Boyd answered for his partner. "Honestly? Yes, it is."

"Why?"

"Do you have any idea what most people would have done in your situation?"

"No," he shrugged. He hadn't really given it much thought.

"My guess is a lot of guys would have used it to their advantage."

"Jesus. I could never do that."

Boyd looked at him hard and then his expression softened just a little. "Yeah. I believe you. But you're the exception that proves the rule, Ben. I've dealt with a lot of kids your age who would have done all sorts of things with the information you had, but you're the only one I can think of who would have burned the stuff."

"Well, maybe that was my way of stopping myself from becoming a statistic."

"Then good for you. For the record, you did break a lot of laws, and some of them would land you in prison with some damned mean characters. But even if I hadn't made a promise to you, I wouldn't press charges. You're good people, Ben Kirby. Try to stay that way."

The detective stood up and his partner did the same. Boyd handed him a business card. "You have any problems from Pardue, you give me a call."

"Why did you tell him I was a suspect?"

"Because I saw you two knew each other. This way, when I come down on him, and I will come down on him, he won't blame you."

"What . . . what exactly does he do?"

"What doesn't he do?" Boyd looked him up and down and then shrugged. "He deals dope, he works a few small protection rackets, and he pimps college girls."

Something cold grew through the lining of Ben's stomach.

Boyd watched him and got a strange expression on his face. It was strange, Ben suspected, because it seldom showed up on his features. It was pity.

Ben hated him a little for that, but he hid it. The detectives left, and Ben stayed where he was. He knew he'd have to move eventually, but he didn't like the idea. He didn't like much of anything at the moment.

Some truths hurt more than others.

This particular revelation hurt like hell.

VIII.

Alan came home to absolute silence. He'd tried calling several times, but without much success. No one answered but the machine.

The sun was just setting by the time he opened the door to his house and stepped inside. He walked through the living room and then up the stairs, his emotions doing the exact same thing they had the day before. He should have been calm, but it wasn't working out that way.

The stairs creaked, but he heard no other noises.

The hallway was dark and he walked softly, ignoring the way his knees wanted to shake. What the hell was wrong with him? This was his home, his castle, the place where he should have felt safest. So why am I so fucking scared?

He shook the thought away angrily and moved to the master bedroom's closed door. He didn't knock, it was his room.

When the door creaked open he saw Avery and Meghan. For just one second, he thought they were both asleep, nestled together. Then he saw the blood that ran from Avery's mouth and his mother's neck.

Avery lifted away from the wound he'd made, and Alan saw the dead staring eyes of his wife as she lay where she had for what was probably a couple of hours. She was dead. He could tell that from ten feet away.

He'd known something was wrong with his son, had tried to deny it to himself, but he'd never guessed.

"Oh, fuck. Avery, what did you do?"

Avery looked at him with eyes as dead as his mother's and smiled a bloody, sweet smile only granted to ten-year-olds.

"She's okay, Dad. She will be."

The pit of his stomach disappeared into an ice storm and he tried to breathe, but nothing came to his lungs. "Unnngh."

He wanted to speak, to tell Avery to get away from Meghan and let her breathe, let her get some air, because she looked horrible. Her face was completely slack and her eyes stared at the ceiling with rapt fascination. He wanted to reach out and pull his son away from his wife, drag him out of the room and kill him. He wanted to hold Meghan and have her come back to him.

Avery wiped the blood from his lips with his left sleeve. It helped make him look more like he was supposed to look, like he was just a little boy again.

The eyes gave it away; even if he hadn't seen what Avery was doing to Meghan-and at that thought, he wanted to fall down and die on the spot because the notion of being without her was destroying him-his son's eyes, gleaming with an odd silvery light, would have destroyed the illusion beyond all repair.

"What did you do?"

"She'll get better, Dad. I did." He moved, a small boy, only ten and still waiting for his first growth spurt for the love of God, and before Alan could fully grasp what was happening, his only son was standing at the foot of the bed, at eye level with him.

"What . . . did . . . you . . . do?" This thing could no more be Avery than the pallid dead thing on the bed could be Meghan. That was the realization that let the anger in. It looked like Avery. It called him Dad like Avery, but there was no way that his son could be a killer.

"I'm making her better, Daddy."

"Where's my son?" He didn't recognize his own voice.

"I'm right here." Avery flashed a smile that belonged on Jack the Ripper far more than it belonged anywhere near the face of his only child. The eyes glittered at him, mocked him, challenged him.

And Alan saw the challenge, heard it in his heart, and accepted it. In two steps he was across the room, covering the distance to the mockery of his beautiful boy. By the third footfall, he had his hands around the monster's throat and was lifting the fragile weight of a ten-year-old child into the air, his fingers crushing down in rage.

Avery backhanded him hard enough to make him see stars. Alan dropped his hold on the thing with Avery's face and staggered, his face already swelling from the violent impact.

Avery's evil twin landed with the grace of a cat and jumped from the bed, sailing through the air until he struck the lamp built into the ceiling. The glass exploded with a brilliant display of sparks and showered down over Alan where he lay. Several pieces of the light's frosted glass cover fell to the floor; three of them took a detour and stopped in Alan's left arm, chin, and chest. The pain was intoxicating. Then Avery hit the ground, crouching before he scurried away at an impossible speed.

"You don't hit me, Daddy! You don't ever hit me!"

