Hunter's Trail

We sat there for a few minutes in silence. I didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him. Whatever Jesse might say about the shooting, he’d done it to protect me. For obvious reasons, Terrence Whittaker was never going to press charges, but Jesse had still risked his entire career as a cop for me. And that felt . . . big. Too big.

Jesse continued to stare gloomily at his food. I was eating ferociously, though, because . . . well, I was hungry. And I’ve never been the type to lose my appetite easily. My basic philosophy regarding eating during an emergency breaks down along the lines of “Moral crisis: bad. Spicy chicken burrito: good.”

Jesse was looking at me with a complicated expression that I couldn’t interpret. Guilt? Resentment? “You were going to tell me what you learned from Leah and Kathryn’s people,” he stated.

“Yeah, but I got a little sidetracked by ‘I shot a guy.’” Jesse gave me a look that I could definitely interpret as annoyance, and I added in a softer voice, “Kate. She went by Kate.”

He nodded. “What did you learn about Leah and Kate?”

I passed him my shoddy notes and filled him in on everything I remembered. “So I have a list of names of people that were connected to them—Leah’s boyfriend, Kate’s sister, and so on. And I know of a few activities each one liked. But I couldn’t find any obvious connection between them. The only thing that even comes close to a match are the animal rights groups, but Leah was in this PAW group and Kate’s a member of Humans for the Protection of Animals.”

Jesse sighed. “Because that would have been just too easy, wouldn’t it.” It wasn’t really a question, but I nodded anyway. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “we’ll widen the circle. You should talk to the parents, if you can find them, and friends, and so on. I’ll try to get some membership rosters for the animal rights groups, too—it’s possible that Leah was in PETA or Kate was in PAW and their roommates just didn’t know about it.”

“True,” I said, brightening a little.

“And I’ll keep talking to the werewolves,” Jesse added. I began to protest, but he overrode me. “I know you want me to stay out of your business. But we need to stay on top of the threat against you, and we need to find out if there are any more connections between the nova wolf and the rest of the pack, aside from one of the pack members accidentally attacking someone.” He finally picked up a chip, dunked it liberally in the guacamole, and chewed. “I just know that there’s another connection here. I know it.”

I sighed. “So who are you going to talk to next?”

Jesse’s eyes gleamed. “Anastasia.”

Oh shit. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t bother to protest. I doubted that Anastasia was involved in the nova wolf debacle, but she had certainly proven herself willing to go against the alpha’s orders before. I texted Will to get Ana’s address.

When my phone chimed I used my hand to shield the screen from the afternoon sun and squinted at it. “Huh.”

“What?” Jesse asked. Traffic was picking up on La Cienega, and we had to nearly shout to hear each other.

“Anastasia’s working at the bar tonight.”

I glanced across the table at him. His eyes were practically bugging out of his head with surprise. “Will’s letting her work, after all the shit she’s stirred up?” he said indignantly.

I shrugged. “I guess he’s just too short-handed.” Since both Caroline and Eli were . . . off the payroll.

“Oh, yeah,” Jesse said, remembering. Then he added, “And I suppose the bar gets busy on New Year’s Eve.”

“That’s today?” I said stupidly. I had completely forgotten.

Jesse snorted with laugher. “You forgot?”

“Hey,” I protested. “I lost track of the days because I was in a coma.” I reached across the table and stole one of his chips. Just out of spite.

“To be fair,” he admitted, “it may have slipped my mind for a minute there too.” His eyes drifted away into what I think of as his “Pensive Cop Face.”

“There’s not much point in trying to interview more people today,” he concluded. “Everybody’s going to be getting ready for New Year’s Eve stuff.”

“What do you want to do, then?” I asked. He was still staring off into space, so I picked up another chip and threw it at his nose.

“What? Hey,” he sputtered.

“Just getting your attention, Detective,” I said sweetly. “What’s the plan? Go home and ice our extremities?”

“No,” he said slowly. “I have another idea.”

Of course he did. “What’s that?”

“Let’s go stake out Will Carling’s house.”

Chapter 20

We knew the nova wolf had changed two days ago, Jesse explained, because Leah Rhodes had died not long after he had attacked her. The nova should need twice as much time before he could change again, but according to Will, he was already more powerful than he should be. “You people are always telling me magic is unpredictable,” Jesse finished. “So it seems possible that the nova wolf can change faster than we expect.”

“Even if he can,” I argued, “and even if he attacks someone else, there’s no guarantee she’ll . . .” I winced. “You know. Die right away. And there’s no guarantee that he’ll dump the body at Will’s again.”