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I nodded. "The crazies will start talking about stakes. Or be vague."
"Okay," he said. Dolph looked at me. "If anyone hated the monsters, I thought it was you. How can you date one of them?"
I met his eyes this time, not flinching. "I don't know."
He closed his notebook. "Greeley's probably wondering where I took you."
"What did you whisper to him? I would have bet money that he'd have held on to me."
"Told him you were a suspect in another murder. Said I wanted to watch your reaction."
"And he bought that?"
Dolph glanced back at the body. "Close to the truth, Anita."
He had me there. "Greeley didn't seem to like me very much," I said.
"You'd just killed a woman, Anita. Tends to give a bad first impression."
He had a point. "Do I need to have Catherine meet us down at the station?" I asked.
"You're not under arrest," Dolph said.
"I'd still like Catherine to meet us at the station."
"Call her."
I stood.
Dolph touched my arm. "Wait." He turned to the other cops. "Everybody wait outside for a minute." There were some glances, but no one argued, they just went. They'd all worked with Dolph before, and no one present outranked him.
When we were alone behind closed doors, he said, "Give it up."
"What?"
"You've got some kind of freaking blade down your back. Let's see it."
I sighed and reached under my hair to the hilt. I drew the knife out. It took a while. It was a long knife.
Dolph held out his hand. I handed it to him.
He balanced it on his open hands and gave a low whistle. "Jesus, what were you planning to do with this?"
I just looked at him.
"Who frisked you at the club?"
"Rizzo's partner," I said.
"Have to have a talk with him." Dolph looked up at me. "Be a bad thing to miss on someone who might use it. Is it the only weapon he missed?"
"Yep."
He stared at me. "Lean on the bureau, Anita."
My eyebrows raised. "You're going to pat me down?"
"Yeah."
I thought about arguing but decided not to. There were no more weapons to find. I leaned on the bureau. Dolph laid the knife on the chair and searched me. If there'd been anything to find, he'd have found it. Dolph was thorough in everything he did, methodical. It was one of the things that made him a great cop.
I looked at him in the mirror without turning around. "Satisfied?"
"Yeah." He handed the knife back to me, hilt first.
I must have looked as surprised as I felt. "You're giving it back to me?"
"If you'd lied to me about it being your last weapon, I'd have kept it and everything I found." He took a deep breath and let it out. "But I won't take your last weapon, not with a contract out on you."
I took the knife and resheathed it. It was a lot harder putting it back than getting it out. I finally had to use the mirror to sort of direct me.
"I take it it's a new weapon?" Dolph asked.
"Yeah." I flipped my hair out over the sheath and presto, you couldn't see it. I was really going to have practice with it more. It was too good a hiding place not to use more often.
"Any other impressions of the scene before I take you back?"
"Was there forced entry?"
"No."
"Someone he knew then," I said.
"Maybe."
I glanced at Robert's still form. "Could we finish this discussion in another room?"
"This one bother you?"
"I knew him, Dolph. I might not have liked him, but I knew him."
Dolph nodded. "You can finish telling me all about it in the nursery."
I looked at him. I could feel myself going pale. I was not up to seeing what Monica would have done with a nursery. "You're developing a mean streak, Dolph."
"Can't seem to get past the fact you're dating the Master of the City, Anita. Just can't shake it."
"You want to punish me because I'm dating a vampire?"
He looked at me, a long searching look. I didn't look away. "I want you to not date him."
"You're not my dad."
"Does your family know?"
I did look away then. "No."
"They're Catholic, aren't they?"
"I am not going to have this discussion with you, Dolph."
"You need to have it with someone," he said.
"Maybe, but not with you."
"Look at him, Anita. Look at him, and tell me you could sleep with that."
"Drop it," I said.
"I can't."
We stared at each other. I was not going to stand here and explain my relationship with Jean-Claude to Dolph. It wasn't any of his business. "Then we have a problem."
There was a knock on the door. "Not now," Dolph said.
"Come in," I said.
The door opened. Goody. Zerbrowski walked in. Even better. I knew I was grinning like an idiot, but I couldn't seem to stop. The last time I'd seen him had been the day he got out of the hospital. He'd been nearly gutted by a shapeshifter, a wereleopard the size of a pony. His attacker had been not a lycanthrope but a shapeshifting witch. That was why Zerbrowski wasn't turning furry once a month. The witch had clawed him up horribly. I'd killed it. I'd held my hands over his stomach and pressed his intestines back into his body. I still had the scars from the same monster.
Zerbrowski's hair is normally curly and a mess, black going grey. He'd cut it short enough that it stayed in place. Made him look more serious, more grown-up, less like Zerbrowski. His suit was brown and looked like he'd slept in it. His tie was medium blue and matched nothing that he was wearing.
"Blake, long time no see."
I couldn't help myself; I walked over and hugged him. There are benefits to being a girl. Though, before Richard came into my life, I might have resisted the urge. Richard was bringing out my feminine side.
Zerbrowski hugged me awkwardly, laughing. "I always knew you wanted my body, Blake."
I pushed away from him. "You wish."
He eyed me up and down, eyes glittering with laughter. "If you dress up like that every night, I might leave Katie for you. If that skirt was any shorter, it'd be a lamp shade.''
Even with the teasing, I was glad to see him. "How long have you been back on full duty?"
"Not long. I saw you on the news with your boyfriend."
"News?" I said. I'd forgotten about the media blitz Jean-Claude and I had walked through.
"He sure was pretty for a dead guy."
"Shit."
"What?" Dolph asked.
"It was national media, not just local."
"So?"
"My father doesn't know."
Zerbrowski laughed. "He does now."
"Shit."
"I guess you'll have that talk with your father after all," Dolph said.
There must have been something in Dolph's voice or my face, because the humor faded from Zerbrowski's face. "What's up, you two? You look like someone stepped on your puppy."
Dolph looked at me. I looked at him. "Philosophical differences," I said finally. Dolph didn't add anything. I hadn't really expected him to.
"Okay," Zerbrowski said. He knew Dolph well enough not to pry. Me alone, he'd have bugged the hell out of me, but not Dolph.
"One of the nearest neighbors is a serious right-wing vampire hater," he said. That got our attention.
"Explain," Dolph said.
"Delbert Spalding and his wife Dora sat on the couch, holding hands. She offered me iced tea. He objected to me saying that Robert had been murdered. Said you couldn't kill the dead." Zerbrowski dug a wrinkled notebook out of his suit pocket. He flipped some pages, tried to smooth the page down, gave up, and quoted. "Now that someone has destroyed that thing, the woman should abort that monster she's carrying. I don't believe in abortion normally, but this is abomination, pure abomination."
"Humans Against Vampires, at the very least," I said, "Maybe even Humans First."
"Maybe he just doesn't like living next door to a vampire," Dolph said.
Zerbrowski and I looked at him.
"Did you ask Mr. Spalding if he belonged to either of the hate groups?" Dolph asked.
"He had HAV's newsletters scattered on his coffee table, gave me one."
