Maya stretched her arms out and put her fingers to his lips. “You know what will happen if I feed from you right now, don't you? So why don't you go and meet with Zane. In the meantime, I’ll work up an appetite.” She licked her lips. “I'm sure I'll be ravenous when you get back.”

The wicked glint in his eyes made her heart beat twice as fast as before.

“Good. I look forward to dinner.”

She followed him out into the hallway, where Gabriel called out, “Thomas, where are you?”

A moment later, Thomas emerged from Samson's study. “What do you need?”

“Take care of Maya. I have to go see Zane.” Before he turned, he added, “Any news on the phone records?”

Thomas shook his head. “AT&T’s servers are still down. I’m having Eddie monitor them. He’s supposed to call me as soon as they are up again.”

Gabriel nodded. “Thanks.”

After a quick kiss on her lips, he was gone. Maya turned around to look at Thomas. “What phone records?”

“Yours—we’ve figured that maybe the rogue called you at some point, especially if you were dating him.”

Maya cringed at the thought. She could have never been intimate with somebody so evil, could she? Would she have recognized what he was like early enough—before she’d jumped into bed with him? Why could she not remember anything about him? For a moment, she closed her eyes and concentrated, but no flash of memory came.

“You okay?” Thomas’ voice sounded concerned. “It was touch-and-go for a while there. Are you well?”

She was acutely aware that Thomas knew full well what she and Gabriel had been doing during the last few hours, and she felt surprisingly tongue-tied about it. When she lowered her lids to avoid his gaze and only mumbled a quick “yes,” he clicked his tongue.

“There's nothing wrong with what you guys did. Gabriel is a good man.”

“I barely know him, but for some reason, I do know him. Does that make sense?”

“As I said, it's all good.”

Maya lifted her head and smiled at him. She liked Thomas and knew she could have an easy friendship with him. “Thanks. About those phone records: I get itemized online bills from my cell phone provider. Would that help?”

Thomas nodded eagerly. “Sure would. I can’t hack into AT&T right now, so if we can access the records any other way, it would speed up the search.”

“I only have the last three months online. This month’s isn’t available yet.”

“Better than nothing.”

But after spending half an hour looking through the cell phone bills, Maya had to admit defeat. “I know all those people: friends, patients, colleagues. There’s not a single unfamiliar name among them. Sorry.”

Thomas shrugged his shoulders. “It was worth a try.”

“Maybe he called me on the landline—unfortunately I don’t get itemized bills for that.”

“Don’t worry. As soon as the servers of the telephone company are back up, I’ll access the records and have you look through them. In the meantime, there’s not much else we can do about that.”

Never one to sit around idle, Maya felt restless. She was sure it would take hours until Gabriel was back. “Do you think you could teach me a few things? Gabriel mentioned that you do mentoring.”

“That's right; I have a new vampire under my wings right now. It's a very rewarding role.”

“What do you teach him or her?”

“Him,” he answered. “I teach Eddie how to control his urges, how to use his special skills.”

Maya smiled at him. “Gabriel told me you’re the best at teaching mind control.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Starting with the hard stuff—you’re ambitious.”

“I’ve always been an A-student.”

“This is a little different than studying. It’s got more to do with emotions than with knowledge. I think we should wait and work on some more elemental skills, like how to control your strength.”

Maya squared her chest. “No. I want to learn mind control. And I want to learn it now.”

Thomas smirked. “Gabriel is going to have his hands full with you.” Then he laughed. “Does he know yet?”

“Know what?”

“That you’re headstrong.”

“He’s a smart man; he’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“Okay then. But we need somebody to try mind control on.” Thomas wrinkled his forehead. “Ever been to a gay bar?”