Not just a tabby, but any woman?”

Her gaze swept up and down the table, looking at each of us in turn, including my father. No one answered, and in the silence, the low growl of a car engine rumbled from outside; Owen and Vic were back with the van.

“Faythe?” my mother asked, bringing my attention back on track as she narrowed her eyes at me. Why was she picking on me? No one else knew the answer, either. “Why would you go to a strip club?”

I frowned, trying without success to fol ow her logic. “I wouldn’t.”

“You went to one today,” she pointed out, her voice infuriatingly matter-of-fact, as if her statement were perfectly logical rather than a distortion of the truth.

“That doesn’t count. I was working. I went in to question the bartender.”

She nodded, apparently pleased with my answer, and picked up the silver pie server to gesture with as she spoke. “So you went into a strip club looking for a man?”

“Not like that,” I insisted. “I wasn’t looking for a date.”

“Did these men die of romance?” she asked, mercifully shifting her attention away from me. “Were they killed with too much wine and candlelight?” No one answered, but my father sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, glowing with pride as he watched his wife at work. “No, because this tabby wasn’t looking for a date, either.”

“She was working, too,” Marc said. “Looking for someone.” He was the first to catch on, though my father was nodding, as if he agreed.

“Maybe Moore and Harper, or maybe someone else. Either way, she was hunting.”

In the foyer, the front door creaked open and Owen’s boots thumped on the tile.

Jace glanced from Marc to my mother, lowering his fork to the table with a bite of cheesecake still speared on the end. “She’s hunting strays?”

“Not exclusively,” Owen said from the dining-room doorway, his worn cowboy hat hanging from one fist. He leaned against the door frame, and Vic stopped just behind him, his expression grim, his cheek streaked with dirt.

My father pushed his chair back and glanced at his watch. “I didn’t expect you back for at least another hour.”

“It’s amazing how much time you can save by not burying the body,”

Vic said, pushing past Owen and into the room.

“This time she got one of ours. Jamey Gardner. We brought him back for a proper burial.”

The dining room erupted into a frenzy of questions and angry exclamations as we vented rage at the murder of one of our own Pride members. My father didn’t bother trying to speak over us. He simply stood and walked calmly from the dining room into his office across the hall. The racket around the table faded into silence as we all hopped up to follow him.

Marc and I sank onto the love seat and everyone else settled into place around us. No one said a word. We knew better than to start shouting questions in our Alpha’s office, no matter how upset we were.

Instead, we listened as he spoke on the phone, hoping the answers to our questions would be revealed in the course of the overheard conversations.

The first phone call went to Michael, my oldest brother. Michael hadn’t worked as an enforcer in nearly eleven years, but during times of crisis, my father never hesitated to call him home to help. Michael was a genius at organization and resource management, and much more comfortable than the rest of us were with toggling multiple phone lines and scouring the Internet for information. Having just been made partner in a local law firm, he was also our eyes and ears in the legal community.

The phone call to Michael was predictably short and to the point.

“What’s wrong?” my brother asked in lieu of a greeting.

“Call your boss and tell him you need a personal day tomorrow. Then come on over. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Give me half an hour.”

“Good.” My father dropped the phone back into its slim black cradle, then sank into his desk chair, already flipping through his leather-bound address book for the next number. As he dialed, Ethan curled up on the floor at my feet, playing with the frayed edge of the rug, his head resting on my knee. Jace sat on his other side, leaning against one leg of a heavy oak end table.

“Wes? It’s Greg.” My father leaned forward in his chair, the phone pressed to his ear again. He paused as a disembodied voice greeted him from the earpiece and asked about his health. Wesley Gardner was Jamey’s older brother, and Alpha of the Great Lakes Pride. “I’m fine,” my father said, staring at his desk blotter as he rubbed his forehead. “But I have some bad news about Jamey.”

For a long moment, there was only silence, broken by the occasional crackle of static on the line and the creak of leather as Owen shifted on the couch across from me and Marc, his hat in his lap. When Wes finally spoke, the pain in his voice was obvious, even over hundreds of miles of wire. “How did it happen?”

My father sighed, still staring down at his desk. We all knew how much he dreaded this part of his job, and I was grateful he hadn’t delegated the responsibility to one of us. Namely me.

“I’m not sure yet. We got an anonymous tip about a body near Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. It turned out to be Jamey. I’m so sorry, Wes. We’re doing everything we can to catch the…one responsible.”

I glanced at Marc, surprised by my father’s failure to mention the kil er’s gender—the most noteworthy aspect of the case by far. But Marc didn’t even seem to notice. Withholding information during an ongoing investigation was standard procedure, but Wes was the victim’s brother, for goodness’ sake, not some random Pride member.