“Just curious,” Jay hedged. He’d already decided to keep Kristi’s name out of it, unless he determined that she was in any kind of danger. The fact that she lived at the address of one of the missing girls bothered him. “I work up there, part-time, teach a class on forensics, and there’s been a lot of talk about what happened to the girls.”

“Don’t I know it?” Sonny agreed. “Every time it’s a slow news day around here, I get some reporter nosin’ around, tryin’ to stir up trouble, make news if there isn’t any. Take that Belinda Del Ray from WMTA…what a pain in the ass she is. Good-lookin’, I’ll grant you that. And she uses it, let me tell you. But she’s like a damned pitbull with a bone, don’t ya know? Won’t take no for an answer and keeps pokin’ around even when we try to steer her to the PIO. But she’s not interested in the official statement from the Public Information Officer, no siree, not Belinda. She wants more than we’re willing to give. As far as the department’s concerned: no bodies, no case. But some reporters don’t know how to butt out.”

“Just doing their jobs,” Jay said, playing devil’s advocate. He was ambivalent about the press. A necessary evil. Often useful. Sometimes a real pain. Especially the aggressive reporters hungry to make a name for themselves.

“Humph,” Sonny snorted. “Obviously you haven’t dealt with too many reporters.”

This was going nowhere. “So tell me about Detective Laurent. Why isn’t she buying the company line?”

“Fuck, I don’t know what the hell Laurent thinks. You’d have to ask her. Oh, hell, I got another call comin’ in.”

He clicked off and Jay stared at the notepad on his desk. Portia Laurent. He definitely wanted to hear what she had to say. He circled her name, tore off the sheet, stuffed it into a pocket of his jeans, and settled in to work.

By the end of the day, chewing on his last brittle rope of red licorice, he didn’t know a whole helluva lot more than he had last night. Just enough, though, that he was starting to believe that Kristi was onto something. As for the whole vampire thing, he was surprised how many people bought into it. Not only books, movies, television, online gaming, but there was an entire Internet culture, linked, he was certain, to real people.

A cult?

Maybe.

Centered at All Saints?

He hoped to hell not.