I wanted to ask what would happen if we hadn’t found Marc in a couple of days, but I didn’t, because I already knew the answer. If we hadn’t found him by then, we wouldn’t find him alive.
“Okay, about these names…” A pencil tapped against paper, and I knew my dad was staring at the list I’d given him. “Michael’s given me addresses for two of them, but we have no record of the other three.” Which wasn’t much of a surprise. We tried to keep up with the strays living near our territory, but our lists became outdated fairly quickly, as strays were killed in skirmishes and others popped up to replace them. “And I can’t do much with the partials.”
“I figured.” I sighed, already tired of dead ends. “Just give me what you have, please.” I scribbled as my father spoke, then thanked him for the information.
“Ground rules,” he began, before I could hang up gracefully, and I glanced around the table to make sure the guys were all listening. “Talk to them one at a time. Strays are loners, so that shouldn’t be too hard. But then again, things seem to be changing in the free zone, so you never know. But if you can’t get a stray by himself, don’t approach him. Just follow him until he is alone. Got it?”
“Of course,” I said, and all around the table, the guys nodded silently.
“You can do the talking, but Ethan and Parker are in charge if persuasion proves necessary.”
I pouted a bit over that one. I’d never played bad cop, and couldn’t think of a more appropriate time to start. But if I argued, my dad would pull me off the case, regardless of my relationship to Marc. Because if that relationship got in the way of my work, it would put us all in danger.
“And keep me updated.”
“We will.”
Again, I started to say goodbye, but again my father interrupted. “Ethan?”
“Yeah?” my brother said in the general direction of my phone, around a mouthful of pizza crust.
“Make sure she eats something.”
I rolled my eyes, but Ethan grinned and washed his bite down with half a can of Coke. “No problem.”
I said goodbye to my father and slid my phone into my pocket, then snatched a slice of pizza from my untouched plate, saluting my brother with it to demonstrate my cooperation. “Let’s go.”
Parker grabbed his keys while Dan shrugged into his jacket, and they all followed me out the front door, Ethan carrying the rest of my dinner for me. But I couldn’t think about food, and knew I would have no appetite until we’d gotten Marc back. Alive.
And eliminated the sorry bastards who’d taken him.
Ten
“So, who is Ben Feldman?” I leaned forward from the middle row, resting my elbows on the back of the passenger seat, inches from Dan’s head. Parker was driving, because it was his car, and Dan won shotgun by default, because he was the one with the directions.
Feldman was the only stray on the list whose address Dan knew without consulting the information my father had given us.
The stray turned slightly in his seat to face me and Ethan, who sat on my left. “Feldman got bit about seven years ago. That makes him kinda old for a stray, right?”
I shrugged. “I guess.” Dr. Carver claimed that because of their typically violent lifestyle, the average postinfection life span for a stray was under three years. I didn’t know if that was true, but Dan didn’t seem to doubt it. He’d probably heard those figures from Marc, who’d already lived far beyond that average.
Ben Feldman… Why did that sound familiar? “Would this be the same Ben you told about us coming through the free zone on Friday night?”
“Uh, yeah.” Dan glanced at Ethan, then back at me. “Before I met Marc, everything I knew about werecats I got from Ben Feldman.”
I leaned back in my seat and stared out at the dark road, thinking for a moment. “Was Feldman one of the cats who ambushed us the other night?”
“No, but I couldn’t swear he wasn’t in with the second wave.”
Which we’d never actually seen.
“So, are we assuming this is related to the ambush?” Parker glanced from me to Ethan in the rearview mirror.
“Until we find evidence to the contrary, yes.” I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s too much of a coincidence, otherwise.” Feldman had to be connected to the ambush, because he was the only one Dan had told about our stop in Natchez.
“I can’t see Ben being mixed up in any of this. He’s a good guy.” Dan loosened his seat belt and twisted even farther in his seat, as if showing us his earnest expression would convince us. “Out of all the guys on that list, he’s the one I’d guess would help us out. He’s big and he’s got a temper, but he’s smart and he knows what’s right.”
