A name appeared over and over again on the paperwork—as a contact person, the owner of goods to be shipped, the authority by which money changed hands. I assumed it was Flemming’s alias. Except …

“Who is G. White?” I asked Flemming.

He swallowed hard, moving his lips as if preparing to speak. For all the good it would do him, surrounded by werewolves as he was. We could smell the lies.

Hand on chin, gaze thoughtful, Ben said, “Cormac … Amelia … check something for me: What’s the Latin word for white?”

“Albus,” Cormac said.

Couldn’t possibly be a coincidence … “Albus. Albinus. Gaius Albinus?” I murmured. “G. White, is that who you’re working for?”

Flemming said, “He’s a foreign investor, heads a private security firm. It’s perfectly normal—”

I said, “Have you met him? What’s he look like?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking—”

“Tell her,” Ben said.

“He … he’s about my height. Lean. Dark hair, close-cropped. He always wears a long dark coat—”

“Oh, my God,” Ben murmured.

It was Roman. I showed Flemming a mix of emotions, from rage to despair. “Do you have any idea who you’re working for?”

“I told you, a foreign investor—”

He had no idea.

“What would Roman want with Tyler?” Ben said.

“Ready-made werewolf soldier, trained in the American Special Forces. He’d be priceless,” I said. Gravity must have suddenly doubled, I felt so tired, so slow.

“Who’s Roman?” Tyler said. He’d come to stand in the doorway. “And why would he think I’d work for him?”

“He’s a vampire, a very old one,” I answered. “He wouldn’t need your cooperation, he’d just need you.” We hadn’t called the police yet. Surely Ben would let me at Flemming now. I said to him, “He conned you into recruiting for him—”

“He funded my research, that’s all—” Flemming said.

“And you still think it’s okay to kidnap werewolves for that research? Have you learned anything?”

“It’s necessary—”

“Bah.” I flung a hand at him and turned away. “You’d better call the cops in before I have a go at him.”

Ben already had his phone in his hand, but Caleb put his hand over it, lowering it from his ear.

“Give us a chance to get out,” Caleb said. “I don’t want to have to explain our handiwork to them. Not to mention Ned’s.”

“Ned probably owns the cops,” I muttered.

“Kitty?” Tyler said. “What’s it mean? What were they planning to do with me?”

I couldn’t even look at Flemming again, however much I wanted to scrutinize him, to get him to tell Tyler exactly what he’d planned. I’d lose my temper for sure. I said, “Use you, control you, throw you into battle. Make you train others. The same damn thing.”

“It’s an awful lot of trouble to go through,” Caleb said.

Maybe. But with Tyler’s training and expertise? He wasn’t just werewolf cannon fodder. In a fight, he was worth ten of the rest of us.

“Doesn’t matter now,” I said. “He’s in a lot of trouble back home.”

Flemming quailed, his voice trembling. “You won’t get away with this. I have friends—” The cliché must have come instinctively.

“Your G. White isn’t going to come save you,” I said. “Whoever your allies were in this, they’ve left you.”

Caleb went to the crate of equipment and drew out a pair of handcuffs. “I’ll truss him up a bit, so he doesn’t get the idea he can just walk out. Jill, we’ll go back and get Michael and bring the car ’round. Then we can call the cops.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

Along with Ben and Cormac, Tyler and I moved to the door and waited. Cormac opened it wider, looking out. The SUV from the security footage was parked outside. A hundred yards away, lurking like a mountain in the dark, a freight ship was docked on the river. If they’d gotten him on there, Tyler would have just vanished.

Caleb left Flemming lying against the wall in handcuffs. The scientist seemed relieved, somehow, as if assured that the werewolves weren’t going to tear him apart on principle.

He caught me looking at him. “Who is Gaius Albinus?”

How to explain, in a sentence or less, without shouting? How to tell Flemming just how far in over his head he was without realizing it, so that I could savor his reaction? My lips turned in more of a sneer than a smile. “Dux Bellorum. Do you know what that means?”

“Leader of war. It’s a title for a general,” he said.

“That’s right. Same guy, and he’s collecting allies. Servants.”

“That sounds very dramatic,” he said. “But I work with people. Not for them.”

I laughed bitterly. He’d probably been telling himself that his whole life. In our last encounter, he’d had help catching me. No way he could have pulled that off on his own. He’d made a deal with a vampire, Alette’s lieutenant in Washington, D.C. He caught me, and in return Flemming gave him a security contingent to help him destroy Alette and take over the city. I don’t think there’d been any question in Leo’s mind who came out ahead in that bargain. Too bad it had backfired. Even Flemming saw that in the end. But he hadn’t learned a damn thing since then, and here he was, working with vampires again.

“You don’t even know how much you don’t know,” I said.

“The police will let me go,” he said. “I won’t be extradited. I won’t be tried. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Haven’t done anything—only if you believe that werewolves aren’t people.”

The expression he turned to me was so matter-of-fact, my breath caught. So, that was where we stood.

Tyler and I went to stare out the door with Cormac and Ben.

“That’s what you get for baiting the guy,” Ben said, putting his arm around me and pulling me close. I snuggled against his warmth.

Caleb and the others seemed to take forever with the car. Then I remembered they had Michael’s body to retrieve.