McMillan checked his watch. “You’re dismissed, Ms. Marcus.”
Like she was a schoolgirl in the principal’s office.
She was walking back into the courtroom, her head down, when the alarms went off.
Chapter Two: Martin
Martin usually had trouble sleeping. Ever since his wife, Lisa, had died, the nights had felt long, and the easiest way to get through them was to work. Since US Marshals always had plenty to do, and his team dealt with shifter-related crime on top of that, he could keep busy enough to stay awake. He was usually the first one into the office on the second floor of Sterling’s courthouse.
That morning, though, his second-in-command, Gretchen, beat him to it.
“Coffee is on and donuts are out,” she said. There was a quality in her voice Martin could only describe as tense cheerfulness. “Happy Trial of the Century.”
He’d forgotten that started today, which said more about his sleep-deprived state than any amount of yawning ever could have.
You’d sleep better with someone next to you, his pegasus suggested.
Martin ignored it.
“Who’s calling it that? Do they know how many years are left in the century?”
“Seven out of ten news shows, and I don’t think they care much. Do you want someone down there?”
He considered the donut choices at the same time as he considered the question. Applesauce cake for the donut, he decided, and Colby for security.
“Colby, I think. Theo has a conflict of interest since Jillian’s stepmother’s down there, and you’re friendly with her, too. I don’t want anyone distracted.”
Besides, wolves were natural sentinels, used to stealthily monitoring their prey from a distance. When Colby stood in the corner of a room, he had a way of melting into the woodwork—except for his eyes, which were always too uncannily attentive to go unnoticed. That was what they wanted: a little fear might discourage a lot of trouble.
As soon as he arrived, Colby accepted the assignment with relish, speared two donuts on his fingers, and went downstairs to the courtroom. Everyone would be suitably unnerved by a six-foot-four US Marshal gunslinger with powdered sugar all down his shirt. Gretchen tucked herself up with coffee, cream-filled donuts, and Google Maps to try to pinpoint a fugitive’s possible whereabouts. Theo delved into spreadsheets of financial data to track down missing money, so involved in following the gold that he missed the dab of strawberry jam on his chin.
Our herd, his pegasus said. For once, the animal sounded content.
It may have had endless opinions on his romantic life—or lack thereof—but it knew a good team as well as he did.
Martin settled in for the morning’s work. As Chief Deputy US Marshal, he no longer spent much time in the field. That chafed at him sometimes. He missed the chance to stretch his wings. But the house had felt so empty with Lisa gone that it was good to have a place to go that actually felt like home.
Even if that home came with an overflowing inbox and the headache of securing a courtroom during a trial destined for some kind of disruption. Martin hoped all they would be faced with was an overeager reporter with no off button.
Despite the amount of press the case had been getting, it was a straightforward murder being pursued in an honest, straightforward manner. He could imagine an eventual uproar on the day of the verdict—whichever way the verdict went—but not before then. And he trusted Colby to keep an eye on things.
Then, just as he was pressing send on an email, the fire alarm went off.
No, he realized immediately, not the fire alarm. The sound was different. The regular fire alarm was a steady blatt-blatt-blatt. This was a low series of whoops. A civilian wouldn’t know the difference, but he and his team did.
Code black. Bomb threat.
A bomb threat meant panicky civilians, increased media attention, and sudden demands for over-the-top security precautions. This had better be the trial of the century, because he certainly didn’t want to have to go through it more than once.
He ushered his people out. It felt unnervingly like leading some kind of kindergarten fire drill: “No, leave the donuts. Theo, yes, you have to go too, I don’t care what you’re in the middle of. Yes, I know you’re a dragon, you’re still not entirely fire-proof, you still have to go.”
He found Colby outside easily enough and ignored the little twist of gratitude in his chest about that. Intellectually, he knew the odds were ten to one against there actually being a bomb: it was a hell of a lot easier to make a phone call than it was to put together powerful explosives and get them into a highly-secured courthouse. All the same, he felt better with his herd in plain sight and safely out of the danger zone.
He had seen worse evacuations. Looking around the crowd, he saw a few of the cuts and bruises that came with any hasty, large-scale movement of frightened people, but there was no one with a broken hand or a boot print on their scalp. A bailiff was giving out Band-Aids. Everything was under control.
Except, he suddenly noticed, for Theo, who was right next to him.
Theo had been on the wrong side of an actual bombing before, and not long ago: he had been with his mate, Jillian, and had shifted to his dragon form at lightning speed to shield her from the blast with his wings. Theo knew as well as he did that this was just a warning—and a warning of an event that was unlikely to happen—but that couldn’t stop the bad memories.