“Of course.” Her red lips twitched a bit as the now warm, bloody water swirled around her. “I thought you understood. The next time, I intend to watch. Not just the mating, but the surrendering of her soul. The sacrifice.”

CHAPTER 18

“C hrist Almighty!” Jay stared at the tiny vial and shook his head. “What in God’s name is this?”

“It’s Tara Atwater’s blood,” Kristi said with conviction. She eyed the angling bit of glass as if it were a precious, though cursed stone, and her stomach curdled as she thought about how or why the blood within it had been extracted. “I’d bet my life on it.”

“Then we have to take it to the police.” He transferred the delicate chain carefully from his hand to hers. “And you have to own up to what you’ve found out.”

“There’s still no proof of murder.”

“I know, but it’s a police matter.” He rubbed at the beard stubble on his jaw and wondered what the hell they’d stumbled onto. “You think this is what whoever was in your apartment was looking for?”

“Maybe. They didn’t take anything.”

“Then the place will have to be dusted for prints.”

“Can’t you do it? You’re the police. You work with the crime lab.”

“Not if you want to nail the bastard, whoever the hell he is. We’ve got to do this by the book.”

She sighed. “They’ll take my notes. Confiscate my computer. Check me out.”

“Probably. I called a friend in the Baton Rouge PD. He gave me the name of a detective I think will help us. Portia Laurent. Seems as if she’s taken an interest in the missing girls and thinks they might have come to bad ends.”

“Finally. Someone who doesn’t believe the cock and bull about all of them being runaways. Now if I could give her something more…then maybe they’d work with me.”

The doorbell suddenly pealed and both Kristi and Jay reacted. “I’ll get it,” he said. Through the peephole, Jay spied a teenager with long hair, bad skin, and a nervous tic causing him to wink. He was carrying a flat box in an insulated pack.

“Pizza’s here,” the kid called.

Jay looked at Kristi and they both laughed. He opened the door, paid for the pizza, tipped the kid, then threw the dead bolt. Meanwhile, Kristi was careful with the vial, placing it in a plastic sandwich bag and carefully setting it on a cotton towel in the kitchen. It creeped her out, thinking it held Tara’s blood, but she didn’t want Jay to see how she felt.