Johnson would leave and I couldn’t stand around without attracting attention. I circled the building to check for the exits. There was one on the southern side and another in the back. If he used that one, he’d have to come around the building to leave the premises and I’d see him.

I stood in the grassy square outside the entrance. Three palm trees grew in the middle of the square. From the treetops I could view the medical examiner’s office and catch Johnson on his way out. I checked if anyone was watching me-I saw no one-then put my fingers against the rough bark of the tallest tree and walked them upward, pulling my body along. I hid in the center of the dense fronds. If anyone asked, I was checking for tree mites.

I remained in the shadows under the fronds and kept watch. A seagull rode the afternoon breeze and hovered close to me, its beady eyes inquisitive.

Was this gull a friend of the crow and here to spy? I gave the gull the finger. It shifted its head to see if I offered some food, saw that I didn’t, then peeled away for the shore.

At a quarter to five, the day shift swarmed out and headed to the parking lot. No Johnson. He couldn’t have gone out another way without me seeing him.

The swing shift trickled in. The sky darkened and the lamps in the parking lot flicked on.

A little after ten, Johnson appeared. He had changed into a light-colored Hawaiian shirt and dark blue beach shorts. He carried a gym bag. His pompadour looked unusually shiny, as if he had shellacked it. He walked briskly across the square on the far side, about two hundred feet away.

I started to climb from the palm when a man and a woman wearing white lab coats came out of the office. They strolled beneath me to share smokes from a pack of Winstons. With these two below, I couldn’t get down. Though my frustration grew with every moment, I couldn’t do anything except fold my legs and remain tucked against the fronds.

Johnson made a beeline through the parking lot to a red Mustang convertible with the top up. He fumbled with a set of keys, opened the car door, and tossed his bag into the backseat.

Damn, he was so close. I kneaded my fingers in irritation. Below me, the two smokers chatted like parakeets. If this had been a coconut tree, I would’ve beaned them.

Johnson climbed into his Mustang and cranked the engine. The convertible top retracted. Mötley Crüe belted from the speakers. He used the light from a lamppost to check himself in the rearview mirror and patted his pompadour into place. My throat tightened as I saw him preen. All I could do was watch him escape.

The smokers ground their cigarette butts into the mulch and walked back to the office building. About time. I floated down from my perch and started after Johnson.

The Mustang rumbled out of the lot toward the highway. He headed to Key West. I cut across the strips of sand and broken shells along the road, hoping to head him off.

Johnson didn’t waste time putting the pedal to his V-8 engine. The Mustang whipped into traffic.

I vaulted over a guardrail and sprinted on the highway shoulder. A delivery truck whooshed by. I jumped and clung to the rear doors, my fingers and feet holding firm with supernatural sticky force. I moved around the truck to the right side of the cab and stepped on the running board.

The driver, a chubby white guy with a mustache, sunglasses, and a ball cap, leaned against his door. He brought a plastic cup to his mouth. He munched ice and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel in time to country music on the radio. I could’ve done jumping jacks and the driver wouldn’t have noticed me.

Six cars ahead, the Mustang continued in the left lane. I tracked Johnson’s aura, having memorized its outline and wave patterns so I wouldn’t lose him in the night traffic.

I opened the passenger door and got in. “Hey buddy, can I have a lift?”

The driver jerked upright. The truck swerved to the left. The cup rolled from his lap and ice cubes splattered on the floor.

With vampire swiftness, I lifted my sunglasses and plucked his from his brow. “Surprise.” His eyes opened wide, the pupils dilating. His mouth gaped.

Hypnosis should hold him for a minute perhaps. The truck slowed and swayed across the lane. Cars behind us honked. I grabbed the steering wheel and straightened the path of the truck.

I dragged the driver over the bench seat and took his place behind the wheel. I sped up to match the traffic flow.

The driver remained slumped where I’d shoved him against the passenger door. His hands twitched and he blinked. Normally I’d use fangs to keep him unconscious but I couldn’t bite and drive.

So I slugged him across the jaw. “Sorry pal, but I’m on a mission to save the Earth women.”

His eyes rolled back into their sockets and I expected to see them display TILT! like a pinball machine.

I coaxed the truck across the lanes until I was behind Johnson. He kept reading his mirrors, though he seemed clueless that I tailed him in this big white truck, as conspicuous as a beluga whale on roller skates.

Once at Key West, he continued south on Truman Avenue and parked beside a strip joint called Bottoms Up. I pulled over.

Johnson hustled out of his Mustang. Bumps like welts formed along his aura, signaling anxiety. He turned against the car like he was going to pee. Johnson lifted his shirt and checked an automatic he had tucked inside the waist of his shorts. His aura calmed.

Off-duty cops carried guns. Did Johnson check his pistol because he thought he might need it? Against whom? Was he undercover?

Johnson made a brief call on his cell phone. He climbed the short steps to the porch. A doorman greeted him. When the door opened, a roar spilled out, sounding like that rude, fun place between a drunken riot and bedlam. Johnson disappeared inside.

The street was too busy for me to abandon the truck there. I turned the corner and parked in a loading zone. I left the driver snoring behind the steering wheel, his chin hooked over the rim. He’d been such a good sport about this-the hijacking and the punch to the face-that I tucked a hundred-dollar bill under his cap.

I turned the corner when Johnson appeared in a side exit of the Bottoms Up. His aura roiled with excitement. Why the side exit and not the front? He held a cell phone against his cheek and talked with great animation.

I halted and retreated behind the cover of a myrtle bush. He was two hundred feet away and too far for me to pick up what he was saying.