“Oh, good!” Ethan’s green eyes brightened with mock mirth. “Maybe instead of throwing empty beer bottles at us when we wake him up in the middle of the night, he’ll show us in and serve hot tea!”
Dan glared at him, but Ethan’s good humor couldn’t be stifled. Even at midnight, on a strange highway in the free zone.
Unfortunately, after nearly an hour of driving, we got neither empty bottles nor hot tea, because Mr. Feldman—our best shot at peaceful information, in Dan’s opinion—wasn’t home. So we moved down the list to Hooper Galloway, because he lived the closest to Feldman.
Galloway lived in a tiny rental house crowded into a street already packed with dozens more just like his. There was no front yard to speak of, and standing on his porch in the middle of the night made me nervous. I was sure some nosy, insomniac neighbor was peering through a dusty set of miniblinds at that very moment, wondering why a young woman and three large men were knocking on the Galloway boy’s door at nearly one in the morning.
But as thoroughly as I scanned the darkness, I could detect no one watching. The streetlight in front of the house was busted, and human eyes wouldn’t have been able to see much of us at all.
When Dan’s first, polite knock got no response, Parker took over, pounding on the door with a volume and tempo which could not be ignored. We were assuming Galloway was home, based on the car parked in the driveway, which reeked of stray. So I nodded when Parker asked me with a mimed knock whether or not he should give it another try. But that proved unnecessary, as uneven footsteps thumped toward us from within the house.
The white-painted steel front door opened, leaving only a storm door between me and Hooper Galloway. Who obviously wasn’t yet fully awake. “This better be—” he began, voice rough with sleep. Then his gaze found me briefly before flicking to the three large toms at my back. Galloway’s eyes widened when his gaze landed on Dan, whom he clearly recognized, but he did not invite us in.
“Hooper Galloway?” I asked, and his eyes narrowed, nostrils finally flaring to confirm my species. Most strays would live and die without ever laying eyes on a tabby, and I knew from his own scent that Galloway had not been among the toms who’d attacked us three nights before.
“Who the hell are you?” Spoken like a man who has no idea that a screen door isn’t enough of a barrier between himself and the serious trouble I was dying to unleash on someone.
But I kept my temper in check; his voluntary cooperation would get us information much faster than having to beat it out of him. As much fun as that might have been, under the circumstances. “My name is Faythe Sanders, and I’m an enforcer for the south-central Pride. As are two of the gentlemen behind me. We’d like to ask you a few questions. May we come in?”
Galloway only blinked at me, and I could almost see comprehension slide across his features as my words sank in. One by one, evidently. Fear glinted in his eyes, but it was pigheaded stubbornness that tightened his grip on the screen door handle. As if that would keep us out.
I raised both eyebrows and let a wry smile turn up one corner of my mouth. “Whoops. I phrased that as a question, didn’t I? My mistake.” I stepped back and Ethan wrapped one hand around the door handle—one of those old, flimsy metal ones with a button at the top for your thumb—a
nd pulled it right out of the door frame with a single tug. Metal screws squealed as they tore free from the wood, and Ethan stepped past me holding the door with both hands.
I could have done that myself, of course, but I was supposed to be playing the good cop, which meant I didn’t get to break stuff unless the whole thing went downhill and we went for plan B: bad cop/worse cop.
“Now, Mr. Galloway, you have two choices. You can either step aside and let us in, or you can hold your ground and be forcibly removed, just like your door.”
He moved back faster than I could catch more than a whiff of his fresh fear.
“Thank you.” I stepped past Galloway into his living room, flipping the switch as I went. Dim light flooded the room from a cheap ceiling-fan fixture overhead, and I made myself at home on the ratty futon serving as his couch while the guys followed me inside. Parker was the last one in, and he bolted the still-functioning door while Ethan propped the storm door against a bare, white wall.
