5

Danger! Even in the oblivion of vampire sleep Garreth sensed it. The heat of human warmth touched him, spiced by the scent of blood. Someone stood in the room with him . . . stood over him! Wake up, Garreth. As though floating somewhere apart, he saw the young Englishman pick up a spade and bring it down toward the man lying in the coffin.

Fear dragged Garreth up from darkness, spurring him to open his eyes and roll away from the slashing spade, but sleep and daylight weighted him. His arms rose with painful slowness to ward off the blow.

"No, don't," he said.

A hand caught his arm and shook it. "Garreth, wake up. You're having a nightmare. It's all right."

The words reached his ears, but his brain made no immediate sense of them. His eyes, focusing, saw Lien's face above him and recognized that it did not belong to the spade-swinging man, but his mind spun in confusion, disoriented. Lien? Where was he? The pallet under him on the bed indicated that he must be home. So how—

Panic flooded through him. He sat bolt upright. Lien! She had caught him in his unorthodox sleeping arrangement! And naked, too, beneath the single sheet over him, he remembered, clutching the sheet and pulling it up to his chin.

"Lien, what are you doing here? How did you get in? What time is it?"

She sat on the edge of the bed. "It's past two in the afternoon. I came because your mother called me after church. She's been trying to reach you since Friday. When I saw your car out front, I knew you had to be home, but I pounded on the door for five minutes without any response, so I used your spare key to let myself in."

As of today, the practice of hiding a key outside stopped. What if an enemy had stood over him, like Jonathan Harker in his nightmare? He would have been helpless to protect himself.

"Why did you unplug your phone?" Lien asked.

Unplug his phone? Oh, yes . . . he remembered now. He had done it Friday. He sighed. "I forgot I did it."

"I've reconnected it. Now you'd better call your mother before she has a heart attack." Lien started to get up, but paused in the act. "Why do you have that air mattress on top of the bed? And how can you sleep with only a sheet? It's freezing in here."

He avoided the question. "I'll call . . . if you'll let me get up and dress."

She headed toward the bedroom door. "Don't take too long."

He pulled on the first shirt and pair of pants he found, which turned out to be jeans and a ski sweater. The jeans, always snug before, hung on him. He added a belt, taken up four holes tighter than usual, and slipped his off-duty gun into an ankle holster.

He was hurriedly shaving when he heard Lien call, "Garreth, how old is this food in your refrigerator?"

He dropped the razor and ran for the kitchen.

Lien stood before the open refrigerator, unscrewing the top from his thermos. "I thought I'd fix you something to eat, but everything seems to be either moldy or mummified."

"Don't open that!" He snatched the thermos away from her, then, as she stared open-mouthed at him, stammered, "It's . . . the liquid protein that's part of my diet. It . . . needs constant refrigeration." Carefully tightening the lid again, he returned the thermos to the refrigerator.

Lien frowned at him. "You don't mean to tell me that's all you're eating?"

"Of course not," he lied. "It's just all I eat here at home."

He shut the refrigerator and herded her out of the kitchen, sweating. Had she seen too much? Would it make her suspicious? He wished he could think, but his mind only churned, screaming at him to run.

"You should eat more," Lien said. "'Losing weight too fast isn't healthy, and you look positively gaunt."

As much as he adored her, he longed to throw her bodily out of the apartment. Her concern and solicitude terrified him. "Thanks for coming by."

"I want to hear you call your mother before I leave."

He did not sigh; that might tell her how anxious he was to have her leave. Instead, he made himself smile and pick up the phone.

After all the fuss, his mother wanted nothing more than to see how he was. "Mother keeps insisting that you're dead," she said, "and you know how unnerving her Feelings can be for everyone else. Why don't you come home for a visit? Actually seeing you should reassure her."

"Maybe this weekend," he said, "if I have time."

"Judith needs to talk to you when you're here, too."

"Judith?" A new fear touched him. "Is something wrong with Brian?"

"He's fine. It's something else; she'll tell you."

"Do you know?"

She hedged and wandered off on a tangent, which told him she knew, all right.

"Tell me. Don't let her hit me cold with it."

"Well." He heard her take a breath. "She wants your permission to let Dennis adopt Brian."

That single sentence buried all his impatience to be rid of Lien and on his way to the office to check the Darling woman through R and I. "She what! You can tell her—no, I'll tell her myself!"

He stabbed down the phone button. Releasing it again, he punched Judith's phone number. No one answered. Punching for Information, he asked for Judith's parents' number. She often spent Sunday afternoons there.

"Hello, Garreth," Judith said cautiously when her mother put her on the line. "How are you?"

"What do you mean, you want permission for your husband to adopt Brian? What the hell makes you think I'll ever agree to that?"

Her breath caught. "So much for polite amenities. No, it's all right," she said to someone on the other end. "Just a minute, Garreth." He heard her moving and a door shutting, with a diminution of background sound. "Now. I thought maybe you'd agree because you love Brian and want what's best for him. Brian and Dennis are already good friends, and—"

"They can be friends, but I'm his father. I stay his father."

"He needs one full-time, Garreth, someone he can feel he belongs to. What are you? He's lucky if he sees you four or five times a year."

"You were the one who insisted on moving back to Davis. My job doesn't give me enough time off to—"

"Your job is exactly what you choose to let it be." Her bitterness came clearly over the wire to him. "It wouldn't have to be twenty-four hours a day every day, but you wanted it that way. You chose that job over Brian and me."

Oh Lord here we go . . . two minutes of conversation and down into the same old rut. "Judith, I don't want to start that again."

"With Brian adopted, you wouldn't have to pay child support anymore."

She thought she could buy Brian for her precious Dennis? "Forget it!" he said furiously. "Brian is my son and I'm not giving him to anyone else!"

He slammed down the receiver, shaking, and turned to find Lien regarding him with sympathy. All the anxiety related to her presence here returned in an icy flood. Don't let her think too much.

"I have to be going. I have stacks of paperwork," he said. "Thanks again for coming by. I appreciate your concern."

"You'll visit Harry sometime today, won't you?"

He picked up a ski jacket and hurried her out the door. "Of course. May I have my spare key back? Thank you." He clattered down the steps ahead of her and out onto the street, calling over his shoulder. "I'll come by this evening."

Pulling away from the curb, he saw Lien in the rearview mirror, staring after the car. He shivered. She had caught him asleep! She had almost found the blood in the thermos. If he remained friends with Harry and her, sooner or later he would slip, would give away something fatal. He had to find Lane just as soon as possible, take care of her, and leave the city before he woke some morning to find someone standing over him with a pointed wooden stake.