Turner returned to the main office to check on the others. Ginger jumped at his presence as he took the desk next to hers. The woman forced a strained smile, and her arm nearest to him pulled in closer to her body. Turner knew that the slightest noise or quick motion would cause her to flee from her chair.

"Hello," he said.

A second of eye contact before, "Hi," and she focused back on her computer.

"You don't need to be nervous."

"I'm not," she said nervously.

"I know. We can be a little disconcerting to be around, but needn't worry. We mostly function through blood transfusions now, and we can use other sources, like cows or horses. Some eat sharks," he said, which caused her eyebrows to crinkle. "Poodles..."

Her head whipped around to face him. "Poodles?"

"Yes, but I cannot do that too often; otherwise, every time a car drives by, I end up running after it."

It was a weak joke, and the only one Turner knew, but it usually worked. A pause as she processed before a solitary giggle escaped her lips. She covered her mouth, but her shoulders shook, and she didn't flinch when he placed a hand on her arm. "I'm just kidding. We can't really feed off animals," he reassured her. He added the lie of, "I actually really like dogs."

So out came her phone, and Turner endured a barrage of photos of a terrier in a dog bed, a terrier on its back, a terrier in a full body sweater, a terrier dressed in a Santa suit, and thirteen other forms of canine indignities. The thing's name was Cherub, but also apparently used the aliases of Cherry or Mommy's Little Angel. Turner commented positively when he felt it was expected, thanked Ginger for sharing, and subtly redirected her attention back to their research.

"Any luck in finding her accomplice?" he asked.

"Nothing yet. We've focused on previous boyfriends. You're sure that there's a partner?"

"She left the state to visit her parents during the killing, so she needed help. Have you ever tracked someone before?"

"No. Usually I perform financial analytics; bank transfers or finding incongruities in bookkeeping."

"Understood. First, we pinpoint when she first met the victim. She's smart and knew there would be an investigation. We can assume that she picked someone with no previous associations with her, so a former lover is out. Collect the records for all smartphones and burners, as well as all gift and debit cards that were used in the city from when they met to now."

Ginger tensed up. "That's a lot of phones and cards."

"I understand, but we create the biggest data set possible and whittle it down from there. Next, we determine her normal daily routine. If there are places she visits regularly, we retrieve any video footage of those areas. If she has a pattern, find where she deviates from that pattern. Find any anomalies in phone use and range; car GPS, same thing. See if there are times her phone is in one place, but her vehicle went elsewhere. Once might be an accident; multiple times shows intent to deceive. Look for anything else indicating a desire to mislead or hide. And thank you for your help."

Ginger nodded and smiled as he looked back to his office window. Caravaggio chatted with Alicia, and their interactions were peppered with occasional laughter. He leaned against his desk, and she stood beside him, touching his arm at times when she spoke. Though Turner was outside human earshot, his hearing allowed entry into their conversation.

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" she asked.

"The more personal, the better." Caravaggio said.

Alicia stepped close, leaving inches between them. "You're tall, dark, and very handsome. You were a pirate, and you are a vampire." She tilted her head back to look him in the eyes. "Could you get any sexier?"

Caravaggio cackled and lightly tapped her nose with his finger. "No, baby. I really couldn't, but wait until my hair grows back."

Alicia grinned, but at Turner's approach, she moved away and her poise returned. "Is there anything with which I can assist you, sir?"

"Yes. If you could see if the deceased ever requisitioned an Eternal Beloved form."

"I've never heard of that before," she said. "I wouldn't know where to look."

"Right." Turner went to his desk and scribbled some designations into a notepad. He ripped the page out and handed it to Alicia. "These three forms. The first two, you fill out as requestor; the third is for us to authorize the information. It should be in his file somewhere."

"Of course. I'll be right back." She left with Caravaggio's eyes trained on her.

"Don't," Turner admonished.

Caravaggio raised his hands. "What?"

"Don't mess with the help."

"I wasn't thinking anything." Under Turner's scrutiny, Caravaggio laughed. "Okay, yeah. That body, the long black hair, dark eyes with a trace of wickedness behind them... Yeah, I was imagining, but I wasn't going to do anything. I could never fuck her," he said with a shrug. "I like her."

"Really?" Turner said with surprise. He had never heard Caravaggio compliment a woman like that before.

"Yeah, she's a cool chick, but she's also a hardcore groupie. She'd probably do anyone in that autograph book of hers. You know me; I don't like easy. I prefer a little fight first."

Turner sat at his desk and started reading more on their subject as Caravaggio tangented from ramble to ramble. Fifteen minutes later, Alicia returned with papers in hand. To Turner, she said, "Sir, Ginger has something she wants to show you."

