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“To kill,” he said.

I nodded. “To kill, so why all the questions about who I’m dating?”

“Why don’t you want to answer questions about Mr. Zeeman?”

We were on dangerous ground. Dolph hated the monsters, all monsters. His son was engaged to a vampire, and she was trying to talk the son into joining her as undead. It had made Dolph’s attitude toward the preternatural citizens go from cynical and dark to downright dangerous. Did he know about Richard, or suspect?

“Truthfully, Richard was who I thought I’d spend my life with, and the fact that we seem to be headed for the big breakup still hurts, okay?”

He gave me cop eyes, as if he were tasting the truth and weighing the lie. “What changed?”

I thought about how to answer that. The first time we’d broken up had been after I saw Richard eat someone. It had been a bad guy, but still, a girl’s got to have standards. Or that’s what I thought at the time. If I had it to do over again, would I have made a different choice? Maybe.

Dolph was beside the bed now. “Anita, what changed?”

“Me,” I said softly, “I changed. We broke up, and I started dating Jean-Claude. I went back and forth between them for a while, and finally Richard just couldn’t take me not deciding. So he decided for us, for me. If I couldn’t choose, he’d take away one of my choices.”

“He didn’t want to share you.”

“No.”

“But he’s dating you again, now.”

“Some.” I so did not like where this conversation was going.

Edward must not have liked it either, because he interrupted. “Not that this isn’t fascinating, Lieutenant, but we still have a very powerful vamp out there. She’s killed, or helped kill, at least two women that we know of: one Bev Leveto, and Margaret Ross.” I think he used their names to make them more real to Dolph. Names have a way of doing that. “Shouldn’t we be concentrating on catching the bad vampire, instead of quizzing the marshal here about her dates?” He said it all with a smile and a face full of down-home charm. I would never be the actor that Edward was, but damn there were moments when I wished I could be.

“How did you manage not to catch both of the vampires in the hotel room?” I asked. Maybe if we concentrated on crime-stopping, Dolph would let the other topic go.

Edward did his “aw, shucks” look, like he was embarrassed. The reaction wasn’t his, but maybe the emotion was; it was incredibly rare for Edward to miss a target. He came to stand by the head of the bed. One, so I could see him around Dolph’s broad build, but two, I think, so Dolph wouldn’t be able to scrutinize my reactions so damn closely.

“When we got to the hotel room there was only one vampire in the room. She was dead when we got there, but we took her head and heart, just like we’re supposed to. I know that dead doesn’t always mean dead for these guys.”

“That must have been Nivia.”

“How did you know her name?” Dolph asked.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and said, “An informant.”

“Who, Anita?” he said.

I shook my head. “Don’t ask, and I won’t have to lie to you.”

“You have someone who knows more about these murderers, and you won’t bring them in so we can all question them. You, and just you, get to do the interrogation.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“You’re good at your job, Anita, but you’re not a better cop than I am, or Zerbrowski is.”

“I never said I was.”

“But you exclude us. You keep secrets from us.”

“Yeah, just like you keep them from me. I know you don’t call me in all the time anymore. You don’t trust me.”

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

“I trust you, Dolph, but I don’t trust the hate in you.”

“I don’t hate you, Anita.”

“No, but you hate some of the people I love, and that makes it hard, Dolph.”

“I’ve never hurt any of your boyfriends.”

“No, but you hate them, hate them for just being what they are, who they are. You’re like an old-time racist, Dolph; your hate blinds you.”

He looked down, took another deep breath. “I’ve been to the company shrink. I’m trying to come to an understanding with…” He looked at