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Even Acharya couldn’t save Nick from that, not if the rumor mill really dug in and decided he was a murderer who walked free.

Nick did okay withmostof the humans in the precinct now.

He knew most of that was thanks to Jordan, and another cop, Charlie, to a lesser degree. Both of them were really popular with the uniforms and other detectives. Jordan played basketball with a lot of them on the weekends. Charlie was gorgeous, and funny, and a damned good detective, so half of the precinct had a crush on her.

They all respected Morley too.

Hell, Morley was probably the best detective on the whole force.

But Nick knew how fast that goodwill could change.

He also knew at least a handful of them hated him for what he was already.

Others, it likely wouldn’t take much to tip them into that place.

Then again, pissing off or not pissing off his fellow cops wasn’t exactly Nick’s priority right then. He wasn’t about to let them collar, drug, and “re-program” him just to satisfy the precinct bigots that he wasn’t getting special treatment.

He just needed them all to stay the fuck away from Wynter.

Especially these two psychos.

Thinking about that, and how quiet she’d been the past few days, Nick frowned.

But he couldn’t think about Wynter right then.

He really couldn’t.

Keeping his face as neutral as he could, he listened to the cops argue with the lawyer.

He’d missed a chunk of that argument already.

“We have him on the damned recording!” Handlebar mustache smacked his hand down angrily on the metal table.

The sharp sound made Nick flinch in spite of himself.

It also brought his attention abruptly back to the room.

The human detective didn’t give Nick so much as a glance. He didn’t take his dark blue eyes off the slim woman in the designer suit. He jabbed his finger towards her face, his cheeks turning bright pink.

They were almost the color of the lawyer’s skirt and jacket.

“We have proof!” he hissed, spittle leaving his lips. “Weknowit’s him.”

The lawyer looked entirely unimpressed.

She adjusted a curl of blond hair to get it out of her eyes, her voice unchanging.

“You have no proof whatsoever that the recording depicts Detective Nick Midnight,” she responded coolly, holding him in a dead-eyed stare. “The suspect shown… and that recording shows only asuspectat this point, detective, since the crimesare not depictedanywhere,either… your suspect has no conclusive identity at all. His face is entirely bandaged in over half of the records I’ve been shown. You could notpossiblymake a positive I.D. from that. You don’t even know for certain your different recordings are ‘evidence!’ Or that they even show the same suspect! I couldn’t even be certain all of them werevampires.”

Nick fought not to react.

Bandages?

Did she just say the killer’s face was bandaged?

“Weknowit’s a goddamned vampire!” handlebar snarled at her. “The eyes are vampire! You can clearly see it!”

“Well, I guess it’s good there’s no such thing as contact lenses.” The lawyer raised her voice to match his. Shaking her head, she snorted derisively. “Good to know your Midnight is theonly vampirein the entire city of New York, too, detective. It must make your job sosomuch simpler. Whenever there’s a vampire crime, just knock on Nick Midnight’s door.”