Hunter suddenly burst through the door, his shoes lighting up with each step. He looked at the gathering of kids with uncertainty, and I watched as he walked the opposite way down the veranda, his gloved hand tracing alongside the wall. Had he ever played with other children? A red-haired girl about his age wandered up to the other side of the wall and faced him. She spoke for a minute, but he didn’t say anything back. Then she reached out to touch his face.
No, not his face. His scar.
After another moment, she turned and pointed somewhere. Next thing I knew, Hunter climbed the wall and followed behind her. When they reached a row of purple flowers, they went chasing after a butterfly.
“They seem okay,” Wyatt said. “A few scrapes and bruises. Shepherd checked them this morning before I woke up. Three of the older girls were malnourished, and one boy had an infected cut on his foot. Too bad they’re not old enough to shift. Then again, I don’t think I could handle fifteen wolves crapping all over the place.”
I twirled a lock of hair around my finger. “You did good, Spooky. You saved that girl’s life.”
“You’re a good catch.”
“Apparently, not that good. You almost died.”
He snorted. “I would have crushed you.”
I waved a pesky gnat away from my face, thinking about how we weren’t so immortal. Some of us bounced back better than others. Wyatt could have easily died had Niko not been there. I wasn’t entirely sure that Christian would have given up his blood. Most Breeds didn’t want it—they feared its power. I was only half Vampire, so I wasn’t sure that drinking my blood would have made a difference to anyone but a Vampire.
Kira floated out the door with an armload of blankets. Without her kerchief, her red hair lit up in the sun. She found a shady spot by some trees and spread out the blankets. A minute later, Switch rolled out a food cart and helped her set up a picnic.
“Viktor wanted to lock them in their rooms,” Wyatt murmured. “But Blue said that kids need fresh air and sunshine. She’s right. You lock up kids, and they start getting into trouble. Especially boys.”
“I don’t think you have much to worry about with this group. They had to grow up fast, and that changes you.” I heaved a sigh and crossed my legs. “Makes me wish I could go back in time and kill those men more slowly.”
Wyatt rolled onto his back and ran his fingers through his messy brown hair. The patchy whiskers on his youthful face made him look like a college kid looking for work in a coffee shop. “I saw some of Christian and Blue’s handiwork. That’s a therapy session I ain’t got time for.”
Something Houdini had said was still on my mind. I shifted toward Wyatt. “You know the last case we worked on—the fighting ring?”
“Yup.”
“Who sent you the blueprints to the auction house?”
“Man, did I get those at the eleventh hour.” He turned his head, my warped reflection in his sunglasses staring back at me. “Some anonymous user. Ghosted before I could ask what he or she wanted in return.”
“Is that normal?”
“If it were one of my contacts, maybe. Sometimes we do each other favors. But on that site, you don’t get something for nothing. Everything has a price. Maybe they somehow knew what was going on and had a personal vendetta against the people involved. Why?”
“I was just thinking about it.”
“Well, if you find out who it was, I wanna know. People aren’t helpful out of the goodness of their heart. Creeps me out.”
My thoughts drifted back to the conversation the night before. Why the hell would Houdini have helped us? It didn’t seem in character. Maybe he’d done it to redirect focus away from his business. I found myself keeping so many secrets lately to protect him. If Wyatt or anyone else knew he had provided the blueprints, they might go after him. Worse, they might think that we’re conspiring and I’m feeding him information about Keystone. Maybe his plan was to sabotage me. Or maybe he wanted to test my loyalty to Viktor since telling the truth might get me fired.
Damn his games.
I spotted Blue perched in a tree. Like me, she was comfortable with heights, but I suppose that had to do with her being a falcon. “I guess my case is closed.”
Wyatt draped his arms over the armrests as if he were tanning on a Hawaiian beach. “What’s the trouble?”
“I’m running in circles trying to find a missing piece, and maybe there isn’t one. Now I’ll just have to tell Ren we’ve got nothing.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
The little boy who’d approached Christian last night jogged down the veranda with a girl at his side. They skidded to a stop at the foot of Wyatt’s chair, and the boy asked, “Why do you have Lost Soul written on your hands?”
Wyatt drummed his fingers on the chair. “None of your beeswax.”
“Are you sure you didn’t mean lost sock?” The two giggled.
Wyatt sat up and lazily waved them off. “Scram!”
I watched them race each other down the long walkway, laughing the entire way before scaling the wall and flopping onto the grassy side. It gave me hope that they might be okay. At least they knew how to read.
I turned my attention back to Wyatt. “What were you going to say?”
“About what?”
“The case.”
He scratched his scruffy jaw. “Oh that. About a week ago, someone tracked in a freshy.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. We ran into a few uncooperative Shifters we had to put in their place.”
“See, that’s what I thought. So I ignored him. The minute you start paying attention to the dead, they stick to you like glue. They want favors,” he said, using his fingers to make air quotes. Wyatt sat up and adjusted his chair to an upright position. “If they don’t get what they want, they turn into little demons. That’s why most Gravewalkers look like they’re running on two hours of sleep. Things were peaceful for a while, and now the new guy decides to keep me up all night singing.”
“Wish I could help, but it’s not my problem.”
Wyatt slid his glasses down his nose so I could see his bloodshot eyes. “He keeps asking me to give a message to his father. What am I, the Pony Express?”
“Does he want you to do it for free, or does he have some way of paying you?”
“See, that’s where it gets weird. He says if I do him this favor, he’ll help us. Normally I don’t trust freshies, but I’m desperate. Even after my near-death experience last night, he kept me up. All night. I lost him earlier in the east wing and came out here, hoping to avoid him long enough to get a nap. When they attach themselves to a house, they don’t like leaving. I’m sleeping out here if that’s what it takes.”
“How exactly can he help us?” It didn’t seem logical. “Can they see something we can’t?”
“They can go wherever they want and eavesdrop on anyone. But most freshies have short attention spans. They spend more time focusing on their life, trying to hold on to the memories before they get all mixed up. Seriously, if ghosties could be spies, we’d have a real business. But most of the older ones have the memory of a goldfish. And the new ones have a whole catalog of issues I don’t subscribe to.”