“For outing me?” Cody asked. I nodded silently. He turned onto the narrow highway. “Pretty much a ten when you called me this morning,” he said. “After seeing the way things stand in the Cassopolis household . . .” He shrugged. “Maybe a three. You were right. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how bad things were there. And I didn’t realize friendship was so important to you.”

“Jen was right, too,” I said softly. “You do make a beautiful wolf.”

He shot me another glance. “Thanks. You ready to talk about this temptation scenario yet?”

I shook my head. “There’s not enough time.”

“Okay.”

On the far side of the bridge, Stefan’s Harley was idling in the parking lot of the little roadside market that sold fresh local produce and flowers. He pulled out and fell in behind us as we crossed the river, following us to a cottage in East Pemkowet only a couple blocks away from Mr. Leary’s place.

We held a quick conference on the sidewalk in front of the cottage. I still wasn’t sure how much I trusted Stefan, but we were running out of options. He readily agreed to send one of his lieutenants to Jerry Dunham’s house in search of possible hostages.

“I will send Johnny on the pretext of delivering Dunham’s back wages,” he said. “If there is anyone being held captive on the premises, he should be able to sense it at close range.”

I had an uncomfortable thought. “It won’t send him ravening, will it?”

Stefan raised his brows. “The possibility exists. It would depend upon the degree of suffering to which he was exposed. But if it does, you will have your answer, will you not?”

“I guess.” I hadn’t mentioned the suspected nature of the hostage. “What happens to the hostage if it does?”

“Nothing worse than has already occurred,” he said. “Either the captors would share their bounty or there would be a struggle for dominance among those involved, with the winner continuing to feed upon the hostage’s suffering. But I think it is unlikely. Like many of the unfeeling, the blank Jerry Dunham has a well-developed sense of self-preservation. I do not think he would keep a victim hostage under his roof.”

“What happens to the loser if there’s a fight?” Cody inquired.

Stefan glanced at him. “The loser would seek . . . another source, until he or she was contained and the ravening allowed to pass.”

“Does it always?” I asked. “Pass, I mean.”

He hesitated. “No. Not if the exposure was prolonged and sustained. It would take many months of solitary confinement, but it is possible for one of our kind to starve. To succumb to madness, to devour our own essence until nothing remains and the corporeal body vanishes. It is one of the only ways in which our existence can truly be ended.”

Huh.