“She got into a car,” Adam said, trying not to appear winded, as I cast back and forth with my nose to the ground. “Someone picked her up—or she hitched a ride.”

Disturbing to speculate about either way, I thought, but there was nothing we could do about it now. “Disturbing” was a good word. Of all the things that had happened over the past few days, a dead fae getting up and running off might just be the most disturbing.

Still—a zombie. Maybe it would intrigue Marsilia enough she’d forget about her car. Not likely, but maybe. I wasn’t sure I should feel responsible for the damage to the trunk. How could I have been expected to know that the dead fae would break out on her own?

Adam stared down the road. “If you hadn’t slowed down for me, you might have caught her.”

Maybe I would have—and maybe that wouldn’t have been a good thing. Warren’s truck pulled up, and Warren leaned over and opened the passenger door.

“No luck?” Warren asked, as we hopped in. I took the middle seat.

“No. Looks like she got in a car. Could have gone either way.”

Warren turned the truck around and headed back before he said anything. “That’s disturbing,” he said.

Zombies or not, the press needed to be appeased.

Tony had checked in with his boss and given him the official story that Adam and Armstrong had come up with—which was basically to leave out Cantrip’s involvement completely. The conveniently out-of-sight anonymous mercenaries took the majority of the blame. They had been hired to force the werewolves to act in violence and attack Senator Campbell, to get rid of the senator and to make the werewolves appear to be monsters.

Adam didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a handsome, charismatic man. He was very good on camera.

The person behind the plot apparently panicked when some of his mercenaries were captured while holding Kyle Brooks prisoner. He had them killed to keep them from talking.

Armstrong had done some uncleaning to reveal the deaths of the men caught kidnapping Kyle because it was now a useful part of the story.

When they heard about the killings, the other mercenaries left, burning the winery and letting Adam and the pack break free. Officials were trying to find the mercenaries (with an implied fat chance) and the man behind the plot (also fat chance). And hopefully, everyone would leave satisfied with nothing but the truth—if not quite the whole truth.