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Nick clenched his jaw, keeping his patience with an effort.

It didn’t help that his whole body hurt from those damned electric shocks.

Or that he was hungry.

Morley let out a held breath.

He never got a chance to finish saying what he’d been about to say, though.

Right then, the door to the interrogation room slammed open behind him.

* * *

Nick turnedat the same time as Morley.

The woman who breezed into the organic metal interrogation room didn’t make eye contact with either of them, not at first.

She positively screamed “lawyer.”

She didn’t wait for Morley to ask her for I.D.

She didn’t bother to give her name, or give Nick so much as a sideways glance.

She didn’t look at Morley, either.

She stared right into the surveillance camera embedded in the wall.

“We’re securing his release.” Her voice was crisp, uncompromising. “Today.” She tapped her wristband with one finger, as if it were an old-fashioned watch, holding that up for the camera to see. “…Within the hour. We have already established definitively that this Midnight has an alibi, and could notpossiblybe the vampire you are looking for. So I would strongly recommend you not do anything in that time to violate our client’s rights…”

She had to be Archangel.

She fucking had to be.

That, or she was someone Farlucci hired.

No way this was his representative sent by I.S.F.

No way was this the lawyer he might have gotten from the NYPD.

Nick glanced at Morley, one eyebrow raised.

The older detective answered his look with a shrug.

James clearly had no idea who she was, either.

Whoever she worked for, Nick found her confidence reassuring.

He found her competent demeanor reassuring.

He found her not-so-veiled threats reassuring.

He hoped like hell she knew what she was talking about.

Even as he thought it, she spun around to stare at Morley.

“Have you gotten the surveillance, Detective? It definitively clears him…”

She trailed, turning all the way around to look at the door as it opened.