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"Sure."
"Greatespresso."
"Eve will be working tomorrow night," Michel says, his voicelow.
"We can meet before. Say, just after sundown?" Juliensmiles.
I smile back. "Sure. I'll bewaiting."
"Ooh, those dimples," he says and clucks his tongue. He just stares at me for a long moment, taking in a deep breath. "I'll come up and get you," Julien says. "What's your apartment number again?3C?"
Michel takes my arm. "You can meet her at the coffee shop," he says, pulling me along withhim.
Julien holds his hands up in mocksurrender.
"Ok, ok," he says, laughing. "I won't go in her apartment. Unless she invites me up, thatis."
I glance back at him as Michel opens the car door forme.
"Until tomorrow night, then," Julien says,grinning.
I get in the sedan and Michel gets in beside me, sitting closer to me than necessary as if he's trying to show Julien I'm his. He starts to do up my seatbelt, but I take it out of hishand.
"I'm not achild."
"Compared to us, you are. Don't forget it. Just because you can kill us, don't think you can manipulateus."
"Oh, I'd never think that," I say, emotion welling up inside me. Does he really think I'm a child? I clip my seatbelt in place and turn my faceaway.
"I'm sorry, Eve," Michel says after a moment. I turn back and he's rubbing his forehead. "He has that effect onme."
"Was he always thatcheeky?"
"No," he says and shakes his head. "But when you're a vampire, everything about you is strengthened. You feel everything with ten times the intensity. Whatever cheek he had before is just that muchstronger."
"And you? What did becoming a vampire do for you? What did itintensify?"
"Julien would tell you I've become boring, but I have fervor, Eve," he says, staring at me, his face close to mine. He touches my cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I'm fervent. More thanever."
"About religion?" I say, hoping not. I don't want him to be apriest.
"Abouteverything."
I hopeso.
"You don't want me to meet withhim?"
"No," he says. "I'm asking you to reconsider. I don't know what his motives are, but I can guess. He wants you for himself and will try to mess things up. But I can't force you notto."
I turn away and look out the window at the passing scenery. I don't know if I'll meet Julien. Part of me wants to. Part of me wants to pleaseMichel.
From the front seat, Ed tells us we're going to the building I described in my vision, check out the second floor to see if the killer left some tracethere.
We arrive at the building across from the dry cleaners where Evan Cooper worked. Ed uses his key kit to break into the warehouse because it's empty and there's no security to admit us. Michel and I can see clearly even in the darkness but Ed doesn't have our advantage and follows us up with a flashlight. There are rows of empty offices overlooking the alley and we each go in and check. I enter a couple and then find one that has footsteps in the dust that are clearly visible in the light flooding in from themoon.
I go to the window and can see the alley clearly, including the back of the dry cleaners where Evan Cooper must have been standing, having his cigarette. It's exactly as I saw it in my vision. I glance around the empty room and see a piece of paper folded up on the windowsill and pick it up. Immediately, I get a strong sense of familiarity – the killer held this and so I open it. In the darkness, I can just make out a carefulscript.
Hello, BeautifulEve.
