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  "You said four. Any names?"

  Daryl seemed to really consider this. "Don't think so. I mean, I didn't hear any. I got pissed off or something right around then, that's when I went into the backyard." He looked up at her and said with conviction when their eyes met, "Honest, Mrs. McDaris. I didn't tell those other cops because they've been so shitty to me."

  She saw, for a moment, the boy she once knew. The old Daryl stumbled through the druggy murk just long enough for some sincerity to leak through. And she believed him.

  "Well, you'd better start being a little more cooperative," she said. "I know you have the right to remain silent, but if you start turning in some names right about now, it could go easier on you."

  "Don't ask me to do that," Daryl said resolutely. "I won't do that."

  "Yeah, I know," she said, standing. "They'll kill you if you do. Great friends you have there, Daryl."

  Daryl squirmed so much she thought he would fall out of the chair. "Let me think about it. I might tell you, but not those guys. Think you could go see what they have on me?"

  Looking out for his own hide, she thought angrily. After nineteen of his friends just died. She studied him for a long time, trying to figure out if he was being honest or had gotten much better at lying. She might have touched his mind with elven magic to get to the truth immediately, but to do so might alert any Unseleighe in the area. With no other choice, she assumed that for the time being he was on the level.

  "I'll go see what they have," she said. "But if they haven't found anything by now, they probably won't. But this isn't your house, Daryl. How do you know you cleaned out everything?"

  Daryl turned paler than pale.

  Sammi went into the kitchen to talk with the others. Daryl heard her make a wry comment about the vomit in the sink and accused Roach of having a weak stomach.

  Meanwhile, bugs started to crawl up Daryl's legs. He squirmed and scratched, and lifted his pants leg up to see if there really were bugs, but it was only the hangover. If he didn't go party somewhere soon, it would get much worse.

  After the brief chat in the kitchen, Sammi left without confirming whether or not they found anything to charge him with.

  A moment later, Roach came into the dining room and dropped a baggie of white powder on the table in front of him.

  "Got any idea what that is, kiddo?"

  Daryl eyed the baggie like a starving man would a steak.

  That looks really good. Wonder if they'll let me do any of it?

  The other, logical part of him started to get frightened. Oh, no. I'm going to jail after all. Where the hell did his parents stash that?

  "Well, I'll give you a little hint. It goes with donuts."

  Daryl eyed the baggie closer, caught a whiff of sweetness. Powdered sugar.

  "You assholes," Daryl said without emotion. But the powdered sugar reminded him that he had an appointment Tuesday at one of his dealer's safe houses to pick up some real coke, lots of it. But that was a day away. What am I going to do until then?

  Roach said, "You bet we're assholes. Professional assholes, you might say." The cops laughed uproariously. "Looks like the house is clean, sonny. This time, you managed to get everything. Truly remarkable."

  Daryl got to his feet, a bold move, since he hadn't given him permission yet. "Can I leave now?"

  "I suppose so," Roach said, acting as if he'd been deprived of some entertainment. "Looks like your dad's not going to show up."

  No, I doubt it. Daryl thought. Especially if he's coked up, too. Gets real paranoid around cops.

  "We know where you live. Since there are no witnesses to speak of, I'd say you're in the clear. But we have your number, Daryl. We'll be watching you. And we're going to get you."

  Daryl found the rest of his clothes, which had turned up during the drug search, and got into his '94 Corvette. Since everybody else was driving on the lawn, as evidenced by several tire tracks in the grass, he no longer considered himself blocked in by the Mustang. He drove over the grass, a flower bed, and urged his beast onto the driveway. As he neared the gate, he gave the ghouls there the finger and sped on, ignoring the gaggle of reporters and vidcams.

  He didn't want to go home. He wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, and get good and fucked up. After all, this had been a crappy day, and he deserved it. But if he did that, Dad would certainly beat the tar out of him. At this point, if he went directly home and convinced Dad he wasn't in trouble, he stood a fifty-fifty chance of avoiding injury.

  His father's new BMW was parked in the driveway when he pulled in, and he considered driving on, but decided to go ahead and get it over with. He pulled up next to the Beamer and tried to make himself more presentable in his rearview mirror; he looked, and felt, like hell.