The room fell into complete darkness. Alan's eyes started to adjust and he felt his pulse double as he strained to hear any sound at all. There was nothing to hear. Avery didn't even seem to be breathing.

Alan lowered his head to the ground and tried spying where there might be a shadow of the boy's legs, something to indicate where he might be.

The double pinpoints of silvery light under the bed gave the thing away just before it attacked. Alan rolled, but it was faster than he was. Sharp, savage teeth clamped down on his hand, driving deep into the flesh between his thumb and forefinger, and he let loose a scream.

His free hand shot out in a wide arc and doubled back, slamming into the back of Avery's head. The only noticeable effect was the teeth slicing deeper than before.

The monster was strong, far stronger than any ten-year-old could ever be. But it didn't weigh any more than Avery did, and Alan rolled over, using his own weight to pin the struggling, frantic form under him.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then the small feet of the thing biting all hell out of his hand were suddenly propped against his stomach and he felt the powerful muscles under his son's Levi's flex. Alan Tripp was thrown through the air and hit the bedroom window hard enough to shatter it. His head struck a crossbeam and drove through the wood and glass alike, even as his body bounced against the interior of the frame.

Before he could even catch his breath, he felt small hands pushing, shoving his body out the window to the roof outside. He barely had time to realize just what was happening before he was pushed from the steeply angled shingles and sent rolling to the ground below.

Alan kissed the concrete hard, and heard the sound of glass tinkling and fast-moving feet slipping across the roof. A second later he saw Avery's feet, spread wide apart, slap the ground.

"We'll come back for you, Daddy."

Avery loomed over him, the bulk of Meghan's dead body slung over his shoulder. Her legs and hands scraped the ground around him as he turned and ran, hauling the weight of a woman a full two feet taller than him as if she were a feather pillow.

Alan tried to stand one more time, and failed miserably. The darkness came for him a few seconds later, and he slipped away from consciousness into the soothing balm of dark dreams.

Chapter 12.

I.

The sun wasn't up yet, and Jason was sleeping beside her, nearly completely motionless. Her body ached, but in the nicest ways. The man was definitely imaginative.

Technically it was morning now, and she had things to do. She rose from the bed and looked down on his sleeping form. He was handsome. He was also very strange. She liked him. He was charming and pleasant and very attentive. He was also filthy stinking rich.

She stepped over to her strapless black number and pulled it back on, starting at her feet and working it up to her chest.

Jason turned over in the bed and looked at her. He had a smile on his face. "Time to leave already?"

She smiled back, looking into his eyes in the faint light. He had lovely eyes, dark and deep. "If you don't mind, handsome. I have classes in a few hours."

"I don't mind. Thank you for the company." He stretched and she watched the muscles play across his torso. He looked almost soft when he was clothed, but once in the nude he was sinewy and powerful.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. Anything you'd like."

"Not that I'm complaining, but why all the priests and such?"

He chuckled. "For now I'll simply say that they needed to relax. Ask me again after we are together again."

"We'll be together again?"

"If you'll have me, yes."

"I'll keep you to your word on the final answer, you know that, right?"

"I would be disappointed if you did not, Maggie."

She leaned over and gave him a kiss on his lips. Once again that strange flavor was in her mouth and she tasted it in his breath. He kissed her deeply and distracted her with his tongue a few seconds later. When he broke the kiss he smiled at her. "You had best leave if you plan on getting away from me, Maggie."

He was fully aroused, but not being an ass about it. She smiled down at him and slid back out of her dress. He lay back and let her take control of the situation.

The sun was up before they were finished. She didn't mind and he was most certainly not complaining. The drive home was a quiet one. Even the early morning traffic was feeling pretty subdued. She liked it like that, too. She wanted to get home and shower and get ready for school.

She got home.

But the rest of the day failed to turn out the way she had planned for it to go.

II.

The sun was going to be coming up soon. Ben had thought about drinking, but somehow he never quite got around to picking up a bottle. It was too much effort.

So he sat in the darkness and listened to the night and thought long and hard about his life. So far, it was mostly uneventful. He was at peace with that.

So Maggie had an unusual choice for a career. So what? He was more worried about someone trying to hurt her than her having sex.

Well, most of him. Part of him was depressed as hell about it. But that wasn't important. It wasn't his life and he had no claims to make. He just wished he did.

"Grow the fuck up, loser."

"Talking to yourself, Ben?" The last thing he'd expected to hear was Tom Pardue's voice.

He turned his head and spotted the blond ape in Maggie's doorway. Tom was smiling.

"I didn't know there was anyone else here to talk to." He shrugged.

"Well, here I am." Tom was smiling. He had a very unpleasant smile.

"I don't think Maggie's home, Tom."

"Yeah. I know. She's probably not gonna be back tonight."

Ben nodded. "Well, I think I'm going to call it a night. I have class in five hours."

Tom slid two feet in his direction and leaned against his door. "You know what? I was thinking we should have a talk, you and me."

"What about?" He was doing a damned fine job of not panicking. At least in his own estimation.

"About Maggie." Tom was smiling again.

He shrugged. "Sure, talk."

"Well, I think maybe you got a little upset earlier, when you heard what she does."

"I was a little surprised, maybe. Yeah, I guess I was surprised."

"I can get that. Here's the thing though. You don't tell anyone about her," the man shrugged as he spoke. "She's a private girl."