"I think you're right, but not only because of the fire—I'm more worried what Inspector Proust will think. He might know I didn't murder Mme. Deauxville, but he isnot going to be a happy camper if he finds me here. Oh, blast, Pink Lips!"

"Maybe she won't say anything," Jim suggested as I opened the door a couple of inches to scan the garden.

"You think?"

"Naw, I was just trying to make you feel better."

"Oh, you're a big help."

"All my masters tell me that."

The fire was gaining strength, the bench beneath the wall now burning steadily. I squinted through the grow-ing smoke at the Venediger. "Shouldn't we try to get him down?"

"It's him or you, chicky."

"I vote me."

"For once, I'm with you."

I waved Jim forward, slipping out the door and closing it carefully. I paused for a second, then turned back and with the hem of my tunic wiped the doorknob clean.

"Prints," I told Jim as I shooed it toward the house.

"The building is about go bonfire, and you're worried about fingerprints?"

I shot it a glare. "I bet you if I searched hard enough, I could find a do-it-yourself neutering kit."

Jim looked thoughtful. "Point taken."

I hesitated before the flagstones leading lo the patio. "I wonder if we should call the police. It feels wrong to just leave the Venediger hanging there. After all, if Pink Lips tells Inspector Proust I was here, and I didn't raise a fuss about finding the body, won't he think I'm involved?"

Jim took the edge of my tunic in its mouth and tugged me sideways along a narrow crushed-stone path that ran the length of the house. "You don't think you're involved now?"

"Yeah, but maybe I should call the fire department—"

"Halte!"A masculine voice yelled from the house. A man in a policeman's uniform stood in the doorway looking in my direction. He turned and gestured to his left, where two other men came around the far side of the house, both in plain clothes. I recognized one of them as being on Inspector Proust's CID team. The man in the uniform paused in the doorway and pointed at me. " 'Arretez-vous ou vous etes!"

"Jim!" I yelled, spinning on my heel and taking off in the opposite direction, heading for the non-police side of the house. "Help me!"

"Make it a command," it yelled at me.

1 stopped long enough to bellow, "Effrijim, I com-mand thee as thy sovereign master to attack the men who would stop me… but don't hurt them seriously, and don't let yourself get hurt, either, OK?" before darting down the crushed-rock path toward the wooden fence that met the brick one. Behind me, Jim started woofing in proper dog tones. I stopped at the gate, struggling with the catch, suddenly worried about Jim. All I saw of him was a giant black blur as he jumped the men. One of the plainclothes detectives was running away, talking into a handheld radio. The uniformed cop was on the ground, writhing. Jim was snapping and growling at the second detective.

"Jim, heel!" I yelled, then drew the gate open and raced out of it. I made it the width of the house when I ran into a six-foot-tall broadleaf hedge that merged seam-lessly with the front corner of the house. Behind me Jim panted, the sounds of yelling coming from the back gar-den.

"Crap!"

"Merde,"Jim said.

"Whatever. I'm going through the bloody thing." I shoved my way into the hedge, instantly getting snagged on a gazillion little branches. My tunic tore, the chain holding my talisman got stuck on a branch, my hair got caught, horribly sharp branches scraped my bare arms and face, but I continued through it, losing only a sandal in the process. I was breathless and covered in leaves and dirt when I lunged through to the other side, taking only a second to note the police cars lining the house's drive.

I turned my back to them and started limping in the opposite direction, wiping the smoke and dirt from my eyes, plucking branches and leaves from my hair, braced and ready to take off if anyone so much as breathed in my direction. Jim mumbled something about ruining a beau-tiful coat as it followed me. I held my breath as we walked to the corner and took a sharp left, but there were no whistles, no sirens, no yelling, no police pounding down the pavement after me.

I looked at Jim. It was covered in branches and leaves, too, dirt smudging its muzzle. I plucked the bits of debris off it, trying to keep the shaking that suddenly swept through me to a minimum.

"Heel?" Jim asked in a caustic voice. "Heel?"

"Sorry, it was all I could think of." I took a shaky breath. "I think we're safe."

As the words trembled on my lips, a glossy black lim-ousine sped around the corner, slamming on its brakes to come to squealing halt two feet away from me. I stared in dumbfounded surprise as a red-haired man leaped out of the car, jerked open the back door, then without so much as a "Hi, how are you, mind if I kidnap you?" grabbed me by my now-grubby waist and tossed me inside. I crashed onto the lushly carpeted floor, my nose banging into a pair of expensive, highly polished Italian shoes. Jim squawked as it was tossed in behind me.

"Good afternoon, Aisling."

I followed the feet up to legs, then higher to well muscled thighs. I knew that voice. I knew those thighs— sort of.

I pushed myself off the feet and faced Drake, Jim lean-ing up against my back. "Drake Vireo, fancy meeting you here."

Drake cocked a glossy black eyebrow. "That's just what I said to myself when I saw you standing at the scene of yet another murder."

I put my hands on his knees and used them to hoist myself up to sit on the comfy leather seat next to him. Just as I was going to ask him how the devil he knew where I had been, he said something in a language I didn't even come close to understanding. One of the red-haired men nodded. The car swooped into driveway, backed up, and headed in the direction we had just come from.

"What language was that?"

"Hungarian," Drake answered, leaning forward to look beyond me out the window at my side.

"Hungarian? Is that where you're originally from, Hungary?"

"Yes." A siren grew louder, and I realized that we were driving down the Venediger's street straight toward the mass of police cars with their blue flashing lights. The police more or less blocked the street, one uniformed cop directing traffic around the obstructions.