Alcide looked properly flattened. "You mean you'd thought of this?"

"Alcide, I'm not educated, but I'm not dumb." Try getting educated when you can read the minds of all your classmates, not to mention your teacher. But I read a lot, and I've read lots of good stuff. Of course, now I read mostly mysteries and romances. So I've learned many curious odds and ends, and I have a great vocabulary. "But the fact is, Eric would hardly go to this much trouble to get me to go to bed with him. Is that what you're thinking?" Of course, I knew it was. Were or not, I could see that much.

"Put that way . . ." But Alcide still didn't look satisfied. Of course, this was the man who had believed Debbie Pelt when she said that I was definitely back with Bill.

I wondered if I could get some witch to cast a truth spell on Debbie Pelt, whom I despised because she had been cruel to Alcide, insulted me grievously, burned a hole in my favorite wrap and—oh—tried to kill me by proxy. Also, she had stupid hair.

Alcide wouldn't know an honest Debbie if she came up and bit him in the ass, though backbiting was a specialty of the real Debbie.

If Alcide had known Bill and I had parted, would he have come by? Would one thing have led to another?

Well, sure it would have. And there I'd be, stuck with a guy who'd take the word of Debbie Pelt.

I glanced over at Alcide and sighed. This man was just about perfect in many respects. I liked the way he looked, I understood the way he thought, and he treated me with great consideration and respect. Sure, he was a werewolf, but I could give up a couple of nights of month. True, according to Alcide it would be difficult for me to carry his baby to term, but it was at least possible. Pregnancy wasn't part of the picture with a vampire.

Whoa. Alcide hadn't offered to father my babies, and he was still seeing Debbie. What had happened to her engagement to the Clausen guy?

With the less noble side of my character—assuming my character had a noble side—I hoped that someday soon Alcide would see Debbie for the bitch she truly was, and that he'd finally take the knowledge to heart. Whether, consequently, Alcide turned to me or not, he deserved better than Debbie Pelt.

Adabelle Yancy and her mother lived in a cul-de-sac in an upper-middle-class neighborhood that wasn't too far from Fangtasia. The house was on a rolling lawn that raised it higher than the street, so the driveway mounted and went to the rear of the property. I thought Alcide might park on the street and we'd go up the brick walkway to the front door, but he seemed to want to get the truck out of sight. I scanned the cul-de-sac, but I didn't see anyone at all, much less anyone watching the house for visitors.

Attached to the rear of the house at a right angle, the three-car garage was neat as a pin. You would think cars were never parked there, that the gleaming Subaru had just strayed into the area. We climbed out of the truck.

"That's Adabelle's mother's car," Alcide was frowning. "She started a bridal shop. I bet you've heard of it—Verena Rose. Verena's retired from working there full-time. She drops in just often enough to make Adabelle crazy."

I'd never been to the shop, but brides of any claim to prominence in the area made a point of shopping there. It must be a real profitable store. The brick home was in excellent shape, and no more than twenty years old. The yard was edged, raked, and landscaped.

When Alcide knocked at the back door, it flew open. The woman who stood revealed in the opening was as put-together and neat as the house and yard. Her steel-colored hair was in a neat roll on the back of her head, and she was in a dull olive suit and low-heeled brown pumps. She looked from Alcide to me and didn't find what she was seeking. She pushed open the glass storm door.

"Alcide, how nice to see you," she lied desperately. This was a woman in deep turmoil.

Alcide gave her a long look. "We have trouble, Verena."

If her daughter was a member of the pack, Verena herself was a werewolf. I looked at the woman curiously, and she seemed like one of the more fortunate friends of my grandmother's. Verena Rose Yancy was an attractive woman in her late sixties, blessed with a secure income and her own home. I could not imagine this woman down on all fours loping across a field.

And it was obvious that Verena didn't give a damn what trouble Alcide had. "Have you seen my daughter?" she asked, and she waited for his answer with terror in her eyes. "She can't have betrayed the pack."

"No," Alcide said. "But the packmaster sent us to find her. She missed a pack officer's meeting last night."

"She called me from the shop last night. She said she had an unexpected appointment with a stranger who'd called the shop right at closing time." The woman literally wrung her hands. "I thought maybe she was meeting that witch."

"Have you heard from her since?" I said, in the gentlest voice I could manage.

"I went to bed last night mad at her," Verena said, looking directly at me for the first time. "I thought she'd decided to spend the night with one of her friends. One of her girl friends," she explained, looking at me with eyebrows arched, so I'd get her drift. I nodded. "She never would tell me ahead of time, she'd just say, 'Expect me when you see me,' or 'I'll meet you at the shop tomorrow morning,' or something." A shudder rippled through Verena's slim body. "But she hasn't come home and I can't get an answer at the shop."

"Was she supposed to open the shop today?" Alcide asked.

"No, Wednesday's our closed day, but she always goes in to work on the books and get paperwork out of the way. She always does," Verena repeated.

"Why don't Alcide and I drive over there and check the shop for you?" I said gently. "Maybe she left a note." This was not a woman you patted on the arm, so I didn't make that natural gesture, but I did push the glass door shut so she'd understand she had to stay there and she shouldn't come with us. She understood all too clearly.

Verena Rose's Bridal and Formal Shop was located in an old home on a block of similarly converted two-story houses. The building had been renovated and maintained as beautifully as the Yancys' residence, and I wasn't surprised it had such cachet. The white-painted brick, the dark green shutters, the glossy black ironwork of the railings on the steps, and the brass details on the door all spoke of elegance and attention to detail. I could see that if you had aspirations to class, this is where you'd come to get your wedding gear.

Set a little back from the street, with parking behind the store, the building featured one large bay window in front. In this window stood a faceless mannequin wearing a shining brown wig. Her arms were gracefully bent to hold a stunning bouquet. Even from the truck, I could see that the bridal dress, with its long embroidered train, was absolutely spectacular.

We parked in the driveway without pulling around back, and I jumped out of the pickup. Together we took the brick sidewalk that led from the drive to the front door, and as we got closer, Alcide cursed. For a moment, I imagined some kind of bug infestation had gotten into the store window and landed on the snowy dress. But after that moment, I knew the dark flecks were surely spatters of blood.

The blood had sprayed onto the white brocade and dried there. It was as if the mannequin had been wounded, and for a crazy second I wondered. I'd seen a lot of impossible things in the past few months.

"Adabelle," Alcide said, as if he was praying.

We were standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the front porch, staring into the bay window. The CLOSED sign was hanging in the middle of the glass oval inset in the door, and Venetian blinds were closed behind it. There were no live brainwaves emanating from that house. I had taken the time to check. I'd discovered, the hard way, that checking was a good idea.