“I was with the Rangers for six years. Are we going somewhere? It’s not time for your Bojuka class.”
Which he would know because he’d been following her to the damn class all along. “I’m not going to Bojuka.” Not with Sean missing. It would hurt too much. She tugged on one shoe. “I didn’t think lupi could be in the military.”
His mouth crooked up. “Legally, you mean? The jury’s still out on that. But there’s always been some of us who joined anyway, especially during World War II. Not so many these days, but a few.”
“How did you pull it off? I mean, I know you don’t absolutely have to Change at full moon, but still. That had to be hard.”
“It can be. You have to be okay living away from clan, and you have to have really good control. It’s not just keeping your wolf from showing up at a bad time. You have to be able to fake human-level responses and strength pretty much all the time, and not everyone can do that.”
“This was back before it was okay to go public about being lupi?”
“Some would say it isn’t okay now,” he said dryly. “I ask again. Are we going somewhere?”
“Out.” She tied the second shoe and stood. “Maybe we’ll pick up something for supper. You like pad Thai? There’s a place six blocks over that makes incredible pad Thai.”
“We could order in.”
“You can do what you like. I need to get out. I need to move.” And she needed to figure some things out before her roommates showed up. Susan wouldn’t be home for at least an hour, but Deirdre might turn up any minute. Deirdre knew that Sean was missing—Beth had called her about that this morning—but not about any of the rest of it…such as the homely man with the gorgeous build watching her warily now with those pretty brown eyes.
What was Beth supposed to tell her roommates?
The truth, she supposed glumly. She couldn’t yell at Lily for hiding stuff then hide stuff herself. Beth pulled her favorite hoodie, the one with the fake fur trim, from her overstuffed closet. “Come on, if you’re coming.”
He was, of course. Not only that, but he insisted on going first when they reached the stairs. She frowned at the top of his shoulders as they started down. Great shoulders. “Haven’t you ever heard of ladies first?”
“Ladies first is for idiots. Or for people who don’t care if the lady takes a bullet.”
“Don’t talk about bullets.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not like I can’t take care of myself, you know.”
That amused him, damn him. “The Bojuka.”
“I’m just starting, but I do pretty well.”
“Rule has guards, and he’s probably a tiny bit better at taking care of himself than you are.”
“Oooh, sarcasm. Those puppy-dog eyes are such a lie. How did you stand it, not being able to issue orders to me while you were sneaking around following me?”
“It was rough.”
He was still amused. She wanted to hit him. “Not that you were all that good at sneaking. I saw you sometimes, you know, and—”
“You thought I was a neighbor.”
“Yeah, but aren’t you supposed to—hey!”
He’d stopped so abruptly she almost smacked into him. “Back!”
“What?”
“Go back up. Quick.”
But he didn’t wait for her to obey, grabbing her and turning her physically, which pissed her off and got her heart scared. He shoved. Her feet obeyed him even as her heartbeat went crazy. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“Patrick sounded the alert. Move faster.”
Patrick? Who was Patrick? What alert? She hadn’t heard anything—but she didn’t have lupi hearing, and his hand was urging her to move, move faster, and she took the stairs as fast as she could so that all she heard were her own feet, her own breath coming hard and rough.
She reached the third-floor landing. His hand left her back for her shoulder, and he pushed down and gave a piercing whistle. She went to her knees, dazed and frightened and wondering what—
“Get flat!” he ordered, but he didn’t pause to see if she obeyed. He spun back around and leaped. Leaped down the stairs, his arms spread so that one brushed the wall, as if he wanted to make himself the biggest target possible. Leaped right at the man racing up the stairs with a gun pointed up at him.
The sound of the shots was deafeningly loud in the closed-in space.
TWENTY-THREE
CARRIE Ann Rucker was fifty-nine, a placid woman with graying blond hair and a crooked front tooth that lent a certain charm to her smile. She owned a small handcrafted jewelry store and was wearing a sample of her merchandise with her neatly pressed jeans and white blouse—a pretty pair of chandelier earrings.
She also worked as a mule for a drug cartel. Her only arrest had never made it to the grand jury, thanks to some clumsiness on the part of the arresting officer and a very expensive lawyer. One who also worked for said cartel.
“And you never looked inside the bag,” Lily said.
“He asked me not to, and I agreed. I do believe in keeping my word, don’t you?”
One of the interesting things about Carrie Ann was the way her attention stayed with Lily. Sure, Rule wasn’t saying much, but people always noticed him. Especially women. Even if Carrie Ann was wired for women, Lily would expect her to take more interest in a guy who occasionally turns into a wolf. “That seems like an odd thing to ask. Even odder that you agreed.”
Carrie Ann smiled comfortably. “I’m not a very curious person.”
“Remarkably incurious, considering you’ve been arrested for transporting illegal substances in the past. Substances you had no idea someone had planted in your car,” Lily said dryly. “Hard to believe you wouldn’t want to make sure this man you’d never met before wasn’t taking advantage of your helpful nature.”
“He had such a good vibe. I’m sure it was all perfectly innocent.”
“Are you, now? And yet the FBI takes very little interest in scavenger hunts.”
Carrie Ann just smiled.
Lily looked down at her notes, wondering how much longer to push. Carrie Ann was a pro. She knew what to say and when to shut up, and she was enjoying herself way too much. She knew damn well Lily didn’t have a lever to pry loose any actual facts. Sure, she’d given them a description of the “nice older man” she met at the park, but that only meant that whoever really had her make the drop looked nothing like the guy she’d described.
Lily looked up from her notes. “That’s what he said he was doing, right? Setting up a scavenger hunt for the grandkids. He asked you to leave a Macy’s shopping bag at the base of the Dutch windmill. He specifically asked you not to look inside.”
“That’s right.”
“He was a white male, about seventy. He had white hair, thick for a man his age. You don’t remember what he was wearing, but you’re sure you would have noticed if he’d been in a suit.”
“No one wears suits on Saturday at the park, do they?”
“You think he may have been wearing glasses, but you aren’t sure about that, either. And you don’t know his name.”
“He must have told me,” she said apologetically, “but I don’t remember it. And I think the bag was from Macy’s, but it might have been Nordstrom’s. I shop at both places, and I’m sure it was from one of them.”
Rule touched Lily’s arm lightly and stood. She glanced up. He’d taken out his phone and was heading for the door of the office they’d borrowed from one of the local agents. She looked back at Carrie Ann. “How much do you think the bag weighed?”
“Oh, not too much. Perhaps as much as two or three books?”