"Good evening, Austin." Emma sat at the small round table, eating low-fat yogurt and looking bright-eyed and perky.

There should be a law against blatant cheerfulness in the workplace. Her neatly pressed yellow shirt reminded him that he looked like he'd slept in his wrinkled clothes. Except he hadn't slept much at all. He mumbled something and filled a coffee cup.

"You poor fellow, you look like shit," Emma continued with her crisp British accent.

He grunted, too tired to engage in verbal sparring. Besides, she always won. "Why are you here so early?"

She licked the last of her yogurt off her plastic spoon. "I wanted to get an early start on last night's police reports. I think I'm on to something."

"What?"

"In the last few months, there have been several calls to the police from Central Park. The caller reports seeing someone being attacked, but when the police arrive, they can't find anyone who knows anything."

Austin frowned. "That's not much. Could be pranksters."

"Or it could be real." Emma pointed her spoon at him to make her point. "And the people who called don't remember anything, because their memories were erased by vampires."

"I… suppose." Mind control was a vampire specialty. That was exactly why the Stake-Out team was so small. Everyone on the team needed a certain amount of psychic power in order to resist vampire control. There was no way to fight a creature if he could simply take over your mind. As far as Austin knew, he and Sean possessed the most power on the team.

"Think about it." Emma tossed her empty yogurt cup into the trash. Perfect aim, of course. She'd been working for MI6 when Sean had arranged for her transfer a week ago. "If you were a hungry vampire, wouldn't you troll for victims in a place like Central Park?"