“Yes,” said Anna. “So where do you want to meet up? I don’t know this area, so I’ll need a real address.”
When she hung up, she looked at Charles, who was toweling off his hair; he’d heard most of the call. “We get to go and make people talk.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “I’ll try not to scare some poor kid so badly he can’t talk for a year. You try not to get attacked by some fae who doesn’t understand how dangerous you are because you look so soft and sweet.”
She thought about her reply for a moment because his voice was just a little too neutral.
“Nah,” she said casually, answering him as if she thought her reply didn’t matter. “You scare adults pretty good—you’ve got that ‘I could kill you with my little finger’ thing going for you. But the kids or the adults who are hurt … you are safe and they know it. Doesn’t mean they aren’t shy with you, but they know they’re safe.” She’d known it.
Sure he’d scared her when she first met him—she wasn’t stupid. He was big and she knew all about how even between werewolves, big counts. But her instincts had told her that this one, this one would stand between her and anyone who would hurt her. That aura of guardianship—that was what made her mate such a powerful Alpha.
Charles just stared at her.
“You know that, right?” she said. “Most people stay out of your way, but the defenseless ones, the hurt ones, they just sort of gradually slide into your shadow. Not where you’ll notice them too much—but you keep the bad things away.”
He still didn’t say anything. She buttoned her jeans and then took the two steps to press against him. “We know,” she whispered to him. “We who have been hurt, we know what evil looks like. We know you make us safe.”
He didn’t say anything, but his arms came around her and she knew that she had told him something he didn’t know—and that it mattered.
Charles had one of Kage’s people drop them off at the airport, where he rented a car as Mr. Smith. He took out the fake driver’s license with the credit card he kept for Mr. Smith. Anna watched him fill out the fake address without hesitation.
When they were walking toward the elevator in the parking garage that would take them to their car, she whispered, “For an honest man, you lie pretty smoothly, Mr. Smith.”
He gave her one of his eyes-only smiles.
There were four cars to choose from, identical except in color. Charles raised an eyebrow at Anna and she trotted around them, pondering.
“Gray, white, and silver would all blend in,” she told him.
“By all means let’s take the metallic orange,” he agreed somberly. She grinned at him.
She drove the orange car and he navigated. Brother Wolf didn’t like traffic, didn’t like driving at all, and was unpredictable enough in his road rage that Charles didn’t like to drive, either, if he could avoid it. And both of them trusted Anna, he’d told her.
She knew that she wasn’t a spectacular driver; the best she could do was steady and law-abiding. She didn’t take chances and she laughed about the rude drivers. Even Brother Wolf had to work to get upset about someone making Anna laugh, Charles told her.
She sincerely hoped that over the next few days they didn’t meet the guy who’d flipped her off as they left the airport. Only by slamming her brakes hard had she avoided hitting him. Why was it that the people who made idiots of themselves immediately felt it necessary to compound their sins by flipping off the people who saved them from possibly fatal mistakes?
Yes, she hoped that the moron didn’t come anywhere near Charles anytime soon.
With Charles running the car’s navigation system, they made it to the coffee shop exactly on time. They managed greetings all around—and coffee in great big cups.
“If I could get a permanent IV of this stuff into my veins,” Marsden murmured as they all filed out of the coffee shop and into the parking lot, “I’d go into a happy coffee coma and never come out again until I died of sheer contentment. Not just any coffee, you understand, only extra-dark mocha caramel from this shop.” He cupped it in both hands like it was something precious to him.
Leeds sipped his apple cider and looked at Anna. “I know I’m weird,” he said. “But I was preoccupied and didn’t notice what the rest of you were discussing. You’ll have to forgive me if I ask you something you already answered for him. You said you and your husband are both werewolves?”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“How did that happen?” he asked earnestly. “Did he fall for you and then bite you? Or did you bite him? Or did you go to a werewolf dating site? I didn’t know there were actually women werewolves at all. The only ones you see on TV are men.”
Marsden thunked him gently on the back of the head. “I can’t leave you with anyone, can I? I like having you as a partner. It’s refreshing working with someone who can speak in whole sentences, and I can use words of more than one syllable. Please, for my sake, make an effort not to irritate werewolves. New partners are a crapshoot.”
“No,” said Anna, laughing. “It’s okay. We met because I got myself into trouble and I called for help.” She glanced at Leslie. “Like your bosses did in the Boston case. Charles came and cleaned up my trouble neat as you please. I thought, ‘Hey, I could use a guy like that.’ So I kept him.”
“You didn’t get yourself into trouble,” growled Charles. “You got yourself out of it.”
