Still, I wanted more.
I scanned the area to my right, paused, then scanned the area to my left. Except for the occasional twinkle from regulation halolights, the task force blended into the night.
I dragged my focus farther back, taking in the tall oaks that knifed the sky. The trees were sparsely scattered, their branches naked, their bark weighed down by dripping ice. Situated between the trees were homes and businesses. I use the term businesses loosely, of course. Nice people referred to this seedy, neglected district as Whore’s Corner. I’d once been fined for publicly saying what I called the place.
Had any of the residents seen anything unusual? Would they tell us if they had?
I’d already dispatched the most charming of my agents to question every citizen within a one-mile radius. But this late at night, civilians tended to be cranky and distrustful. Besides that, the Southern District was notorious for its hatred of law enforcement—human or otherwise.
“What do you think, Mia?” Dallas Gutierrez, my right-hand man, strode to my side. He wore a black leather jacket and black combat boots that fit the hard planes of his body to perfection. At times, I thought he was too handsome to be real. His hair was dark and thick, and the inky locks hung in sexy disarray over the wide, muscled length of his shoulders. Perfect eyebrows arched over perfectly shaped eyes. Perfect cheekbones framed a perfect nose.
For some reason, he was smiling—revealing perfect white teeth, the bastard—yet even as the brown depths of his eyes glinted with mischief, he still possessed the razor-sharp edge of a hunter.
I admired him for that.
On more than one occasion, Dallas Gutierrez had flipped Death the bird and come out alive. He was a man who rushed into the middle of danger without hesitation. He considered his friends’ safety before he considered his own, and he never regretted his choice, even when he lay wounded and bleeding. He’d saved my life so many times, I should have tattooed his name on my ass.
“What do you think?” he repeated. “Which group of aliens is responsible?”
“Zi Karas, Arcadians, or Mecs.”
A little of the sparkle left his eyes. “You sure?”
I tossed him an are-you-kidding-me frown. “Can a woman lose one hundred and seventy-five pounds of unwanted fat by divorcing her husband?”
“Damn.” He chuckled, the sound rich and husky in the twilight. “No wonder you’re still single. You’re vicious.”
Damn right I was. I had to be. I was a woman in a man’s profession, and just because I carried a pyre-gun did not mean I was taken seriously. Not even Dallas had taken me seriously at first.
His first week on the job, he fought to have me relocated. “Women aren’t hunters,” he’d said so many times I wanted to brand the words on his chest—while he was awake and tied to his bed.
I stand at five feet five, weigh one hundred and twenty pounds. I’m only twenty-eight years old, but I have an indomitable will. I do not take shit from anyone, especially when it comes to my job. The first time Dallas and I practiced hand-to-hand combat, I had him on the ground in three seconds flat, my palms wrapped around his windpipe while he gasped for air.
Funny enough, we were best friends after that, and he never again mentioned my relocation.
“What makes you so sure of yourself?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest and pinning me with a frown of his own. A plastic bag dangled from his fingers.
I shrugged. “Ever heard of Occam’s razor?” He blinked over at me, and I took that for a no. “Occam’s razor is a nineteenth-century principle that states the simplest explanation for a mysterious event is most likely the truth.”
His brow furrowed, and his eyes flashed dark fire. “How in the hell did you decide the most likely suspect was from an oxygen-intolerant group?”
“I smell Onadyn,” I said, biting back a grin.
“Christ,” he grumbled. “I was excited that I knew something you didn’t. Thanks for ruining it for me.”
“My pleasure. Now what’s in the bag?”
As soon as the words left my mouth, all traces of emotion drained from his expression. Silently, he studied me, as if trying to measure my inner strength. I knew what he saw. Straight black hair pulled tight in a ponytail, though several wisps had already escaped confinement. Wide blue eyes that had seen more evil than good, and an oval face that boasted delicate cheekbones better suited to a ballerina.
My appearance worked well for me at times. Suspects expected me to be feminine and delicate, and I was able to take them by surprise. At other times my appearance worked against me, bringing out all kinds of protective instincts in men. This was one of those times I wished I had a mustache and a long, hideous scar.
I kept my gaze locked on Dallas’s.
A sigh slid past his lips, leaving the words You win unsaid, though he didn’t answer my question right away.
“Notice any footprints around the body?” he asked.
I peered at the ground, studying, searching. “No.”
“Neither did we. And we’ve analyzed every inch of dirt in this godforsaken shit hole. At first we thought someone performed a beam-me-down-Scottie.”
I tossed that idea through my mind. “Maybe. But most aliens arrived here through interworld portals. Not spaceships. So they wouldn’t have access to the kind of technology required for a molecular transfer. Besides, the killer is cocky. What better rush than placing the body here, in full view of witnesses, and still getting away?”
“Give us some credit, Mia. I said at first. We soon changed our minds.” Smug now, he dangled the plastic bag in front of my face. Inside were six strands of white hair. “Found them snagged on a branch.”
I frowned, studied the hair more closely. They were thick and coarse and…my frown deepened. There weren’t six individual strands of hair; in actuality, there were only two. Three strands per follicle.
“Arcadian,” I said, confirming my Onadyn suspicions. Only the Arcadians had three strands of hair attached to one follicle.
Dallasnodded, his features suddenly tense, determined. “You got it.”
Dread prickled along my nerve endings, and my stomach twisted into a thousand tiny knots. Why couldn’t the Zi Karas or Mecs be responsible? Of all the aliens to invade our planet, Arcadians were the strongest, the deadliest. The hardest to capture. Their psychic abilities proved a sufficient weapon against us, helping them evade capture. And their talent for mind control…Damn. I didn’t even want to contemplate that right now.