The late hour and the warg occupying my room left me with few options. Figuring Harlow must still be on the scene in Falco, I rode the elevator down to the lobby and called a cab. Cellphones and water didn’t mix, so it made sense she wouldn’t keep hers on her. I’d head out there, give myself time to cool off, and she could give me a ride back to the hotel. I would treat her at one of those twenty-four-hour restaurants that did brisk business preying on interstate traffic with their glossy signs and promises of bottomless mugs of coffee. Right now that kind of anonymity hit the spot.

Chapter 9

Brushy Creek Lake resembled all the other lake turned crime scenes I had visited since Charybdis began his murder spree. He definitely had a preference for the remote and the tick-infested.

“You sure you don’t want me to hang around?” The cabbie leaned out his window, scratching his cheek as he took in the desolate location. A full moon hung overhead, muted by the thick beams of his headlights. “I got a daughter your age. I wouldn’t leave her out here’s all I’m sayin’.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.” I pointed to the far end of the weedy parking lot where a black van straddled crumbling white lines. “That’s my ride home. I’m meeting a friend here.”

“Friend? Hope you don’t mean a guy. Only one thing they want if they ask you to meet them at a van in the woods.” He huffed. “It ain’t right. No friend of yours ought to drag you out here in the middle of the damn night.”

Smothering a grin at the human working himself into a protective frenzy over me, I took pity on his conscience and removed my ID from the purse slung over my shoulder. I flipped open the wallet and presented my badge, which was enchanted to appear to him as what he expected to see, whether that meant local law enforcement or a government agency. Still wary, he pulled a flashlight out of his console and swept it down the side of the van, illuminating the seal of the local marshal’s office, which was also glamoured to meet his expectations.

“I guess you can take care of yourself, huh?” He squinted at the badge one last time. “You keep my number, all right? I’m on the clock until six this morning. If you run into any trouble, you give me a call.”

“I will,” I promised, stepping back to give him room to execute a three-point turn.

His hand twisted in a slight wave, and he was gone.