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Cabell gurgled again, his eyes boring rage-filled holes in Mosby, who attempted to look derisive, but mostly just looked like he was trying very hard to not panic.

But under that panic, there wasn’t fear, but anger.

Hatred. I wasn’t sure if it was directed at Hart or at Elliot or at me. Or possibly all of us.

“Mosby…” Mosby wasn’t the only one who was annoyed. Cabell was pissed .

Mosby turned and literally growled at Cabell, who paled underneath the purple.

So I growled back at Mosby, and his head snapped over, nostrils flaring.

It was weird, but even though Mosby had clearly tried to kill Elliot—thinking he was me—I didn’t feel particularly intimidated by him.

I tilted my chin up, as though daring the other shifter to threaten me.

I’m not sure where that odd courage came from—maybe the fact that I had Hart with me, or maybe because it was clear that Cabell was seriously pissed at Mosby, or maybe it was just that I’d had it with all the posturing and bullshit, but I didn’t feel threatened or intimidated by him at all .

I felt my lip curl, almost of its own volition, saliva thick in my mouth as my instincts pushed me toward a shift. I kept it back, holding tightly onto my control, forcing my lips to close.

Mosby’s chin dropped, just a fraction, but it was an acknowledgment.

Of what, I wasn’t sure. That I was righteous, where he was corrupt?

That I was bigger and stronger than he was?

That I had more power as a shifter? I didn’t know.

It felt instinctive. Primal. That chin drop immediately made me relax—a little. A very little.

“Agent Hart,” Cabell hissed out between clenched teeth once he managed to get himself back under control. “I’m going to need you and Mr. Mays to step out for a minute.”

“Oh, hell no,” came Hart’s response. “Mosby here deliberately ran a car containing a civilian off the highway with the intention of intimidation and threat at best and murder at worst. No fucking way am I leaving this office.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

I could hear Cabell grinding his teeth. “Mr. Mays is too close to the victim to be part of this discussion or investigation.” He glanced over at me with nervous eyes. “Beyond providing information about his observations.”

It meant he believed me. Hart had photos, of course, and Mosby had all but admitted his guilt, but I saw his point.

Hart opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “Of course, Deputy Sheriff,” I said smoothly—but coldly. I would have liked to have stood up and marched out of the room with great dignity, but the swollen and painful knee and the crutches made that impossible.

I left with as much dignity as I could muster, and Hart held the door open for me. He spared me a glance that was almost apologetic, but I knew we both knew I shouldn’t have been there.

I just really hoped that nobody managed to stop me before I got where I was going.

I sat at the Dairy Queen that was not far from the Sheriff’s Office and courthouse, eating a non-dairy Dilly Bar, something I hadn’t actually been aware existed, but I’d needed to sit down somewhere, preferably in public, and even though a Diary Queen seemed like the worst place in the world for someone with alpha-gal, I’d figured I could at least get a Coke or something.

The non-dairy Dilly Bar was a pleasant surprise. I also had a root beer, a treat in and of itself.

I was waiting for James Humbolt to join me.

I had questions.

A lot of them.

He came in about a half-hour after I’d called, wearing a pair of basketball-style shorts and an extremely faded t-shirt that read World’s Best Grandpa . His grey eyes widened in a flushed face when he saw my immobilized leg and the pair of crutches leaning on the bench next to me.

“What happened?”

“Sprained my knee slipping on a root on the way down a mountain trail,” I replied.

“I—I’m sorry about…” He must have heard about Elliot. He cleared his throat. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

I ate the last bite of my Dilly Bar. “Can we go to your office? Or somewhere else private?”

“Of course.”

I gestured at the counter. “Did you want something first?” It was almost a hundred and not yet noon. An ice cream kind of day.

“Oh, I don’t—” He was looking longingly at it.

“Get yourself something,” I urged him.

He made a beeline for the counter.

Humbolt good-naturedly carried my root beer out to his car, since I wasn’t capable of carrying anything in my hands while on crutches, passing it over once I’d gotten into the passenger side of the black Mercedes.

I was very careful to hold it so that the condensation would drip onto the floor mat and not anywhere else in the car, given that I was pretty sure I couldn’t even afford the mat.

I held his Blizzard—mint, with Oreos in it—while he drove, occasionally taking a bite with the red plastic spoon.

“I’m taking you back to the house,” he said, surprising me.

“My wife has an appointment to get to in about…” He checked the clock.

“…an hour, and I’m fairly certain that our conversation is going to take longer than that.

The grandkids are staying with us this weekend, and while they’re old enough to entertain themselves, somebody should be there. ”

“Of course,” I replied. I hadn’t expected or wanted to go to his house, but I wasn’t about to complain about it, since he’d come to pick me up and was disrupting his day in order to accommodate my demands.

Did it make me nervous? Yeah, of course.

But I didn’t think Humbolt was going to try to have me kidnapped or killed or something.

