When his eyes were tired and the ink blurred together, Arthur had taken the flashlight and read to him instead. Adventures featuring knights and dragons, stories about plucky detectives solving crimes, anything he could smuggle out of the school library.
Patrick couldn’t remember a single book title, but if he closed his eyes he could still picture Arthur in his patched jeans, shining a flashlight on the book’s pages, could even hear the excitement in his voice. He’d fallen asleep like that so many nights, had looked forward to it all through blurry, unremembered days of schoolwork…
Until he’d waited on the sidewalk one afternoon and Arthur hadn’t come.
That memory wasn’t blurry. It was still sharp as a razor, just like the memory of his mother’s rage when she realized what had happened. Two days later, they’d been on the run.
Two months later, she’d hooked up with Ben’s dad and was pregnant again, as if Arthur had never existed.
Anna touched his face, dragging him back to the present. “Patrick?”
He had to struggle to remember her question. “No, I never saw him after that. Ben might have tracked him down when we were older, I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. I was an angry, angry kid.”
Her hand brushed his. “Is your dad—did he go to prison?”
She was giving him a chance to lie, because Anna knew as well as anyone that crazy spell casters didn’t go to prison. They reformed or they got put down. “I went after him. I still don’t remember how it happened. Jenny thought the shock of my latent magic waking up fucked with my memories. I remember finding our mother and Ben’s dad on the floor, and that’s it. For a straight week after, there’s nothing.”
Anna made a soft noise and wrapped her fingers around his.
He held her hand and closed his eyes. “Whatever I did, I covered my own tracks just fine. I was a little thug back then.”
Her thumb traced slow circles over the back of his hand. “My mom was a wild kid,” she said. “She was into drugs, the kind with a magical kick, which pretty much made her perfect for my dad. So she ran off with him. By the time her family found her, she was about to give birth to me.”
The meticulously groomed society wolf he’d met didn’t seem like the sort to go chasing a magical high. It was one reason to pretend Anna didn’t exist—to forget her own youthful indiscretions. “What was your dad? Wolf?”
“Yeah, the low-rent kind they couldn’t bear to see their daughter with—not that I blame them much, given the circumstances.” She shook her head. “After I was born, they handed me to my dad and split. He tried, I guess, but he couldn’t seem to stay clean. I spent a lot of time with my aunt in Vegas.”
He squeezed her hand, just enough to say he understood. Understood not having one place that was home, understood parents who had never been there in the way a kid needed. “Ben was smart. He got into college and found a place in the real world. I never quite left the fringes.”
Anna smiled sadly. “I applied for Conclave tactical training. I did everything I was supposed to do, and you know what? I’ve still got a mother who acts like I never happened and a father who stays loaded most of the time. So fuck it.”
There was a question he’d never quite dared ask. “How did you convince them to let you train? I’ve met a few private security wolves who were on the Conclave tactical team, and I got the impression you’re the only woman who’s ever done it.”
“I’m supposed to say I’m just that badass, right? That no one tells me no?”
“I might believe it.”
“After that shootout yesterday, you’re biased.” She wove her fingers through his. “I told John Peyton that none of his wolves would accept his daughter as Alpha if they kept shutting women out of Conclave training. He couldn’t just tell them women could lead, he had to show them. So he gave me the chance to prove myself.”
“And you did.” Of course she would have. He couldn’t imagine Anna doing anything else.
“I guess.” She reached over from her perch on the end of the bed and laid her free hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry about your mom and…everything.”
It was the softest, quietest moment they’d had since the night Ben had died. The night she’d wrapped him in her arms and held him through the pain, through the silent tears and the darkness that had closed in on him before dawn.
“You get me, Lenoir.” He didn’t turn his head, didn’t dare break that tentative, careful contact. “We both got our starts kicking and screaming.”
“And we haven’t stopped yet,” she agreed.
He could fall into the way she was watching him, her blue eyes liquid and soft. The only other person he’d seen on the receiving end of this look was Sera, who had a way of softening Anna’s glares to smiles.
This look was all for him. “We haven’t stopped,” he said, voice hoarse. “I don’t think I’d know how.”
Her gaze darkened, dropped to his mouth. “Me neither.”
Were they warning each other, or promising each other? Hard to be sure—or even care—with her watching his lips like she wanted to lick them. “That’s why we’re the best.”
“Yeah.” She pulled her hand back and leaned away. “What time are we meeting the psychic, again?”
“Midnight.” He had to clear his throat. “The witching hour, you know.”
“Ugh, I hate the theatrics. Why not just—” Her words cut off, and she tilted her head as she pulled a sheet free of the file Jenny had given them. “Patrick, I think I figured out why Oscar’s business partner-to-be hasn’t been returning our calls.”
Thoughts of her pretty eyes faded under a wave of dread. “Dead or missing?”
“Missing, so far.” She held up the bulletin. On it was a picture of a smiling man, about forty years old, and wholly unremarkable. Daryl Sathers, the man Oscar had come to New Mexico to see. “We should swing by his place after meeting up with the medium, check it out.”
“If we grab some personal effects, we might be able to find someone to cast a locator spell. It’s worth a shot.”
Anna checked the bedside clock and rose. “We’d better get going, then. You want to drive?”
“Nah.” He picked up his coat and pushed the files into a messy pile. “I’m a better navigator than you are.”
She grinned as she slid her arms into her leather jacket. “Hey, now. I guess the truce is over.”
“Gotta keep you on your toes somehow.” He caught up her keys before she could and dangled them in front of her with a grin. “Unless you think you can handle my driving.”
She zipped the biker jacket halfway, and he spent a moment admiring it. Fitted tight against her curves and sexy in all the right ways—and so bright a purple only Anna could have pulled it off.
