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Ramirez looked at me.

I nodded. He was too scared to lie, and it was too stupid a story to be made up.

“I can take you to it. If I’m there, I can take you to it.”

“Of course, if you’re there, you can warn your master,” I said.

“I wouldn’t do that.” But I saw the change in his skin color, the rise in breathing, the flick of his eyes.

“Liar,” I said.

“All right, but I’d be a fool not to try and get away. They’re going to kill me, Anita. Why shouldn’t I try to get away?”

I guess I couldn’t blame him on that one. “Call Leonora Evans. She’s a witch. Have her ward him, make sure that he can’t contact his master by anything other than yelling.”

“And the yelling?” Ramirez said.

“Gag him when the time comes,” I said.

“You trust Leonora Evans to do this?”

“She saved my life, so I guess I do.”

Ramirez nodded. “Okay, I’ll call her in.” He looked at the traction ropes. “The doctors aren’t going to want him going anywhere tonight.”

“Talk to them, Hernando. Explain what’s at stake. Besides, what good does it do to heal him if you’re just going to turn around and execute him?

Ramirez looked at me. “That was harsh.”

“Yeah, it was, but it’s still true.”

Edward knocked and came in the door just far enough to say, “I need you out here.”

I glanced at Ramirez. “I think we can take it from here, thank you,” he said.

“My pleasure.” I slipped the sunglasses back on as I followed Edward out into the hall. The moment I looked at Edward’s face, I knew something bad had happened. He didn’t show it the way a normal person would, but it was there, the tightness around his eyes, the way he held himself, carefully, as if he were afraid to move too suddenly or he’d break. I don’t think I’d have seen it without the vampire vision.

“What’s wrong?” I stepped in close, because something told me this was not for police consumption. With Edward it so seldom was.

He took me by the arm down the hallway, farther away from the uniforms that were staring our way. “Riker has Donna’s kids.” His grip tightened, and I didn’t tell him it hurt. “He has Peter and Becca. He’s going to kill them if I don’t bring you to him now. He knows we’re at the hospital. He’s given me an hour to make the drive, then he starts torturing them. If I’m not there in two hours, he’ll kill them. If I bring the police in, he’ll kill them.”

I touched his arm. If it had been almost any other friend, I’d have hugged him.

“Is Donna okay?”

He seemed to realize he was digging into my arm and let me go. “This is Donna’s night at her group. I don’t know if the babysitter’s still alive, but Donna won’t even be home for two, maybe three hours. She doesn’t know.”

“Let’s go,” I said.

We turned and started walking down the hallway. Ramirez yelled behind us.

“Where are you two going? I thought you’d want to be in on it.”

“Personal emergency,” Edward said, and kept walking.

I turned around, walking backwards, trying to talk at the same time. “In two hours call Ted’s house. The call will be forwarded to his cell phone. We’ll join you on the monster hunt.”

“Why two hours?” he asked.

“The emergency will be taken care of by then,” I said. I had to touch Edward’s arm, to keep walking backwards and not fall.

“Everything could be over two hours from now,” Ramirez said.

“I’m sorry.” Edward was at the doors that led into the next section of hallway. He pulled me through; the doors shut behind us. He was already punching numbers on the cell phone. “I’ll have Olaf and Bernardo meet us at the turnoff to Riker’s place.”

I don’t know which of them answered, but he gave a long list of things to bring, and he made them write it down. We were out of the hospital, through the parking lot and getting into his Hummer before he clicked the telephone off.

Edward drove, and all I had to do was think. Not a good thing. I was remembering last May when some bad guys kidnapped Richard’s mother and younger brother. They’d sent us a box with a lock of his brother’s hair, and his mother’s finger in it. Everyone that had touched