Lemuel turned to give Manfred one last enigmatic look before he left the Home Cookin Restaurant.

Bobo, exchanging good nights with Joe and Chuy, seemed oblivious to any undercurrent in the evening . . . and so did the rest of the Midnight people. The strangers had (Manfred assumed) piled into their pickup and driven off, never to be seen again. But as Manfred walked past the area between his house and the pawnshop, he saw that the anonymous silver car was gone.

He suspected strongly that Olivia Charity was following the strangers.

And he thought, It would be interesting to know why they were here. And why Lemuel is different from other bloodsuckers. And—who’s Aubrey?

Then Manfred reminded himself that he was here to work, and to work hard. He was planning for his future. The problems of these people were not his problems.

But he thought about those people until he went to sleep that night, all the same.

4

Two mornings after that, Fiji sat on her small back porch, looking at the herb garden with some satisfaction. She’d put in an hour’s work this morning before breakfast, and she felt satisfyingly relaxed and pleased with her labors. She was wearing her oldest jeans and a torn sweatshirt stained with the results of a long-ago painting project, its sleeves hacked off to elbow length. In her stadium chair, her feet propped up on her weeding stool, Fiji was utterly comfortable. She had a big mug of tea and a blueberry scone on the little table beside her.

This was as good as it got, and she had a whole hour and a half before the shop opened to enjoy it.

If she hadn’t felt so content and comfortable, she’d have gone in to get her camera to take a picture of the cat. Mr. Snuggly was curled picturesquely on a flat paving stone. The slanted morning sun warmed his striped orange fur to show up golden against the green of the plants and the dark brown of the stone.

She couldn’t be bothered to get up. She took a mental picture, to hold forever. She surveyed the pile of weeds with some satisfaction. “I’m just amazing,” she told Mr. Snuggly, who looked up at her without moving his head.

“Yes, you are,” said Bobo, and Fiji jumped and made a sound like “Eeep!”

“Sorry,” he said, his smile dazzling. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I knocked on the shop door, but when you didn’t answer, I figured you were back here. Want me to go away?”