He took an offered form from her, scanning and signing the documents before returning them. "Thank you," and Caravaggio followed as they headed back into the main room, with Alicia breaking away to send the paperwork out.

As Turner and Caravaggio approached her desk, Ginger stood and offered Turner her seat to view her screen. He sat and she leaned over his shoulder to point at a series of graphs.

"Until recently, she went to a yoga studio on Thursdays, and the gym, two times a week. Suddenly, two months ago, she stopped yoga, and was hitting the gym daily, staying for longer times. It's the biggest change to her regular routine. I don't know if it's relevant, or not..."

"No, that's exactly what we're looking for. She probably found her accomplice there." Turner rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay. We identify everyone involved in the club, guests, employees, vendors, cleaning crews, and then we start determining with whom she has contact."

He stepped back and pulled Ginger's chair out. She sat, allowing him to lightly push her seat back in. "Are we positive it's her?" Ginger asked. "Should we look at any other suspects?"

"No. She lied through the entire interview. She is guilty, and therefore, she needed a partner. This is where her pattern changed, so this is where we look."

"Okay, if you're sure." Ginger shrugged and continued compiling more data.

Turner pulled Caravaggio to the side. "I'll do the background checks. Start with the surveillance tapes. Look at everyone that was present when she was there. If there's footage of her spin class, note with whom she converses. See if she has a regular seat, and if someone takes a spot near her as a habit."

"I'm not doing that. That's mind-numbing work. No way."

"You can watch women while they exercise, or you could go through the paperwork."

"Hmm. Well, in the pursuit of justice..." and Caravaggio wandered off to ask Herb to set up the flatscreens to display the surveillance videos.

Alicia reappeared. "I sent the forms off to the head office; they replied back with this page. It has Ms. Pacoyle's name on it listed as an Eternal Beloved."

Turner perused the form before holding it in the air. Caravaggio turned in his direction, prompting him to say, "There we go. Motive."

Herb and Stu came over to the group, and Alicia waited before asking, "Yeah, that's the part I'm not getting. What is this form for?"

Caravaggio shook his head. "It's for idiots."

Turner sighed. "Occasionally, our kind falls for those unenhanced to where they make promises of eternal love and the like. Some desire their partners as they are, unwilling to convert them so that they do not lose their humanity. To ensure that they are provided for in the case of calamity, contracts following the template of civil unions are filed, and if the immortal passes, an inheritance is bequeathed. It provides for the partner while serving as hush money."

"How much?" Alicia inquired.

"One million dollars," Caravaggio said.

"Two million," Turner corrected. At Caravaggio's confusion, he said, "They upped the amount two years ago to compensate for the cost-of–living increases. That's why they take more out of your check every month. You should have gotten a statement in the mail.' Turner sighed again. "This is why you have to read your statements."

"Life insurance is about paying for others. Why would I ever do that?"

"Excuse me." Alicia's hand was in the air. She waited until Caravaggio pointed to her. "So what you're saying is that there are regular people who get to be in relationships with vampires, but on the downside, if that vampire is killed, the person becomes an instant millionaire."

"Pretty much, yeah," said Caravaggio, who furled his brow at her raised hand again. He pointed at her once more.

"So, are either of you seeing anyone?"

The others were aghast while Caravaggio leaned back laughing. Alicia smiled and left to retrieve more papers from the fax machine. Turner continued. "The problem is that because they were beloved by one of us, they are a protected class of citizen, someone we collectively are responsible for. It is a breach of the rules of etiquette to even investigate her."

"Which we're going to do anyways," Caravaggio said.

"So the issue is, because of the contract, she has motive, and because of the same contract, we must tread carefully. We need to find who is working with her."

Everyone returned to work. Turner analyzed data while Caravaggio fast-forwarded through videos, where he speculated on who was sleeping with whom. An hour passed until Turner noted something.

"Here. Leslie Gardner. Bodybuilding competitor." He brought up a driver's license.

"You know, that might just work." Caravaggio said. "If it's a chick, they could meet in the locker room; no cameras. One locker with two keys could be used to exchange notes."

Their attention drew to Ms. Gardner, whose career was in the field of nutritional advice, where she hocked various weight losing and muscle building products. A scan of her e-mails could not find proof of any current relationship, nor could they ascertain her sexual orientation.

"Then that settles it," Caravaggio said with satisfaction. "We have our second."

"Excuse me," Stu said, speaking for the first time that Turner could remember. "I don't understand. Have you found any connection between the two? Have they ever met before?"

Turner shook his head. "A review of their membership card records shows that they probably crossed paths a few months ago, but the club only keeps a month's worth of video."

"Do you have any evidence that either of them is interested in women?"

"No, but that's not unusual in these cases."

"Okay, but we haven't any footage of the two of them together."

