Alpha Omega 03 - Fair Game

said Leslie. “I know about Uri and hisspoon bending. Did something happen to her? The witch seemed pretty sure that she’s dead, and Charles, according to Anna, thinks that she was a victim of our serial killer. What does Wiki say?”
    “Wiki
doesn’t
say,” said Heuter. “Hold on.”
    “My dad talks about the sixties and seventies as a heyday of New Age thinking before the New Agers,” Anna said. “Lots of free love and Wicca and magical thinking.”
    Heuter, still searching the Internet, nodded. “The Victorian era was the only thing that came close to it. Ouija boards, seances, games that tested whether people could read minds. Then, because everyone was doing it…it became less mysterious, less shadowy, and more…ridiculous. Interests changed.”
    “So maybe our Sally Reilly just disappeared from public view as the world gave a yawn,” suggested Leslie. “Is this going to help our missing girl?”
    Heuter didn’t answer her question. “There are rumors of a third book she wrote and printed only a few copies of—
Elementary Magic
. When I get back to the office, I’ll check our archives, see if we have it in the library. I should also be able to find out what happened to her, or if she’s still around.”
    “The witch seemed awfully sure she was dead,” said Anna. She hadn’t been lying.
    Heuter snorted and a scowl marred his handsome face. “That witch was…well. I wouldn’t trust her to know which way was up.”
    “She gave us Sally Reilly,” Anna pointed out.
    “Which was more than we’d managed to get out of any of the other witches the FBI consulted with on this case,” agreed Leslie.
    Anna finished her last cheeseburger and retrieved Brother Wolf’s empty plate, stacking them together on the table. She tried to see any way she and Charles could be of more help.
    “Maybe if we went out to where Jacob’s body was found, we mightbe able to find something more,” she said slowly. “He was the last victim, before Lizzie?”
    “Right,” Leslie said. “Was he fae or werewolf—could you tell? Dr. Fuller said his parents were Baptist. That doesn’t quite go with the whole supernatural thing.”
    Anna blinked at her a moment. She hadn’t thought about that. Why had their killer reverted to killing humans again?
    “Fae,” said Heuter. “His father, Ian Mott, is listed in the fae database at Cantrip as full-blood fae and Jacob is clearly listed as half-fae. I ran the list of victims after we talked yesterday. Cantrip’s database is far more extensive than the official one.”
    “Is it?” asked Anna; then she took a quick drink from her water glass to disguise any expression she might be showing. If Jacob Mott had been any sort of preternatural, she’d eat her hat. He hadn’t smelled fae—and even half-bloods smell like fae. Wasn’t it interesting he was listed as fae in Cantrip’s database? Maybe the killer was finding his victims in the same database. Even so, shouldn’t the fae who’d stolen Lizzie away be able to tell Jacob Mott hadn’t been fae? She didn’t really know if one fae could tell if another one was around, though she suspected it was so.
    Charles was watching Heuter with sudden interest. How she could tell it was Charles and not Brother Wolf was…like how a mother of twins knew which one was which: less about the small details and more about instincts.
    Heuter looked at Anna as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Oops,” he said. “I don’t suppose you can forget that.”
    “Don’t want anyone filing paperwork to see if they are in that database of yours?” Leslie asked. “One of the fringe benefits to working with Cantrip or one of the other, smaller enforcement agencies in the government is that no one ever thinks to file on them with the Freedom of Information Act.”
    “You’d be surprised,”said Hueter in a voice very nearly a whine. “The people who use FOIA do it extensively and well. Answering those requests is the job we give newbies—and that includes Important Senators’ Sons, like yours truly, too.” He grinned, showing that he didn’t think that made him any more deserving of privilege than the rest of the newbies. “But not even the powers that be could keep me there for long. Information gathering about unknown werewolves is a lot more interesting.” He looked at Anna. “Anna Latham of Chicago, musical prodigy. Left Northwestern University a couple of years short of a degree—much to the chagrin of the co-chair