David is splitting logs in a clearing behind the cabin. He's bare chested, sweaty and oblivious to our approach. Earbuds attached to an iPod at his waist explain why. I can hear the music. I could hear the music even without vampire hearing. He's got the volume turned way up. He's listening to Incubus, one of his favorite alternative/rock/trash/whatever groups.

He's really gotta be depressed.

"That's your friend?"

I turn to look at her. Tamara is staring, her mouth open. "Why are you still here?"

She doesn't answer, which makes me take another look at David. I guess I've known him for so long, I've become oblivious to how he must appear to other women. He's a big guy, hard muscled, broad shouldered, lean. He's wearing a pair of jeans, tennis shoes, no socks. His face is darkly handsome, strong mouth and jaw, full lips, blue eyes, cross-cropped dark hair. He swings the ax with easy grace, the muscles on his bare arms barely rippling with the effort. He's not aware that he has an audience, so there's no self-consciousness, no coyness in the way he's attacking that woodpile.

And attacking is what he's doing. I bet I know who he's thinking about.

Tamara is still staring. She's making no move to leave, so I tell her to stay here while I get his attention. No sense scaring the s.h.i.t out of him and maybe getting bashed in the head in the process.

I cross around in front. He's so engrossed in the work and lost in the music I realize calling out to him isn't going to do it. I wave my hands and jump up and down until he catches the movement and looks my way.

His face turns red. He holds the ax in front of him like a weapon. "What the f.u.c.k are you doing here?"

"Good to see you, too. Want to put the ax down so we can talk?"

He's still glaring when Tamara moves to join me. She's grinning like an idiot. "You're David Ryan, right? Heisman Trophy winner?

Played tight end for the Broncos?"

Now it's my turn to stare-at Tamara. "You know who he is?"

David switches his gaze from me to Tamara. Curiosity softens the anger. The ax falls to his side and he pulls the earphones from his head. "And you are?"

She thrusts out her hand and takes a step toward him. "Name's Tamara. People call me Tammy. I brought Anna up here. Didn't have any idea who we were coming to visit though. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to meet you."

I'm listening to this openmouthed. People call me Tammy? That's like calling a tiger "p.u.s.s.y."

David is smiling. He takes Tamara's hand and shakes it. "Football was another lifetime ago. I hardly think about it anymore."

"No way," Tamara says. "You were a great player. If you hadn't gotten hit in that Giants game and hurt your knee, you'd still be playing. It was a cheap shot, and Rutherford should have been thrown out of the league."

I can't believe what I'm hearing and seeing. Talking to David, Tamara's demeanor softens and d.a.m.n, if she doesn't even look different. Prettier, somehow, more feminine. Christ, is this another spell? Here I am listening to a muscle-bound Amazon, a werewolf, no less (and one I would have sworn had a lesbian thing for Sandra), gushing over a muscle-bound, strictly heteros.e.xual ex-jock whose chest is starting to swell like an overinflated inner tube. Her sense of purpose in bringing me here seems to have vanished.

"You know how I got hurt?" David asks, clearly flattered that she does.

That's it. I step between them. "Hey. I came up here for a reason, and I don't have all day. You two can continue this trip down memory lane another time. David, we have to talk."

The pleasant face he's showing Tamara morphs into the angry face he wore the first moment he saw me. "I told you to leave me alone."

"Believe me, I'd love to. Unfortunately, I can't. Gloria needs you. Another thing I can't believe I'm saying. You have to come back to San Diego now."

It's David's turn to look incredulous. "What are you talking about? Why would you think I'd be interested in anything to do with Gloria? Are you nuts?"

"You get that question a lot, don't you?" Tamara says to me with a smirk.

I ignore her and focus on David. "Gloria is in trouble."

"No s.h.i.t. She's in jail for murder." I shake my head. "She's out on bail, but she may not be for long. She's at County General Hospital. The official story is she tried to commit suicide."

Emotions play across David's face like a fast-forward slide show-fury, hesitation, concern, distrust. "I don't believe it. Gloria would never try to kill herself. Is this a trick?"

"Good question. Detective Harris is working on that now. The important thing is, if she doesn't have anyone to stay with her, they may revoke her bail. I can't do it. I'm working on something else. You could. Will you?"

David slams the ax into the log he was splitting when we arrived. "Let's go."

No questions, no indecision, no wavering.

David goes inside to grab a shirt.

Tamara watches as he walks away. I think she's forgotten I'm here. She's focused on the door David disappeared through like a puppy eagerly awaiting her master's return.

David is back in two minutes. He secures the cabin and comes down the steps, pointing to the Harley. "That your bike, Tammy?"

She nods. He fishes keys out of the pocket of his jeans and tosses them to me. "I'll ride back with her. You take the Hummer."

Tamara beams, David takes her arm and steers her toward the bike, and I'm left standing alone on the porch.

Nice to see he's over Gloria.

CHAPTER 43.

