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  I turned to McNamara. “This is my partner, Quinn O’Reilly.”

  “Do you know what your partner is?”

  “Savvy?” He handed me a file folder.

  Inside was a note that they were working on tying McNamara’s bank account to Grisly.

  “Aw, thanks, Q.” I grinned up at my partner.

  Quinn sat down next to me and took a sip of his own coffee.

  “She’s a monster! Nothing more than a foul demon borne of Lucifer’s evil deeds.”

  “Hey, that’s my mom you’re talking about,” I joked.

  “Do you not see the evil beside you?” The militant Baptist was beseeching Quinn.

  In all my years I’d never seen anyone beseech someone before. It wasn’t as biblical as I thought it would be; it was actually way whinier and far more annoying.

  “No, I see the woman who has risked her life to save all manner of people in this city. A woman who has spent that same life fighting to overcome all of the evils done to her.” Quinn sat forward in his chair and clapped a supportive hand on my shoulder.

  “Well, look closer, and see her for the vicious, vile, and vulgar being she truly is.”

  “Ooh, someone got into the V section of his dictionary!” I couldn’t resist.

  Two decent jokes and not a single response, I was starting to feel like I was on mute.

  “Why, because she wouldn’t kill anyone to further her cause? Is that something only the righteous do? Oh, wait, the righteous don’t kill; they know it’s wrong.” Quinn sat forward in his chair and spoke calmly to McNamara, “John 13:34, A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” He stared deep into McNamara’s eyes, disgust and sadness etching his face.

  “Okay, boys, that’s enough with the religious debate. Time to talk about the deaths of some hookers that happened the last few months. So, Mr. McNamara, you’re saying all these women died because they were either shifters or vampires?”

  “Exactly.”

  Quinn laid out some pictures of Grisly’s victims. I have had a difficult time eating any kind of shredded meat since I saw my first Grisly Adams vic, which sucks because I really love pulled pork. Just looking at the pics brought the horrific stench back into mind.

  For a moment I was back there in that first hotel bathroom watching the tech ladle what used to be human into five gallon buckets. I did as I was taught and controlled my breathing while calming myself.

  “Do you think it was okay to kill them because they were shifters?” Quinn laid out more pictures of the women’s remains.

  “Yes, shifters and vampires are the Devil’s children and should be sent to Hell.”

  “Tell us more about that.” I cocked my head and pretended to be interested as he rambled more venomous hate-filled crap my way. Oh, goody! Must be a Monday.

  “It’s because shifters are such lousy whores. All of ’em, boys and girls alike. Nothing but a need to perpetuate the virus, infect mankind.”

  We’d brought in a lot of speciesest assholes who have spewed horrific hate my way and I guess Quinn hit his endpoint. He’d had enough of McNamara’s bigoted bullshit. I could tell by the tic in his eyebrow. Also, by the way he blew up Vesuvius-style at the man.

  “Look, you ridiculously backwards, moronic, racist asshole, I think you’re nothing more than a deluded fool who knew exactly what evil they were doing when they murdered those poor defenseless girls.” Quinn may have sounded like he was ranting, but he knew what he was doing. “I think you went along with it not because they were shifters, but because they reminded you of all those girls who rejected you throughout your life.”

  I mentally gave him twenty points for also using the air quotes on shifters. The jury would eat that up with a spoon, and recognition flashed over McNamara’s face as he realized exactly how screwed he was. It wasn’t a fleeting fluke this time.

  He shut his yap far too late to do him any good. We had the confession we needed and he would never see the light of day. It didn’t stop him from saying—even too late—those four little words that the dumbasses always do.

  “I want a lawyer.”

  Chapter 2

  “I NEVER SAID that. They put those words in my mouth.” That’s pretty much all McNamara had to say on the stand.

  The video showed a crazy man obsessed with mythical beings. He had damned himself with his own hatred by confessing and he knew it.

  The jury knew it, too.

