Blood Hunt

They stared. Lien said, “Made you?”

He mentally slapped himself. Shut up, idiot! Serruto was right about him being emotional. He took a breath. “I mean, because of what she did to me. But don’t worry. I’ll track her down — ”

“Stop it!” Lien hissed as the monitor hiccuped once. She dragged Garreth away, out into the hall. “I’m not having this! You may not upset Harry! He’s too weak. Besides, what you want to do is stupid. Didn’t going along on that arrest show you how much your judgement is screwed up? You know her lawyer will use that against you in court, even if you find her and your involvement doesn’t compromise the evidence too much for the case to go to trial. Or,” Lien added, “what if you find her and she decides to just finish the job of killing you.”

She was right on all points, of course…not that it affected what he had to do. To satisfy her, he nodded meekly.

“Now,” she said, “you are going back in and be a placid pool. Happy, happy.” She pushed him through the door.

He apologized to Harry. “I guess I need that session with Leonard.” And for the rest of the visit, a short one, ended by Lien even before an ICU nurse threw him out, he pretended to be quietly cheerful. Telling Harry about following his advice to get away, inventing a drive through wine country on the way to see his parents and son.

Lien insisted on driving him home. “I can leave Harry for a while now and you need a ride. When he was here earlier, the lieutenant mentioned that the patrols going by your place say your car was still there this afternoon.”

On the way she tried talking him into coming back to their place, an offer he gently but firmly turned down.

At the apartment, she followed him in. “The lieutenant also told me he had the landlord let officers in to check on you and they found your phone unplugged. Oh, and it’s unplugged again. No wonder I didn’t get you or the answering machine. You need to let people reach you.” She plugged it back in.

Much as he adored her, he debated shoving her out the door. The pallet in the bedroom called to him. But she could be like standing in front of a train.

Like a train, she steamed past him into the kitchen. “You look thinner every day. Let me fix you something to eat.” She reached the refrigerator before he reacted. “Haven’t you bought groceries since coming home? What’s here is mummifying or going moldy. Your milk’s turned red!”

Panic jolted him into action. She had the translucent jug in her hand, twisting off the cap, when he reached her…and stared as he snatched it away.

“It isn’t milk. I just use the bottles. It’s a…liquid protein mixture. Tomato juice and other veggie juices, soy, minerals, vitamins. Part of my diet.” Carefully tightening the lid again, he returned the jug 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, to keep from snacking.” Note to moron Mikaelian: if you want to pass as human, stock some human food.

He shut the refrigerator and herded her out of the kitchen to the front door, sweating. He had over-reacted. Would it make her suspicious? He wished he could think, but his mind felt turned to useless sludge.

“Go ahead and snack some,” Lien said. “ Losing weight too fast isn’t healthy.”

“Yes. You’re right.” Go, Lien! Her solicitude terrified him.

As he opened the door, the telephone rang.

“Thanks for bringing me home.”

He stepped into the hall, expecting her to follow him.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” she asked.

“Now that I.A.’s had me on the hot seat and I know Harry is going to make it, it can’t be anyone important. Let the machine pick up.”

But she marched back inside to answer it…and held the phone out to him. “It’s your father.”

He took it like a live grenade.

Phil Mikaelian’s voice snapped out of the receiver. “Finally! Where the hell have you been! We couldn’t get an answer here or at the Takanandas! You’re grandmother’s been going on again since Friday afternoon about that psycho bitch killing you so your mother’s frantic.”

A typical greeting. As much as Garreth idolized the man, a soft edge or two would be welcome, more Dad and less Deputy Chief. He could be worse, of course, an iron-fisted despot like Grandpa Mikaelian, at whose funeral Grandma Mikaelian looked radiant and Grandma Doyle whispered they ought to stick a pin in the corpse to make sure he was really dead.

“Harry got shot on Friday.” Answering in kind worked best with his father…cut to the chase, no apologies for not answering. “It looks now like he’ll live, though.”

His father’s tone changed instantly to concern for a fellow officer. “Shot! Not Garreth,” he said to someone at that end. “His partner. What happened!”

“I’ll give you all the details when I come home.” What fun that would be. “Probably toward the end of the week.” Give his father no time for questions now and avoid lies Lien could hear. “I promised the lieutenant I’d finish up reports for Harry and me. Since Grandma’s worried about me being dead, put her on the phone and let me talk to her.”

“She’s gone to Evening Prayer to pay for your soul but here’s your mother.”

“I don’t know what set Mother off again,” his mother said. “I thought she was over that after talking to Lien when you were in the hospital. I’m glad you’re coming so she can see for herself you’re all right. You are, aren’t you? How long will you be staying?”

A tricky question. Not long enough to satisfy her, of course, but probably longer than comfortable for him. So he lied. “Maybe a couple of weeks.” Way longer than he knew he could bear. Before going he needed to work out an escape plan.

“That’s wonderful. You’ll be able to spend time with Brian.” She paused. “Judith has been wanting to talk to you.”

“Judith?” Fear touched him. “Is something wrong with Brian?”

“Oh, no. 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.”

With that sentence her forgot all about his impatience to be rid of Lien and on his way back to the Hall. “She what! You can tell her — no, I’ll tell her myself!”

He stabbed down the switch hook. Releasing it again, he punched Judith’s number. “What do you mean, you want me to let your husband to adopt my son? What the hell makes you think I’ll ever agree to that!”

Her breath caught. “So much for polite amenities. Like father, like son. 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, cutting off background sound. “Now. I thought maybe you’d agree because you love Brian and want what’s best for him. Brian and Dennis are so close already, and — ”

“And I’m his father. I stay his father!”

“He needs someone 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 now.”

“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 let it be!” Her bitterness came over the wire. “It wouldn’t have to be twenty- four hours a day every day, but you like it that way. You chose that job over Brian and me.”

Oh lord here they went…not even a minute 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 snarled. “Brian is my son and I’m not giving him to anyone else!”