Miriam knew the type very well. With this one she would step out into the light, stunning it into momentary immobility. She got to the top of the stairs. “Fra-ank? Oh!” She stood, mouth gaping with surprise, eyes darting in confusion.

“I’m a policewoman,” Miriam said, crossing the room with one bound. “It’s perfectly all right.”

The girl lurched and mumbled in the chloroformed rag, but soon went limp. Miriam put the remains of Frank in the usual black plastic bag. The unconscious girl was more of a problem, but Miriam had thought carefully about that. Getting her home would be the riskiest part of the procedure. If anybody came out of one of the other apartments while they were on the staircase, she would have to kill again.

She went downstairs quickly. Nobody appeared. There were a few people in the street, but women in the human culture are shielded by their position from any expectation of violence, so she was only mildly concerned that she would raise suspicions by assisting her woozy “girl friend” into a cab.

They got home without incident, Miriam alternately comforting the half-conscious girl and threatening her. But until the girl was locked in the bedroom closet Miriam remained vigilant. With the turning of the key in that lock, all was at last prepared. It was now nine-thirty. Miriam herself was fed and once again able to be among human beings without the constant temptation of the hunger. And Sarah’s first victim awaited her.

Tom sought Sarah with increasing desperation, in her office, then in her lab, then in Geoff’s lab where the blood wash was to have been done. Geoff was there and he had all the fresh blood he needed.

But he did not have Sarah.

Tom finally had to accept the truth. She had left Riverside in spite of her condition. “How much time does she have?” Geoff’s expression said it all.

“I was afraid of that.”

“I did all I could, Tom. I practically had to rob the Red Cross to get this stuff.”

Tom rushed down the halls, blind with sorrow and terror. How could she have done this? The thought crossed his mind that Miriam might have kidnapped her, but he dismissed it. Even Miriam could not have negotiated the drop from her window with Sarah on her hands.

He came to the conference room, saw Hutch slumped in a chair. Phyllis was nursing him with wet paper towels. “Hutch,” Tom said, “any idea at all where she might be?”

“As soon as I tried to stop her she hit me so hard I was stunned.”

Tom bolted from the room, went to the elevators, hammered at the button. He felt nauseous, he was shaking. But he knew now where she had gone. The only place she would have gone.

Sarah. Please, darling. Please!