I WATCH DAVID AND TAMARA PEEL AWAY DOWN THE driveway with a rooster tail of flying gravel. Have I fallen down the rabbit hole? It occurs to me that I didn't tell her not to mention the fact that I'm a vampire to David. Or to warn her what will happen if she's entertaining thoughts of delivering David to Sandra to use as leverage against me. But I remember the stupid way she looked; her brain was vapor locked by giddiness. What are the odds my name will even come up?

Any skepticism I had that Tamara and Sandra cooked up this visit today to trap me into another meeting vanished with the look of pure delight on Tamara's face when David wrapped his arms around her waist. I wonder how she's going to explain her distraction to Sandra? Or is Sandra a football fan, too?

Christ.

I walk around back to the carport and climb into David's Hummer. After my Jag, driving it is like wrestling alligators. It does better on the open road, though, and I head right for the O'Sullivan house.

The O'Sullivans live in Fairbanks Ranch, a wealthy enclave in northern San Diego County. It's two fifteen when I pull up a block away from the O'Sullivan compound. Fairbanks Ranch is not a gated community. It doesn't have to be. Each residence has a gate and fence all its own.

I'm debating whether to walk from here or drive up to the house. I have a better chance of getting in and out without notice if I walk. On the other hand, the streets of Fairbanks Ranch are wide and tree lined and patrolled regularly by a security company. If I leave the Hummer here, will it attract notice?

The answer comes immediately. A sedan marked "Fisher Home Security" has pa.s.sed by twice in the five minutes since I arrived.

The second time, the car pulls to a stop behind the Hummer and the driver's door opens.

I watch in the rearview mirror as the uniformed guard approaches. He's middle-aged, gray, balding, with a slight paunch. His bearing suggests a military background, erect, stern. He has one hand on his belt, resting on the handle of a long flashlight, the mannerism of one who was used to carrying a gun. The military was most likely followed by a stint as a cop.

I roll down my window and wait.

The guy touches two fingers to his forehead in a greeting. "Afternoon, ma'am. Are you here to visit a resident?"

Behind his dark sungla.s.ses, the eyes are cautious. I guess they have to be when you're responsible for the security in a neighborhood where the median price of a house is three million dollars.

I put on a bright smile. "Yes, sir. I'm visiting my aunt. I've had a bit of car trouble. I called my boyfriend, and he's sending a tow truck. It shouldn't be too long."

He casts an eye toward the hood of the Hummer. "Want me to take a look for you?"

"No, thanks. It's not necessary. This has happened before. I'm going to walk on over to my aunt's and wait there for the truck."

"I'd be happy to drive you," he says. "Want to give me the address?"

"Actually, it's right around the corner and I don't mind walking. It's so beautiful here."

He is studying me, no doubt wondering if I look like an ax murderer or a burglar or, even worse, a vagrant. Evidently, I pa.s.s inspection because I get the two-finger salute again and he leaves me with a curt "Have a nice day, miss."

He returns to the car, and I notice he takes the time to write down the Hummer's license plate. I notice because he wants me to. In fact, he makes an obvious show of it before getting into the car, a not-so-subtle message that I shouldn't try anything because he has my number. The fact that I'm driving a seventy-thousand-dollar automobile does not make me above suspicion here at Fairbanks Ranch.

I half expect him to shadow me when I get out of the car, which would pose a problem. He watches me lock the Hummer, and I feel those eyes follow as I walk up the sidewalk. In a second, though, he starts the car and pulls around me, sending me another of those quasi-salutes.

I trot up to the O'Sullivan gate. There's a camera, but it's focused on the gate, not the keypad, and it doesn't swing toward me when I punch in the code. Jason's doing? If he thought to disable the camera, too, he's one smart kid.

The gate swings open and I sprint inside, keeping to the bushes that line the drive. I don't know how many security cameras they have on the property and I doubt Jason does, either. The one on the gate is obvious.

From the road, you can't see the house, but I know what to expect and I'm not disappointed. The O'Sullivans live in a big, square Tudor set in the middle of an acre of manicured lawn. From the outside, the house appears to have a hundred rooms. The paving stone driveway circles the house. Jason said his dad's study was in the back. I head in that direction.

The ground level of the house has about two dozen sets of French doors. I have to peek into each room before I find the one that matches the pictures of the crime scene. I wish I had gloves. Unfortunately, I didn't expect to be driving the Hummer. I expected to be driving my Jag, which is where the gloves are. So I do the next best thing. I pull the hem of my T-shirt free and cover my fingers with the cloth to try the door.

It opens.

I step inside, close the door and wait to see if I'm greeted by the shriek of alarms.

Nothing. So far, so good.

The den looks exactly like it did in the pictures-except O'Sullivan's body is no longer sprawled on the desk. The forensic team evidently released it as a crime scene because there is no yellow tape and the room has been cleaned. It appears the desk blotter has been removed, and there is a piece of carpet cut out from the area where O'Sullivan's chair rested. The chair is gone as well.

