“Yes. Both the People and the Pack are suspects. He wants to put on a show of cooperation.”

Ted nodded, approving of my assessment.

“I had no cause to go to the Casino,” I said.

“You’ve got one now.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then after we’re done, go and shut him up.”

I nodded.

“Tell me what you’ve got so far.”

I unloaded. I told him about the dead vampire and the hidden brand; I told him about the meeting with the Beast Lord who wanted to be called Curran, and I told him about the yellow lines on the m-scan and Anna’s dream.

He sat through it all, nodding with no expression on his stone face. When I was done, he said, “Good.”

I realized that the audience was over and left the office. This time the Saracens escaped without burning oil scalding their backs.

I proceeded into Greg’s office. Something had been bothering me since last night, tugging at my mind, and this morning, my wits sharpened by fury over the icy shower, I finally figured out what it was: the names of the women in Greg’s file. I had forgotten about the four names, just let them slip from my memory, which was both irresponsible and stupid. I should have known better than that.

Finding the file and extracting the page listing the names took about five seconds. Sandra Molot, Angelina Gomez, Jennifer Ying, Alisa Konova. I checked Greg’s files looking for the names, but none of the women had individual folders. Besides coming from different ethnic groups, they had nothing in common. I rummaged around for a phone book, found it in the lowest drawer, and looked through it. Gomez and Ying were common surnames, and Molot was not infrequent, so I looked for Konova. I found two men with the surname Konov, Anatoli and Denis. Russians denoted female gender by adding a vowel to the end of their surname, so a female form of Konov would be Konova. Given that, I thought the names were worth a try.

I dialed the first one and was informed by an indifferent female voice that the number had been disconnected. I tried the second number. The phone rang and an older female voice said with a slight accent, “Yes?”

“Hello, can I speak with Alisa, please?”

There was a long pause.

“Ma’am?”

“Alisa’s missing,” the woman said quietly. “We don’t know where she is.”

She hung up the phone before I had a chance to ask anything else. Since Molot was my second best bet, I looked for it and found six Molots. I hit pay dirt on the fourth one—a young male told me that Sandra was his sister and reluctantly informed me that she was also missing since the fourteenth of last month but refused to say anything else, adding “the cops are still looking for her.” I thanked him and hung up.