"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Back to those medical offices where Colm – Where you were earlier."

It was a moment before she managed a cautious, "Why?"

"I need a quiet place to take care of the Cabal team."

"By taking care of them, you mean…"

"I have tranquilizer guns in the trunk."

She hoped her sigh of relief wasn't too loud.

He went on. "The problem with stopping to do that is that I need an empty place where, logically, I might go before heading to the kumpania. Irving will be wondering why I grabbed you. Going here will answer his question."

Hope was about to ask how. Then the vision replayed – the boy running off the edge, twisting, his face – She shivered, the chaos pleasure cut short by a cold snake of dread slinking up her spine.

"Revenge," she whispered.

He didn't seem to catch the chill in her voice. "Right. If they haven't already woken Karl, they will when I take you inside. He'll tell them why we're here, and the team will rush in. Your death isn't in their best interests. They'll try to rescue you, while letting me escape so they can continue the hunt."

The car slowed to take a corner, heading into the complex behind the big-box store. Her gaze straight ahead, Hope waited until the car decelerated, then grabbed the door with one hand, and her seat belt with the other. The door flew open, her seat belt whirring as she threw herself against -

Rhys's arm slammed into Hope's chest, catching her square in the solar plexus, forcing her back in her seat, gasping and sputtering as the brakes squealed. Rhys lunged across her to yank the door shut while the car shot up on the curb and bounced down again.

As the car hit a full stop, Hope jerked against his arm, coughing, eyes watering, like she'd been hit with a fresh dose of tear gas. He made a sound, one that sounded suspiciously like…

He was laughing.

Hope gasped, mouth opening and closing, nothing going in or out.

"Shallow breaths." He withdrew his arm. "It'll come back. And, no, I'm not going to apologize for hitting you that hard. Never go easy on allies if you have to take them down. Especially allies. You're already fighting the urge not to hurt them. Counteract that and hit them with everything you've got."

She stared as he talked, calmly twisted in his seat, hand on the wheel, lecturing her as if they were still cruising along, talking about how to tail a car. When her fingers edged toward the door, he pressed the electronic lock.

"I know what you're thinking, Hope. I said I'm going to make the Cabal believe I want revenge for Colm's death, and you're wondering if that's exactly what I want, that I'm saying it to throw you off track. I don't think I have a single operative who would see that far ahead, and I've trained them to always be on the lookout for a trick. I'm impressed."

She kept staring.

"First-rate survival instincts." He leaned toward her. "Does that come from having demon blood? Or a professional thief boyfriend?"

She said nothing.

"Either way, I'm impressed. You can never be too paranoid, Hope. That's what I meant about coming down as hard on allies as on enemies. It doesn't matter whether you work for the council, a Cabal or on your own. Never trust that your allies won't turn on you, and never presume your enemies can't be turned to help you."

He checked the rearview mirror. "Good. They've seen us. It'll be obvious something happened, maybe you tried to escape, which will support the story."

He cranked the wheel away from the curb, then accelerated. "It is a story, Hope. Yes, I want revenge against the person responsible for my son's death, but that person isn't you. You tried to stop it. In your place, I would have done the same. So it's not you I'm after."

"Adele."

He slowed near the medical center, checking for police before turning into the lot. "Neala – his mother – tried to warn me about Adele. I've been gone since Colm was two. I stayed away. That was the deal." Silence as he circled the lot. "But Neala kept in touch, let me know how he was doing. Then, last year, she called me in a fury. She'd caught Adele and Colm making out."

"How old is Adele?"

"Exactly Neala's point. You get it. I didn't. Maybe as a guy all I could think was that, at his age, I'd have been in heaven if a nineteen-year-old came on to me. Like Neala, I suppose you see the problem. It's fine for a fourteen-year-old to fantasize, but for a young woman to reciprocate…"

"Something's wrong."

"Which is what Neala said. I knew it wasn't normal, but the kumpania is very insular. Adele wouldn't have a lot of options for a sexual outlet. Maybe she was immature for nineteen. Maybe Colm was mature for fourteen. I made excuses and chalked up Neala's reaction to a mother's jealousy." He paused a moment, then jackrabbited into a spot, slamming on the brakes hard enough to smack her forward, ribs aching.

"Stay put," he said as he opened the door. "We need to make a good show of this, in case they're already watching."

Robyn sat on the ambulance tailgate as the paramedic checked her eyes. He hadn't looked at her shoulder. He didn't know he needed to.

Robyn had made a deal with Detective Findlay. If he was going to find Adele, he needed her help, and he wasn't getting it by dumping her in a hospital room. So she wouldn't mention the shoulder and he'd pretend not to know about it.

He hadn't liked that, his blue-green eyes cranking up the frosty blue, his square jaw getting squarer. But she was right and, as she pointed out, it was her safety, therefore her decision. He hadn't liked that either, his look saying that, as a murder suspect, she didn't have that right, but he was too polite to say so.

He reminded her of the cops they used to send to her school, parading them as proof that Officer Friendly really was friendly. Robyn wasn't so sure friendly was the word she'd use to describe Detective Findlay. Just… courteous, which was more than she deserved, after pulling a gun on him and ranting about werewolves and demons.

As Robyn looked around, Detective Findlay ambled back to her. No, ambled wasn't the right word either. It implied aimlessness, and Detective Findlay carried a decisive air that forbade anything that vague. But he took his time, like a grizzly bear fixed on a target, in no particular rush but broaching no deviations to his path either, presuming all smaller beasts would get out of his path.

One of the officers did scamper into his path to intercept him. It was a young officer, barely twenty, with an eager smile, big eyes, big feet and a tendency to stumble over them. The detective didn't seem to notice the officer until he was a hairbreadth from smacking into him.

Lost in thought? Or busy listening to his ghost? He had the same distant look Hope got, the one Robyn now knew meant she was seeing a vision. When he saw the young officer, he snapped out of it with that same blinking jolt of surprise.

What was it like to see ghosts? What did they look like? What did they say?

The ghost Detective Findlay had been communicating with seemed to be some kind of spirit guide, helping him by scouting for Hope and Karl. Did Detective Findlay only see that one spirit helper? Or a world of ghosts? If it was ghosts, did that prove life after death? Did that mean Damon was still out there, somewhere, and if he was, could Detective Findlay -

Robyn banished the thought. Hope and Karl were missing. Adele Morrissey was still at large. Making contact with her dead husband sat at the bottom of Robyn's priority list. It had to.

Detective Findlay spoke to the officer, then continued on to Robyn. "You okay?"