“You aren’t listening,” I said loudly, frustrated. “You gave me this run. My associates and I appreciate your offer to help, but you asked me here. Back off and let us work.”

“Great,” Edden said as he slammed the car’s back door shut. “Thanks for taking Detective Glenn with you out to Piscary’s.”

A cry of disgust slipped from me. “Edden!” I exclaimed, earning looks from the passing people. “I said no. There is one sound coming past my lips. One sound. Two letters. One meaning. No!”

Edden opened the front passenger door and gestured for me to get in. “Thanks bunches, Morgan.” He glanced into the backseat. “Why were you running from those Weres, anyway?”

My breath came in a slow, controlled sound. Damn.

Edden chuckled, and I put myself in the car and slammed the door, trying to get his stubby fingers in it. Scowling, I looked at the driver. It was Glenn. He looked as happy as I felt. I had to say something. “You don’t look anything like your dad,” I said snidely.

His gaze was fixed with a ramrod stiffness out the front window. “He adopted me when he married my mother,” he said through clenched teeth.

Jenks zipped in trailing a sunbeam of pixy dust. “You’re Edden’s son?”

“You got a problem with that?” he said belligerently.

The pixy landed on the dash with his hands on his hips. “Nah. All you humans look alike to me.”

Edden bent to put his beaming round face in the window. “Here’s your class schedule,” he said, handing me a yellow half page of paper with printer holes along the sides. “Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Glenn will buy any books you need.”

“Hold it!” I exclaimed, alarm washing through me as the yellow paper crackled in my fingers. “I thought I was just going to poke around the university. I don’t want to take a class!”

“It’s the one Mr. Smather was taking. Be there, or you won’t get paid.”

He was smiling, enjoying this. “Edden!” I shouted as he backed up onto the sidewalk.

“Glenn, take Ms. Morgan and Jenks to their office. Let me know what you find at Dan Smather’s apartment.”

“Yes sir!” he barked. His knuckles gripping the wheel showed a fierce pressure. Pink patches of Ivy-Aid decorated his wrists and neck. I didn’t that care that he had heard most of the conversation. He wasn’t welcome, and the sooner he understood that, the better.

Four

“Right at the next corner,” I said, resting my arm on the open window of the unmarked FIB car. Glenn ran his fingertips through his close-cropped hair as he scratched his scalp. He hadn’t said a word the entire way, his jaw slowly unclenching as he realized I wasn’t going to make him talk to me. There was no one behind us, but he signaled before turning onto my street.