  Depressed and shaky, he entered the house. In many ways it was much like the Wintons' mansion, except smaller. He made a beeline for the stairwell, which led to his bedroom upstairs. Before he reached the second step, his father's voice boomed from the living room.

  "Daryl. Get in here."

  Damn, he thought. His knees turned into marshmallows. The chances of making it to his room had been, to say the least, slim. But it had been worth a shot.

  Paul Bendis sat on the sofa with a tumbler of scotch in one hand, a lit cigarette in another. Daryl came in and sat on a love seat across from him, and tried to look less hung over than he was.

  He didn't fool anyone. "Son, you look like hell," Paul said, taking a large sip from the scotch. "What happened over at the Wintons' last night?"

  Daryl got as comfortable as possible, resigned to his fate. How much does he already know? he wondered, searching his father's face for clues. Paul looked tired, but somewhat mellowed, due in no small part to the scotch. An empty bottle of Chivas Regal lay at his feet. A paper of coke sat on the mirror-topped coffee table. Traces of white powder remained, shadows of the lines now embedded somewhere in Paul's nasal passages.

  Daryl's nostrils itched; his mouth watered. The bugs returned with a vengeance, crawling up one leg, then both.

  "Did you hear me?" his father said, his voice rising. "What happened over there?"

  Daryl shook himself from the trance the coke held him in. "Uhn, sorry. At the Wintons'. It was just a party. Wine coolers, beer."

  "Any coke?"

  "No, but I think there was Pepsi. . . ."

  An ashtray whizzed over his head and smashed against the wall behind him. The object cleared his head by maybe an inch; he felt its breeze when it passed.

  "Don't get cute," Paul said, now looking for someplace to put out his cigarette. He gave up and snuffed it into the glass top, as Daryl had seen him do many times when he was drunk. "I thought you said you were going over to Adam's last night. To study."

  Oh, yeah, he thought. Forgot about that. "Well, we did," he added, hoping that this enhancement to the lie would dig his grave no deeper. "Then we went to the party." He became frantic as he tried to remember what happened before he went out, what he'd said, when he'd left. It was all a blank up until just before he went out to the Wintons' backyard and zonked out. And, of course, he remembered waking up and finding the bodies. But none of that really mattered now.

  He remembered very little, and that made him nervous. These lapses in memory had recently become more frequent, but since his friends had them, too, he didn't really see anything alarming about it. Unless you're trying to con your way out of a situation . . .

  "There were deaths over there," Paul said. "Lots of deaths. You'd better start remembering quick. I've had a bad day and I'm not in the mood for your childish crap."

  You've had a bad day? Geeeez. Tell me about it!

  "Okay, okay," Daryl said, thinking as fast as he could under the circumstances. "I think they got ahold of some bad dope."

  Paul nodded, as if he'd suspected it all along. "And?"

  "And it looks like it did them in. I wasn't doing any of it. If I had, I'd be dead, too."

  Which was true. He'd passed out drunk
before he could do any of it.

  Paul rubbed his face with his hands. "Good God, Daryl. Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused me? Your mother called me in hysterics, said something about murders, then it turns out your friends just did some bad stuff. Really bad stuff. What did the cops say?"

  "They looked everywhere," Daryl said, but something about his father's attitude was depressing him. No, not his attitude. What he wasn't saying. Nineteen people just died, and I'm the only one from the party to walk away alive. And he didn't even ask me if I was okay.

  "Did they find anything?"

  "Nope. Guess, well, I'll tell you what I did."

  "I think you had better."

  "I got rid of it all. Flushed it down the toilet. Went through the entire house."

  Paul's eyes rolled upward, in apparent relief. "That's the first smart thing you've done all year. Evidently they didn't charge you with anything."

  "They didn't find anything."

  Paul shook his head, annoyed. "That only means they're going to be watching your young butt, son. What the hell are you doing with drugs anyway? You're too young to be doing that crap. If you ever went down for something, I'm the one responsible, not you, not until you turn eighteen! Where are your brains?"

