Standing, my father headed for the door, motioning for Michael to join him. “You can use the computer in my office to run a search on missing strippers. I want names, locations, dates they went missing, ages, and anything else that might be relevant. Get pictures, if you can find them.”

Michael took off through the western field at a jog, headed toward the main house.

“Ethan, you and Jace go fill your mother in on what we have so far, and see if she’s thought of anything else we can use.”

Ethan nodded, and he and Jace took off down the dirt path, behind Michael.

My father turned to me and Marc next, and my hands began to sweat from dread that he would put us on another plane. Fortunately, he had something else in mind. “Will you recognize Dan Painter’s voice if you hear it again?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. And Marc’s chest shifted slightly at my back as he nodded.

“The informant got my machine both times he called, and I saved the messages.” My father paused, looking deeply into my eyes to convey the importance of what he was about to say. “I want you two to listen to them and tell me whether or not the voice on the machine belongs to Dan Painter. We have to confirm the informant’s identity before we proceed any further, because if he isn’t Painter, we’re looking at this al wrong.”

“No problem,” Marc said.

My father nodded, satisfied. “Good. Go.”

Marc and I headed toward the house together, while Owen, Vic, and Parker hung back to hear whatever instructions our Alpha had for them.

A warm summer breeze blew through my hair as we walked through the field, bringing with it the scent of summer wheat, dirt, and trees. And Marc, because he was upwind from me, though only by an inch or so.

“Jace is right,” he said, probably unaware how odd that statement sounded, coming from him. “You didn’t do anything wrong. This is not your fault.”

“The hell it isn’t.” I refused to look at him, staring straight ahead at the house, rising slowly from the waist-high field of grass around us. “If I hadn’t knocked Painter out, Jamey and Harper would both still be alive right now.”

Marc stopped abruptly, turning me by my shoulders to look at him.

“Maybe. They might still be alive. Or, we might have learned what the tabby looks like, and nothing else. You don’t know that Painter could have given her to us. And you don’t know that we could have stopped her.”

True. I didn’t know that for sure. But I felt it with every beat of my heart. I’d messed up. Bad.

I’d made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life—hel , most of them in the past few months alone—but I’d never been responsible for an innocent person’s death before. Not even indirectly. And the guilt from knowing I might have saved Robert Harper and Jamey Gardner was making me sick to my stomach. As in, seriously nauseated.

And unbelievably pissed off. When we found this tabby, she’d get much more than a piece of my mind. She’d get a piece of my fist—right through her pretty little neck.

In the office, Michael sat behind our father’s desk, clicking away at the computer with his right hand, and making notes with his left.

Ambidextrous freak. He nodded at us when we came in, then went right back to work.

I made my way straight to the massive oak desk, while Marc settled onto the leather love seat. “Hey, Michael, where’s Holly?” he asked, twisting to face us both.

“Rome, for two more days,” Michael replied, without ever taking his eyes from the screen.

“Wasn’t she just there last month?”

“That was Venice, in July.”

“Oh.” Marc winked at me. While most of the other guys were predictably envious of Michael’s wife—an actual twig-thin, doe-eyed runway model—Marc let me know over and over again how unhappy he would be with a woman like Holly. She was away far more than she was home, and Michael’s career rarely gave him the freedom to travel with her.

Marc liked me exactly where I was—in Texas. With him. Away from the eager eyes of mil ions of men al over the world.

I tried to take such statements for the compliment he intended them to be, instead of focusing on the underlying hint that my place was at home, with him and our future—thus far purely theoretical—children.

Perching on the edge of my father’s desk, I pul ed the stand-alone answering machine toward me, noting the blinking red light. Someone had called since we’d left for the barn, and my mother hadn’t answered the phone. Why not?

Then the answer was there—obvious, in retrospect. She was in the woods. By herself. Again.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked, his eyes moving rapidly back and forth as he read silently from the computer screen.

“Dad wants us to listen to the messages and make sure Painter’s the guy.” I swung one leg to thump against the side of the desk. “Have you heard them yet?”

“Nope.”

“Well, get ready.” I pressed the play button on the machine, a digital model that didn’t actually take a tape, and was first surprised, then pleased to hear my cousin’s voice bubble from the tiny inset speaker.

“Hi, everybody, it’s Abby.” She paused, then sighed and continued.

“My mom said that if I was serious about learning to fight, I should really commit to it, so I was calling to ask what kind of punching bag you guys use. The big heavy one. And I know the school year just started, but we’l be out for fal break in a few weeks, and I’d real y like to spend it with you guys, if you don’t mind. Maybe Faythe could teach me some more of those self-defense moves. I really want to learn how to disable a guy with one kick….”