Of course, she can't really hurt me, but because I am caught unawares, my head snaps back and my upper teeth puncture my lower lip. She has a gleam of satisfaction on her face as she watches me wipe a trickle of blood off my chin.

It's the last bit of satisfaction I intend to allow her at my expense.

The sound of the slap, like the crack of gunfire on the still morning air, is more startling than the physical blow itself. Everyone in hearing distance stops what he's doing and turns to look at us.

Detective Harris, right on her heels, doesn't react in typical cop fashion to an assault taking place in front of him. He comes to an abrupt halt a few feet from us and just stands there. Watching. It almost makes me as angry as being struck because I know what he's doing. He's waiting to see if either of us will say something he can use against us later.

But since Mrs. Bernard must suspect it, too, he's disappointed. We both stand staring at each other in rigid silence.

Finally, he approaches, pulls her back away from me and holds one arm in gentle restraint. His eyes are on me. "Are you all right, Ms. Strong?"

It would be touching if his expression or voice actually reflected concern. They don't.

I nod, wiping again at my chin. I almost bring my fingers to my mouth to lick the blood. It might be worth Harris's shock to see the expression on Mrs. Bernard's face if I did. But I stop myself, satisfying my rage by simply glaring at the woman.

Harris's attention turns immediately to Carolyn's mother. She stands quietly, not struggling, not doing anything, really, except staring back at me. "Would you like to explain why you just assaulted this woman, Mrs. Bernard?"

Her eyes never leave my face. "This woman's brother ruined my daughter's life. He was an irresponsible, unprincipled young man who took advantage of a sweet, innocent child. He got her pregnant and abandoned her."

"Abandoned her?" My voice shakes with fury. "He died. I met your daughter, Mrs. Bernard, when she and Steve were dating. She might have been a lot of things, but sweet and innocent were not among them."

A spasm of anger contorts her face, and this time, Mrs. Bernard pulls hard against Detective Harris's restraining arm. "How dare you?" she says with cold menace. "You didn't know my daughter."

"And you didn't know Steve."

Harris has had enough. He tightens his grip on Mrs. Bernard's arm and locks me in a steely gaze. "Do you want to press charges?" he asks.

When I shake my head, he says, "Then I suggest you leave, Ms. Strong. If I need anything else from you, I'll be in touch."

Leaving is the last thing I want to do. I've learned nothing about Carolyn's death to help me track the men responsible. But I also realize that I have what those men were looking for - the computer. And I suspect I know what they look like - the two at Frey's apartment.

I have much more than the police.

Not once am I tempted to tell Mrs. Bernard about Trish. After all, not once has she thought to ask about her.

* * * *

My lip has stopped bleeding. I feel the tingle as it repairs itself, the swelling recedes, the torn skin knits together. In about ten minutes, when I touch the place where Carolyn's mother hit me, there's not a trace of the wound left.

All that's left is the sting of anger.

I pull into my parent's driveway. I use my key to let myself in and find Trish's hairbrush and Steve's baby tooth, wrapped in a cotton cocoon, where my mother promised to leave it - on the dining room table.

Unwrapping the tooth, and seeing the fragile, tiny reminder of my family's loss, I feel another surge of resentment toward Carolyn's mother. She condemned Steve for what happened to her daughter with no regard for my feelings. I'm glad my parents weren't there to experience her bitterness. But at least her words confirmed one thing for me. She believes Steve is Trish's father. So why would Carolyn lie to Trish all these years? It's obvious there was very little contact between Trish and her grandparents. If there had been, Trish would have learned about Steve a long time ago.

So was Carolyn lying when she said Trish once ran away to her grandparent's? I can't imagine Mrs. Joseph Bernard showing anything but contempt for her daughter's bastard child.

Too many questions and too few answers.

My fingers close around my brother's tooth. Maybe there's one question I can get answered.

I don't have the slightest idea how to go about getting a paternity test done. I could ask my family doctor, but she's been calling me to come in for my annual physical exam and that's something I won't be doing anytime soon. Maybe the phone book?

The first entry I look for - DNA testing - yields no results. But "Laboratories-Medical" has a boxed ad with "Paternity Testing" in big, bold letters. I call the 800 number and am greeted by a woman who introduces herself as "Marty." I explain my situation and the voice at the other end replies in a sympathetic tone.

"I'm sorry," she says. "But the simple truth is, we wouldn't be able to use a baby tooth. There's a lab in Canada that runs tests using bone and teeth, but it's an expensive process and takes a long time. As for the hair, it's also problematical. We need at least ten to fifteen strands with the follicles attached and the hair should be no more than ten days old."

I pick up Trish's hairbrush. Being a typical teenager, the brush looks like it hasn't been cleaned - ever. There are lot more than fifteen strands twisted in the bristles. And since Trish ran away just two days ago, I have to assume at least some of the hair is recent enough.

"Okay. The tooth won't work. What else could we try?"

She asks about the father's death and I explain what happened to Steve and when.

