Priceless

using his height to loom over me, like a bully on a playground trying to intimidate the little kids. Wrong chick to pull that move on, you’d think he would have learned that by now.
    “Tell me something,” I said, acting totally unimpressed, hiding my nerves. “If this is just a regular case, just a kid gone missing, why is the illustrious FBI on it?” I strolled to my Jeep, the two men following a few feet behind me. “Could it be that unlike most people whose children go missing, this family has money and can buy the really good help?” I looked over my shoulder to see their reactions to my words.
    Both agents flushed at the implication. Mini-Me stepped into the ring next, ready for his shot at me. “The FBI can’t be bought, Ms. Adamson.”
    “Really?” I smiled at him sweetly, turning to face the men, my hand on the Jeep’s handle. “That’s not what I heard. In fact, I heard when you’ve got lots of money or fame, that’s when the FBI steps in.” I paused, took my hand off the door and shook my head. “Glory hounds seeking the spoils of others’ sorrow.” So much for flirting.
    O’Shea stepped close and held my door closed, once more looming over me. I didn’t often feel small, but this close to him I felt like a child. The same child he’d met nearly ten years ago. “Adamson, one of these days I’m going to find out how you did it, how you made your little sister disappear. And when I do, all this vigilante shit of yours will stop because I’ll make sure you’re in jail for a very,
very
long time. You’re not fooling me. I know who’s to blame for your sister’s death. We may not have a body, but one day soon, you’re going to slip up.”
    My jaw tightened and tears threatened to show themselves. I would
not
let him see me cry, damn it. After all these years, he was the only one who could bring me this close to tears. “And when I do, you’ll be there, right? You’ll be there to slip the noose over my neck and watch me swing?”
    He growled an obscenity and suddenly, we were nose to nose; Mini-Me was in the background muttering about people starting to stare.
    “You’d think the FBI would like a little help finding kids and returning them to their families,” I said, holding my ground.
    “Not when they’re dead!” He hissed at me, hot minty breath flooding my nose. That had been the last kid. I’d found him, but it had been too late. The family was grateful to have closure. The FBI and local police, not so much. It’s a little difficult to explain a werewolf attack to people who have no idea the monsters are real. Of course, there had been other kids that hadn’t made it home alive, but I didn’t tell O’Shea. No need to point out that detail.
    “At least I can find them! More than you slackers ever manage,” I snarled back. I hoped my breath smelled bad. Damn, would flirting with this man really work?
    “Slackers?” His voice got soft, and I knew I touched a raw spot. I couldn’t help poking some more at it.
    “Glorified donut-eating cops. The only difference is you get to dress in Gucci, and the cops have hand-me-down uniforms.”
    His eyes nearly bugged out, and he grabbed me by the shoulders. I went limp in his hands. “Assault on an unarmed woman, O’Shea? Now that won’t look good on the old permanent record, will it?”
    He didn’t drop his hands, not right away. “Since when do you go anywhere without your blades?” He took his hands off my shoulders and flipped my jacket open; his fingers brushed underneath my breasts even, sending a shot of awareness through me, the perv. I let him. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him all my weapons were waiting for me in the Jeep. But I had nothing on me at the moment.
    Wiping his hands on his pants, as if he’d touched something nasty, he said, “I know what you are, Adamson. You’re a fraud and a child killer.”
    I’d had enough of his tirade, enough of the memories he stirred up. I leaned forward until we were nose to nose again, and gave him the eye contact I knew most people couldn’t handle. It was time to put Milly’s suggestion to the test. When you have chocolate eyes laced with gold and emerald green, it either freaks people out or turns them on. I was banking on them freaking him out.
    “You know what I think, Agent O’Shea?” He blinked at me and I took advantage of the proximity of his lips. I planted a big fat kiss on him, slipping my tongue through his teeth and flicking it along