Young yanked on the dressing again in irritation. “Damn it. Only reason they’d drive into that garage was to switch cars. You put Cabrera on it?”

“Yes, sir,” Leandra confirmed. “Only three vehicles got out before we sealed off the area. We’re tracking all of them.” Might as well give him a full report. “The Chief of Police threw a fit, by the way. So did the mayor.

And the press.”

The restless fingers paused for a moment. “How’s the kid?”

Not the first question Leandra had expected, but something shifted a little when he asked, made her feel even worse for screwing him over. She cleared her throat, uncomfortable with the feeling. “She’s fine. No lasting damage. We’ve put her in quarantine just to be on the safe side and are running tests, but it doesn’t look like it got to her.” And thank God for that, because if the alien had jumped into the child, that would’ve been an ethical and tactical nightmare. “Her parents were already lawyering up when we got to them. It’s taken care of.”

Mr. and Mrs. Padilla had been convinced to accept a generous financial compensation rather than go to court. They’d also signed an airtight non-disclosure agreement. They hadn’t wanted to at first, but

Young’s staff had turned out to be scarily efficient in making problems go away. Emphasis on “scary.”

Young nodded, accepting that without further questions. “Did the CID

find anything we can use?”

And there he went, tug-tug-tugging again.

Leandra barely suppressed a grimace. The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, USACIDC for short, had flown in a team that was at the scene now, but that was about the only thing that had gone right. She’d talked to the lead investigator, gotten a lecture on procedure and fiction versus reality, and had then been told in no uncertain terms that it was kind of difficult to do one’s job when the building in question was still smoldering where it wasn’t soaked through.

“Not yet.”

The bandage was loose enough Young could tug it off now. He glared down at the bloody material for a moment then balled it up and tossed it at the trashcan. Leandra was reluctantly impressed when he sank the lumpy missile without even looking. The gash on his head had been cleaned and stitched up, but the area around it was starting to swell. It looked painful, not that Young deigned to flinch when he prodded at it.

“None of this shit makes sense,” he huffed, and finally left the wound alone. He glanced at her ramrod stiff posture. “At ease, Lieutenant. Did you watch the debriefings?”

Leandra eased into the more comfortable stance with relief and nodded. “I talked to Sergeant Vasquez.”

“So what do you think?”