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.He watched as the group dispersed to their cars and drove away.When the last one pulled out, Gabe said, “Theories?”Theo shook his head.“Everyone in this town is nuts.I’m going to check Molly’s trailer, but I doubt she’s there.Do you want me to take you home to shower and change clothes before your date?”Gabe looked down at his stained work pants and safari shirt.“Do you think I should?”“Gabe, you’re the only guy I know that makes me look suave.”“You’re coming along, right?”“Casanova,” Theo said.“Compared to you, I feel like Casanova.”“What?” Gabe said.“It’s fried chicken night at H.P.’s.”SteveSteve lay under a stand of cypress trees, his new lover snuggled up to his right foreleg, snoring softly.He let his tongue slide out and the tip just brushed her bare back.She moaned and nuzzled closer to his leg.She tasted pretty good.But he had eaten all those other warmbloods and he wasn’t really hungry.When he had been a female, some fifty years ago, and going back another five thousand, he had become accustomed to eating his lovers after mating.That’s just how it was done.But as a male, he wasn’t sure.He hadn’t mated with his own species since he’d become male, and so the instinct to become passive after mating was new to him.He just didn’t feel like eating the warmblood.She had made him feel better, and for some reason, he could see the pictures of her thoughts instead of just sending his own signals.He sensed no fear in her, and no need to send the signal to draw her to him.Strange for a warmblood.He lay his head down on the bed of cypress needles to sleep and let his wounds heal.He could eat her later.Somewhere in the back of his brain, as he fell asleep, a fear alarm went off.In five thousand years of life, he had never conceived of the concept of later or before, only now.His DNA had rechained itself many times, adapted to changes without waiting for the life cycles of generations—he was a unique organism in that way—but the concept of time, of memory beyond the cellular level, was a new adaptation.Through his contact with Molly he was evolving consciousness, and like the pragmatic mechanism that it is, nature was trying to warn him.The nightmare was about to have a nightmare.ValIs this a date? Val sat alone at a table in the back of H.P.’s Cafe.She’d ordered a glass of a local chardonnay and was trying to form an opinion about it that would reflect the appropriate disgust, but unfortunately, it was quite good.She was wearing light evening makeup and an understated raw silk suit in indigo with a single string of pearls so as not to clash too badly with her date, who she knew would be in jeans or cotton khaki.Her date? If this is a date, how far have I sunk? she asked herself.This tacky little cafe in this tacky little town, waiting for a man who had probably never worn a tux or a Rolex, and she was looking forward to it.No, it’s not a date.It’s just dinner.It’s sustenance.It’s, for once, not eating alone.Slumming in the land of the folksy and the neighborly, that’s what it is.It’s a satirical performance art experience; call it The Bourgeois Fried Chicken Follies.It was one thing to read her journals over coffee in the local cafe, but dinner?Gabe Fenton came through the front door and Val felt her pulse quicken.She smiled in spite of herself as she watched the waitress point to her table.Then Theo Crowe was following Gabe across the restaurant and a bolt of anxiety shot up her spine.This definitely isn’t a date.Gabe smiled and the lines around his eyes crinkled as if he were about to burst out laughing.He extended his hand to her.“Hi, I hope you don’t mind, I asked Theo to join us.” His hair was combed, as was his beard, and he was wearing a faded but clean chambray shirt.Not exactly dashing, but a pretty good-looking guy in a lumber-jack sort of way.“No, please,” Val said.“Sit down, Theo.”Theo nodded and pulled a chair up to the table, which had been set for two.The waitress breezed in with another place setting before they were seated.“I’m sorry to intrude,” Theo said, “but Gabe insisted.”“No, really, you’re welcome, Constable.”“Theo, please.”“Theo then,” Val said.She forced a smile.What now? The last time she had talked to this man it had thrown her life for a loop.She found herself building a resentment for Gabe that was usually reserved for relationships that were years old.Theo cleared his throat.“Uh, can we go on the doctor-patient confidentiality plan again, Doctor?”Val nodded to Gabe, “That usually implies a session.Not dinner.”“Okay, then, don’t say anything, but Joseph Leander killed his wife.”Val didn’t say, “Wow.” Almost, but she didn’t.“And you know this because…”“Because he told me so,” Theo said.“He gave her tea made from foxglove.Evidently, it can cause heart failure and is almost undetectable.Then he hung her in the dining room.”“So you’ve arrested him?”“No, I don’t know where he is.”“But you’ve put a warrant out for his arrest or whatever it is that you do?“No, I’m not sure that I’m still the constable.”Gabe broke in.“We’ve been talking about it, Val.I say that Theo is an elected official, and therefore the only way he can lose his job is through impeachment, even if his immediate superior tries to kill him.What do you think?”“Kill him?”“Smooth,” Theo said, grinning at Gabe.“Oh, maybe you should tell her about the crank lab and stuff, Theo.”And so Theo explained, telling the story of his kidnapping, the drug lab, Joseph Leander’s disappearance, and Molly Michon setting him free, but leaving out any theories he had about a giant creature.During the telling, they ordered (fried chicken for Theo and Gabe, a Greek salad for Val) and were halfway through dinner before Theo stopped talking.Val stared at her salad and silence washed over the table.If there was going to be a murder investigation, she could be found out.And if they found out what she had done to her patients, her career was over.She might even go to jail.It wasn’t fair, she really had tried to do the right thing for once.She resisted the urge to blurt out a confession—to throw herself on the mercy of a court born of sheer paranoia.Instead she raised her eyes to Gabe, who took the signal to break the silence.Gabe said, “And I still don’t know the significance of the low serotonin levels in the rats’ brains.”“Huh?” said not only Val and Theo, but the waitress, Jenny, who had been eavesdropping from the next table and joined the confusion at Gabe’s non sequitur.“Sorry,” Gabe said to Val.“I thought you might have a take on the brain chemistry of those rats I had tested.You said you were interested.”“And I am,” Val said, lying through her teeth, “but I’m a little overwhelmed by the news about Bess Leander.”“Right, anyway, the group of rats that didn’t take part in the mass migration all had unusually low levels of serotonin.The brain chemistry of the larger group, the group that ran, was all in normal ranges.So I’m thinking that…”“They were depressed,” Val said.“Pardon me?” Gabe said.“Of course they’re depressed, they’re rats,” Theo said.Gabe glared at him.“Well, imagine waking up to that every morning,” Theo continued.“‘Oh, it’s a great day, crap, I’m still a rat.Never mind.’”“Well, I don’t know about rats,” Val said, “but serotonin levels in humans affect a lot of different things, predominantly mood.Low levels of serotonin can indicate depression.That’s how Prozac works
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