An hour later dinner was over and I was putting away the dishes Curran had washed. Since Julie had cooked, she was off kitchen duty. She spread her homework out on the table and Christopher sat next to her, leafing through her textbooks.

I dried a plate with a towel. “I’m going to see Saiman tomorrow. I need him to analyze the glass we found. It’s going to be expensive.”

Curran’s eyes turned dark. “Take Derek with you.”

“No. I’m going to see Saiman without a babysitter.”

“I don’t like it.”

Christopher quietly got up and walked out of the kitchen.

“Do you trust me?”

The line of Curran’s jaw went hard. “I trust you,” he said. “I don’t trust that degenerate with your safety.”

“I know. But Eduardo needs him. Any other lab will take too much time.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“If Saiman tries anything, I’ll take him apart.”

Curran looked at me. I looked back. I meant what I said. If Saiman got out of line, I would do whatever I had to do to get him back behind it.

“While you’re doing that, I’m going to swing by the Guild,” Curran said. “You don’t stalk someone you don’t know. Eduardo and the man who watched him crossed paths somehow, and while we can’t look at the logbooks, I have his scent now. If he’s been to the Guild in the past week, I’ll recognize it.”

“If Eduardo was being stalked, would he talk to anyone in the Pack?” I thought out loud.

“He didn’t tell George,” Curran said.

That was true. She didn’t mention it and it wasn’t the kind of thing one would consider irrelevant when your loved one was missing.

Christopher still wasn’t back.

“Julie, where did Christopher go?”

She raised her head from her paper. “He said he was going home.”

“What?” Home. In the dark. All the way to the Keep.

I tossed the towel onto the island and dashed outside, into the cold. Our front yard was empty. I sprinted to the end of the driveway and spun left, then right. There he was, walking down the neighbors’ driveway.

“Christopher!”

He waved at me and headed straight for their door. I ran after him, trying not to slip on the icy pavement. In retrospect, shoes would’ve been an excellent idea.

I got to Christopher just as he knocked on the neighbors’ door.

“Hey,” I touched his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“Home.” He smiled. “I like home. It’s warm and there are books.”

“This isn’t—”