It’s nothing I can see. The room is empty. But there are footprints on the carpet. Not the prints of work boots. Bare feet.

And the smell is the must of unwashed hair and skin.

The footprints track across the carpet and out the sliding glass doors to the deck. There are no curtains up yet so I have a clear view outside. There’s no one out there. But the door is unlocked and when I lean over the railing, I realize how easy it would be for someone to climb down onto the garage roof below and jump to the ground-especially if they’re in a hurry to get out. The back leads to an alley. An easy, convenient escape route.

I’m wondering how I can remedy that when a small movement catches the corner of my eye. It’s a reflection in the side window of the garage, fleeting, like a cloud passing over the sun. But it’s enough. Perhaps my barefoot intruder hasn’t left after all.

I lock the door to the deck and move quickly outside. There are no windows facing the rear of the house from the garage so it’s not hard to sneak around to the front. I haven’t installed the security code on the garage door yet since I haven’t been using it. When I hit the open mode and the door slides up, someone small and blonde dashes around me, racing for the alley.

But quick as she is, I’m quicker. I reach an arm around her waist and whirl her around.

My brother’s eyes, big with alarm and panic, flash up at me.

It’s so disorienting, I almost let her go.

Almost.

Trish struggles, but she’s no match for my strength. I hold her against my chest, saying nothing, waiting for her to calm down.

At last she does. The energy drains from her like water down a pipe. She sags against me, resigned. After a long moment, she draws herself up and pulls back.

I let her go, dropping my hands from her shoulders, but staying close enough to thwart another escape attempt. She’s small boned and fragile, wearing jeans that sag around her hips and an oversized sweatshirt. Her hair is loose around her face, dirty and uncombed. Her nails are unpolished, bitten to the quick.

She blows out a breath and swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. But she doesn’t look up at me. “You know who I am?”

“Yes.”

Again, the quick intake of breath, the forceful exhalation. This time, though, she squares her shoulders and those luminous eyes meet mine. “Are you going to take me back?”

I know what I should say. I know what I should do. But something in this girl’s quiet desperation sounds an alarm that pushes all those rational responses out of my head. I rack my brain for something that would put a teenager at ease. I can only come up with a lame, “Are you hungry? We could go down the street to the Mission for something to eat.”

She starts to nod, but the gesture turns into a shrug. “Ryan is getting food. He’ll be back in a minute.”

“Ryan?” Suddenly I’m hit with the suspicion that maybe Trish isn’t as innocent as I’ve assumed.

My tone must reflect this because Trish frowns. “It’s not like that . He’s been helping me. He got me away from-”

She stops short. “God. What’s the use? If you’re going to take me back to my mother, let’s just get it over with.”

Her eyes dart over my shoulder, flashing an unintentional warning. I whirl around as a blur of teeth and fur launches itself at me. A dog. A large dog that seems bent on tearing my throat out.

Instinctively, the animal in me responds. It’s no match. The dog is a German shepherd mix, eighty pounds or so, but in the time it takes me to reach out an arm, I’ve locked my hand around the dog’s throat. I use its momentum to throw it to the ground, my own teeth gnashing in conditioned reflex before reason takes over. I lean over the dog, exerting just enough pressure to render it helpless. When the adrenaline stops pumping, I glance back at Trish and the boy who seems to have materialized from God knows where to stand beside her. Their faces are stamped with the same emotions-shock, fear, no understanding of what they just witnessed, and no clue how to react to it.

“I assume you’re Ryan,” I say, breaking the stalemate. “Want to call off your dog?”

One of the good things about becoming vampire is that your physical abilities are remarkably enhanced. Things like speed and strength. Everything with the dog happens so quickly, the two astounded teenagers who witness it literally don’t believe their eyes. Ryan’s mouth hangs open and Trish has a dazed, confused look that would be comical if the circumstances weren’t beginning to tick me off.

“Yo, Ryan,” I snap again. The dog is starting to recover, squirming and growling as he tries to shake off my hands. “I mean it. Call off your dog or he’s going to get hurt.”

The kid finally responds. His mouth opens and closes a couple of times before he gets the words out. “Cujo. Down.”

Cujo?

I feel the dog relax and ease my hands away. In a flash, the same dog who was hell bent on ripping my throat out is lapping at my face like it’s a burger pop.

With a shudder, I jump to my feet, scrubbing at my face with the back of my hand. There’s nothing I hate more than dog slobber.

Cujo scrambles up, too, and wriggles his way to Ryan’s side, his whole body vibrating to the beat of a wildly wagging tail.

Ryan reaches down and cradles the dog’s head. “Good boy.”

By now, I’ve recovered enough to be angry again. Trish has moved to Ryan’s side and the two take turns patting the dog and telling it what a good boy it’s been. Ryan is the same height as Trish with the same coloring. But his clothes are clean and pressed and he’s obviously bathed in the last few days.

Whatever their relationship, he’s not been camping out here with her.

I suck in a breath. “Okay, you two. Enough. What’s going on? Trish, what are you doing here? How do you know me?”

Trish throws me one of those looks that makes me remember all over again why I left teaching. The disdain only a teenager can exude. “I heard my mother talking about you,” she says. “You’re the girlfriend of some bigwig at her hospital.”

Her hospital? I start getting the sick feeling I’ve missed something important with Carolyn. I wave a hand at Trish to continue.

“He’s resigned now, I guess, but Mom said you had a place on the beach that you didn’t live in anymore. I looked up your address on line. When I came out, I saw that you were remodeling and the place was empty. I decided to stay here. I haven’t hurt anything. You can see for yourself.”

Her tone morphs from bold defiance to quiet desperation. But her words make my gut twist with anxiety. Carolyn hasn’t told Trish what our relationship really is. And she works atAvery’s hospital? I give myself a mental thump on the head. I never thought to ask Carolyn where she works. There are a lot of hospitals in San Diego. What are the odds she’d work at Avery’s? More important now, though, is why would she be discussing me and with whom?

Ryan holds out the bag he’s been clutching in his hand. “Can we talk about this while Trish eats?” he asks. “I can only bring food once a day and she hasn’t eaten since yesterday.”

Trish’s drawn face softens when she looks at Ryan. I can hear her stomach rumble, so I nod. “Sure. Go ahead.”

The two kids sit cross-legged on the floor of the garage and rip into the bag. He’s brought bologna sandwiches and chips and the biggest bottle of some dark soda I’ve ever seen. Typical teen fare. Not a piece of fruit or carton of milk in the mix.

I sit down beside them and watch them eat. Cujo sneaks his way to my side and lies down with his head on my lap.

And I hate dogs. Go figure.

For a minute, Ryan and Trish are just two teenagers devouring their junk food with the gusto of youth. I let her finish one sandwich and start on the second before I interrupt.