“Nick the carpenter? The one that redid our, no, I’m sorry, your kitchen?”

Raphael nodded. “Yes.”

I remembered Nick. He’d cracked jokes while he had installed the cabinets and showed me a picture of his wife and told me she was the most wonderful woman on Earth. He’d said they were trying to have a baby and if it was a boy, they would name him Rory, and if it was a girl, they would name her Rory, too.

Raphael had teased him that they were setting the baby up to be made fun of, to which Nick had pointed his hammer at Raphael and told him that if he wanted to name babies, he would just have to make some of his own.

“Was it a girl?” I asked quietly. “Baby Rory?”

“It’s a boy,” Raphael said.

And now his mother was dead. I would get those bastards. I would find them and make them pay.

I got up. “Thank you for your cooperation. We’re done. I’ll inform you when I have a lead.” This interview is over. Get the hell out of my office and out of my life.

“Do that.”

Raphael rose and left.

Work was the only thing I had left. Everything else was gone now. I would find the murderers. I would find them if it was the last thing I did. I had to do it to prevent them from killing anyone else, to offer their victims vengeance and solace, and most of all I had to do it to prove to myself that I was still worth something.

I pulled out a phone book and tracked down the three addresses of the bidders.

His scent was still here. I snarled at it, but it refused to vanish.

Hurt and frustration bubbled in me. I was keyed up too high, my skin was on too tight, and I wanted to shoot something just to vent all the pain boiling up inside.

So Raphael had replaced me with a seven-foot-tall dimwit, so what? Good riddance. I was better off on my own.

The back door opened with a faint creak. Ascanio walked into the office and froze.

“What?” I asked.

He opened his mouth, his eyes wide.

“Speak!”

“Breasts,” he said.

Female shapeshifters didn’t have breasts in warrior form. There was no need for them. They were either flat-chested or sported rows of teats. I had breasts. They were covered with fur, but they were recognizable adult female boobs.

“It’s not your first time seeing a pair, is it?”

“Um. No.”

“Then do act like you’ve been around the block before.”

Ascanio closed his mouth with a click.

“Don’t test Raphael,” I told him. “If you do, he’ll cut you into itsy-bitsy pieces and leave them in a pretty pile on the floor.” I decided I liked my beastkin voice. It was deeper, more powerful, and sounded better. In an attractive female monster kind of way.