"I wouldn't. I'm worried about Wally, too. Is he really a cop?" He darted me a quick, confused look.
So I did my best to explain the shifters and partners program to him on the drive. My words were terse and distracted, but he seemed to get the gist of it, and nodded thoughtfully.
"So you work together, but you also have sex."
"He's my boyfriend, so yes."
"But that's not part of the job — the sex, I mean."
"No, of course not."
"Good." His voice was soft and he looked down at his lap. "Wally seemed too nice for that." The unspoken "not like me" wasn't lost on me, but I didn't say anything. We had a job to do. Save Wallace's freaking life, if it wasn't too late. Building up Lexie's self-esteem would have to wait.
Lexie was a fairly good direction giver once he got his bearings, and spoke with increasing confidence of which way to turn. Then we got out onto the back-country lanes where everything started to look the same to him, and that skill evaporated. His directions got sparser and more and more uncertain.
"Turn right here...I think. Unless it was the last one?"
I'd made a call to the precinct on the way and told the captain what was going on. He'd promised to look into any property that might be connected with McCann, especially any rural property that might have a cabin in the woods. So far, nothing had come up, but they were searching.
If Wallace had been there, with his skills, they'd probably have found it quicker. He was great at all that stuff. Paperwork. Files. Research. The kind of thing he should've been devoting his efforts to, not crappy undercover work that obviously hadn't been safe at all.
They'd gotten word there was a raid. And all they'd done was hidden or flushed some drugs, warned the employees...and gotten rid of Wallace. Dammit.
"They knew there was a raid," I said. "Who told them?"
"I don't know. McCann had a lot of sources."
"Inside the department?"
"The — oh, you mean a cop? Maybe. I don't know. I tried not to learn anything they might want me dead for. I figured Wally had figured something out he shouldn't know. He seemed really smart, you know? But on his first day? That freaked me out. He didn't even know how todanceright yet. And he hadn't done any work in the back rooms, either. So what could he possibly know?"
"He was a cop, and someone told them." I was almost strangling the steering wheel in my frustration and grief. "There was a leak, and it may have cost him everything."
"If he's more valuable dead than alive, then yes," said Lexie in a cautious voice. "But I've been thinking… If they bothered to take him all the way out here — I think this is the right road, I could be wrong — then maybe theydidhave a reason to keep him alive longer?"
"Why, so he could get free and testify against them?" I asked bitterly. No, I didn't see any scenario where he had much of a chance — much as I hated that.
"No,um." He shifted uncomfortably. "Foxes are worth a lot, you know? I mean…" He shrugged self-consciously. "Some people would pay a lot for a fox shifter they could…keep."
"Sex slavery?" I asked sharply.
He looked sick, but he nodded, biting his lip. "It...I've heard it happens. I try to be really careful. I mean, I thought this was a good place, you know? Compared to some, it was." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "I didn't think McCann would ever do that to me...but if he thought Wally was a cop...it might have seemed like a good way to get rid of him and also get some money…
"If he was careful enough, it wouldn't be traced back to him. Wally would just be...someone's captive, for however long they wanted to...keep him...and then, afterwards, of course, he'd be dead. However long he wasuseful, you know? So hecouldstill be alive. Maybe you cops have a...a way to find him?" He sounded like he was trying to find hope, despite feeling sick to his stomach.
What a sick underbelly this world had. Sex slavery till he was "used up" by some twisted sicko who got a charge out of keeping and hurting shifters...then killed. I had to find out. I had to —
"Stop the car," said Lexie abruptly. "I have to sniff the air. I'm sure I'll recognize the smell, if I'm close."
I braked, and he fumbled with his seatbelt and hopped out. He stood uncertainly along the side of the road, sniffing, looking one way then another, his chin raised. He closed his eyes.
I got out and walked up beside him quietly. We stood in front of some very hilly, barren-looking fields.
"Anything?" I asked after several fraught moments of silence.
"I think… Oh, no." He started to move, cautiously at first, his limbs awkward with nerves, then more smoothly as he burst into a run. He was far faster than me, and I struggled to keep up, mindless of the way I kept stumbling over the uneven ground.
He ran like a wild thing, a deer perhaps, all bounding and grace, and I ran like the clumsy cop I was. "Oh, no, oh, no," he said again, his voice a shaky trembling mess.