  There wasn’t a sympathetic look on any of their faces. I think that’s what prompted his lawyer to convince him he ought to cop to a last minute plea agreement that allowed him to live the rest of his life rather comfortably behind bars at a minimum security asylum.

  Part of that plea was for him to turn over a list of guys worse than himself. We used that list to take down the group’s bigger players at our leisure, after we built up the cases. By the time we were done, AWFA was going to have a damned hard time recruiting.

  I have nothing against the groups that protest my being. I mean, they want to be douchebags, that’s fine. It’s their rights as Americans to hate whatever or whoever they want. Everyone has the right to be as douchey as they want, so long as they don’t break the law or infringe on the rights of others.

  The next AWFA member we picked up was another board member and church leader. He, too, was fairly low in the organization. He came peaceably. Probably because he didn’t know I was a were, at least not until he smelled me in interrogation. I caught a whiff of him, too, another turncoat, like Grisly.

  Some weres are turned by force. They never wanted to be changed and so they wind up hating themselves and the rest of us. To them, all shifters are evil monsters. They also have a little extra hatred for those of us who love our shifter selves because they can’t stand our acceptance of who we are.

  These are the types of shifters AWFA uses most often to do its dirty work.

  These broken and easily manipulated souls are convinced they are doing right by following their orders, and yet they never realize they are becoming exactly like the cold, unfeeling, horrifying beasts who had turned them in the first place.

  I was one of those who was turned without consent. I’m working through it with the guy who bit me. He hadn’t meant to change me any more than I had meant to try and pet him in panther form. Not my brightest idea, but one I will forever deal with the repercussions of.

  Every lead we tracked netted us more AWFA pawns, but no real major leaguers turned up during our investigations. The higher we went the more protected the douchebag. Months have passed since Grisly’s death in my front yard to a still-at-large sniper.

  We’d all hit dead ends and I was beginning to get extremely frustrated when Alex came across a clue that put us smack dab into an investigation in drug and human trafficking through Birmingham. We decided to interview the SAC (Special Agent in Charge) for the trafficking case, who was based out of Atlanta. I was hoping he could give us a lead on where to go next.

  It looked like AWFA wasn’t just training psychos to kill shifters and vamps, they were sending them to foreign countries and selling them in the sex trade. It definitely didn’t get much bleaker than the case we were on the edge of. I could feel how much worse this was than Grisly, and I knew I had to tread lightly. I sure as hell didn’t want to step on the wrong toes.

  I called and made an appointment for the next morning, eager to talk with the SAC, Jeremy Danvers. I wanted to see what he knew and if he could help me. Then I spent an awkward night wondering how best to approach Danvers without coming off as rude.

  Deciding the straight and honest approach should work best, I began rehearsing what to say. A guy like him was used to women being somewhat professional yet slightly subservient. I’d simply just be myself. Subservience didn’t fit me well and I had a difficult time faking it.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, Quinn and I sat in Danvers’ office, waiting for him to return. His sec
retary had ushered us in and told us to have a seat. It wasn’t long before then man himself showed.

  He walked in looking chagrined. “Sorry I’m late, I was called upstairs for a meeting.” He had a deep, pleasant voice that brought to mind Barry White.

  Except he was tall, blonde, and what Quinn’s wife, Kelly, would refer to as a pretty boy. We stood to greet him.

  “Special Agent Danvers, nice to meet you. No worries, we completely understand. I’m Sam Reece and this is my partner Quinn O’Reilly.” I smiled and shook his hand.

  “Agent Reece. I’ve heard good things about you from Gerry.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank him, not me. He had more than a few kind words to say about you, too,” he said as he shook Quinn’s hand.

  “Mighty kind of you to say so.”

  “What can I do for you?” Danvers moved around to the other side of his desk and motioned for us to sit. We did.

  “Well, we think our AWFA case may have something to do with your trafficking case.”

  “Is that the supernatural hate group?” He looked interested.

