Still, she had promised him: "I'll take you to Screed. You can be with your friend."

Oh, what a promise. What good intentions. Now, Tracy just had to figure out how to make it happen.

For a long while, she just sat in her car — the driver-side door open, her feet resting on the gravel-paving of the parking lot — thinking, trying to come up with a plan. She hardly noticed the stiff, cold breeze coming in off the lake, though she should have. She should be shivering from it, numbed by it, but the truth was Tracy Vetter was feeling less than if she had spent the night in a bar, drinking, trying to forget.

She had dealt with death before — hell, she's a homicide detective, it's her job — but never the suicide of a close friend, and, technically, that's what this was.

Unlike Susan's death — Susan Feldman. It still haunted her, and most recently, so did Susan herself, during the Kessel House murders. The guilt had never left Tracy, though she'd tried to push it as far away as possible. Susan's sweater caught in the tracks, but Tracy had not moved to help; thinking only of her father's anger at her being late again for dinner, Tracy had only yelled at Susan to hurry up. By the time they heard the whistle, it was too late; Tracy ran toward Susan but the speeding train reached her first.

A child should never have to witness such a thing. If only her co-workers knew; they might be a little kinder when a particularly gory murder scene got the better of her. No, they wouldn't. They would tell her all the more reason for her not to be a homicide detective. But how could they understand her need to see it, to try to deal with it, in order to put it behind her?

She had always wondered if she could have saved Susan, if only she'd done things differently, and now Tracy knew that she would wonder the same thing about Vachon. It all just happened so quickly. Both of them, two friends, gone before she could think to do anything but watch them go.

Maybe that was why she had made this promise to Vachon. Like the rose she laid on the tracks where Susan had died nearly twenty years ago, this was Tracy's apology.

If so, how could she let Vachon down now? How could she let herself down? This isn't the person Tracy wanted to be.

And so she sat. Helpless. Guilty. Lonely. "Oh, Vachon," she breathed, as if he were still there with her, instead of just his body locked away, out of sight, in her trunk. "What should I do? I wish I knew if you had any friends left. Maybe they could have helped me."

"Maybe I can."

Tracy nearly jumped out of her skin at the unexpected sound. But, then, she recognized the deep, resonant voice. Brushing the wind-whipped, blond hair out of her eyes, she looked up. "Monsieur LaCroix. What are you doing here?"

"Offering my assistance," he said, as if stating the obvious. He stood before her in an elegant, black-wool overcoat, his hands clasped together in front of him, with the reticent expression on his face of a marble bust of some Roman emperor one might find at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Not that Tracy consciously noticed. She was too busy processing the words he'd spoken. "But ... how did you know...."

"Nicholas told me."

Her blue eyes widened in disbelief. "Nicholas.... Nick?"

LaCroix nodded, his alabaster expression unchanged.

"But how did he...."

LaCroix lifted his dark eyebrows, silently imploring the girl to finally put the pieces together, but she could not.

"He overheard you at the church."

Bits were beginning to tumble into place in her mind, but there were still too many holes, too much conflicting information.

"I see that Nicholas is better at this charade of his than I gave him credit. It is one thing to hide knowledge from those who do not know we exist, but it is quite another to hide it from those who do."

"We?" Finally it came together for her, and she scoffed at her own gullibility. "Don't give him too much credit. He had help."

LaCroix gave her the ghost of a smile. "Ah, yes. The Spaniard. Not just a handy diversion, but a full partner in crime. A friend in deed, I see."

Tracy was not amused. "Some friend." She shook her head, not sure whom to be disgusted with — Vachon, Nick, or herself. "He lied to me about Nick, and he lied to me about you."

"Merely to protect you. Surely you must see that."

"Does that mean you've come to kill me? Now that Vachon is no longer here to protect me?" The words were those of someone who did not care if she lived or died — fatalistic words of one angered by both grief and revelation. Words Tracy would never have spoken under any other circumstances.

"Oh, you owe your protection to more than Vachon. You owe Nicholas; therefore, ultimately, you owe me."

"So you've come to collect the debt."

"Oddly enough, no. I am here on another matter of business." Tracy waited for him to explain, but all LaCroix said was, "Come, I shall carry his body for you."

She did not think carrying corpses for helpless mortals was really a hobby of this stately man, but she indulged him, gratefully.

As soon as she reached into the car and popped open the boot, LaCroix reached into the trunk space and gently removed the body. Tracy knew how heavy Vachon was — she'd had to get him out of the church basement and into her car — but LaCroix lifted him with no effort, and it made Vachon seem small and insignificant, cradled in the arms of this tall, powerful figure.

She wondered if Vachon would have minded. Better than being dragged and bumped over the rough terrain, she reminded herself. Tracy grabbed the shovel she had found at the church — had it been the one Vachon used to bury Screed? — and a tarpaulin out of the trunk, then silently followed LaCroix.

When they reached the point at Cherry Beach, far off the overgrown nature trail, Tracy spread the dark green tarp out on the ground and LaCroix laid the body gently down upon it.

