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11:15 a.m.

Detective Dimitrios Apostolou and his partner, Cody McKenzie, joined the medical examiner in his lab. Dr. Joseph Taylor, an obese fellow with a crewcut, directed the investigators over to a stainless-steel table where Arnold Cline’s body lay covered by a sheet.

Dr. Taylor lifted the sheet back to show them Mr. Cline’s remains. “Mr. Cline’s DNA matched the skin cells under Molly Robert’s fingernails. As you can see, there are four abrasions on his face. Ms. Roberts probably scratched him during the struggle.” The cadaver had turned greenish, and there were signs of minute aquatic scavenging, but the freezing river had mostly preserved the corpse. There was a Y-shaped incision along the victim’s torso from the autopsy, now sewn closed.

Dimitrios scowled at the remains from behind half-rimmed glasses, recalling the crime scene in Molly Roberts’s apartment. He took a deep breath, rubbed the back of his bald head, and compartmentalized his distaste for the now deceased murderer. “So what happened to our illustrious Mr. Cline?”

“Drowning, right?” Cody grunted. The younger of the two detectives by a couple of decades, he had only just made detective three years prior. Cody had proven to be a reliable partner in that time, though Dimitrios still sometimes felt more like his babysitter rather than his colleague. Cody’s professional attire didn’t help. Like Dimitrios, he did dress to regulation in a business suit, but he stretched the bounds of their department’s dress code with garishly colorful ties and socks, and he wore his sandy hair in a tousled mop. “Case closed?”

Dr. Taylor shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, fellas. If he had drowned, he would have sucked water and algae into his lungs, but there are no diatoms in his system.”

Cody regarded the cadaver with distaste. “Wouldn’t water have still filled his lungs?”

Dr. Taylor shrugged. “Yes, the lungs would fill with fluids because of decomposition, but if someone is already dead before submersion, then algae wouldn’t enter the bloodstream. Drowning victims would have diatoms in all their greater circulatory organs.”

“Was it foul play, then?” Dimitrios asked.

“Well, there are signs that Mr. Cline was in a physical altercation around the time of his death. He has a wrist fracture and bruises on his shoulders.” Dr. Taylor traced the cadaver’s skin with his latex-gloved finger. “See how these marks resemble handprints? Someone grabbed him by the arms—hard.”

Cody looked closer at the bruises. “How exactly did he die?”

“Well, it seems the cause of death was blood loss.”

Dimitrios’s gray-blue eyes narrowed. “Blood loss?”

“Yes, there was almost no blood in his system, which caused a decrease in putrefaction. The problem is there are no breaks on the epidermis or ruptures in the organs severe enough to explain the blood loss. At first, I thought maybe he suffered from some hematologic disorder, but all the tests show that Mr. Cline was healthy.” Dr. Taylor gave the body a pensive look. “He wasn’t sick, and he wasn’t bleeding, but somehow he was completely exsanguinated.”

*****

Two days later …

Wednesday, November 17, 1999

6:00 p.m.

Angela was researching for her master’s thesis at one of the long tables in the middle of the university’s grand Victorian library. The room was surrounded on three sides by adjacent wings housing rows of ornate bookcases, and tall windows along the walls displayed an evening drizzle outside.

The doors by the reception desk swung open, and a slightly overweight student hurried inside, his raincoat dripping. He pushed his hood back, uncovering tousled black hair, a copper complexion, and dark-brown eyes. He shook water off his coat, then locked eyes with a perturbed librarian sitting at the checkout counter. She glowered at the puddles he’d tracked in. “Uh, sorry.” He hurried past her desk, his wet shoes squeaking against the tiled floor.

Angela pressed her lips together to suppress a smirk. She waved at the young man as he wandered near her table. “Honor,” she whispered to get his attention.

Honorato glanced up in surprise and smiled. “Oh, hey you,” he returned, also keeping his voice low. They noticed the irritated librarian putting a wet floor sign out.

“What’re you working on?” Angela asked.

“Anthropology paper.” Honorato was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in art history, but he had to take Introduction to Cultural Anthropology to satisfy his social science requirement. He and Angela started college the same year, but Honorato switched to part-time when they were sophomores to work and pay for his own apartment. It was his sixth and hopefully last year as an undergraduate. He set his bag on the table. “And you?”

“Thesis.” Angela leaned back and stretched her shoulders. It was the last year of her graduate program in art history. “What’s your paper on?”

Honorato pulled his raincoat off and hung it on a chair. “You’ll think it’s silly.”

“No, I won’t. Tell me.”

Honorato sat down next to Angela, his proximity stirring her paranormal empathy. A tranquil feeling of nonchalance flowed through her, and Angela recognized the sensation as Honorato’s typical blithe attitude. She usually tried to block out other people’s emotions, but Honorato was one of the few people she felt comfortable channeling. He pulled several books from his bag and set them beside Angela. She read the title of the book on top of the pile, her eyes widening—Psychodynamic Understanding of the Vampire Myth.

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