It was just after 9 p.m., and I was going through the missing person list again.
A sad list, to be sure.
The files were, of course, peppered with photos of the missing. Driver's license pictures, family pictures, Christmas pictures. Pictures of couples holding hands. Pictures with co-workers. Only a small fraction of the missing were children. Three, in fact. Most of the missing were adults, and most were in their twenties.
In all, there were fifty-three missing-person cases in Orange County over a five-year span. Higher than even Los Angeles County, which, by my calculations, only had forty-one in the same period. And Los Angeles was nearly three times the size of Orange County.
That, in and of itself, was startling evidence.
There was an epidemic of missing people in Orange County, and so far, nothing had been made of it.
I studied the many pictures, trying to get a feel for them. Sometimes, I got blurry flashes, but the pictures and the files were too cold, too copied, too informal. Too old.
Over the past seven months, I'd enjoyed many goblets of fresh hemoglobin at Kingsley's and Hanner's. Looking at these files now, seeing these pictures now, spread before me in my living room, I was beginning to suspect with mounting horror that the blood I had consumed, the blood that had nourished my body, the blood that I had relished, belonged to these people.
Sweet Jesus.
Of course, I didn't know that for sure. Truth was, I didn't know what the hell was going on. Hanner had told me repeatedly the blood was from willing donors. But some of it was and maybe some of it wasn't. Maybe that was enough for her to lie to my face.
I was sitting cross-legged in the center of my living room, immersed in the missing. Having these files was highly illegal, which is why I had discreetly copied them while Sherbet had been on a curiously long coffee break. Just long enough, interestingly, for me to copy all the files.
So here I was now, late in the evening, scouring the files like my life depended on it. And maybe it did. Two men with crossbows suggested it did. Fang's recent revelation of the high desirability of vampire blood suggested it did.
Which was why my kids were presently staying with my sister, Mary Lou - which is where they would stay until I felt it was safe to bring them home again.
That Robert Mason was connected to all of this, I had no doubt. Sherbet agreed. For a case like this, a search warrant would do wonders. A suspect's home was thoroughly searched, and such searches usually turned up something, especially if the suspect was guilty.
Unless, of course, the suspect was an ex-soap opera star with a small amount of fame. A judge was going to be extremely careful handing out a search warrant.
Unless I could find something connecting Robert Mason to another victim.
Or, in this case, to a missing person.
I looked down at the dozens of files spread before me. Somewhere in this mosaic of the missing, this patchwork of faces and files, was the evidence I needed.
I was sure of it.
So, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, exhaled and expanded my consciousness out, touching down on each file. In my mind's eye, I saw a ball of light. I then slowly, carefully, opened my eyes and the ball of light remained, floating above the files.
This was weird. A damn new experience for me. Anything psychic before was generally done with my eyes closed.
I had created that light somehow. Could others see it? I didn't know, but I doubted it.
Either way, I watched as this ball of light moved over the floor methodically, like a slow-moving unmanned spy drone.
I kept breathing calmly, easily.
The ball of light neared the outer edge of the files. Maybe this was a lame idea. This psychic stuff was still so new to me. Or maybe I was barking up the wrong tree. Maybe the missing in California had nothing to do with Robert Mason.
Maybe. Calm. Relax.
The fiery ball in my mind's eye had begun to break up as my own thoughts grew more and more scattered. But I focused them again, and watched. And waited.
The light paused over a file. As it did so, a very strong knowing came over me. That's the one. As if on cue, the ball of light began descending, until it finally rested on the file.
And then the light disappeared.
I gasped and reached for the file.