Leeds looked at Charles, and Anna saw it in his eyes as he looked at her husband. He was one of the ones who’d been hurt, one of the ones who saw that her Charles protected the helpless. Interestingly, Marsden saw it, too. The hand that had been resting on his partner’s shoulder tightened. Leeds glanced at him and smiled.
“That’s why I’m taking you with me,” Leslie told her quietly. “You see a lot of things that happen without words.” In a carrying voice, she said, “Okay, you goons. Go find our perp. We’ll rendezvous here at sixteen hundred hours if no one finds anything worth calling each other about.”
As it turned out, Leslie and Anna had identical rental cars, parked several spaces apart. Anna glanced at Leslie and laughed. “Guess we’re going to have to use the fob to see which car is which?”
“No,” Leslie said after a moment. “Mine has a scratch on the driver’s-side door. It’s the closer one. You might as well leave yours locked,” she continued in a no-argument tone. “I’m driving.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “The mommy voice doesn’t work on me,” she informed Leslie. “I was raised by my dad, a very logical, calm man who explained things in a normal tone. When he swore, it was in Latin, mostly directed at my brother.”
Leslie assessed her. “The only person I trust besides me to get my butt where it needs to go in safety is currently teaching second graders how to multiply by twos. Do you mind if I drive?”
“See,” asked Anna, walking around to the passenger seat, “was that so hard?”
“Anna,” said Leslie, “I think I could learn to get along with you just fine. Go through those files and see what you want to start with.”
There was a stack of files tucked in between the seats. Fourteen new in various colors and one faded and battered. She opened the battered one and said, “1978?”
“Five-year-old boy—attempted kidnapping except that the boy had a big dog who heard him cry out. And—” She stopped. “You read that file and tell me what you think.”
Anna read. And thought. “This sounds right. The fae don’t like to move.” Bran had told her that once. There were a few that moved all the time, but most of them found a place and stayed if they could. “Most of them, anyway. They don’t age. And they don’t change their rituals, not unless they’re High Court fae.” And to think just a few years ago the only things she’d known about the fae had come from Disney movies. “They can’t.”
“That’s what Leeds said. He said we were making this perp too human. He’s the one who went digging in older files. Found four cases that fit, but that one was the only one where the kid escaped. This kid grew up and still lives in the Phoenix area. Teaches higher mathematics at Arizona State.” She gave Anna a challenging smile. “Why don’t you call him and see if we can make an appointment.”
As it turned out, Professor Alexander Vaughn had just finished his two morning classes and had the rest of the day free. Did they want to meet him at his house? He’d be delighted to entertain an FBI agent and her consultant—they should reach his house in Tempe about the same time.
Anna assured him that would be lovely.
“He didn’t ask what it was about,” Anna observed after hanging up.
“Could be a crime groupie,” said Leslie. “Lots of people are. Could be he is bored or lonely or anything. No speculation until after we talk to him.”
“FBI policy?”
“My policy. Assumptions drive an interview away from interesting places.”
“All right,” Anna said. “We’ll go talk to the professor.”
Leslie pulled up to a house that had been built in the fifties. Evidently they had beaten the professor there. Leslie did not obey speed limits as well as Anna. She arrived fifteen minutes earlier than the car’s navigation system’s estimate.
The house was large and most notable because it was not built in the Southwest adobe style Anna’s eyes were getting used to. Nor was the yard xeriscaped with the conscientious water conservation she saw everywhere. Green grass covered the very small front area and huge old trees surrounded the house. Likely the shade from the trees was how the grass survived summers here.
A Volvo, older but in pristine condition, purred into the driveway and disgorged an athletic man with a military-short cut that managed to tone down his bright red hair. He shut the door and took his time looking at them. Anna returned the favor. He looked a little younger than someone who had been five in 1978.
He walked toward them slowly and said, “Can I help you, ladies?”
“Professor Vaughn?” asked Leslie.
He shook his head. “No. Who are you? Why are you looking for Alex?”
The roar of an engine distracted them and a big truck pulled into the driveway beside the Volvo. The truck was painted black with bright pink flames and jacked up high enough it wallowed when it turned.
The door popped open and a mad scientist hopped out, looking very out of place in the redneck vehicle.
“It’s okay, love,” he called out. “If you answered your cell phone I’d have updated you.”
The red-haired man turned to the professor, tilted his head, and said, “I don’t talk while I’m driving. And you shouldn’t call while you are driving, Bluetooth or no. I don’t want to get that phone call.”
The mad scientist nodded, kissed the big man on the cheek, and patted his shoulder. “I’m Alex Vaughn and this bulldog is my partner, Darin Richards of the Phoenix Police Department. He worries, that’s his job. Dare, these are the FBI, they want to talk to me.”