  Eighteen? he thought. Doesn't he know my birthday was yesterday?

  "Dad, I turned eighteen yesterday," Daryl said, getting a little angry. Dad had completely forgot.

  Paul glanced at his watch. "You did? I thought . . ." Then he shook his head. Now, he was smiling. "So you're not my problem after all. You're an adult now. If you screw up, you get to pay for it."

  "That's right," Daryl said. "I pay for it. Why are you getting so uptight about it?"

  "Don't talk back to me, Daryl," Paul said, his voice even and low, menacing. "You're still living under my roof, eating my food, with my rules, and if you keep this crap up, my hours!"

  "Okay, Dad, you're right." Daryl looked down at his feet, feigning humility. Don't you dare lay a curfew on me!

  "I know I'm right! I'm always right, and don't you forget it. I don't care what you do, but stay out of trouble with the cops, and stay out of jail! It's getting harder to defend drug cases these days."

  You would know. "I'm sorry. It was just, well, my birthday party, that's why I went."

  "Yeah, I know. But you were stupid to go anyway! The Wintons' house? You might as well have waved a banner!"

  Daryl didn't know what he meant by that, but didn't ask.

  Yanni, his mother, came in to the living room. She wore a pair of tight jeans and a halter top, and held a large bottle of Valium.

  "Let's just have some meds and calm down, boys," Yanni said, yawning. "You don't have to get all upset over nothing, do you?"

  "Honey, we're having a talk. Do you mind?" Paul said, waving her away. Right now, a few of those Valiums looked pretty good to Daryl, but he was a little nervous about asking in front of his dad. He was just so damned unpredictable. He had no idea what his reaction would be.

  "Whatever you say, dear," Yanni said, shuffling out of the living room.

  When Yanni was gone, Paul said, "If you get thrown in jail, don't bother calling me. I won't come get you." He finished his drink and left the room. Moments later, Daryl heard the BMW start up.

  Great. I hope he wrecks it, Daryl thought, getting up to look for the bottle of Valium. He found it next to his parents' bed, where his mother was sound asleep. She'd spilled some of the yellow pills on the table, and at first glance it looked like a suicide attempt. But he knew it wasn't; this happened all the time.

  He scooped up three or so of the little pills, knowing it would take at least that many to kill this particular hangover. Normally he would have taken two, but today was a special occasion. Besides, he had a good reason to get good and loaded. Half his friends had just died. He grabbed a 7UP from the fridge, washed the five or so Valiums down, and started for the bathroom to get cleaned up.

  Halfway up the carpeted stairs, the universe dropped out from under him.

  Chapter Five

  "Adam, what's wrong with you?" Jimmy said for the second time as Adam counted out the drawer from the first shift. Usually Adam's employer wouldn't hover over him while he tried to do his work, but today was an exception. Spence and Jimmy exchanged looks, which unnerved Adam even more.

  "Nothing, just a little tired, is all," Adam said, wanting to believe his own words. Jimmy shook his head, which for him might have had ten different meanings.

  The owner seldom showed up on a slow day like Monday, but today was unusual in that it wasn't slow. Adam thought Spence might have called him about the hour lunch he'd inadvertently taken when he went to see Moira, but wasn't sure. They tended to cover for each other when necessary, and calling the boss for any reason was not something Spence would normally do. But then, today had been anything but normal.

  Jimmy was nearly forty, but possessed the perpetual youthfulness of many Asians; tall and wiry, he sprinted about the bar at his usual frenetic pace, pouring drinks, making coffee, running the espresso machines. The register had run out of paper, but since it was close to ten anyway, he went ahead and zeed it.

  "I'm fine, really," Adam insisted, but a little of his annoyance slipped through his teeth. Something is wrong. I just don't know what it is.

  The missing time bothered him, more because Spence suffered, working a heavy bar alone for an hour, when he should have been there with him to help. As to the incident itself, he felt vaguely disturbed, but not alarmed.

  Now he had trouble counting money. As soon as he thought he'd counted a stack of fives, they were actually tens, and he had to start all over. Either the numbers blurred all by themselves or his eyes weren't working. On the fourth attempt, he managed to count all the bills.

