“Yes, but that was a boyfriend bitten in the height of passion with teeth she didn’t realize had shifted. Total fluke,” Teo insisted, as he pulled open the bottom file cabinet drawer. “Although come to think of it, the stray she infected turned out to be a psychotic killer too.” He dropped the first file folder into the box. “Maybe it’s a good thing most tabbies don’t get out much, if they’re all gonna infect their friends…”

Warner made an amused noise at the back of his throat. “If it were that easy to infect a woman, Jace would have made enough tabbies by now to keep our numbers well out of the endangered range. Right?”

I answered with a growl.

“Regardless, we’re ninety-nine percent sure Robyn’s the stray who’s been killing the hunters, and that Abby was trying to cover that up,” I explained for Warner’s benefit. “That’s why she signed on as an enforcer and why she just had to come to both of the crime scenes.” Hargrove’s house and Darren’s lake cottage.

“So, then, why get herself fired, if being an enforcer helped her keep us in the dark?” Teo asked.

“Well, as an enforcer, she would have had to go back to the lodge with us, when what she probably wanted was to go check on Robyn, to make sure she’s not out killing more people,” Warner suggested as he began pulling the photos from the wall. He held up a picture of Robyn and Abby walking together on campus, and I took it from him.

“If she thought Robyn was going to kill again, Abby would have fought harder to stay on campus when I came to pick her up.” I studied the photo, where Abby had her arm around Robyn’s shoulders, even though she was the smaller of the pair. She was clearly comforting her roommate. Guiding her, even. Robyn didn’t look like a cold-blooded killer. She looked like a traumatized, confused young woman who didn’t know how to handle what was happening to her. Which was something Abby would understand.

Abby seemed to be acting as the new shifter’s mentor or counselor. There was no way she would have participated in Robyn’s crimes, even knowing what the hunters had done, but she would help cover for Robyn, especially if it was her fault Robyn had become a shifter. And she would try to stop Robyn from killing again.

And she would damn sure try to protect Robyn from the hunter coming after her.

“That’s why she got herself fired!” My hand slammed into the taxidermy table hard enough to send a jolt of pain into my shoulder. “Because she knew Darren was going after Robyn, not Melody, but she couldn’t tell us that without admitting that Robyn was the rogue stray.” That she’d known who the murderer was all along and had been covering for her.

“Oh, shit.” Teo froze in the act of pulling another picture from the board. “That’s why she didn’t want to be sent home. There was nothing she could do for Robyn from South Carolina. Especially since her cell phone is ruined, and she doesn’t have any of the stored numbers memorized. She can’t even call to warn Robyn.”

And neither could we. “Damn it! We sent backup to the wrong tabby.” I turned to Teo, already pulling my phone from my pocket. “Call Titus and have him send his men to the Lexington campus instead of the lodge. Abby said Robyn was staying in the dorm over the holiday.” Which made sense now. A newly infected stray would have a hard time hiding his—or her—condition from her family in close quarters. “With any luck, the campus will be mostly deserted.”

“Should I call Abby’s dad?” Warner asked, already holding his own cell, but I shook my head.

“He’ll have to tell the rest of the council, and we’re not doing that to Abby until we’ve heard her side of the story.”

“But she’s probably already on her flight home.”

“Then we’ll bring her back. Book a return flight as fast as you can, and I’ll tell Lucas to stay at the airport and wait for her.” I shoved the picture of Abby and Robyn into my pocket on my way up the stairs.

I was halfway across the kitchen, about to call Lucas where the signal was stronger, when my phone rang and his name appeared on the screen. “Luke!” I said into the phone. “I need you to stay at the airport and wait for Abby. Warner’s going to—”

“We never made it there,” Lucas said, his voice even gruffer than usual with anger and fear.

“Why not?”

“Abby’s gone, Jace. I had to leave her in the truck while I bought clean clothes, and when I got back, she was gone. I found her scent in a gas station bathroom across the street and her clothes in a plastic bag behind a Dumpster a quarter mile away. That’s where I lost her trail.” Because unlike dogs, cats can’t track by scent.

“Where are you?” I demanded, my heart hammering against my sternum.

“About half an hour from the airport, west of highway 75.”

“So, she’s in cat form, in the middle of Lexington?” Damn it, Abby! “She’s headed for campus. I need you to follow the route she’s most likely to take on foot, and see if you can catch up with her. If you haven’t found her in an hour, go straight to campus. To her dorm.”

“Why would she go there?”

“Because her roommate, Robyn, is the rogue stray.”

“Wait, what? A female stray?” After a short pause, he exhaled heavily. “Jace, tell me you don’t think Abby infected her.”

“I don’t know.” But it worried me that he’d jumped to that same conclusion. “Abby’s been covering for her from the beginning, and now she’s headed back to campus to protect her from Darren. He wasn’t going after Melody; he was going after Robyn, which means the hunters knew she was a shifter before we did. The rest of the council is not going to like that.”

“That’s why she killed Hargrove. To keep him from telling you about Robyn,” Lucas said, and from over the line came the sound of flesh hitting flesh as he smacked his own forehead. “She just kept saying she’d had to do it, but that’s not like Abby.”

“I know. And the only reason I can think of that she’d try to protect Robyn by herself is to hide the fact that she infected her roommate.”

Lucas groaned. “What’s going to happen to her, Jace?”

“I don’t know. I’ll do everything I can to protect her from the council, but we have to find her first.”