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I tossed the idea aside quickly, like I always did when those ideas snuck in. A lone wolf couldn’t put down roots and settle. It would only make it that much more painful to tear them out when I had to move on.

“You still haven’t finished your drink. Let’s go, bottoms up,” Ollie said, snapping me out of my mental reverie.

With a frustrated sigh, I finished my first drink. As irritating as Ollie was being, things could be worse. One good thing about my job was the personal interaction. The people I worked with all followed the in-person rule, so they had to look me in the eye. You could see body language, furtive glances, and surrounding distractions. It made it easier to tell if someone was afraid, lying, or withholding information. Honestly, if things ever changed and I started getting orders via email or text, I’d probably feel more like a robot than a person. Not that I’d tell Ollie that.

A secondary benefit of meeting in person was that it gave me the barest connection to other shifters, which kept me from going feral like many other lone wolves did when they stayed away from civilization too long.

After draining half his new drink, Ollie sighed and leaned back into the booth. “All right. I guess we should get down to business.”

“About bloody time,” I muttered.

“Are you gonna get comfy at least?” he said, nodding to my leather jacket.

I eyed his off-the-rack suit. “Worry about your own fashion sense, Ollie.”

“Hmph, fair enough.” He downed the rest of his drink and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

The hot little server swung back around, this time eyeing me with a bit more heat. “You two need anything else?” She locked her eyes on me. “Anything?”

“All good, sweetie. Thanks,” Ollie said.

She walked away again, and this time, I gave her ass a much closer inspection.

Ollie cleared his throat. “Are we talking business? Or are we planning a three-way here?”

“In your dreams, Ollie,” I said.

“We were close that one time, remember? That stripper eight or nine years ago. She was ready to mount us both.”

“Ollie, if there is one truth in all of life, it’s that the stripper was never actually into you. That’s why I dragged your ass out of that club. I didn’t want you dumping another three hundred bucks in singles into her G-string. She wasn’t gonna fuck us both. You know it, and I know it.” I gave him a look. “Now, what the hell is the scoop, bro?”

Ollie chuckled, but his face changed quickly, morphing from my long-time buddy and jovial smartass into the streetwise and professional cop he’d been for over a decade.

“Here’s the deal.” He glanced around to make sure no one could hear us. “There’s a good reason I was late tonight, and it didn’t have to do with paperwork.”

“Ominous,” I remarked, sipping my second drink. “Are you getting to a point soon?”

“Don’t be a dick.” Ollie patted down his suit jacket, then slid his hand into a pocket. “I got called out to a murder scene a couple of hours ago. That’s where I was before coming here. I found this at the scene.”

He extracted a plastic evidence bag and handed it over. Tucked in the corner of the bag was a tuft of fur.

“That was caught in the doorframe,” Ollie explained. “Must have come off the attacker as he went inside. You know what that means, right?”

I opened the bag and sniffed. The strong smell of shifter musk swirled in my nostrils. “Means the perp was already in wolf form when he leaped inside. Anyone could have seen him. Has this been going on for a while? Is that why I was brought in?”

Ollie nodded gravely. “Your expertise is required. I’ve done all I can to shift blame elsewhere, but it’s getting tough. This isn’t the first.Thisbody was a few days old when we found it, but there have been two more prior to this. All the same—torn apart, with obvious signs of canine teeth at the wounds. The medical examiner’s best guess for time of death is between eleven p.m. and three a.m.” He shrugged helplessly. “That’s the best we’ve got.”

I resealed the baggie and stared at it. Finally, I looked up, handing the bag back to Ollie. “What do your colleagues think about it?”

Ollie put the bag back in his pocket. “Prevailing theory? That a serial killer is on the loose. A guy who’s trained a dog to do the dirty work. One of the detectives thinks the guy stands around jerking off while the dog rips them to pieces.

“I swear, man, as soon as the thought of a serial killer comes up, cops start freaking out. I think it’s part excitement and part horror. So far, none of them have thoughthey, what if it’s a magical creature that can change from a man to a wolf? Which is good. As of now, top brass is telling everyone to keep their mouths shut. If anyone even mentions the wordsserial killer, they’ll get their asses reamed.”

“Any other characteristics that stand out for the killer or victims?” I asked.

“M.O. for the first two was outdoor killings. One was on a running trail on the outskirts of the city, and the second happened in an alley. This one, though, was inside the victim’s house. To me, that sounds like escalation. He’s no longer content to wait for prey to come to him. He’s actively stalking targets now.”

“Fuck.” I slammed back the rest of my whiskey.