“So you really are Gabriel’s father?” Helia said. “That’s what everyone says, but then we found Seanna and started thinking maybe the rumor was wrong, that you two couldn’t have…you know. She seems kind of…” She wrinkled her nose.

“Nasty.”

“Maybe he likes nasty,” Alexios said. “You’ve read his sex scenes.”

“I’m not sure they’re meant to be nasty.”

“I believe it’s time to go,” Gabriel said, ushering them out.

“Well played,” Patrick murmured as he passed. “Well played.”

—

The Jag idled beside an abandoned three-story school. As soon as the car rolled to a stop, the dryads had hopped out with “We’ll find her” and “We’ll call.”

Gabriel and Patrick watched them dart alongside the boarded-up building.

“Well, this looks sketchy,” Patrick said. When Gabriel looked over, he added, “It means disreputable and suspicious. I’m a writer. I know all the lingo.”

“I know what it means. I’m a defense attorney. And I have Olivia, who has used the term on occasion, along with others that aren’t in my usual vocabulary.” He surveyed the building. “Yes, it is disreputable and, in being disreputable, given the situation, suspicious.”

“Sketchy.”

“That is a vague term, used somewhat incorrectly, and therefore imprecise.”

“You always use precisely the right words. Another trait inherited from your father.”

“I read a chapter of the book you gave Olivia. I believe, wherever that trait came from, it was clearly an outside influence.”

“Ouch.” A moment of silence as they watched the dryads slip through a broken window. “So the book…Paranormal fiction isn’t your kind of thing?”

“My tastes are eclectic. I would not dismiss a novel simply because I haven’t read that genre before.”

“Double ouch.”

“That wasn’t intended as an insult. I simply discovered that reading a book you’d written was not a properly immersive entertainment experience. I hear your voice, which hardly allows me to fall into the world of your female, human narrator.”

“Okay. I’ll take that.” Patrick looked at the school. “So, the dryads are leading us into a trap. Unfortunately, being dryads, they’ve done a very poor—and obvious—job of it.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to tell me it’s actually a good thing we’ve seen the trap?”

“No.”

Patrick grinned. “Because that makes it less of a challenge. See, this is why we work together so well. I was hoping you’d call me in when Liv was gone this fall.”

“Call you in?”

“The last time Liv was away, you called me to help on a case.”

“No, you gave me a case. And tried to insist we work it together.”

“Same thing.”

“Not even a little.”

“You’ve been hanging with Liv too much. You’re becoming a smart-ass.”