"That just shows that they were careful. The fact that they were at the same club and did not appear in a single frame shows intent to obfuscate."

"Well, what if you do find video of the two of them talking?"

"Then that would be even more damning."

"Wait." The data analyst closed his eyes in a wince. "So you're saying that the fact that you can't prove that the two of them knew each other is proof of conspiracy, but if you do find that they met, it's greater proof?"

"Exactly."

"But all you're doing is trying to substantiate a theory that you have. If there isn't proof that they did anything, perhaps you should investigate as to whether someone else could have done this? Isn't that the point, to find the killer, to make sure that justice is done?"

Caravaggio laughed, and Turner shook his head. "The point is bringing her to justice, not her guilt or innocence."

"That makes no sense." Stu said.

"It does," Turner explained. "Ms. Pascoyle lied about her relationship with the deceased, claiming she loved him when she clearly did not. The paramount rule is that you don't talk about us and what we are. Yet when we showed up, she started discussing all sorts of things that should not be made known."

"Well, what if she suspected you all were..." Stu waved a hand at them. "You know..."

"Oh, we know she does." Caravaggio said. "That's not the point. Typically, if someone starts talking about us, we discredit them with a heroin addiction, institutionalization, an accident..."

"Whatever the case may be," Turner continued, "justice says that she needs to be dealt with, except that the contract gives her immunity. If we act against her, it looks bad for us. The only exception would be if she had actually caused the death of her Beloved; that's an absolute deal-breaker. So she needs to be punished for the crime of loose lips, but she can't be punished unless she is guilty of murder, so finding her guilty of murder solves everything."

Stu rubbed his temples. "Let me see if I have this straight. You wish to punish her for talking about vampires to people who weren't vampires, even though the people she was talking to, the two of you, are actually vampires. You think she was working with a secret female lover, even though you can't say if either woman is a lesbian, and the absence of any evidence that either had a relationship or involvement in the crime, that becomes proof of deceit, correct?"

"See," Caravaggio said. "It becomes clear once you put it into words."

"But don't you want to find who actually did it? What if there is someone out there killing your kind off, and they aren't found because you were looking at this through a biased lens?"

"First off," Caravaggio said, "there are already people out there trying to kill us, but professionals. If they did this, there would have been traps, or someone would have followed us here, which didn't happen. This was sloppy, and if our adversaries have faked an incompetent kill to trick us, then good for them."

"I understand your trepidation," Turner added. "You deal in a world of justice through processes. We do not. Once this murder happened, all the rest of ours want is for someone to be found. They won't wait for fingerprints to be processed or DNA to be run. They don't want to hear about how the investigation is going four months from now. Justice must be done. She fits all the criteria of what our murderer should be like, so a quick resolution is in everyone's best interests."

"Except theirs," Caravaggio said with a laugh.

***

The health club was empty in the early morning save for Gardner and bored attendants in the front. The security systems were overridden and the camera feeds were looped, so no one saw Turner enter through the back door. The employees were engaged in conversation or their phones and none were near where Gardner bench-pressed one-hundred-and-eighty pound reps by herself.

Turner passed through the weight room in a tracksuit, not allowing his image to appear on camera. This meant that if Gardner looked up and noticed he had no reflection in one of the many mirrors, the plan would fail, but she was absorbed in her regimen and hardly noticed as he passed by, her exhales heavy with every lift. He had to be careful to not come off too strong, so she wouldn't fear he was trying to hit on her. Turner paused near her bench.

"Hey, do you need someone to spot you?" he asked.

"No, I'm good," she said with her lift, her eyes darting over only enough to see him before returning their glare at the bar above her.

"Look, let me help," he said, his voice raised an octave over his usual tone. He moved to place himself at the head of the bench. "I recently had a friend lifting by herself and she lost her grip, nearly crushing her windpipe. I won't assist without your consent."

A pause before Gardner nodded. Turner kept his hands underneath the bar, prepared to catch it if need be. She continued working out, but fatigue crept a tremor in her arms.

"You should really push it," Turner encouraged. "Do a few extra. I got you."

She assented, performing more reps as each lift became a greater struggle. He looked down and let his eyes meet hers as she raised it one final time.

He lowered his voice to the timbre of judgment. "The lives of my kind are sacred. You have been found guilty." In the span of a second, he slapped the inside of her arms to buckle her elbows, caught the barbell, and guided it down on her throat, crushing her windpipe. She lurched and flailed, attempting to pull the bar off her neck, but Turner pulled it towards her jaw and snapped her neck as he let it drop with a metallic clatter. The noise would draw the employees to the room, but Turner would be gone from the scene and out the back door in the moments before they would arrive. When the tapes would be reviewed, the only thing that would appear would be the image of Leslie Gardner working out by herself with no one else around.