"Were you given your brother's clothes?" she replies. "The ones he was wearing at the time of the accident?"

I have to think about that. I have a vague recollection of going to New York with my parents to claim Steve's body. I was made to sit on a folding chair in a cold waiting room at a morgue somewhere near the college campus. I close my eyes, conjuring the scene, remembering how scared I was at the way my folks looked when they were taken away from me, and how I bit my lip to keep from crying when they came back, shock and unbearable sadness stamped on their faces.

But my father was holding something when he came back. He had his right arm around my mother's shoulders, but in his left hand he was holding something.

A brown paper bag.

I have to shake away the vision to be able to speak again.

"I think we do have the clothes."

The voice at the other end of the line softens. "If there is any blood, the smallest spot, we can use that. As long as the clothing has not been sealed in plastic, the specimen is viable."

I thank Marty, tell her I will get back to her when I find the clothes and hang up. I rub at my face with the palms of my hands. I know where the clothes will be if my parents haven't disposed of them. But the prospect of going through Steve's belongings fills me with a despair that spreads like ice through my body. The only thing that propels me forward is Trish. The image of Carolyn's mother, cold, arrogant, flashes in my head. I can't help feeling that proving Trish is Steve's child and keeping her away from that woman is the only thing that can save her.

Houses in California don't have basements. As a result, garages and attics become repositories for the flotsam of life, things one step away from being relegated to the trash or donated to charity. Since my folks actually use the garage for their cars, I know where to go to find Steve's things.

The attic in this house is accessed by a pull down ladder in the ceiling of the guestroom. I'm queasy as I climb the rungs. The last time I ventured into someone's attic it was Avery's. What I found there foreshadowed what I fear is my future - the remains of his relationships with mortals. Literally, the remains. While I don't expect to find bodies in my parent's attic, as in most families, there's always the possibility of stumbling across a skeleton or two.

It's hot in the attic. Heat is trapped here under the eaves. And it's dark, though that poses no problem. I actually see better in the dark than I do in bright daylight. A holdover, I guess, from when vampires really were creatures of the night. I gauge each step carefully, balancing on the joists, not wanting to risk plunging through the ceiling tiles if my foot slips. There isn't much up here. A mound of old bedding and drapes. Some books piled on a wooden pallet. In the corner, a stack of cardboard boxes.

I make my way toward the boxes, knowing that if Steve's clothes are here, that's where I'll find them.

The first couple of boxes I open contain school things - yearbooks, yellow lined note pads, binders, report cards with tape at the edges where they had been fastened to the refrigerator. I shuffle through the stack, touched by sadness. He never got anything but A's - ever. It was irritating to me when we were growing up. A's were an occasion for me, not the norm. But now it's just another reminder of what Steve might have accomplished had he lived.

What Trish might accomplish if given the opportunity.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First things first.

The third box yields what I'm looking for. The only thing it contains is a large, brown paper bag. With shaking fingers, I curl back the top and look inside.

Steve's clothes are folded neatly. I withdraw a shirt, jeans, boxers, and a pair of socks. At the bottom, Nike sneakers with frayed laces. There's no blood that I can see on the shoes. I recall that Steve was hit so hard he was literally knocked out of them.

My fingers are trembling so badly I lace my fingers together and squeeze for a minute. Then, carefully, I unfold each item and lay them one by one on top of the boxes. Jeans, shirt, boxers. No blood. It seems impossible. How can one be hit by a car and not shed a lot of blood? But the words come back to me - internal injuries.

The last things are the socks. The left one has a frayed edge where something has been cut out. I feel a tingle of excitement. The police must have kept that piece for the driver's trial. But it turned out there was no trial. The driver plea bargained his offense. Because of his youth, he was given a sentence of two years in a juvenile facility and five years probation.

Which means right now, he's out there living a life he stole from my brother.

But if I let myself dwell on that, I'll get angry about it all over again. Right now, I have more important things to get angry about.

The right sock is folded in two. It's not necessary to unfold it to find what I'm looking for. There's a stain, brown now with age, on the cuff and another on the heel.

Blood, even old blood, evokes a visceral reaction in a vampire. It's instinctive and uncontrollable. It's my brother's blood that I "feel" on the sock. But it sets my teeth on edge anyway, and triggers a need I have to fight. I bring the sock to my face and inhale because I can do nothing else. The smell is of salt and earth and the essence of his life. My nerve endings are on fire with the hunger.

So, I do the only thing I can. I wait for the thirst to fade. And when at last it does, I replace Steve's clothes in the box and close it up. I slip the sock back into the same bag my parents carried home with them all those years ago.

Time to stop looking back and face what lies ahead. It's what Avery tried to make me understand. And Culebra. As a vampire, I will remain forever the same. My human family will not. At some point, when it becomes obvious that I am not aging, I will have to leave. And once more my parents will be forced to endure the loss of a second child.

This time, it will be me.

Trish has to be Steve's.