  “Yes. I discovered that a large number of missing persons from the super community were later victims of sex traffickers. I think Americans for a Were-Free America is kidnapping supers and selling them into slavery.”

  “That’s a hell of an accusation to make.”

  “I have proof to back it up, sir.” I handed him the copies I’d made of the files we’d dug up.

  I was hoping he’d give us what we needed and we could be on our way, but his comment about the accusation made me nervous. Not to sound paranoid, but it’s hard to tell anymore just who is in league with AWFA, and these days, it was starting to feel like everyone just might be. Of course, that could just be a paranoid reaction from having two of our own turn to AWFA and try to kill me.

  Paranoid though I might seem, it was certain that you’d rarely ever see an AWFA member coming. Until they take the credit for sending someone in to shoot up a super school or business, you just never knew who was in cahoots with that scuzzbucket group.

  As Danvers rifled through the files, occasionally making a small hmm over something interesting, I Googled him on my cellphone. I realized I should’ve done it before the appointment, but, to be honest, I didn’t think about it until now.

  I was two pages into the search and hadn’t turned up anything negative when he cleared his throat. I put my phone away and gave him my attention.

  “I’ll help in any way I can. Nobody should have to endure what these people do. It doesn’t matter what race they are.”

  “Thank you.” Relief flooded me. I also felt a bit of guilt for thinking he might be an antisuper.

  He called someone on the phone and gave them an order to bring everything they had on supers found in their sex trafficking busts. When he was done with that, he called his assistant.

  “Jane, give Agent Reece everything we have on the Sky-raider case.” He stared at me the whole time he spoke to her and I felt slightly uncomfortable with the plentiful eye contact. My cat wouldn’t allow me to break the gaze and I was relieved a few moments later when he turned away to look at the door as his assistant came in with the copies.

  The fact that I’d won the staring contest nearly caused me to chuckle, like my jaguar was doing, but I held back. There must be a reason he was being so aggressive with the eye contact. Jane walked the copies over and handed them to me.

  “Thank you very much, miss, and thank you for your cooperation, sir. I promise I’ll send you what I can from our end and keep you in the loop.” I stood to leave.

  “If you require any further assistance, please, call me.” Danvers looked directly at me as he spoke.

  I was getting a little uncomfortable with his extreme amounts of eye contact. It made my jaguar uneasy.

  “It was lovely meeting you. Thanks for your help.” I smiled politely, holding our staring contest.

  He broke the gaze first, again, and turned to Quinn.

  “Nice to have met you, and you as well, Agent O’Reilly.”

  “Yeah, nice to meet you, Agent Danvers.” Quinn shook the man’s hand, again.

  “Good luck on your case.”

  “Thank you.” Quinn and I echoed each other as we walked out.

  “So, what do you think, pard?” I asked when we were in the parking lot searching for our car.

  “I think I need food and we’ve got a three-hour drive ahead of us. How about we stop on the way?”

  “Sounds good to me. All I want right now is a bacon cheeseburger, thick cut fries, a chocolate shake, and the case files Danvers gave us. We’ll find what we need in there; I have a hunch.”

  “Sam, pardon my sap, but you’re the best partner I ever had.”

  “Why, because I help you sneak junk food?” I chuckled.

  “Well that is definitely up there on the list, but that’s not the only reason. Where the hell did we park?”

  He hit the panic button on the key fob and we walked over to where the Crown Vic was honking up a storm. He hit the button again to stop it.

  “You’re not so bad yourself, Q.”

  No sooner had we climbed into the car and belted in then a knock on my window startled me.

  It was Danvers’ assistant. I rolled down the window.

  “Hey, Agent Danvers asked me to leave this file out of the stack, but, um, I think you guys will find it interesting.” Jane thrust a file folder into the open window and began to quickly walk back to the building, all the while looking around nervously.

