Lover Beware

do you explain your relationship with a suspect?”
    Rule recovered faster than she did. He slid an arm around her waist and started forward, smiling easily. “You’ve taken us by surprise, I’m afraid. I don’t have a statement at this time.”
    Maybe it was the way Rule moved, the assurance that others would remove themselves from his path. Or maybe even reporters were wary of crowding a lupus too closely. For whatever reason, he was able to clear a path, though the reporters still swarmed close, questions popping like sniper fire.
    “No comment,” Lily said. And, “Mr. Turner isn’t a suspect.” Then, finally, they were in Rule’s car, the doors closed on the avid faces, the engine started.
    “I hope this was the last little surprise your grandmother had planned for me tonight,” Rule said grimly as he pulled away from the restaurant.
    “Grandmother? Oh, no.” Lily’s fingers clutched her purse tightly. She wanted to hit something. “She’s going to be furious.”
    “I sure as hell didn’t tip the reporters.”
    Lily didn’t say anything for a long time, turning over the facts, trying to make them fit some way other than the obvious. The valet must have been bribed to let the reporters know when Rule’s car was brought up. She hoped they’d been generous—the young man would be out of work by morning. But that didn’t explain how the reporters knew he was there, with her. Finally, reluctantly, she spoke. “One of them knew the chief had told me to work with you. My family doesn’t know that. Yours?”
    “Aside from my father, no. And there is no possibility that he phoned the press about my relationship with you.”
    She sighed and pulled her cell phone out of her evening bag. “Then I’d better make some calls, because someone well up the food chain at the department did.”

Chapter 8
    BEING AMBUSHED BY reporters had blown Lily’s mood and her confidence. She’d been ready to turn Rule down when he walked her to her door, but he’d forestalled her, damn him. He hadn’t even tried to kiss her, leaving her with a mouthful of arguments and no one to use them on but herself.
    She’d done that, all right, tossing and turning until nearly three in the morning. Finally she’d snarled, flung back the covers, and grabbed her running shoes, a pair of shorts, and Worf’s leash.
    Pounding the pavement had pounded a little sense into her head. The best she could hope for with Rule was a hot affair that didn’t leave her too singed when it ended. Having a fling with him could do real damage to her career now that the newshounds were watching. It might even rebound on the department. Some reporters equated investigative journalism with slinging mud at the police.
    The plain, cold truth was that the price of an affair was too high.
    Either reaching a decision or exhaustion had done the trick, and she’d dozed off at last. When she blinked her eyes open again, the clock read nine-thirteen.
    It was Saturday. All over the city, people were mowing lawns, packing the kids to the beach, hitting garage sales, or sleeping in. Lily considered anything past nine o’clock sleeping in, so she’d observed one of the weekend traditions. She intended to be at headquarters by ten o’clock.
    Her first clue about what kind of day it would be came at nine thirty-five when she raced, dripping, from out of the shower to snatch the ringing phone. Her mother told her to look at the morning paper, then hung up.
    It could have been worse, Lily thought when she saw the headline. Her mother might have stayed on the phone.
    The article itself couldn’t have been much worse. The reporter didn’t quite accuse Lily of covering up for a killer because she was sleeping with the Nokolai prince. She just made a lot of insinuations. She also hinted at graft in the police department and possibly the mayor’s office.
    Then Lily saw the article below the fold. A man had been badly beaten near the scene of the second murder. In front of witnesses. Turned out he was especially hairy, and someone thought he was a lupus.
    The second page had a story about the infamous lupus rampage back in ’98, heavily salted with some of the more sensational lore about werewolves. Lily shoved her chair back and stood. “Dammit, don’t they see what they’re doing? People are scared enough without this crap.”
    She paced, trying to think of anything she could do that she hadn’t done. Three people dead at the hands—or teeth—of this