“That’s right.”

A flush bloomed on his cheeks. “Sorry, I, uh, wasn’t sure I heard that right.”

Apparently, I didn’t look like this officer’s idea of a “Hope Adams.” My mother had been a student from India when she met my dad at college. Will Adams, though, was not my biological father, and half-demons inherit their appearance from their maternal DNA.

As I chatted him up, a man lurched from behind the cenotaph. He peered around, his eyes wild behind green-lensed glasses. Spying us, he strode over, one black-nailed finger jabbing.

“You took him, didn’t you?”

The officer’s hand slid to his belt. “Sir, you need to step back—”

“Or what?” The man stopped inches from the officer, swaying. “You’ll shoot me? Like you shot him? Take me away too? Study me? Dissect me? Then deny everything?”

“If you mean the victim—”

“I meant the werewolf.”

The officer cleared his throat. “There, uh, was no werewolf, sir. The victim was—”

“Eaten!” The man leaned forward, spittle flying. “Torn apart and eaten! Tracks everywhere. You can’t cover it up this time.”

“A werewolf?” said a woman, sidling over as she passed. “I heard that too.”

The officer slid a small “can you believe this?” smile my way. I struggled to return it. I could believe that people thought this was a werewolf; that’s why True News had sent their “weird tales girl” to cover the story. As for werewolves themselves, I certainly believed in them—though even before the vision I’d known this wasn’t one of their kills.

“Sorry about that,” the officer said when he’d finally moved the conspiracy theorist on.

“Werewolves? Dare I even ask where that rumor came from?”

“The kids who found the body got all freaked out, seeing dog tracks around it, and they started posting online about werewolves. I have no idea how the dog got involved.”

I was already mentally writing my story. “When asked about the werewolf rumors, an officer on the site admitted he couldn’t explain the combined signs of canine and human.” That’s the trick of writing for a tabloid. You take the facts and massage them, hinting, implying, suggesting…As long as no one is humiliated unfairly, and no sources are named, I don’t have a problem giving readers the entertainment they want.