God, she was fun. Especially when she arched an eyebrow and backed toward the door. “McNamara? Shut up and drive.”
Jenny met them in the parking lot for the second time that day, and Patrick breathed a cowardly sigh of relief that Anna stuck close to his side. Judging by the glint in his old friend’s eyes, the teasing would be swift and merciless.
He’d count himself lucky if she didn’t start in front of Anna.
For now Jenny seemed content to restrict her contribution to magic. Her glamour spell
had
gotten better, he’d give her that. Midnight found the three of them standing in the autopsy room with no one the wiser.
The fourth—and fifth—participants in their evening jaunt were already there. The medium was a tiny grandmotherly sort with hair so white it seemed to glow in the dim room. She stood over the still-covered body of Oscar Ochoa and clucked her tongue sympathetically as she stroked his head through the sheet. “I know, pumpkin. It’s no way for anyone to go.”
It was creepy enough to evoke a full-body shudder. Patrick leaned closer to Jenny and lowered his voice. “Is she talking to him already?”
Jenny flashed him a confused look and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Violet Knox, these are the two investigators I was telling you about. Patrick McNamara and Anna Lenoir.”
“Nice to meet you,” Violet murmured without looking up. “We’ve got to get him out of this body.”
Anna grimaced. “Not to start a philosophical debate, but isn’t he already out of there?”
“Normally, yes. But not this one.” The woman patted the corpse’s shoulder. “Someone locked him in.”
“Someone—” The skinned body had been ugly enough. Imagining someone—even Oscar Ochoa—trapped inside… Nausea punched into his gut. “Are you fucking
kidding
me?”
“I’m quite the jokester, Mr. McNamara, but never about a topic like this.” Violet dipped her head back and closed her eyes. “I’ll need your help, Jenny.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She stepped forward and took the older woman’s hand. “Just like last time?”
“Oh, I’m afraid that was simple compared to this. This magic is so strong, I may need the other two before it’s over.” The corners of her eyes wrinkled as she smiled. “But this wolf was powerful too, and being imprisoned like this has only strengthened his spirit. If we release him, he’ll only need my help to cross over, not manifest.”
“We’ll be able to see and hear him?” Anna asked on a whisper.
“Quite well, unless I’m completely off the mark.”
“We shouldn’t need to for long,” Patrick said. He and Anna had had plenty of time to discuss the most important questions, knowing full well that they might not get more than one or two answered. Not with the uncertain nature of spirits, especially traumatized ones.
Violet closed her hand around Jenny’s. “Then give me a minute to test this out.”
A strange feeling swept through the room, like the vibrations that shook you after striking a hammer against a solid surface. Again, and a third time before the psychic’s shoulders sagged a little. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered without opening her eyes. “I need you too. The wizard.”
Patrick eyed her warily. “I can’t do a damn thing. Unless you can tap the power—”
“There’s plenty of it floating free,” Violet interrupted, opening her eyes. “Bouncing all around inside you like a pinball machine. Now get over here.”
That was a spectacular sort of creepy. The scars had screwed him up, all right, but he’d assumed the magic was struggling to heal him. Not that it was building up again, gathering with no place to burn.
A problem, all right, but one for later. He stepped forward and wrapped his fingers around the old woman’s delicate, wrinkled hand. “Then take what you need.”
Anna clenched her hands around the end of the metal table. “And what do I do?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Violet’s eyes drifted shut once more.
Patrick opened his mouth to make a smart-assed comment, but magic punched through him, stealing his breath and setting the room in a dead spin. It was like being trapped in a wind tunnel, hot energy rushing by him out of thin air, rushing
through
him, latching on to the bits of magic inside him and dragging them out through his skin.
The table rattled, and magic solidified with a hiss. “I’ll kill them.”
A male voice, low and snarling. Oscar Ochoa, presumably, though it sounded so damn real and alive that Patrick looked around the room to make sure no one else had come in. He’d heard spirits who echoed and some who whispered, but never one who snarled with a corporeal voice.
The room was empty, but when he turned back, a man stood at Violet’s side. “Holy shit.”
“Where is she?” Oscar’s ghost brushed past the medium, grabbed Jenny by the upper arms and peered down into her face. “No, no, where’s
Carrie
?” She tried to break his hold, and he snarled and began to shake her—hard.
Anna swore and reached for Oscar, but her hands passed through him, scattering the edges of his arm like mist. “He’s not supposed to be able to do this, is he?”
“No,” Patrick bit off, then snapped his fingers in front of the ghost’s face. “Hey, I know about Carrie. Let go of her.”
“I’ll kill you.” Oscar growled but released Jenny, dove for him—and vanished halfway across the room.
Violet sagged against the large stainless steel sink behind her. “That was unpleasant. Is everyone all right?”
Ice stabbed through Patrick’s lower back. He tried to jerk around, tried to shout—
His middle finger twitched.
With Anna’s help, Jenny shrugged out of her blazer. “That was one pissed-off dead shapeshifter.”
“Alpha wolf,” Anna answered. “Carrie’s his…whatever. Might as well call her his wife.”
“She would have been.” It was his own voice, but he hadn’t decided to speak. He couldn’t feel his mouth moving, couldn’t feel anything but the vibration of the sounds leaving his throat.
His body was talking, but it wasn’t him.
Oh, fucking hell.
“Maybe. Shapeshifter politics.” Anna sighed and stretched her arms up, lacing her fingers behind her head. “We didn’t get to ask him a single question.”
“It’s always a risk with contacting the dead.” Jenny stared at the body and rubbed the red marks on her upper arms. “If it was reliable, I wouldn’t have a single unsolved case.”
Patrick tried to speak. Tried until he felt like he should be shaking, even as his body stood unmoving.
Let me
go
, you shapeshifter bastard.