“What’s…uh…going on?” Galloway shrugged nervously, addressing his question to Dan, the only one of us he might—almost—trust.
“You know Marc Ramos, right?” Dan sat next to me on the futon and gestured for Galloway to sit in the only chair, while Ethan and Parker remained standing—a constant and obvious threat.
Galloway nodded hesitantly, sinking into a decent-looking overstuffed armchair—easily the nicest piece of furniture in the room. And probably in the house. “That big Mexican tom who got kicked out…” His own words seemed to sink in, and his voice faded as his gaze traveled over us again. “You’re looking for Marc? What did he do?”
I raised one eyebrow over his assumption that we were trying to apprehend Marc.
“He disappeared.” I glanced at Ethan, unsure how much to tell the stray before asking our questions. But Galloway’s expression had shifted from fear to genuine eagerness and curiosity. This was a man looking for information, rather than hiding it.
Ethan shrugged, leaving the decision up to me, so I turned back to the stray. “Do you have any idea where Marc is, or who he’s with?”
Galloway appeared confused. “Why would I? He’s your friend. And rumor has it you two are more than just friends.”
I started to roll my eyes and ignore the implication—accurate though it was—but stopped when I recognized an opportunity to drive home my determination. “That’s right. And I’d do anything to find him, and the bastard who took him.”
“Whoa, someone took him?” Galloway sat straighter in his chair and ran one hand through shaggy black hair as he glanced at Dan for confirmation. “I thought you meant he’d skipped town or something.”
“No.” I leaned forward to underline the importance of what I was about to say. “He was taken by force, and we’ll get him back the same way, if necessary. Did his abduction have anything to do with the attack on our caravan on Friday?”
“What attack?” Galloway scrunched his forehead in an exaggerated look of confusion, and his heart beat just a little bit faster. Which gave me a baseline. His reaction said he knew something about the ambush, but his lack of a reaction earlier said that he truly knew nothing about what happened to Marc.
Either that, or he was a really good actor. I wasn’t prepared to give Galloway that much credit yet.
“You were in the second wave of the ambush, weren’t you?” I pinned him with my gaze, and I swear the tom actually squirmed in his chair. There goes the good-actor theory….
“I don’t know what you’re—”
But I’d already moved on. “We thought you were after the tabbies,” I said, still watching him as if I could read his mind just by looking into his eyes. “But you were after Marc, weren’t you? Why?”
Galloway’s gaze flicked quickly from me, to Ethan, to Parker, and back again, and he began to fidget with a loose thread on the arm of his chair. “Look, I’m not the one you want to talk to about this—”
“But you’re the one who’s here.” Parker took a menacing step forward, arms crossed over his chest. “So go easy on yourself. Tell us what the hell you guys want with Marc.”
“They don’t want Marc, they want him dead.” Galloway sighed, as if giving up the information had somehow tarnished his badge of honor.
It had bruised my soul.
Terror clenched around my heart so tightly that at first it refused to beat. They wanted Marc dead, and now he was missing, all except for several pints of his blood. Had they gotten what they wanted?
No. I couldn’t make myself believe it. Not while there were still questions unanswered by that theory.
If they’d killed Marc, why take his body and leave the others?
I took a deep breath and nodded to Ethan’s questioning gaze to tell him I was all right. Then I turned back to Galloway and forced myself to focus. “They?”
“Well, it wasn’t my idea! I just do what I’m told.”
“By whom?” I scooted to the edge of the futon, when what I really wanted to do was stand up and pace. Pacing helped me think. But I sat still, because the stray would likely read my pacing as aggression—like a caged cat. Not a good impression coming from the “good” cop.
He glanced at Dan, as if for permission, or an opinion about what he was about to say, but Dan could only shrug, clearly at a loss. “Pete Yarnell.”
The name sounded familiar. Dan nodded on the edge of my vision, and I turned to him. “You know Pete?”
“I met him a couple of times. His name’s on the list.”
