Blood Debt

the good men are dead." Sweeping a twinkling gaze over Henry and Tony, she added, "Or gay."
    "Miss Evans!"
    "Chill out, Munro. I'm not telling them anything they don't know."
    Companion chastised, she turned her attention back to the two men.
    "We've just come from one of those tedious fund-raising things they expect you to attend when you have money. Organs, I think it was tonight."
    "Organs?" Henry repeated with a smile, fully aware that Lisa Evans enjoyed those tedious fund-raising things where her checkbook ensured she'd be stroked and flattered. He also knew that if she was vague, it was deliberate—no one made the kind of money she had without knowing exactly where every dollar ended up. "Musical or medical?"
    "Medical." Heavily shadowed eyes narrowed into a look that had been known to send a variety of CEOs running for cover. "Have you signed an organ donor card?"
    "I'm afraid they wouldn't want my organs."
    The look softened slightly as she leaped to the conclusion he'd intended. "Oh. I'm sorry. Still, while there's life, there's hope, and medical science is doing wonders these days." She grinned. "I mean, it's a wonder I'm still alive." Pulling her companion down the hall, rather in the manner of a pilot boat guiding a tanker into harbor, she threw a cheery, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," back over her shoulder.
    "Well, that leaves us a lot of leeway," Henry murmured as the elevator door closed on Mrs. Munro's continuing shocked protests.
    Tony sagged against the back wall, hands shoved in his pockets.
    "Until I met Miss Evans, I always thought old ladies were kind of vague and smelly. Maybe you should send your ghost over to her."
    "Why?"
    "If all the good men are dead…"
    "Or gay," Henry reminded him. "Suppose he turned out to be both?
    I'd hate to get on Lisa's bad side."
    The thought of Lisa Evans' bad side brought an exaggerated shudder. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask you; how come you're so friendly with everybody in the building? You're always talking to people. I'd have thought it would be safer to be a little more…"
    "Reclusive?"
    "Big word. I was going to say private, but I guess that'll do."
    "People are afraid of what they don't know." Exiting into the underground garage, they walked in step to Henry's BMW. "If people think they know me, they aren't afraid of me. If a rumor begins that I am not what I seem, they'll match it against what they think they know and discount it. If they have nothing to match it against, then they're more likely to believe it."
    "So you make friends with people as a kind of camouflage?"
    Frowning slightly, Henry watched Tony circle around to the passenger door. "Not always."
    "But sometimes?"

    "Yes."
    With the car between them, Tony lifted his head and locked his eyes on Henry's face. "And what about me?"
    "You?"
    "What am I? Am I camouflage?"
    "Tony…" Then he saw the expression in Tony's eyes and realized that it hadn't been a facetious question. "Tony, I trust you with everything I am. There're only two other people in the world I can say that about, and one of them doesn't exactly count."
    "Because Vicki's become a vampire?"
    "Because Michael Celluci would never admit to knowing a…
    romance writer."
    Tony laughed, as he was meant to, but Henry heard the artificial resonance. For the rest of the night, he worked hard at erasing it.

    She'd seen the article too late to do anything about it that night, and the wait had not improved her temper.
    "Is Richard Sullivan on duty?"
    Startled, the edge on the words having cut her memory to shreds, the nurse checked the duty sheet. "Yes, Doctor. He…"
    "I want to see him in my office. Immediately."
    "Yes, Doctor." No point in protesting that he was cleaning up an unfortunate bedpan accident. Immediately meant immediately and no later. As she paged him, the nurse hoped that whatever Sullivan had done, it wasn't enough to get him fired. Orderlies willing to do the shit work without bitching and complaining were few and far between.
    Besides, it was difficult not to like the big man; those puppy dog eyes were hard to resist.
    "What do you know about this?"
    Sullivan looked down at the article and then up at the doctor.
    Denial died unspoken as she read his answer off his face.
    "This is one of ours?"
    He nodded.
    "Then what part of my instructions did you not understand?"
    "It's not that I…"
    "Or do you not enjoy your job? Is it not everything I told you it would be?"
    "Yes. I mean, I do. And it is,