As she sashayed away, she aimed a final smirk over her shoulder at Flipper.

To my surprise, I found the bipedal mermaid positioned at my side, standing an arm’s length away with her feet braced apart. “Your marshal is the one with an attitude problem. Not Agent Ellis.”

My jaw scraped the ground. Flipper was standing up for me?

“I’m aware of the issue.” He pointed to me and then to her. “Don’t put me in the position of having to choose consultants over a fellow marshal again, or you’re both gone.”

Ultimatum issued, he returned to the sink.

We were left behind, dismissed. All the better for me to get in and get out faster. The fewer questions asked of me, the better. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Bullies can only retain their power through our silence.” The lilting way spoke made me think she was quoting someone or that she said it often.

I stared after the curly-haired marshal. I couldn’t help it. The man was gorgeous, and the way he moved had to be illegal in some states. His predatory gait reminded me of Graeson before I banished all thoughts of the snarly warg. “Is he the man in charge?”

“Yes, indeed. Jackson Shaw.” Flipper wrinkled her pert nose. “Be careful around him.”

The name sounded familiar. I must have heard it recently. Or maybe I’d read it on the briefing.

“He’s an incubus,” she informed me. “Mermaids have immunity thanks to our cousins, the sirens, but you need to stay on your toes. I’ll thump you in the ear if you start stripping or ask him to sign your boobs instead of your report.”

I glanced down at my creased black dress pants and rumpled polka dot blouse. With my ash-blonde hair twisted out of my face and my storm-cloud-gray eyes bruised from lack of sleep, I wasn’t in any danger of being crowned Miss Texas. But my pride stung nonetheless. The guy was an incubus, and the cat woman had given me a more thorough going-over than he had.

“Thanks.” Even after I said it, I was pretty sure I didn’t mean it.

Chapter 3

No tent meant no private access to the body. I found the victim resting on a dull brown tarp spread over the parched ground. A second layer of plastic covered the girl from the chin down, preserving her modesty and giving her the illusion of a child napping. Two grim-faced marshals guarded the remains. One swept her piercing emerald gaze back and forth across the fissures spreading for hundreds of feet in all directions. The other had placed himself between the body and the eerily blue water.

I leapt a fissure the width of my hips to reach them. “I’m Camille Ellis.” I tucked flyaway hairs behind my ears. “I’m here to examine the body.”