  I shrugged at Q, he shrugged at me, and—as we drove off—I added the file to the top of the pile in my lap. Not too far down the road we pulled into a fast food place and ordered a few bacon cheeseburgers, fries, and chocolate shakes. We parked in the lot and ate in the car as we poured over the case files.

  One hour, four burgers, a hundred and fifty-seven pages, and six paper cuts later, we had absolutely nothing except full bellies and crossed eyes. I was sure the answer would be found in the trafficking casefile Jane had handed us, especially the one his assistant tossed in.

  The only thing I uncovered in that file was that a whole lot more shifters and vampires had gone missing than I ever suspected. Additionally, the increase in missing supers went back several years further than I had originally thought.

  I was getting more and more frustrated at the severe lack of answers and addition of more questions. Grisly hadn’t been the only thing stealing the lives of young shifters. I was starting to see patterns in the kidnappings throughout the city.

  Whoever it was preferred low risk victims like prostitutes and runaways. That’s why it had taken so long to connect the new twenty-seven missing people to what I believed were AWFA run rings.

  I just wish I didn’t know what they were doing with those shifters. It broke my heart. Having been through it myself, nobody should ever be treated as property to be bought and sold on someone else’s whim.

  Chapter 3

  I ARRIVED AT the office the next morning and was raring to get my day’s fill of coffee. Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am for James Brady? So grateful. I can’t start my day without a cup of the good stuff. Okay, so that’s mostly untrue, I’m just as cool with gas station coffee, depending on the station.

  Last week, our beloved coffee connoisseur had brought in a nutmeg roasted blend that was surprisingly refreshing. I couldn’t wait to see what he treated us with today. I grabbed my Good Kitty mug and bee-lined it. Today’s divine offering smelled like a Kona blend with hints of hazelnut and vanilla. The card in front of the carafe confirmed it.

  James was proud of his coffee obsession. He handcrafted little labels for tins he bought that were specially designed to seal in the flavor. Sure, it may have bordered on the obsessive, but sometimes a little order in the life of someone who sees so much daily chaos can be soothing to the soul.

  As one of those people, I understood and appreciated the hell out of it. I topped
off my mug and took a look at the baked goods tray. Ever since Sheila Stork turned out to be evil—and I killed her in self-defense—we’d been stuck with the worst pastries.

  I almost miss that vicious hate-filled bitch. Nah, scratch that, I miss her Danishes. I nodded, pleased with my rationality, and rewarded myself with a sip of coffee.

  Ah, bliss.

  Grabbing a plain cruller that looked fairly edible, I left the kitchen and moved back to my desk, hoping Quinn had made it in and that Kelly hadn’t found out I’d been letting him cheat on his low cholesterol diet. I dreaded that conversation almost as much as I dreaded withholding all the good food from Q.

  He tended to get hangry and, rather than deal with his grumping, I gave in and let him sugar and fat it up. Plus, I’m a huge fan of lemon-filled donuts, so any chance there is for me to score one, I have to take it. I owe it to myself, right?

  When I arrived at my desk, I could see my partner sitting behind his. He looked rather solemn, which is a terrifying thing, because Q is almost always slightly jovial. Well, except when questioning people.

  “Why so blue?” I asked my forlorn friend.

  “My cholesterol is down.”

  “What? That’s awesome!”

  “The doctor said I have to stay on the diet. Forever, probably.”

  “Harsh. Well, if it’s working, that means you can still have your cheat eats.”

  “Yeah, I guess I got that going for me.”

  “Which is nice,” I quipped, finishing the Caddyshack quote.

  “Well played.”

  “Thank you, I’ve been practicing.”

  “So, what’s on the agenda for today?” Quinn asked as he disdainfully eyed my flat, stale, barely respectable cruller. I did too.

  “Breakfast and a chat with a couple of witnesses.” I threw the doughy, over-fried, under-loved chain store donut in the garbage.

  My coffee and I deserved better.

  “The Diner?”

  “I don’t think we have the time for that.” I took a sip of said brew.