Fair Game

“Especially if they’ve ever seen him fight. Hally told me that he wouldn’t be able to see that fae—just know when he was around. But Charles fought like he could, like he knew exactly where it was. And I’ve never seen anyone—not werewolf, not vampire, not anyone—move that fast.”
    “His gift,” Anna agreed. His bane. Maybe if he hadn’t been such a good fighter, his father would have sent someone else to maintain order among his packs. But that wasn’t for public discussion. She needed to change subjects.
    “So where are we going?” A diner would be perfect—just a little worn-down, with cracked Naugahyde seats and scuffed-up, bad-imitation wood-grain Formica tables, where coffee was served to everyone in white cups and all of the meals were cooked in unhealthy grease: a cop’s hangout, the cliche of every cop film or novel.
    “When Goldstein called me, I offered to host the party at The Irish Wolfhound,” Isaac told her. “The pub owned by our pack. There’s a big room for parties.”
    Anna couldn’t help being a little disappointed. “I was hoping for a diner.”
    Isaac laughed. “The food’s better at the Wolfhound, and we’re less likely to have uninvited guests.” Amusement died from his face, and the smile he gave Anna was tight and unhappy. “As I told you, there are members of our law enforcement community who dislike us and would love to provoke a fight under the cover of too much drink. This way it’s just the people who are working on this case—and most of them are way too ecstatic about Lizzie’s rescue to be fussy about how it was done.”
    “It seems like a lot of celebrating, when we didn’t catch the killers,” Anna said.
    Isaac nodded. “It’s like when I was in high school. My junior year our football team just had this…synergy. The year before, the year after, they were good. But that year, they not only had the players; they had the
team
. No one even scored against them until the last game of the season. The other team scored a field goal in the fourth quarter—and the stands erupted. You’d have thought they won the game instead of losing by thirty-odd points. What they
had
done was what no one else had managed to do.”
    “I see,” Anna said.
    Isaac’s white teeth flashed. “We didn’t win this one,” he said. “But we didn’t lose, either.”
    “You weren’t on that football team, were you?” There had been something in his voice and the way he referred to his high school team as “they.”
    “Nope. I was the little geek the football team halfback liked to shoveinto gym lockers for fun when the team captain wasn’t around to keep him in line. Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly mean, I’d love to meet Jody Weaver again and have him try to shove me in a locker now.”
    Anna laughed…paused, because she didn’t know football, but she had a father and brother who were football fanatics. “I know that name. Jody Weaver. He’s a big deal, right?”
    Isaac nodded. “Went on to get rich and famous—and he’s still a bastard. Proving once and for all that life is not fair.”
    “Speaking of not fair,” Anna said, “have you heard anything about Lizzie? I called Leslie earlier, but all she knew was that she was listed as stable and that they already had her in the operating room for her knee.”
    Isaac shook his head. “You know more than I do. I left a message on Beauclaire’s phone and invited him over tonight. I suspect he won’t be leaving the hospital.”
    “Were there any clues to be had on the island?” Anna already knew that the forensic people hadn’t found much from her earlier conversation with Leslie. But there was a possibility that Isaac or his witch might have found something they hadn’t talked to the authorities about.
    Isaac shook his head. “No. It was like they knew the island would be searched by werewolves—the whole prison area had been doused with ammonia. They found a few personal effects, enough to determine that Jacob, Otten, and a couple of the other victims had been kept there.”
    “If they had known we were coming, they’d have moved Lizzie,” Anna said.
    Isaac nodded. “Right. I suppose it was in preparation for a worst-case scenario. They’ve been killing werewolves. They don’t want
us
to figure out who they are.”
    Isaac’sexplanation made sense. He was probably right. And if he wasn’t, they’d figure it out when the bastards were caught.
    THE RAIN WAS pouring down when