Skin Trade

37

WE WERE IN the parking lot of an elementary school. It was long enough after hours that the school was empty, no children to peer out of the windows at the show outside. Because when I say we, I mean Las Vegas Metro SWAT, Edward, Olaf, Bernardo, Undersheriff Shaw, a bevy of homicide detectives, and some uniforms and cars that would eventually close off the streets so no one drove by at the wrong moment. Victor was in one of the cars because Shaw had kicked a fit about him being in on the pla

Part of that info was the layout of his house. In St. Louis they have to scout the actual house, but in Vegas, because of the huge number of cookie-cutter housing developments, the two operators had found out which model Mi

“We know that wereanimals can smell our scent, which is why we’re paying attention to the prevailing winds,” Hooper said.

“You mean you’re sneaking up on the house as if Gregory Mi

Hooper seemed to think about it, then nodded. “Not a hunt in the traditional sense, because we’re hoping to take the suspect alive, but yes.”

I looked at Edward. He said, “They’ve done this before, Anita.”

“Sorry, Sergeant, just not used to working with this many people who actually seem to understand that lycanthropes aren’t human, but still have the same rights as regular humans.”

“We know our job,” Hooper said.

“I know that, Sergeant. I’ll just shut up now.”

He almost smiled, then went back to his notes.

“How do you get around the fact that they can hear your heartbeat from yards away?” Edward asked, and I knew by his tone that he was actually wondering if they’d figured out a solution. When Edward asks someone else a question like that, there is no higher praise.

“No one can be quiet enough to stop their heartbeat,” Hooper said.

I thought, Vampires can, but I didn’t say it out loud. It wouldn’t have helped anything. No police force in the United States allowed vampires to join up. If you were a cop and “survived” an attack and became a vampire, you were fired. I had a friend back in St. Louis, Dave, who’d been a cop until he became a vampire in the line of duty, but instead of a fancy cop funeral, he got kicked out. The police honor their dead, as long as they aren’t still able to walk around.

Bernardo said, “They can’t all hear a heartbeat from yards away, and they hear better in animal form than human.”

I looked at him and couldn’t keep the surprise off my face. He gri

I nodded. “Sorry, but sometimes the flirt act makes me forget that there’s actually a pretty good mind in there.”

He shrugged those broad shoulders but looked pleased.

Harry, who was the assistant team leader (ATL), was younger than Hooper, but older than most of the others. SWAT was a young man’s game, and the fact that the team had this many people over forty was impressive, because I knew they kept up or they got out. He said, “The last visual we had of the subject was human form, so the hearing, sense of smell, all of it isn’t that much above human-normal from a distance, and once we’re in the room with him, he can smell us all he wants, we’ll be on top of him.”

“What’s your policy if he’s shifted?” I asked.

Hooper answered, with no glance at anyone, “With an active warrant of execution, if they shift, it’s a kill.”

We all nodded.

“It is easier to kill them in human form,” Olaf said.

The operators looked up at him, and he was the only one of us that they had to look up to, by even an inch. “We’re hoping to get the location of the serial killer’s daytime lair, Jeffries, which means we need Mi

It was nice to have someone else in charge who could lecture Olaf. I had to turn away both to hide my pleased expression and not to make eye contact with Edward or Bernardo; I was afraid it would have turned from a smile to giggles. The tension was growing thicker around all of us, anticipation and adrenaline in the very air. I realized that was something that lycanthropes could sense, too. But again, what could we do about it? If they’d truly been animals, we could have used things to disguise our scent, but if we smelled strongly of something weird, they’d know it was all wrong. They were people with the senses of animals; it made them hard to kill, dangerous to hunt. I looked up at the sky and the sun that was moving, inexorably, toward the horizon.

“We want to do this before dark, too, Blake,” Harry said.

“Sorry, but when you spend most of your life hunting vampires, you get very aware of where the sun is in the sky.”

He looked very serious. “I wouldn’t want to do your job every day.”

I smiled, not sure it was amused. “Some days neither do I.”

Undersheriff Shaw moved closer. I’d hoped he was just going to observe. “You know more than you’re telling about the local tigers, Blake.”

“You questioned all of us for hours apiece, Shaw. We could have been ahead of this, and maybe, just maybe, done before dark. Now there’s no way. We’ll do our best, but dark will catch us, and this situation will go from bad to worse.”

“I heard you came out of Max’s place with a new friend. Hand in hand with one of his weretigers. You really have a thing for strippers, don’t you, Blake?”

That let me know that we’d been watched, or Max was being watched. More than that, Edward hadn’t picked up on it, either, so they were good, whoever it had been.

I lowered my sunglasses enough to give him my eyes. “I find your overly intense interest in my personal life disturbing, Shaw.”

He actually blushed a little for me. That was interesting. I wasn’t the only one who noticed that, because Hooper said, “You better suit up, Sheriff Shaw.”

“What?” he asked.

“You’re going in with us, right?”

“You know I’m not.”

“Marshal Blake is going in with us. Please don’t distract her.”

“You’re defending her, Hooper?” He glared at me. “I thought you didn’t do cops, Blake.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you visit SWAT for a couple of hours, and suddenly they’re willing to trust you at their backs, and talk back to their superiors. You must be as good as they say.”

You don’t get to see men like this-shocked-often, but I saw it now. That open-mouthed moment when you can’t believe that slipped from someone’s mouth. They moved around us, and there was that sense of the pack tightening around someone they didn’t like.

Hooper spoke low, but clear, not yelling, but the emotion was there. “This woman is about to put her shoulder next to ours and go into that house, while you stay outside where it’s nice and safe.”