“I . . . Thank you,” Allie said finally and, after the briefest hesitation, slid the lighter into her pocket so that she could shake the hand Tricia was still holding out. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Tricia beamed at her as if she’d done something particularly clever in putting the lighter away. “The boys are waiting for me in the kitchen. I promised them cookies and hot chocolate to warm up. Care to join us so I can answer all those questions these primates haven’t?”

Allie noted the irritated expressions creeping over the men’s faces, and had the situation been different, she might have laughed. Instead, she merely murmured politely, “That sounds nice.”

“Good.” Tricia slid an arm through hers and urged her toward the door saying, “Come along, then. You’ll love Sam’s kitchen. It’s big and gorgeous. Makes me jealous every time I see it. I’m working on talking Teddy into enlarging and renovating ours. Teddy senior, not junior,” she added, and then confided, “I think it’s working.”

Allie found herself relaxing under the woman’s cheerful chatter. She knew it was purely to put her at ease, but it was working, she acknowledged as Lucian moved aside to let them out of the room.

Walking her up the hall at a meandering pace, Tricia grinned at the hairspray still in Allie’s hand and said, “I use that brand too. It’s good. Holds the curl well and makes the best flames too.”

“You use it as a makeshift flamethrower too?” Allie asked dubiously.

“Not so much anymore now that I walk the beat in Port Henry. It’s pretty quiet there. But I used to be an enforcer in New York and hairspray and a lighter are lightweight and came in handy when we were cleaning out nests of rogues,” she said cheerfully.

The woman was smiling so widely Allie couldn’t help smiling as well, but said, “Everyone keeps mentioning rogues. What are they?”

“Good Lord, they didn’t tell you anything at all, did they?” Tricia said with a disgusted shake of the head. “Rogues are basically immortal criminals, ones who have broken our laws and need tending.”

“With death by makeshift flamethrower?” Allie asked. She knew vampires, or immortals as these people seemed to want to be called, were incredibly flammable. Stella had passed on that tidbit in the months before she died. Of course, Allie had seen the proof of it herself when Stella died. She’d gone up like gasoline-doused tinder when the house exploded and Allie was sure one blast of a flamethrower would be a death sentence to an immortal.

“Only when cleaning out nests of rogues,” Tricia assured her solemnly. “In those cases the head rogue is usually a very old immortal who has gone mad and turned a bunch of innocent unsuspecting mortals. Unfortunately, they usually aren’t kind about it, and then they make the new turns do things that drive them mad as well.” She shrugged. “Often it ends up that the whole nest has to be cleaned out.”