  Then his steel allergies kicked in with a vengeance. The coins started getting warm, no, hot, so much that he had to lay them out on the shelf under the bar and count them with a pencil eraser. Adam had never bothered to tell Jimmy about his steel allergies, as it never seemed necessary. But now the boss gave him strange looks, which made him lose count.

  "You know, there is a flu going around," Jimmy said good-naturedly as he untwisted the espresso dispenser. "Working a job like this, I'd bet it'd be easy to pick up."

  Adam felt bad, but it wasn't a flu; not that he'd know it if he had one, since he'd never been ill. A few times the Dallas heat made him a little dizzy and dehydrated, but a few minutes in an air-conditioned environment cleared that up. No, it wasn't influenza. But what the hell is wrong with me?

  "Maybe you'd better go on home," Jimmy said. "I've got a lot of nervous energy today. I can handle the bar tonight. These ten-hour shifts you've been doing might not have been the best idea anyway," Jimmy said, his expression friendly but firm. Jimmy was not making conversation, he was telling him to do something. And he had better do it.

  But when Adam looked up, Spence stood a few paces behind Jimmy, gazing at the boss. Spence's eyes glazed over, daydreaming or just plain tired. Adam had seen his friend's zombielike expression before, usually associated with working long hours, but not quite in this context. Sure enough, as Jimmy told him to go home, Adam saw Spence's lips moving silently, mouthing the same words, as if reciting a script for Jimmy to read.

  Adam blinked, and what he thought was an odd scene now was not odd at all. Spence shuffled off to the back room. Jimmy poured espresso. A pinstripe-suited businessman read a newspaper at the counter. Music from Pink Floyd's The Division Bell trickled softly over the sound system. Business as usual.

  Great. Now I'm getting paranoid, Adam thought. Maybe I'd better go home after all.

  "I don't want to leave you hangin' like this," Adam began. "But at least I finally got the drawer counted. Thought I'd never get this thing tallied."

  "Don't give it another thought," Jimmy said as he loaded more paper into the register. "You're doing a terrific job. I don't want you to burn out. You're my head man down here."

 
"Yeah, well . . ." He wanted to argue. He didn't feel good about leaving work like this, and under normal circumstances he would argue further. After all, he had car and insurance payments to make. But something within urged him to go home without complaint.

  "Go," Jimmy said. "We'll survive."

  Adam nodded and winced at the headache he felt coming on, the kind usually brought on by proximity to caffeine, but he hadn't been anywhere near it. Allergies are in overdrive. Never this bad before. What gives? Adam frowned, wondering what this might mean for his continued employment at the Yaz.

  As he left the Marketplace, he ran into Moira coming back in. She looked frantic, and perhaps a bit pissed off about something, but at that moment, incredibly sexy.

  "My pile-of-junk car won't start," she said suddenly, waving a plastic key ring in the air. "Can you give me a lift home?"

  Adam smiled as many different scenarios sprouted from his active imagination.

  "Sure," he said. "I'm on my way home now."

  "This early?"

  Adam shrugged. "Boss let me off," he said, not going into any detail. If she thought I was coming down with something, which I'm not, then . . . He considered telling her about the missing time, but thought better of it. Adam wanted to put the whole incident behind him and get on with his life.

  "Want to come over for a while?" Adam ventured. He was taking a gamble that Mom might be there, but she tended to work until at least ten or eleven. Of course, Moira had been over before, for dinner and movies, as a friend. His throat dried up, and his heart pounded in his ears as he considered something beyond that.

  If Moira noticed, she pretended not to. "Well, we were going to go do something, remember? I don't have to go home."

  "You look just terrific," he said, hoping he wasn't being too obvious. "What about your car?"

  "I've got a mechanic coming over tomorrow to look at it. I'm about ready to drive it off a cliff. Empty, of course. If it can even make it to a cliff."

  Adam nodded, grateful she hadn't asked him to look at it. He knew one thing about cars, and that was that the engine blocks were one big chunk of steel. Poking around under a hood would be the equivalent of sticking his hand in a blast furnace.