“Why do you think Swinn tapped you for this assignment?” He’d been trusting the baby cop because Osgood had survived the Elders’ attack on the rest of the team. Now he needed to know if that trust was earned.

Osgood met his eyes and didn’t flinch. “There were rumors at the academy about a special group, a club that could provide ways to enhance a career. When Detective Swinn said he’d heard good things about me, that I had a good record at the academy, I thought this might be an audition of sorts for the club. But the drive up to Sproing was long enough to convince me I didn’t want to be beholden to someone like him, and I’d already decided I wouldn’t join the club if I was invited.” He hesitated. “So either I was tapped for the assignment to find out if I should be considered for membership . . .”

“Or?” Grimshaw prompted when Osgood hesitated again.

“Or Detective Swinn brought me along as the expendable member of his team.”

“That meshes with my thinking.” Grimshaw opened the thermos and poured a cup of coffee for himself, then gently wagged the thermos at Osgood in invitation—and felt the last whisper of suspicion quiet when Osgood fetched a coffee mug from his desk and held it out to be filled.

Grimshaw almost offered to share the meatloaf sandwich. Then he took the first bite. Nope. Not sharing. Best damn meatloaf he’d ever tasted.

He finished the sandwich, set the fruit aside, and sipped his coffee. Osgood sat across from him, waiting.

“Franklin Cartwright was working for Yorick Dane. When Cartwright is found dead, Swinn comes running up here to handle the investigation.” Grimshaw weighed what he knew and balanced it against what he could see coming even before he went over to Lettuce Reed and talked to Julian. Then, to Osgood: “You sit there and just listen.”

He called the Bristol Police Station and waited for Captain Hargreaves to come on the line. “Captain? It’s Grimshaw. Could you call in another favor with the source who knows the ITF agent who has a direct line to the governor? I need a background check on some people and don’t want to alert anyone in the Hubbney police force in case a member of a certain club hears that I’m digging. I especially need to know if any of the people I’m checking have had any combat training, even unofficially. We may have a lethal situation here.”

CHAPTER 54

Them

Windsday, Sumor 5

Yorick opened the passenger door, tired of listening to Vaughn lay on the car horn and worried that the man might try to drive through the thick chain across the access road. Swinn and Reynolds were mad enough about being stuck in that camper site because there was nowhere else to stay in Sproing, and Swinn wasn’t about to use up his personal fuel coupons to drive back and forth from Bristol or, gods help them, Crystalton, with all its freaks. If Vaughn wrecked Swinn’s car trying to prove some point, it would be hard to find another ride. They had tried to lean on the bank’s former manager for the loan of his car or the use of his house, but the man had run off with his family to parts unknown—something the rest of the Clippers weren’t going to forget when the idiot came back looking for another cushy job.

“I’ll move the damn chain,” he said, getting out of the car.

The creep who had opened it the other morning had made it look easy, but the chain was heavier than he’d expected. He dragged it to one side of the gravel road and left it there. He didn’t think Vaughn would leave him to make his own way up to the main house since he had the keys, but he didn’t want any delays.

They’d done it. The whole thing had played out just like Vaughn said it would. Well, except for Franklin Cartwright ending up dead. But Yorick had a prime bit of real estate back in his possession, and once Vaughn and Hershel figured out how to get around the restrictions in the original agreement, they were all going to make a bundle of money, not just from creating a luxury resort for the discerning elite, but from the acres of timber waiting to be cut and sent to the sawmills as well.

He hadn’t expected to be required to reimburse Vicki for the capital improvements she’d made on the property. He’d figured he could mess with her head the way he used to do and intimidate her into fleeing, stripped of every asset he’d conceded in the divorce settlement. But that damned attorney had been right there, looking at the paperwork, handling things, not giving him a chance to talk to her alone. She wasn’t even at the bank this morning. Ilya Sanguinati had met them, verified the bank Yorick had used for the cashier’s check, and deposited the check before handing over the keys.

So that money was gone unless he could talk to Vicki and convince her she didn’t deserve to keep all of it. But that damn bloodsucking attorney wouldn’t tell him where she was staying, wouldn’t even give him her mobile phone number. There couldn’t be that many places where she could stay, since he’d deliberately not given her any time to make plans. Maybe one of the cabins down on Mill Creek? Swinn had taken a look around there early in his investigation. Only one cabin was being used, but he hadn’t been able to get close enough to find out who was living there. Or so he claimed. He never did explain why he couldn’t drive to the end of the lane to poke around that last cabin. Vaughn thought Swinn and Reynolds were too spooked to be much good anymore, but for now they were better than nothing.

When they reached the main house, Yorick heard crows cawing but didn’t see any of them around the house. Something else nearby yipped or howled. He shivered, anxious to get inside and put a stout door between himself and whatever was out there. Small shifters would be a nuisance, but something big had killed Franklin Cartwright and the detectives on Swinn’s team.

He unlocked the door and they all walked into the large hall. Big enough space for cocktails and nibbles and other kinds of informal gatherings.

Would have to hire a cook. Maybe that girl who worked at the boardinghouse. He’d float that idea with Vaughn, Darren, and Hershel.

“Son of a bitch,” Vaughn said, focusing Yorick’s attention on the house.

“What happened to the curtains?” Trina said.

“Where is all the furniture?” Constance demanded.

Yorick hurried into the office. The desk and an old carpet were still there but nothing else. Not so much as a paper clip.

“Son of a bitch!” Vaughn shouted, his voice coming from the back of the house.

Yorick flipped on the light switch in the office, then looked up when nothing happened. What the . . . ?

CHAPTER 55

Vicki

Windsday, Sumor 5

“Tell me again,” Ineke said when we took a milk-and-cookie break from unpacking my things and arranging them around the cabin.

“The terra indigene that Ilya assigned to clear out the main house and cabins took everything that hadn’t been in The Jumble when I arrived. They even took the light bulbs.”

Ineke’s eyes gleamed behind her black-framed glasses; she looked like a child being told the Best Story Ever. “That is so amazing.”

“I know! I couldn’t believe it when they carted in the boxes of bulbs.”

“No, not that.” Ineke waved a hand dismissively. “Your attorney is literally a bloodsucker, so I expected him to wring everything he could out of your idiot ex. What’s amazing is that you kept the receipts for light bulbs to prove you bought them.”

I blinked. That wasn’t quite the reaction I’d expected. “I thought I was supposed to keep the receipts for everything.”

The attorney who represented me during the divorce made a passing remark about me keeping receipts since I would be running a business, and I’d been so afraid of not keeping something that would have a serious impact on my depleted savings when I had to send in my tax forms that I had saved everything, all neatly labeled in file folders.

Ineke leaned forward. “You kept receipts for everything? Even the paper products?”

“Well, you’re the one who told me I should do that because I would need to buy in bulk. And things like paper towels and toilet paper aren’t cheap anymore.”

“The Others took those too? Even the partially used rolls of toilet paper?”

I looked at the box marked paypurr and wondered if all the rolls of TP had been riddled by Cougar’s claws. “If I had a receipt for it, they took it.”