Sampson whirled to face me. “You didn’t tell Alex I was here, did you?”
“Of course not. Though—” I was going to say that Alex would be a bigger help than just me. I was going to say that Alex would have better ideas and together, we’d have a better chance of finding the holder of the contract. But I knew what Alex thought now. And I knew that if Alex knew that Sampson had been hiding out in San Francisco, Sampson would be suspect number one in the recent murders. Alex wouldn’t want to accuse, wouldn’t want to believe it, but Alex was a detective above anything else. And right now, all the evidence pointed in one direction.
Mr. Sampson eyed me. “You’re not going to listen to me, are you?”
I looked away. “I said I was going to help you and I am. I can solve both.”
Sampson smiled and shook his head. “I appreciate your faith, Sophie, I really do.”
Give me something, I wanted to beg. Give me something to go on.
“Is there anything you can think of that will help? Anything that I”—I pushed my hand against my chest—“that I can do personally to help?”
I watched Sampson’s chest rise as he sucked in and let out a long breath. “Well, you can get into the UDA.”
I shrugged. “Of course. Wait—you don’t think that someone at the Agency—”
Mr. Sampson held up a silencing hand. “It’s just a theory I’m working on. I’ll need you to get me some files.”
I scanned the counter, yanking a sheet of paper out from Will’s stack of takeout menus and expired delivery coupons. I glanced at the paper—some sort of handwritten litany—flipped it over, and sat poised with my pen at the ready. “Whose files do you need?”
“I need you to get the file of every werewolf that has gone through the Underworld. Past, present, and deceased.”
I wrote the word “werewolves” on the paper and Sampson glanced down on it with a slight smile. “Really?”
I folded the paper and shoved it in my back pocket. “I like to be prepared. What else?”
Mr. Sampson paced, rubbing his chin with the palm of his hand. “Well.” He looked over his shoulder as if he was appraising me. “I think that’s a good start.”
I rounded the counter so that I was nearly nose-to-nose with him. “This is a start, but I’m going to need more than files to help you out of this mess.”
“I can handle Feng and Xian, if that’s what you’re inferring.”
It’s not Feng and Xian I’m worried about.
“Please.”
Sampson’s eyes held mine for a beat before falling. “Well, there is one thing. A guy. He’s—he’s kind of in between the two worlds—Underworld and regular. He’s a half-breed. Mother was a demon, father was a regular guy.”
A little flicker of community struck up in my belly. There are others like me?
“He’s like me?”
Sampson looked at me, his eyes kind. “No, Sophie. Mort is nothing like you. His father killed his mother.”
And yet, I wasn’t totally convinced that Mort had a worse father figure than I did.
“He vowed to kill Mort, too, so Mort’s pretty much gone into hiding, but he keeps tabs on everything in the Underworld.”
“Why would he keep tabs on the Underworld if his dad was mortal? He was the one who killed. Shouldn’t he be focusing his attentions elsewhere?”
“He does that, too. Mort’s problem is slight paranoia and that he is a recognizable half-breed. There are people in the Underworld who don’t like that very much.” He sucked in a breath. “People who want to kill people like him.”
“And like me.”
“They think that half-breeds are sullying the demon gene pool.”
I felt as though I had just been kicked in the stomach. I had never belonged anywhere—my mother had killed herself, my father had left me, my high school life had been dominated by bullies and jeers. The Underworld Detection Agency—and Sampson—had taken me in and made me feel like I belonged. I knew people weren’t crazy about my being human—but I never thought that I was in danger because of it.
“Why didn’t I know that people wanted to kill half-breeds?”
Sampson clapped a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Because at the Underworld Detection Agency we’re family, and we always protect our own. We keep tight tabs on that kind of people.”
I should have felt bolstered by Sampson’s protection, but I didn’t.
“So, Mort. He makes a living pitting demons against each other. Not exactly a stand-up guy, but if there’s any information out there, Mort’s going to know about it.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling a twinge of angst. “How do I find this Mort guy?”
“We’re not going to go find him, Soph. I’ll go.”
“You can’t. If this guy is not very good and has a bone to pick with the Underworld—or with everyone for that matter, you’re toast. I’m going.”