She climbed the stairs to the first floor and found Jay seated on a bench near the stairwell. Less than fifty feet from Grotto’s door.

“Way to go, Sherlock,” he said, and she tossed him a don’t-mess-with-me look.

“You heard,” she said as they walked through the front doors and a blast of cool winter air hit them.

“I heard that you took the vial in there, taunted him with it, screwed around with evidence!”

“I thought it might be effective.”

“Damn it, Kris, that wasn’t part of the deal.”

“I should have told you,” she admitted as they walked along the brick path where other students were busily crossing campus. Bikes and skateboards whipped past and a jogger with two dogs on a leash raced in the opposite direction.

“But if you had, you knew I wouldn’t let you mess with it. What were you thinking?”

She wasn’t about to try to make excuses. Instead, she said, “I thought you were supposed to be waiting outside.”

“Yeah, well, I wanted to be a little closer, just in case.”

“Of what? That he might attack me?”

Jay shrugged, his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. “Maybe. You did bait the hell out of him.” He took her arm, pulled her closer to him as a bicyclist cut through the quad. “From now on, no secrets. If we’re in this together, we have to be honest with each other.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He looked as if he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t release her arm as they walked briskly toward the student union. Jay pulled open the door and they stepped inside. A swell of warm air hit them and the sounds of laughter, music, and conversation filled the open area where students were hanging out, some studying, some plugged into iPods, others meeting friends. They seemed so innocent, so unaware of the evil that Kristi believed lurked in the crevices and corners of the campus.

Who would be next? she wondered, and thought of how pale Dr. Grotto had appeared.

“Did you believe him?” Jay’s voice brought her back to the moment.

“Grotto?” She shook her head. “He was hiding something.” Despite the warmth of the low, well-lit building, she felt a whisper of cold deep in her heart. She looked up at Jay and saw that his eyes were troubled. “And he was lying through his fangs.”

CHAPTER 25

J ay sat in his office and, using a magnifying glass, studied a picture of the severed arm. He’d seen the real thing, of course, but it was being kept frozen in hopes the body from which it had been detached would be found. There were computer pictures as well, those that could be enhanced, but sometimes the old-fashioned way was most familiar.