Fair Game

bigger around than their thighs.”
    “They call Boston ‘the walking city’ for a reason.” Charles rumbled as he opened the door to the building of their condo. As soon as he was inside, the faint aura of danger he emitted eased down. Evidently Charles had been in this building often enough that he didn’t view it as enemy territory.
    “How soon do you suppose the FBI will be calling us?” Anna asked. “If they decide to call us.”
    “Bored?” He took them to the stairs and, after her previous ride in the slick, modern, very slow elevator, Anna was happy to trot after him.
    “Nope. I just want to make sure we have time to do the haunted tour tonight.”
    He gave her a look and Anna grinned, happily sinking into the warm, safe relationship that had somehow been restored after better than a year of fragmentation. It was too easy; she knew it. But she was going to enjoy it while she could.
    “Maybe the FBI will call,” he said hopefully. She wasn’t buying it; he’d have as much fun running around old cemeteries as she would—he just wouldn’t admit it.
    “I’ve got my cell phone,” she pointed out. “You’ve got yours. Get changed and let’s go.”
    He growled.
    AFTER THE MEETING with the werewolves, Leslie ate an early lunch at a nearby soup and bread place before walking the rest of the blockor so between the hotel and her office. She used the time to mentally process what she’d seen and heard so she could give a coherent, organized version of the highlights for Nick. She finished the last little bit as she rode the elevator up so she was ready before she hit the office.
    The office watchdog, known only to Leslie’s group as the Gatekeeper, nodded at Leslie and buzzed her in. Leslie headed to her desk but a sharp whistle from her boss’s office changed her trajectory.
    Nick looked tired. They’d been chasing after two different bank robbers and something that might be a terrorist cell—or might just be a bunch of broke students rooming together—before this serial-killer thing hit their radar. The terrorist cell had top priority over everything. However, one of the bank robbers had been doing his best to put himself on the top of the list. He wore a distinctive motorcycle helmet with a small sticker on top that had given him the nickname the Smiley Bandit. Lately he’d begun working with another faceless, helmeted man who liked to carry a gun and shoot it at lights and cameras after aiming it at people. One of these days really soon now he was going to start shooting people. Their team was short a few since Joe and Turk had been transferred out. The job got done, but all of them were a little light on sleep.
    “How’d it go?” Nick asked after she closed the door behind her.
    Leslie thought about it. “Interesting on many levels.”
    He gave an impatient snort. “Share. Please.”
    She started with a rundown on who was there. Nick grunted when she told him Heuter had come. It was a grunt she couldn’t interpret. She couldn’t tell if he liked Heuter or disliked him—or if he was just acknowledging that Cantrip had sent in their golden boy.
    Leslie told him about the biggest revelation. “Our UNSUB has been killing mostly fae—we think for the past twenty-five-odd years—and no one noticed until a werewolf told us, a werewolf who wasn’t even born when the first murders began. Cantrip claims she is Anna Latham. I’llrun the name and see if I agree with them on her identity, but she didn’t deny it.”
    “There have been rumors, if you know where to listen, that werewolves may share a trait or two with the fae. That their ability to heal damned near anything also keeps them from aging.”
    Leslie absorbed that. “If that’s so, I peg our Anna at sixteen and her husband at ten thousand and change.”
    Nick laughed. “Impressed by him, were you? Craig was, too. He gave me a call as soon as the meeting was over to tell me that he was headed over to see Kip at the Boston PD. He was hoping the police might have someone familiar with the fae they can take the photos to, so we can get a confirmation.”
    “If you talked to Craig already, why have me do a basic report?” she asked, a little annoyed.
    “He said he’d leave the briefing for you to deliver, as he was the senior field agent,” said her boss equitably, and then got back to the business at hand. “If it’s true, that so many of the victims have been fae, why didn’t anyone in the fae communities say