I’d texted Hart anyway, letting him know that I was meeting with Humbolt and that we were going back to his house because he needed to supervise his grandkids.

Hart had yet to respond.

Humbolt’s grandkids—Keeley and Tristan—were adorable.

Keeley was a very precocious five, and Tristan was three- and-a-half , as he very firmly informed me.

I’d kept them entertained by helping them with some Lego sets while Humbolt put together a healthier snack than he and I had consumed at the Dairy Queen.

Once settled with their Legos and ants-on-a-log—celery with peanut butter and raisins—apple slices, and cheese cubes, the kids proceeded to work on building a Lego city that ignored all rules of uniformity of color, style, or physics, the last of which caused fits of sticky giggles.

“Now,” Humbolt said, pulling a chair up to the side of the couch where he’d insisted I sit to put my leg up. “First of all, I’m sorry for your loss?—”

“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about,” I interrupted him quickly. “Elliot’s not dead.”

Humbolt blinked. “But—the police think he is.”

“Actually, no, they don’t. Or, at least, some of them don’t.”

“I—what?”

I proceeded to explain what we knew—that a deputy, presumably Mosby, had forced Elliot off the road and had then shot at the gas tank until it ignited.

Elliot had shifted and gotten himself out of the car undetected, but the police had impounded the burned-out car, which meant that at least the people who had investigated the car knew that there hadn’t been a body in it.

“So you think the whole department is committing conspiracy to cover up murder?!” Humbolt was horrified, although whether at my suggestion or the implications for jurisprudence in Augusta County, I wasn’t sure.

“No, I don’t.” I explained about Cabell’s obvious fury at Mosby’s actions.

“And I would guess that either Mosby has a few buddies he made sure worked the crime scene, or somehow he managed to falsify reports or keep the reports out of anyone else’s hands.

” I shifted. “Also,” I continued, “Mosby is a shifter,” I said.

“You know this?”

“Yes. And he knows I’m a shifter.”

“How?”

I sighed, then looked at him pointedly. “The same way I know Keeley is a shifter, but Tristan isn’t. And if your son wants some advice on raising a shifter kid, Elliot underwent his transformation when he was a kid, or I can connect him with Hart’s fiancé, Taavi, who was born a shifter, too.”

“You can smell other shifters?”

I nodded. “I can also smell ghouls and vampires, but their characteristics are visible, so that’s not really that helpful.”

“Huh.” Humbolt looked thoughtful. “Interesting as that is, why is it relevant in this case?”

“If my father is a shifter—a wolf shifter, specifically—it’s not impossible that there might be other shifters among the Community. And if that’s true, that some of those shifters might have been put into the police or other government or county positions to help protect the Community.”

Humbolt blew out a long breath. “Good lord, what a mess.”

“Sorry.”

He waved a hand. “You aren’t at fault here, Seth—if I may?”

I nodded. I was sitting in his house explaining what Hart would call a ‘complete clusterfuck’ to the poor man. If he wanted to use my first name, he was welcome to it.

“And you should call me James,” he said. “It seems that your mother set me up for a very long and interesting summer.” His emphasis of the word interesting suggested that he meant something more like horrifying or nightmarish , but he was putting a brave face on it.

I grimaced. “Sorry,” I mumbled again.

“Still not your fault,” Humbolt replied, forcing his voice into a mildly cheerful tone. “Do you have any idea why this Mosby person wanted to frighten or harm your boyfriend?”

I sighed. “Hart thinks—and I think he’s probably right—that I was the real target.”

“Why?!”

“Because of Momma.”

Humbolt let out a long breath. “Oh, dear, sweet lord,” he breathed. “You think—Apologies, you and this Agent Hart think that there is a police conspiracy to… cover up your mother’s murder?”

I let out a breath. Humbolt really was trying, and I understood how completely irrational the whole thing sounded if you just said it out loud. “Do you have a better reason why an Augusta County deputy would attempt to drive me off the road?”

He just stared at me.

“It’s a serious question,” I told him. “Because I’m not sure about anything.”

“And you have no other enemies here? Since you’re from here?”

“I haven’t been this close to home since I was fifteen. The only enemies I have here would be people in the Community who might be angry that Noah and I left. But I couldn’t give you any names, because I haven’t talked to any of them in sixteen years.”

Humbolt ran a hand over his grey hair, then was momentarily distracted as Tristan and Keeley let out a chorus of shrieks—happy shrieks, fortunately. “And does this—what did you say his name was?”

“Mosby?”

“Yes. Does he have any connections to this Community?”

“No idea.” But it was a good question. I pulled out my phone and texted Hart. Humbolt wants to know if Mosby might have any connections to the Community. “But it’s worth checking.”

“Did you just ask Agent Hart to look into that?”

I nodded.

“Probably a good idea,” Humbolt said, his voice serious. “Given that contacting the local police doesn’t seem like the best next step given the circumstances.”