“Only when I need expert advice.” I stuffed the charms in the pack then held it out to him, eyebrows raised. “Would you mind?”
“I had no idea when Midas volunteered me for this detail that I was undergoing K9 training.” He took the pack, sniffed it, and recoiled. “That’s it. This is his. No doubt.”
“Not the warg scent?” I made sure I understood. “You can match this to a scene?”
“Yeah.” He grimaced. “He’s used this bag or restocked it recently. I smell decay on the fabric.”
I was staring back toward the path, debating how to convey what I had learned, when he cleared his throat. “Hmm?”
“If you’re looking for Midas, or a second opinion from a gwyllgi, you’re out of luck on both counts.”
“He left?”
“He called for a Swyft.”
A distant zing of concern struck me. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” he rushed to assure me. “Don’t worry.”
There was more. I could see it, almost taste it, but I had a job to do. That job didn’t involve ferreting out what could be more important to a future alpha than protecting his pack from a killer.
Focused on the job, I didn’t leave room for distraction. “I want to see where this trail goes.”
Ford turned a slow circle, jostling the bag on its strap. “What trail?”
Frak. Frak. Frak.
I was slipping.
I hadn’t meant to let Midas’s defection get under my skin, but it wedged there like a splinter.
“I assumed you could track the killer since both his scents overlap at this point,” I lied with ease that made my gut churn. “Did I get ahead of myself?”
“You aren’t shy about asking for what you want,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”
No, I wasn’t. An old habit, and a bad one. It had gotten me into more trouble than it was worth.
“Fine.” I sighed dramatically. “I’ll buy wings to go with the pizza on our movie night.”
Honest shock lit his features. “You’re still inviting me over?”
“I told you I would.” I moved past him, nudging Ambrose along with a discreet wave of my fingers. “I try not to lie more than necessary. It’s too hard to remember them all after a while.”
“You sound like an expert on the topic.” An edge crept into his tone, making it easier to remember that no matter how much he might like me, and I felt he genuinely did, he had ulterior motives for palling around with me. “Trip over your tongue much?”
Every time I opened my mouth, I risked forgetting myself and telling the truth instead of the lies I was supposed to recite on cue. It got old fast, having to pause and think before answering the simplest questions. That hesitation might convince him I was dreaming up a lie, but I was holding back the truth.
“Believe me when I say my mouth does nothing but get me in trouble.”
He grunted, a masculine sound that was neither agreement nor disagreement, and let it go.
When my cell rang, I hated that my first thought was Midas had called to apologize for leaving without saying goodbye. It wasn’t Midas, it was Bishop. “That was fast.”
“Not really.” A keyboard clacked in the background. “I’m not calling about the IDs you found. I’m calling about an ID on a body in relation to your request.”
“Okay.” I held up a finger to stall Ford. “What did you find?”
“Tammy Burns.”
“Damn it.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I figured, but it still sucks hearing it.”
“I did a quick search to locate her parents, and that’s where it gets interesting. They’re both deceased.”
“That’s not the word I would have used. More like tragic. Besides, I already told you the parents were out of the picture.”
“That’s not the interesting part. This is.” He let a beat pass. “She has no siblings.”
“That can’t be right.” I dropped my arm. “I spoke to her sister.”
“You spoke to someone, but she wasn’t Tammy Burns’s sister, and her name wasn’t Jessica.”
The world dropped out from under my feet. “I don’t follow.”
“I checked the pack roster, the official one that must be updated biannually with the wolf king.”
There was no wolf king, Bishop was just being an ass. There was an alpha of alphas among the wargs, and he didn’t play when it came to controlling what information on his people got leaked. That meant he kept strict tabs on alphas throughout the country, and their packs. He wanted names, matings, births, all of it. Fail to comply, and he killed the alpha and redistributed their pack to more responsible ones.
For Bishop to say there was no record of Jessica Burns in the Mendelsohn pack meant there was no Jessica Burns in the Mendelsohn pack.
“Who did I talk to then?” I started toward the house in earnest. “She had a small circle of girls around the same age with her. She might have been using Tammy to fish for information, scared they might be next.”
“Did she say or do anything unusual?”
“She was the only pack member who approached me.” The sister angle won me over, no questions asked. “Nothing she said or did sent up any red flags. She was a normal kid. She spent most of the time…”
“Most of the time doing what?”
“Playing with Snowball.” I picked up speed. “Any kid would have done the same. I didn’t give it a second thought.”
“Lee?” Ford kept pace with me. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to go back to see Mendelsohn.” I reached his truck first and yanked on the handle until he let me in with a fumbled mash of his key fob. “Bishop, I’m going to track down Jessica. Keep me updated.”
“Make no apologies,” he said, and I heard the warning.
“Survive,” I agreed.
Ford joined me in the cab as I ended one call and placed another.
Jessica didn’t answer.
The phone rang and rang and rang.
Strapping in, I confronted him. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know we’re going to see Mendelsohn. Something about the girl? Is she missing?”
Already redialing Jessica, I waited, but she never answered. “Bishop says she doesn’t exist.”
Seventeen
The Mendelsohn pack was cooking out when we arrived, cheddar brats and hotdogs mostly, which seemed downright dangerous considering the amount of sausage already swinging in the wind, but that was their problem and not mine.
The first person I bumped into—thankfully not literally—was a man old enough to be my grandfather.
“Can you tell me where to find Jessica Burns?” I waited a beat. “Sir?”
“He’s deaf as a stump,” a warm feminine voice said from behind us. “I’m Gayle, his granddaughter. How can I help you?”
Lucky me, she had on a flowy dress that quit mid-thigh. “I’m looking for Jessica Burns.”
“We don’t have any Jessicas in the pack.” She lifted a hand to the topmost button, and she worried it between her fingers. “Do you mean Tammy? Tammy Burns? She’s been missing eight—no, nine—days.”