Oh, yeah. He was the only tom my father hadn’t been able to find an address for.
“Man, you made them a list?” Galloway looked both shocked and impressed by Dan’s nerve. “You better watch it. They’ll be after you next.”
My head swiveled in his direction so fast I got an instant headache. “Next, after whom? Marc? Why are they after Marc?”
Galloway closed his eyes briefly, then met my gaze reluctantly, as if already ashamed by what he was about to admit. “I don’t know who took your boyfriend, or what they want. But it wasn’t one of us. At least, not that I know of. On Friday, we were trying to take him out of the picture, but that obviously didn’t work. And I haven’t heard anything about a second attempt.”
“Why was there a first attempt?” Ethan stepped closer to me for a better view of our new informant.
“Because he’s a fucking traitor!” Galloway sat straighter, his courage evidently bolstered by what he saw as the unblemished truth. Then he turned to Dan. “And they won’t be very happy with you, either, when they find out you’re picking up where Marc left off.”
Frustrated almost beyond rational thought, I turned to Dan. “What the hell is he talking about?”
He sighed. “Pete thinks Marc’s still working for your dad.”
I shook my head; comprehension wouldn’t come. “Why would he think that?”
“Because nobody really believes he got kicked out in some kind o’ political squabble.” Dan hesitated, clearly preparing to say something I wasn’t going to like. “You have to understand how it looks to them. To the strays that don’t know Marc.” He gestured at Galloway as an example. “Marc’s a legend. A stray living with the Pride cats, bangin’ one of their princesses—no offense—” I waved him on, and he continued “—doin’ the messy jobs so the Pride cats don’t have to get their hands dirty.”
“That’s not true!” I snapped. “We’re all out there getting our hands dirty. Enforcers fight nearly every day to protect and defend our territory—not to mention the entire species—from trespassers stomping all over our land and rogues out there making no attempt to hide their existence from humans. We’re trying to keep everyone safe. Both Pride and stray.”
Dan rolled his eyes. “I get it. You’re the National Guard and the fuckin’ ASPCA all rolled into one. But what they see is a hired gun that’s been pickin’ them off one by one for the last decade or so. And now he’s livin’ here with them—”
“Still picking us off one at
a time,” Galloway finished for him.
I frowned at him. “What does that mean?”
“Rumor has it he’s here to clean house for the Prides,” Dan said. “To rid the free zone of strays, once and for all.”
“What?” I felt my eyebrows arch halfway up my forehead, and my fellow Pride cats looked just as upset as I was by that little nugget of information. “Why the hell would they think that?” I demanded. “Marc’s a stray, just like everyone else here.”
“He’s a stray, but not like everybody else,” Painter insisted, clearly surprised that I couldn’t see his point. “He’s got training and knowledge and connections. He’s a threat. And everyone here knows where his loyalties lie, and it ain’t with every common stray that crosses his path.”
I laughed bitterly at the irony, and looked at Ethan. “If they only knew.”
“Knew what?” Galloway glanced back and forth between us. If he were in cat form, his eager ears would have swiveled in my direction.
“The Prides don’t want Marc.” I spit the vile truth, hating each word as I said it. “My father’s the only Alpha who ever accepted a stray into a Pride, and he’s paying for that right now.” I made myself stop because I wasn’t sure how much Dan and Galloway knew about my father’s political problems. Or how much they should know, considering Dan’s habit of sharing information with our enemies and Galloway’s tendency to work for them. “Marc’s about as welcome in most of the Prides as he is here.”
Painter shrugged, a gesture that was starting to look habitual. “Well, at least the Pride cats aren’t trying to kill him.”
Not so far, anyway.
“So, wait…” Parker said to Galloway, drawing me back on track. “What do you mean, Marc’s picking you off one at a time?”
Galloway shrugged. “Just what I said. Guys are going missing. Just…gone. And everyone knows it’s Marc. He’s killing them, for your dad.”