Dead Heat

“Let them in,” said Mrs. Miller from behind her husband’s back.

Dr. Miller hesitated, then opened the door to welcome them inside. “Don’t hurt her,” he told them earnestly, and he wasn’t talking about Amethyst.

“Life hurts,” Charles said gently. “But we won’t lie to you or to your wife.”

Amethyst’s room was neat as a pin. Toys were organized by size, then by color on the white shelves along one wall. The bed was tidy and Anna suspected she could have bounced a quarter off the bedspread.

“Was she always this tidy?” Anna asked.

Sara shook her head. “No. I didn’t even notice when it changed. She’d get started on something and get distracted. So her bed would be half-made. She’d color part of a coloring book page.”

“She’d have one shoe on,” said Dr. Miller. “Because she remembered she wanted oatmeal for breakfast before she found the other shoe.”

Charles had his head tilted and his eyes half closed, a sure sign he was smelling the room.

“How could I not have noticed?” Amethyst’s mother said. “What kind of mother doesn’t notice that her child’s been replaced by a … a thing?”

“Fae can fog your perception,” said Anna. “If you started noticing something wrong, the fetch would have distracted you.” When Mackie had noticed something was wrong, the fetch tried to kill her.

“Is there something that Amethyst kept close to her?” Charles said. “A favorite toy she slept with? Something that the fetch didn’t associate with too much?”

“Something a dog could use to get a scent to track her with,” Anna supplied.

“You’re going to use dogs?” Dr. Miller frowned.

“We’ll use whatever we can,” Anna said. “Some of our methods are unorthodox—magic. And it would help to have something that belonged to Amethyst.”

“Her bunny,” Sara said. She went to the bookcase and picked out a grubby, one-eared rabbit and handed it to Anna. “Will this do?”

Anna held it to her forehead, as if she were a TV psychic. Her nose told her that if the fetch had touched it, it hadn’t been very often. Children didn’t have as much body odor as adults, but they also didn’t disguise it with soaps and perfumes the way adults did.

“This will do,” she said. “Do you have a plastic bag I can put it in?”

Sara looked as though she wasn’t sure she wanted them to take it.

“I promise we’ll bring it back,” said Anna.

“Go get a bag from the kitchen,” Dr. Miller told his wife gently.

As soon as she was out of the room, he looked at them. “Werewolves?” he asked.

Anna smiled at him. “We’re not psychics. Yes.”

“My wife would be afraid, if she knew,” he told Anna. “But I’ve had dealings with your people, when I was in the army, a lifetime ago. Why are you helping us?”

“Because children deserve to be safe,” Charles said.

Charles and Anna got back to the Sanis’ ranch well after dinner. Kage met them at the front door, making Charles think he’d been watching for them.

“Hosteen is still out riding somewhere,” he said, ushering them inside. “Dad ate better than he has in months and fell asleep. Chelsea has been sleeping most of the day.” Kage continued with his dogged recitation. “Kids are up in the TV room with my mom and Ernestine, watching some TV show about serial killers, zombies, or something equally healthy for them.”

Kage waited, but when it became obvious no one else was going to say anything, he continued. “There are leftovers from dinner in the kitchen I can fix if you need food.” He took a breath. “That’s what’s going on here. From you I get a text that says not to expect you for dinner. Not exactly helpful. Did you find out anything?”

“Fae,” Charles told him, pulling off his boots and setting them where all the other people’s shoes waited.

Anna rolled her eyes at her husband with, he hoped, a little fondness to go along with her mock exasperation. “Food would be lovely, thank you. We actually found out a lot—not enough, but a lot. Why don’t we go eat and I’ll tell you what we know.”

“Anna uses actual words,” murmured Charles tranquilly, holding her arm as she took off her shoes, too.

“Useful,” said Kage, leading the way to the kitchen.

“Some people think so,” Charles agreed, and Anna bumped him with her hip.

Dinner was fried chicken, biscuits, and a huge salad. Wade, Hosteen’s second, came in before the food was on the table. He was one of those quiet people who instilled order in those around them. He was obviously at home in the house, and he helped Kage pull out food and dishes. When Anna tried to help, Wade waved her off before Kage could.

“I’m the hired help,” he said. “Even with all the desperate life-and-death drama, you’re also here to look at horses, right? That makes you clients—sit down.”

“Wade has a real job,” Kage explained as they all settled around the table. “But his family has been in the business of breeding and showing Arabs nearly as long as mine. He comes and catch-rides for us when we need an extra rider in a show.”

“There was a changeling in Mackie’s class,” Anna began as soon as people were eating. “Apparently Mackie half figured out what she was and the changeling decided to get rid of her.”

Charles ate and listened as, between bites, Anna did her best to give Kage and Wade a thorough update. Wade had the right to hear it. The attack had been on his Alpha’s family, and the victim who suffered the most was likely to become a permanent member of the pack if Hosteen got his act together.

But as Charles listened, he also watched the other two men’s faces as they relaxed into his mate’s storytelling. Tension left Kage’s shoulders and Wade laughed helplessly as Anna described Leeds’s fascination with the bundle of sticks that had been a little girl, while everyone else was deciding who was in charge. She did it without making anyone think less of Leeds, because she clearly didn’t. Sure it was serious business, but humor in the face of evil robbed evil of some of its power. His Anna understood that better than most.

“You’re going to look for the missing girl, right?” asked Kage. But not like he was sure of it.

Anna nodded. “Charles and I stopped in at her house. The only real connection to the day care was the fetch. If we’re going to find the fae who took the girl, our best trail should be Amethyst’s. But she was taken so long ago. Charles says that from the faintness of her scent in her room, it’s been months. We also took a walk around several blocks near her house, but neither of us caught scent of a fae.”

“So what’s next?” asked Wade.

“The FBI, Cantrip, and a number of unlucky police officers spend the next few days sorting through police incident reports until they come up with something,” said Anna. “Leslie is going to call us if they need our help.”

“That sounds—”

“Like they are taking over the investigation and throwing us out of it,” growled Wade.

It was the pack’s hunt, as he would see it—as Charles saw it, for that matter. The entrance of the human organizations, useful as they were, annoyed him as well. He understood the necessity, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

“They have access to information we don’t have,” Anna soothed, articulating the reason Bran had decided to bring them in. “Let them do the legwork. Besides, we’re trying to keep the pack out of it. It’s likely there’ll be some publicity when this is all over—one way or another. I know the FBI agent and, better, she knows us. She’ll call for help when they have anything we can be useful for.”

“Cantrip? Call on a werewolf?” Wade looked like he wanted to spit on the floor.

“I know, right?” Anna nodded sympathetically. “But Special Agent Fisher, of the FBI, will call us in whether Cantrip wants us or not. Not many humans are really equipped to deal with a fae who has decided to prey openly upon humans. And, though Leeds is half-fae, I’m not sure they have anyone who can detect a fetch.” She tapped her nose.