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He was shocked to see the old man blush.

“So pray, tell me.” Nora King folded her arms, glaring at handlebar mustache. “How could he haveliedto me? How could he have told me untruths, when I haven’t evenspokento him yet? Are you claiming I’mpsychic,detective?”

Mustache mumbled, stuttered, red-faced.

“N-No, ma’am, I––”

“Areyoupsychic, detective?” she cut in icily. “I mean, how is it you know more about what we plan to say to one another than either he or I?”

The silence that time felt physical.

Acharya was frowning at the two detectives as hard as the lawyer now.

“Is what she said true?” the police chief asked pointedly.

The two detectives looked at one another, then at Acharya, scowling.

Nick couldn’t help but think of two teenagers stuck in the school principal’s office.

He remembered his wife was the school principal now, and felt a flicker of heat hit him, somewhere in the vicinity of his navel.

At the same time, he realized how insanely dated his thought was.

These jackasses didn’t go to anything resembling the school Nick attended. Only rich people went to schools like that now. Rich kids, or kids like Tai, who got sent there because of some wealthy or connected patron.

Regular kids didn’t go to those types of schools. Handlebar and pompadour likely sat in virtual reality bubbles, being taught by A.I. programming.

Nick wasn’t super impressed with the results. But then, his high school back on that other Earth produced a lot of jackasses, too. And he’d come across some downright psychopaths attending classes inside Wynter’s fancy rich-only school.

“Is that really all you had?” Acharya pressed angrily. “The family name of the victims? That low-light video you pulled off the outside of the house where it happened?” Jag Acharya looked between the two detectives from Long Island, frowning. “Is there infrared at least? Something we can scan for bone structure? Correlation in movement? Gait? Or were you just going to beat a confession out of him?”

Pompadour and mustache looked at one another.

They looked back and Acharya and scowled.

Nick didn’t need a translator for that, either.

“What about the train stations?” Acharya glanced at Morley, who remained stone-faced. “The airports? Is there anything we can actuallyholdhim on?”

“They found a sixty-five percent likelihood it was him,” the younger of the two Long Island cops blurted, the one with the dark pompadour. “The tech guys. They said fifty is usually enough to bring someone in––”

“It’s nowhere near enough to convict. And the presumption is that you’d have other evidence besides that.” Acharya frowned, glancing at the lawyer. From his expression, it had just occurred to him that this wasn’t an ideal place to carry on this discussion. “It wouldn’t even get him into a courtroom,” Acharya grumbled. “And he’s a damned vampire. If he was human, the judge would laugh you out of the room.”

The pink-suited lawyer looked slightly smug now.

Acharya glanced around at faces.

From his expression, he had already made up his mind.

Nick agreed with him.

This was a shit-show.

But Acharya focused the least amount of time on Nick himself.

He looked the longest at the expensive lawyer Lara St. Maarten likely sent here. Then he scowled at the two guys in the corner who Nick still guessed to be H.R.A.

Even those guys would probably be on his side in this––meaning Nick’s side, not the shitty homicide cops from Long Island. Technically, the H.R.A.’s job included policing illegal charges, claims, detainments, abusive work conditions, harassment, and other fuckery conducted by humans against vamps and hybrids.