Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,5

Vicki, you could have stayed... "

"Celluci... " She ground his name through clenched teeth. He always pushed it just that one comment too far.

"Never mind." He reached out and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Want a lift downtown?"

She glanced down at her ruined coat. "Why not."

As they followed the gurney up the stairs, he punched her lightly on the arm. "Nice fighting with you again."

She surrendered-the last eight months had been a punitive victory at best-and grinned. "I missed you, too."

The Monday papers had the murder spread across page one. The tabloid even had a color photograph of the gurney being rolled out of the station, the body bag an obscene splotch of color amid the dark blues and grays. Vicki tossed the paper onto the growing "to be recycled" pile to the left of her desk and chewed on a thumbnail. Celluci's theory, which he'd grudgingly passed on while they drove downtown, involved PCPs and some sort of strap-on claws.

"Like that guy in the movie. "

"That was a glove with razor blades, Celluci."

"Whatever."

Vicki didn't buy it and she knew Mike didn't really either, it was just the best model he could come up with until he had more facts. His final answer often bore no resemblance to the theory he'd started with, he just hated working from zero. She preferred to let the facts fall into the void and see what they piled up to look like. Trouble was, this time they just kept right on falling. She needed more facts.

Her hand was halfway to the phone before she remembered and pulled it back. This had nothing to do with her any longer. She'd given her statement and that was as far as her involvement went.

She took off her glasses and scrubbed at one lens with a fold of her sweatshirt. The edges of her world blurred until it looked as if she were staring down a foggy tunnel; a wide tunnel, more than adequate for day to day living. So far, she'd lost about a third of her peripheral vision. So far. It could only get worse.

The glasses corrected only the nearsightedness. Nothing could correct the rest.

"Okay, this one's Celluci's. Fine. I have a job of my own to do," she told herself firmly. "One I can do." One she'd better do. Her savings wouldn't last forever and so far her caseload had been embarrassingly light, her vision forcing her to turn down more than one potential client.

Teeth gritted, she pulled the massive Toronto white pages onto her lap. With luck, the F. Chan she was looking for, inheritor of a tidy sum of money from a dead uncle in Hong Kong, would be one of the twenty-six listed. If not... there were over three full pages of Chans, sixteen columns, approximately one thousand, eight hundred and fifty-six names and she'd bet at least half of those would have a Foo in the family.

Mike Celluci would be looking for a killer right now.

She pushed the thought away.

You couldn't be a cop if you couldn't see.

She'd made her bed. She'd lie in it.

Terri Neal sagged against the elevator wall, took a number of deep breaths, and, when she thought she'd dredged up a sufficient amount of energy, raised her arm just enough so she could see her watch.

"Twelve seventeen?" she moaned. Where the hell has Monday gone, and what's the point in going home? I've got to be back here in eight hours. She felt the weight of the pager against her hip and added a silent prayer that she would actually get the full eight hours. The company had received its pound of flesh already today-the damned beeper had gone off as she'd slid into her car back at 4:20-so maybe, just maybe, they'd leave her alone tonight.

The elevator door hissed open and she dragged herself forward into the underground garage.

"Leaving the office," she murmured, "take two."

Squinting a little under the glare of the fluorescent lights, she started across the almost empty garage, her shadow dancing around her like a demented marionette. She'd always hated the cold, hard light of the fluorescents, the world looked decidedly unfriendly thrown into such sharp-edged relief. And tonight...

She shook her head. Lack of sleep made her think crazy things. Resisting the urge to keep looking over her shoulder, she finally reached the one benefit of all the endless hours of overtime.

"Hi, baby." She rummaged in her pocket for her car keys. "Miss me?"

She flipped open the hatchback, heaved her briefcase- This