Alpha Omega 03 - Fair Game

of Musical Studies, whom I talked to this morning, because he thought you’d become the next Yo-Yo Ma. No one seems to have heard from you since—except for your father, who was pretty short on conversation.”
    “My father is a lawyer,” Anna half explained and half apologized. “He wouldn’t say anything without a lot more information flowing his way. And probably a court order, though I wouldn’t count on that.”
    “He wouldn’t tell me your husband’s name or where you live now—and the IRS is extremely uncooperative.”
    “Aren’t they supposed to be?” Anna asked. “My husband and I came here to help; we did not come here to become names listed in your database—though we knew that you’d probably figure out who I was.” He thought he’d pulled a rabbit out of the hat with his revelations about her real identity. She should have let him continue to pat himself on the back, and she knew it. Heuter was one of those people who liked being smarter than everyone else. He’d have been happier if she was mad or worried that he’d discovered who she was. But he was just a little too smug for Anna to be willing to indulge him.
    “Where are you staying while you are here in Boston?” Heuter asked.
    “Why are you worried about that?” returned Anna. Leslie, who knew where she and Charles were staying, was making steady inroads on the last of her salad. “Ipromise neither of us is going to go berserk and start killing people.”
    Heuter tapped his fingers lightly on the table. “I was raised to service,” he said. “It’s a family tradition. I believe in this country. I believe that innocents need protecting. I believe it is my calling to make sure that they are protected from people like you.”
    Heuter’s voice was cool and controlled, even when he spoke the last bit. If Leslie hadn’t drawn in a breath, Anna would have thought she’d misheard. Beside Anna, Brother Wolf stiffened, so she pulled herself together.
    “That’s funny,” Anna said. “I’d have thought that terrorists and murderers would be more troublesome than me.” As a comeback it was weak, but she was more worried about the silver bullets all Cantrip agents loaded their guns with. The gun that Heuter had almost pulled in the morgue. She couldn’t really remember now exactly when he’d tried to go for it. He’d been so slow and clumsy that he hadn’t managed to pull it before Brother Wolf had Caitlin down and contained on the floor. Had he started for it before Brother Wolf jumped, so that he could aim it at the witch? Or had he been too slow and by the time he could have gotten it out, it was already obvious that Brother Wolf wasn’t going to hurt the witch?
    If he had fired his gun back in the morgue, he might have killed Charles. Her hand reached out and touched her mate, to reassure herself that he was okay.
    “Heuter,” said Leslie sharply. “That was uncalled for.”
    He gave the FBI agent a tight smile and put some money on the table. “I’m due back in the office. I’ll leave you to your afternoon of fruitless explorations.”
    Leslie waited until he was gone and then shook her head. “Trippers,” she said.
    “Trippers?” asked Anna.
    “Whatthe boss calls Cantrip agents.” Leslie took a sip of her iced tea. “Just when you think that they are actually by golly professionals, they pull some weird stunt like that.” She looked at Anna thoughtfully. “I’m not going to blow rainbows and happy faces at you and say that there aren’t people worried about werewolves and the fae. We probably have some agents in the FBI who are pretty freaked-out by you or by people like Beauclaire. But at the very least they are professional enough not to go ape all over you when all you’re trying to do is help us catch a freaking serial killer.”
    THEY TOOK A taxi to Castle Island where Jacob’s body had evidently washed up, leaving Leslie’s car in the parking garage next to the morgue. There was apparently parking at the Island, but it was the middle of summer and Leslie didn’t like to waste time trying to find a place to park.
    Anna’s doubts about traveling by taxi with Brother Wolf proved to be unfounded. Their taxi driver had a big mutt at home, he told them, who was a Great Dane crossed with a dinosaur. Once he found out that Anna had never been to Boston before, he gave her a complete rundown on the island that hadn’t really been an island since the 1930s. His stories included a ghostly tale