It was nearly ten o’clock by the time we finished the late-night burial. Marc only had one bathroom, and the guys were nice enough to let me shower first. When I was dry but for my hair, I put two frozen pizzas into the oven, and when Dan emerged from the bathroom, he sat down with his list and tried to think of any names he might have forgotten. Without much luck.

As I was bending to take the first pizza out of the oven, headlights flashed in the front window and my cell phone rang out from my pocket. I set the pizza on the counter and answered my phone.

“It’s me,” Ethan said into my ear. “Let me in.”

The guys pulled the furniture away from the front door while I removed the second pizza, and when I kicked the oven door shut and turned around, Ethan was there, his arms already open for a hug.

In my brother’s arms, I could no longer resist the tears I’d held back. I cried on his shoulder, trying not to drip snot on his shirt while he rubbed my back. “We’ll find him, Faythe.”

I nodded and pulled from his grasp, wiping my face with a rough paper towel from the counter. “Damn right.”

Ethan cut the pizza and tossed uneven slices onto four paper plates while I dug several cans of Coke from the fridge. “Eat fast.”

While the guys chewed, I called my dad to tell him Ethan had arrived safely and to give him a report. “The house is clean. We had to pull up the carpet, but the floor beneath it is in pretty good shape. Marc’s landlord should thank us. The bodies are buried, but we’ll need to dispose of the broken furniture, as well as the carpet and padding.”

“Take the furniture to the town dump. You can bring the rest of the mess with you when you come home, and we’ll burn it. Fortunately,” my father continued, as I popped open my can and drank from it, “with the temperature so low, it shouldn’t start to smell for at least a couple of days.”

I wanted to ask what would happen if we hadn’t found Marc in a couple of days, but I didn’t, because I already knew the answer. If we hadn’t found him by then, we wouldn’t find him alive.

“Okay, about these names…” A pencil tapped against paper, and I knew my dad was staring at the list I’d given him. “Michael’s given me addresses for two of them, but we have no record of the other three.” Which wasn’t much of a surprise. We tried to keep up with the strays living near our territory, but our lists became outdated fairly quickly, as strays were killed in skirmishes and others popped up to replace them. “And I can’t do much with the partials.”

“I figured.” I sighed, already tired of dead ends. “Just give me what you have, please.” I scribbled as my father spoke, then thanked him for the information.

“Ground rules,” he began, before I could hang up gracefully, and I glanced around the table to make sure the guys were all listening. “Talk to them one at a time. Strays are loners, so that shouldn’t be too hard. But then again, things seem to be changing in the free zone, so you never know. But if you can’t get a stray by himself, don’t approach him. Just follow him until he is alone. Got it?”

“Of course,” I said, and all around the table, the guys nodded silently.

“You can do the talking, but Ethan and Parker are in charge if persuasion proves necessary.”

I pouted a bit over that one. I’d never played bad cop, and couldn’t think of a more appropriate time to start. But if I argued, my dad would pull me off the case, regardless of my relationship to Marc. Because if that relationship got in the way of my work, it would put us all in danger.

“And keep me updated.”

“We will.”

Again, I started to say goodbye, but again my father interrupted. “Ethan?”

“Yeah?” my brother said in the general direction of my phone, around a mouthful of pizza crust.

“Make sure she eats something.”

I rolled my eyes, but Ethan grinned and washed his bite down with half a can of Coke. “No problem.”

I said goodbye to my father and slid my phone into my pocket, then snatched a slice of pizza from my untouched plate, saluting my brother with it to demonstrate my cooperation. “Let’s go.”

Parker grabbed his keys while Dan shrugged into his jacket, and they all followed me out the front door, Ethan carrying the rest of my dinner for me. But I couldn’t think about food, and knew I would have no appetite until we’d gotten Marc back. Alive.

And eliminated the sorry bastards who’d taken him.

Ten

“So, who is Ben Feldman?” I leaned forward from the middle row, resting my elbows on the back of the passenger seat, inches from Dan’s head. Parker was driving, because it was his car, and Dan won shotgun by default, because he was the one with the directions.

Feldman was the only stray on the list whose address Dan knew without consulting the information my father had given us.

The stray turned slightly in his seat to face me and Ethan, who sat on my left. “Feldman got bit about seven years ago. That makes him kinda old for a stray, right?”

I shrugged. “I guess.” Dr. Carver claimed that because of their typically violent lifestyle, the average postinfection life span for a stray was under three years. I didn’t know if that was true, but Dan didn’t seem to doubt it. He’d probably heard those figures from Marc, who’d already lived far beyond that average.

Ben Feldman… Why did that sound familiar? “Would this be the same Ben you told about us coming through the free zone on Friday night?”