There's a box of Kleenex on a sideboard. I pull one out. Since I doubt I'll find anything of interest here, I move out of the room, using the tissue on the doork.n.o.b, and try to locate Mrs. O'Sullivan's office.

Jason said it was upstairs. The first challenge is to find the stairs. The den opens into a gallery almost as wide as my living room. It's paneled in dark mahogany, lined with portraits. The combination of dark paneling and a collection of intricately framed gloomy portraits of stuffy-looking gentlemen in early eighteenth-century garb sucks the air right out of the room.

I hurry through and try the door at the other end. Success. This door leads to the entry hall. There are rooms on each side and in the middle, a double curved staircase right out of Gone With the Wind. I ignore the flanking rooms and run up the stairs.

I should have asked Jason to draw me a map or at least tell me which of the twenty closed doors I'm looking at is his stepmother's office. Since I didn't, and I've never met her, I can't rely on my sense of smell to ferret her out. At the head of the stairs, though, I pick up a flowery citrus scent. Feminine and subtle. Expensive. I follow it to the third room on the left.

This is definitely a woman's room. Rose-colored wallpaper, blond French Provincial furniture. Bedroom furniture. Mr. and Mrs.

O'Sullivan must have had separate bedrooms. My hunch is confirmed when I open the connecting door to my left. This is a man's bedroom, heavy, dark furniture, hunting scenes on the walls, the scent of musk.

I close the door. There's a deadbolt on Mrs. O'Sullivan's side.

Interesting.

On the opposite side of the room is another door. This leads through a ma.s.sive walk-in closet. Must be a thousand pairs of shoes.

At the far end, is one more door. I try the handle.

It's locked.

s.h.i.t. I wasn't expecting that. I could easily break down the door, but that wouldn't be very subtle, now would it?

I kneel down to examine the lock. It's a simple key and tumbler. No deadbolt. In my day job, David and I have jimmied this type of lock a million times. The only problem is I left my purse in the Jag back in town and in it, my set of picklocks. Maybe I can do it the way they do in movies-use a knife from the kitchen or a nail file from Mrs. O'Sullivan's bathroom.

I go in search. First, the bathroom since I'm here. Either she never does her own nails, or she carries her only nail file with her because a cursory search of her bathroom vanity finds nothing. I'm not about to turn her drawers inside out. I run back down the steps to the kitchen.

It takes me a while to find it. I've never understood why anyone would want to live in a house so big that it takes a map to navigate the maze of rooms. It's getting close to three o'clock, and I want to get out of here as soon as I can. After several false starts through living rooms and dining rooms and media rooms and rooms whose purpose I can't fathom, I finally find the kitchen.

A kitchen about fifty yards long with a hundred places to hide the knives.

s.h.i.t again. I start pulling open drawers. The tissue is about in shreds and the idea of kicking down the door is looking better and better when I find a silverware drawer with something that looks like it could work. It's a thin-bladed b.u.t.ter knife. I grab it and run.

Picking the lock is not as easy with a knife as it looks on television. It takes several attempts at wedging the blade between the doorjamb and the lock before I get the feel of what I need to do. Even then, the knife blade slips, leaving thin scratches on the woodwork. Finally, I feel the lock give and the handle turns at my touch. Unfortunately, the blade of the knife breaks at the same time and I'm left with pieces that I stuff in my jacket to discard later. Hope Mrs. O'Sullivan doesn't count the silverware.

It's three fifteen.

Mrs. O'Sullivan's office is not what I expect. Compared to the carefully appointed and immaculately clean rooms in the rest of the house, this room is furnished in early American yard sale and cluttered with dusty piles of old magazines, newspapers, sc.r.a.pbooks, photo alb.u.ms-the detritus of her thirty some years of life before she became Mrs. Rory O'Sullivan. There are framed pictures of beauty pageants, glittery rhinestone tiaras, ribbons marking her progression from Miss El Cajon to Miss San Diego to Miss California, and culminating in the t.i.tle of runner-up to Miss America. They stop there. Photos show her with Mr. O'Sullivan, one of the celebrity judges for that pageant. Her life as a beauty queen ended with a runner-up sash and the biggest prize of all.

I maneuver my way through the stuff to a desk thrust against the wall. It's as piled with junk as the rest of the room. There's nothing of obvious interest on top and everything is so dust laden, I wonder if she ever comes in here.

I try the drawers. The middle holds nothing but pencils, pens, paper clips, broken rubber bands.

The right-hand drawer is a file drawer. From the dates on file tabs, nothing has been added to categories such as "Bills Paid,"

"Recipes" and "Misc" since 2003, the year she met O'Sullivan. No tab marked "PI Investigating My Cheating Husband." Too bad.

It would have made my life so much easier.

The left side of the desk holds two drawers. The first is empty.

The second is empty, too.

Except for one item.

A gun.