Detective Hardin took me out to lunch. Nothing fancy, just a hamburger place near the police station. But it made me nervous. I wondered what she wanted.
After we ordered and the server moved out of earshot, she pulled a manila folder out of her attaché case. I knew it. Please, no bodies, no blood, no mauling, no death. I didn’t want to help on any more cases.
“There’s been another robbery,” she said.
I needed a minute to think about that. I was expecting death and mayhem and she was talking a robbery? Oh, yeah—last month, the case she was working on before all the other crap happened.
“Any new leads?”
“Oh, I think so.” She handed me the folder.
I opened it and found a couple of photos. They had the familiar, low-res, black and white appearance of security footage. The setting was your average, soda and cigarettes stuffed convenience store. The site of Hardin’s robberies maybe? Instead of a blur at the counter this time, a very clear, very familiar figure stood collecting the goods. Male, dark hair, sunglasses. His partner, a woman with a big ponytail, looked straight at the camera and waved. Charlie and Violet.
I couldn’t help it. I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh. All a trick of the light.
Hardin jabbed her finger at the picture. “I knew I recognized them. We never got a clear shot before, but I just knew. I’m gonna get those two. Do you know I’m about to write a memo recommending that twenty-four-hour convenience stores put garlic and crosses in their doorways? I can’t believe I’m going to do that.”
“If it makes you feel better, robbery is beneath most vampires. I think those two do it because it’s fun. For them,” I quickly added. Actually, the more I thought about it, the funnier the whole thing got. Vampire crooks? Perfect. Just perfect.
“I’m still going to get them.” She put away the folder. “I don’t know how, but I’m going to do it.”
That was next on her list—she’d gotten werewolves into custody. Now she had to figure out vampires. And if anyone could do it .
. .
That made me wonder. “Last full moon. What happened with those werewolves you arrested?”
She blew out a sigh. “I commandeered a whole row of cells at county. Put silver paint in them, put each one in a separate cell. Got all my people out and watched the whole thing on closed circuit TV. Never seen anything like it.” She shook her head, and her gaze turned vague, sliding to a different place, like she was recalling a nightmare. I supposed she was. “One of them kept throwing himself against the bars. I thought he was going to kill himself. In the morning he had welts all over his body—from the silver, not from bruising. The others snarled at each other for twenty minutes, then paced back and forth all night. We had our own zoo. But it worked. I think we can hold them as long as we need to.”
“Give them something to eat next time. Raw meat. It might settle them down.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I was curious. “What did you think of Dack?”
“I had to look in an encyclopedia to figure out what he even was. African wild dog? Where do they come up with this shit?”
I shrugged. Who knew? It only demonstrated that just when you thought you’d come to the end of what could possibly surprise you, something did.
“I’m in over my head,” Hardin said. “I keep wondering which one of these things is going to get me. I keep going like this, something is going to get me.”
I couldn’t argue. She was like me. When this happened to me, I’d started reading. Delving. And that only touched the surface of what might be out there.
“Do you remember Cormac?” I said.
“The assassin? The one that went after you? Yeah.”
“You should talk to him. He’s in Cañon City, in prison—”
She snorted, interrupting. “About time. That guy’s a menace.”
Yeah, well . . . “His family’s been doing this sort of thing for generations. He knows things that aren’t in the books. He can help you. Give you some advice, maybe.”
“So, I go talk to him, pick up some pointers, maybe get a few months shaved off his sentence for helping out?”
I perked up. “Can you do that?”
Now she sounded frustrated. “I’ll consider it.”