Apparently, that was exactly what I needed to hear. I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” My mom sipped her tea and cast a speculative glance at the bandanna knotted around my throat. “Do you want to talk about Cody Fairfax now?”

So much for jaunty. Jaunty was no match for mom-radar and the lotería cards. “No.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, my eyes stinging a little. “I’m just not a suitable mate for a werewolf, that’s all.”

“Oh, honey.” There was sympathy and concern in her voice. Mom knew all about my breaking up with Sinclair and my long-standing crush on Cody. But she also knew when to push me for my own good and when to leave me be. I imagine anyone who’s ever parented a hell-spawn child learns that pretty quickly, what with the random damage we wreak on our surroundings when our emotions are out of control. “How about I make popcorn and we watch a few episodes of Gilmore Girls?”

I wiped away a surreptitious tear. “That sounds great.”

Forty

Every police force should have a ghoul on it. That was the conclusion I came to after a second day of having Cooper ride shotgun on this assignment.

I mean one of the Outcast, of course, but the thing is, ghoul is the word people know. And when it comes to sullen teenagers—I’m not saying all teenagers are sullen, but the five we tracked down and questioned that day were—it was particularly effective to have Cooper slouching beside us, angelic blue eyes glittering feverishly in his too-pale face as he let his beast slip the leash enough to filter their emotions for the particular taste of fear that telling a lie engendered.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that none of them knew anything about the theft and none of them were lying. If the Tall Man’s remains had been stolen by one of Pemkowet’s disaffected youth, it wasn’t someone with a prior for cemetery vandalism. We were out of leads.

After we struck out with the last possible suspect, I called Sinclair to report our lack of progress and ask him about the summoning attempt my mom had mentioned.

“The coven’s working on a ritual, Daise,” he assured me. “We’re just being really, really careful, because we got it wrong with our last plan.”

“Well, tell them to step it up,” I said. “Because we’re not making any progress finding the Tall Man’s remains, which means we’re no closer to finding Grandpa Morgan’s duppy. As long as he’s on the loose, the gateway between the living and the dead is ajar, and that’s not a good thing.”

Sinclair’s voice took on a worried tone. “Has something else happened?”

“Not yet,” I said. “But time’s a-wasting.”

No kidding.