Page 18 of The Undead

“I want to talk.”

“Eat and talk. I’m not your mother, you can talk with your mouth full.” I was suddenly, ridiculously happy. “Boy or girl?”

“I don’t think that’s up to us.” Maggie put a forkful of pancake in her mouth. She was smiling too hard. She almost lost it. “Girl.”

“Okay. Girl. You can teach her how to fire a gun and I’ll teach her how to patch up the holes.” I finished stacking my pancakes and sat down at the table facing her. “Boy would be nice, too. Somebody to take fishing with me.”

“You could take your daughter fishing. Besides, you don’t even like to fish.” Maggie chewed and swallowed. “You know something, Doctor? I feel better than I have in years. Thanks.”

“Nuts. I haven’t done anything yet.”

“No.” Her smile widened wickedly. “But you will. Believe me.”

I hate it when she’s right.

Interlude

Adam

It was night, and Adam Radburn’s eyes came open in one quick snapping motion. They were red.

It took him a minute to remember who he was, where he was, why he was. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and rested his head in his hands. His train of thought, derailed at morning sunrise, chugged slowly back up to speed, and he wished it hadn’t.

He hadn’t been so stupid, or so frightened, in more years than he could remember. Why had he done it, knowing what was in the balance?

Why had he let Michael Bowman live?

Mike had looked at him with some kind of knowledge, that much was sure—but not too much, or he couldn’t have come so close to him again, couldn’t have hugged him there in the waiting room. Adam was still surprised about that, and uncomfortably, unwillingly moved. There wassomethingdifferent in Mike’s eyes. Adam couldn’t be sure he’d scrubbed the memory of the morgue properly; he’d been too unnerved, too afraid of Foster’s return.Foster.Now, there was someone he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill. But Michael … gangling, eager Michael, with his earnest beliefs … no. Adam just couldn’t think of him as an enemy.

Fool,his less sentimental side whispered, reptilian and annoyed.

Well, there was a more logical reason why he hadn’t killed Mike, Adam thought as he turned on the lights in his windowless room and hunted through his closet for clothes. Mike might be easy to handle, but Maggie would be very dangerous in her grief. Adam was nothing if not careful.

He smiled. As Michael would have said, that was a load of rationalizing crap.

The digital clock read 6:22. It had been a clear and sunny day, and he’d sat up just as the sun went down. Sun … he remembered vaguely how the sun had felt splashing on his face. The closest Adam could come to that now was the burning warmth of a living body against his, sunlight trapped under smooth skin, heat pulsing in blood. The memories—both of the sun and of other, more darkly sensual things—made him shiver and grip the closet door a little tighter. He needed warmth. He needed a lot of things, at the moment.

In that heightened state, he heard Sylvia coming long before she tapped on the door. Adam didn’t turn, and she crossed and put her arms around him, warmth, so much warmth that he trembled in the reflection of it. He felt every curve of her so wonderfully clearly where she pressed against his back—warm soft breasts, hollowed stomach, wide strong hips.

He’d stopped long ago being ashamed of his need for her, but the intensity of it still disturbed him. And the intensity of his hunger, which was almost the same thing. Adam rested cold hands on her warm ones where they clasped across his stomach. Her forehead rested against his back, another spot of heat through the cloth of his robe. Her scent, rich as roses, folded around him and teased him into breathing it. Air felt alien and leaden in his lungs, unwanted.

“I wanted to be sure you were up,” she said. Her fingers opened and merged with his.

“Have I ever overslept?” Adam asked her, and felt the movement of her head as she shook it. “Have you heard anything?”

She tensed a little, betraying how painful the subject was.

“Julie’s funeral is scheduled for Friday.”

“Are you going?”

“I will if you want me to.” Perceptive Sylvia, she knew how bitterly he wanted to go, to have that one last goodbye. So many years, so many losses, and he couldn’t have the simple human comfort of sharing his grief.

They didn’t bury people at night.

To shield himself from that thought—suddenly acutely painful—he turned in the circle of Sylvia’s arms and faced her. It surprised him again, as it did every day, that she’d grown older. His mind insisted on remembering her as she’d been when he’d met her; beautiful and timeless. Her Cherokee copper skin had lost some of its gleam now, and she carried tire passage of years in lines around her vivid eyes. Her eyes were unchanged—green, startling eyes. Someday soon they’d start to fade, too. Her hair, night black, contained long streaks of silver. Twenty years. So long a time, for both of them, for different reasons.

She didn’t say anything, just looked at him and adjusted his hair back from his face. They were content to stand there for a while, and then Adam bent and touched his lips to hers, very gently. Her warm palm cupped his cheek, distracting him, driving his hunger up to a feverish intensity.

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