This was an issue Olivia had planned to investigate after she’d solved Manfred’s problems, so she wasn’t best pleased at having it pushed to the forefront of the agenda. But she accepted it as inevitable. “You can’t take care of him, I gather?”

“I don’t see how,” Barry said. “I haven’t settled anywhere in years, and I can’t stay in Texas.”

“You have some history here in this state?”

“Most of it bad,” he said gloomily.

“I take it you have vampire trouble.”

He nodded. “You could say that. I would rather have done anything than follow Shorty’s trail to Texas, but all my roads seem to lead back here. I had a hell of a lot of bad luck in Dallas, mostly due to my own stupidity. The vampire population here has . . . Well, they’re prejudiced against me, let me just say.”

“There’s only one in this area. And he’s unusual. And he’s not here at the moment.”

“That gives me exactly one drop of relief, into a bucket of worry.”

“Plus, in the summer, a lot of the vamps have started migrating.”

“Sure. Somewhere where the days aren’t so long.” Barry sounded very familiar with vampire habits.

“You’re not a hunter, are you?”

He snorted. “Do I look like a fool with a death wish?”

She shook her head. “No, but people don’t always look like what they are. No one would look at you and say, ‘He’s a telepath.’”

“We’re definitely not common,” he said offhandedly.

“There are many more?” She didn’t disguise her surprise.

“At least one more.” He obviously wasn’t going to talk about that. “What do you need?” He’d been relaxed, chatty, but no longer.

“All right,” she said, with equal briskness. “I need you to go with Tommy, Suzie, and Mamie tomorrow on a little road trip to a fancy house in a suburb of Dallas. Manfred and I will go with you most of the way, but we’re not going to the house in question. We’ll fill you in on everything at length, so you’re prepared. But what we need you to do, if you agree, is get in the house, get the older people up to the room designated as the library, and look at it as hard as you can while you’re there. There’s something hidden there, and we need to know where to start to look. Now that I know what you can do, I also want you to get as close to the man named Lewis as you can. Get everything you can out of his mind. And tell us what you see.”

“How much?” was all Barry asked.

Naturally, Olivia was curious about Barry’s need for money. He was able-bodied, personable, not stupid. But actually, it didn’t matter.

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”