He hung up the phone and looked at me. He’d seen it faster than I had. Tad was incredibly powerful to do what he’d done. He was also young, and with his father locked away in Fairyland (the Ronald Wilson Reagan Fae Reservation’s less respectful nickname), he was vulnerable: no one but family could know what he was. I looked at the sheet of aluminum, now crumpled and torn aside. It could have been an airplane or a tank or … We needed to keep him safe.
“The hole goes underground out to the parking lot.”
“He told me his name was Guayota,” I said—and that’s when I saw the naked dead man lying on the floor where a dead dog should have been.
I blinked twice, and he was still there, belly down, but his head turned to the side so I could see the single bullet hole in his forehead. My bullet hole.
“Adam?” I said, and my voice was a little high.
He turned his head and saw the man, too. “Who is that?”
“I think,” I said slowly, “I think that’s the dog I shot.” I remembered that too-intelligent, ancient gaze.
“I saw it on my laptop on the way over,” Adam said. “You shot a dog.”
“It wasn’t a dog.” I gave a half-hysterical hiccough. “They’ll arrest me for murder.”
“No,” Adam said.
“Are you sure?” I sounded a little more pathetic than usual. My face hurt. My garage was in ruins that would make my insurance company run to find their “Acts of God not covered” clause. I’d killed a dog that had turned into a naked dead guy, and someone had thrown a finger at me.
“Flores essentially ate your gun, so no weapon for ballistics,” Adam said. “And you were attacked in your garage.” He didn’t say any more out loud, but I heard what he left unspoken. There wasn’t a member of the local police department who hadn’t seen or at least heard of the recording of what had happened to me in this garage before, if only because the imagery of Adam’s ripping apart the body of my assailant left a big impression.
His arms closed around me, and we both looked at the dead man. He looked like someone’s uncle, someone’s father. His body was spare and muscled in a way that looked familiar. Werewolves don’t have extra fat on their bodies, either. They burn calories in the change from human to wolf and back, and they burn calories moving because a werewolf doesn’t have the proper temperament to be a couch potato.
“Sweetheart,” Adam said, his voice a sigh as the first official car pulled into my parking lot. “It was clear-cut self-defense.”
I closed my eyes and leaned against him.
“Hands up,” said a shaky voice. “Get your hands up where I can see them.”
Adam let go of me and put his hands up. I turned around, stepping away from Adam so they could tell I wasn’t armed. The man approaching us wasn’t in uniform, but his gun was out. His eyes weren’t on me, all of his attention was for Adam. Of course, it didn’t take a genius to figure out which one of us would be the bigger threat. If I looked like I felt, I looked tired, scared, and hurt—I put my hands up anyway.
“Mr. Hauptman?” said the armed man, stopping just inside the bay door but in the middle of the open space so that the Passat didn’t interfere with his ability to cover both of us. He was younger than me, and he was wearing slacks and a jacket and tie, which only made him look even younger. I noticed almost absently that true night had fallen in the short time between when I’d first thrown open the bay doors and now.
“Adam Hauptman?” he said again. His voice squeaked, and he winced.
“Keep your hands where we can see them,” said another, calmer voice. This one was dressed in a cheap suit and held his gun as though he’d shot people before. His eyes had that look that let you know he’d shoot right now, too, and sleep like a baby that night. “Agent Dan Orton, CNTRP. This is my partner, Agent Cary Kent. You are Adam Hauptman and his wife, Mercedes?”
Feds. I felt my lip curl.
“That’s right,” Adam agreed.
“Can you tell me what happened tonight?”
“You’re here in response to my call?” Adam asked instead of answering him.
“That’s right.”
“Then,” said Adam gently, “you already know some of it. I think