He then took the shovel from her and, though there was no trace of Screed's grave, LaCroix somehow seemed to know exactly where to dig in order to place the friends side by side in their repose. Had Tracy taken even a moment to observe him, the young detective would have noted the incongruity; this man, this vampire — of unknown but undoubtedly advanced age — though dressed entirely in black, was obviously not now nor ever had been a gravedigger, by profession or pastime.

While he dug, Tracy took her last opportunity to look upon Vachon. She knelt beside him, pushed a stray strand of dark hair out of his closed eyes, straightened the collar of his trenchcoat, brushed a bit of fluff from his sleeve. Then she ran her finger along his jaw, lingering a while on his chin. His skin was strangely cold — it was always cold compared to hers, but this was different. She could have blamed the chill of the late night air, but she knew better: this was the icy feeling of death. Even in the dim light of the nearly full moon, she could tell that his pale skin had grown ashen.

This wasn't Vachon anymore. She closed her eyes and tried to remember her Vachon: the one with the boyish grin and the old soul; the one in biker leathers who loved classical music; the irresponsible one she could always count on.

But all she could see in her mind was the one with the bloody stake protruding from his still chest, and she began to cry.

"Were you sure?" she asked, through sobs that should have come hours ago, but didn't. "How could you know you were ... dying? What if you were wrong?" She didn't mean it to, but anger had crept into her voice.

"Care to tell me what happened?" LaCroix asked, not pausing from his digging.

"No," she mouthed the way Vachon used to. But, unlike him, she found it impossible to just leave it at that. "I found him, scratched, bleeding — like an animal had mauled him. But, he's a — was a — you know...."

"Vampire," LaCroix drolly prompted.

She nodded. "He told me they, I mean you, I mean.... Shouldn't he have healed?" She looked at LaCroix, now at eye level as he stood inside the grave, and waited, but his reply was only a stare with raised eyebrows, so finally she continued: "But he said he wouldn't — ah, that he wasn't — healing. He said he was dying." Tears choked her throat and she cleared it with several gasping sobs before continuing. "And there was something not right with him; he was ... losing control. One moment he was so strong, then he was so weak; he was so focused, then he was just no where. He said he had to end his life before anyone else got hurt."

"Meaning you."

This statement shocked Tracy — it never occurred to her that Vachon might have killed himself to protect her.

"So, how did he die?" LaCroix finally asked as he lay the shovel down beside the deep grave, absently brushing away the fine layer of dust which now clung to his dark overcoat, like the early morning's mist clung to the nearby stand of trees.

"He wanted me to do it — he gave me the stake — but I couldn't. So, he rushed me and impaled himself before I could stop him." It was like watching a movie now, telling it to this stranger; in her mind, she could see the expression on her face as clearly as she saw his. And she told it like it had all happened to someone else. Yet, when she looked down at her hands, she could still see specks of his now-dried blood splattered there.

LaCroix extricated himself from the hole, then moved to stand beside Tracy. He looked down at Vachon for a moment before asking, "Where is the stake?"

Tracy shrugged. Was that important? "Back at the church? I— I pulled it out."

LaCroix nodded, then gestured for Tracy to take the two corners of the tarpaulin at Vachon's feet. He took the corners at the shoulders and the two of them gently lowered the body into the grave. Tracy leaned in and folded the edges of the tarp gently over his body, as if she were tucking a small child into bed. She couldn't bring herself to cover his face.

She stood just as LaCroix reached for the shovel, but Tracy stopped him before he could scoop up any dirt. "I think we should say something. But...."

"A silent prayer?" LaCroix offered when she faltered.

She bowed her head. A few moments later he heard her whisper, "Good luck." Then Tracy nodded for him to complete his self-appointed task.

Using the edge of the shovel, LaCroix reached down and moved the green canvas over Vachon's face, then he scooped up a shovel full of soil.

Tracy tried to watch him fill in the grave, she wanted to, felt she ought to be witness to the act, but the crisp sound of the dirt striking the plastic sheet was too much for her. She turned her back and moved just out of ear shot.

It wasn't long before LaCroix joined her. She thought he might try to comfort her — a hand on hers or even an arm around her shoulder — but he kept a respectful distance.

"You don't want to remember him like this, do you?" he asked as they began walking back to her car.

She shook her head. "I want to remember all the things that made us friends. But, when I close my eyes, all I can see is that stake sticking out of his chest" — yet another tear escaped down her cheek, though she managed to keep her throat from tightening up too much — "and his eyes, filled with terror, pain, agony, then nothing. I don't want to remember any of that."

LaCroix put his hand on Tracy's shoulder then, stopping her in the middle of the sparse stand of cottonwoods.

"If you mean what you say, look at me and permit me to do what Nicholas has asked me to do for you."

Another time, perhaps, and Tracy might not have been so willing, but at this moment the pain was still too intense, the memories of his death too raw, and she was sick with them.

She nodded her consent.

Then, looking deep into those icy blue eyes, Tracy allowed the vampire to tell her what she would remember and what she would forget....