The office door opened. Rusty tried to rush past him to welcome the person standing in the doorway.

“I took her out,” he said, holding the pup. He heard boots moving across the floor, and he felt her at his back. The wolverine walked quietly for a human—except when she didn’t, and that, he suspected, was deliberate. “She should have a good run. Been in the den too much lately.”

The wolverine sighed and crouched to give pats and accept licks. “I know. I wish I could take her with me when I ride Mel.”

“Why don’t you? The horse that is not meat wouldn’t fear a puppy.”

She looked like she was going to argue with him about the horse, but she didn’t. A passive wolverine? Should that worry him?

“You think she would be okay, would be safe, off the leash? There isn’t that much traffic on the square, but there are the buses and taxis and some personal vehicles.”

“Pups follow the adults. That’s how they learn.” Virgil shrugged. “You ride. She and I will run. And she’ll learn.”

Jana nodded. “Okay.” She nudged Rusty back into the crate and closed the door. “The person who killed the man we found the other day …”

“Is nearby. So is the Blackstone called the Gambler.”

“The Blackstones are Abby’s family.”

Virgil nodded. “She needs to hide.”

Jana looked at her watch. “I’ll call Barb and see if she knows where Abby is working this afternoon. But if someone spots her before I find her and follows her back to her house …”

“Kane is watching the Maddie pup. If a stranger appears on the street, he’ll howl for us.”

Virgil waited a minute after Jana left. Then he walked across the square to the jewelry store to see if he could flush out his prey.

* * *

* * *

Heart racing, Abigail ducked around the corner and pressed her back against the wall.

Oh gods, oh gods, he was already here. Her father was at the registration desk, checking into the hotel.

It had been so easy to talk the young man who had been assigned to clean the transient guest rooms into letting her help. He usually did other kinds of maintenance in the hotel, but they were short staffed today because two of the girls had called in sick. One girl really was sick and had been at the doctor’s office when Anya had called to confirm there was actual illness. The other girl hadn’t wanted to come in that day and was now scrambling to find some other employment before she was put on a train heading for an arbitrary destination.

The young man told her this in a voice filled with hushed awe. What had seemed like a harmless fib to have an extra day off had become a hard lesson in how the terra indigene differed from human employers.

Abigail made sympathetic noises, but she wondered how many times the girl had played the “I’m sick” card to get out of work. It sounded like it had been one time too many if Anya was calling the doctors to check on employee health.

The cleaning service she worked for was run by a human, and a good worker would be given some leeway, mainly because there were more jobs than workers right now. Still, sweet Abigail wouldn’t shrug off her job unless a friend needed help.

Six rooms. Six stones. While the young man took care of the bathrooms, Abigail used a penknife to slit each mattress near the headboard and shove one of the black stones into the slit before making up each bed. The dissonance in the stones would wrap around the person as he slept, and even something that looked like good fortune would have a sting.

They had finished up and she had been about to leave when she saw her father.

So close. A few minutes earlier and he might have seen her coming out of one of the rooms. Now …

Her mobile phone buzzed. She pulled it out of the pouch she used for personal items—a shapeless embroidered thing that suited sweet Abigail.

“Hello?” she whispered.

“Abby? It’s Jana. Where are you?”

Where was she supposed to be this afternoon? And where could she say she was now? “I’m … I’m at the coin-operated laundry near the hotel.”

A moment of puzzled silence on Jana’s end of the line, but it was the only place nearby that Parlan Blackstone wouldn’t visit and Abigail could hide.

“Stay there,” Jana said. “And stay out of sight. I’m coming to get you.”

So the wannabe deputy knew Parlan was in town and he meant danger. She could work with that.

After all, she didn’t have to fake being afraid.

* * *

* * *

The jewelry store looked more like a pawnshop that specialized in glass being passed off as real gemstones and baubles that no self-respecting thief would bother to take. Oh, pretty enough for women who couldn’t tell the difference, but a disappointment to him. Still, if that’s what they were selling in Bennett, Lawry wouldn’t even have to run a con in order to swap junk for high-end pieces of jewelry.

Parlan studied the man who stood behind the back counter—the one place that had a few decent pieces with actual gemstones. Early thirties, thinning blond hair, carrying a bit too much weight for his frame. A soft man.

But in other hands, the store could be a useful way to move jewelry and jewels that were acquired by less than legal means. Lawry might prefer that to working in a saloon, and it would be a place to stash goods for associates. Yes, that might be better than all of them working in the same business. Diversify to establish roots quickly.

“Do you sell pieces on commission?” Parlan asked.

“Those two cases all have jewelry that was brought in by the salvage company. They get a percentage from the sales.”

“Costume jewelry. Trinkets.” It took effort not to sneer at the junk. “They don’t bring in anything with gems?”

A hesitation. Something in the eyes.

Parlan swore silently. The jeweler was a fucking Intuit. And wary of him asking questions.

“Anything that is deemed valuable is held for possible heirs. But not here.”

Not even being subtle about telling him there wasn’t anything there to steal.

“I didn’t realize Intuits were living in this town,” Parlan said, sounding casual but meaning it as a threat. Intuits who lived in a human town could often be very accommodating in exchange for someone keeping their secret. But there was no reaction from the jeweler. No wariness. That meant the Intuits weren’t hiding that extra sense that had been the reason for generations of persecution. Damn it!

“This is a mixed community,” the jeweler replied. “Plenty of Intuits have settled here.”

Not what he wanted to hear. He’d always avoided Intuit communities because they were bad for business. But … “Have you ever heard of an Intuit who could match a stone to a person? Not just that a garnet, for example, would be a good stone for a person but picking the one garnet out of a pile of stones that resonated with the person in exactly the right way? A person like that might have a strong reaction to stones that were supposedly dissonant with whoever handled them.”

“I’ve never heard of a jeweler who could make that precise a match between stone and customer. Must be a rare ability—if it isn’t just a brag to boost business.”

Because of his own ability, Parlan knew when someone was bluffing—or lying—and the jeweler had just revealed his hand. Abigail, the deceitful, faithless bitch, was in town. Somewhere. “Well, you know how it is. People exaggerate Intuit abilities to justify their own mistakes.”

The bell over the door jingled. The jewelerlooked relieved.

Parlan turned away from the counter and faced the newcomer.

The gray in the hair was too well blended into the black to be caused by age, especially when combined with the face and body of a man in his prime. The amber eyes that were fixed on him held unnerving focus. Casual clothes—jeans, shoes, checked shirt. And a star pinned to the shirt pocket.

“You must be Sheriff Wolfgard,” Parlan said, expecting the Other to be surprised that he would know.

“You must be Blackstone,” Wolfgard replied. “The Gambler.”

By all the dark gods, how had he known that? Had Charlie Webb been in town shooting off his mouth before Judd found him? Or had the mayor identified him that way, knowing he was a professional gambler? Either way, here was the sheriff rushing over to get a look at the stranger who had come to his town.

He met the Wolf’s eyes. He’d stared down plenty of men—especially the ones foolish enough to call him a cheat. But this was different. The amber eyes didn’t look away; the lips pulled back, revealing teeth that weren’t human; and the sound coming from that throat …

Parlan looked away, acknowledging the Wolf’s dominance.

“If you’ll excuse me, Sheriff?”

He waited until the Wolf stepped aside. It bothered him that he wanted to hurry, wanted to run.

The fucking beast made his skin crawl.

Parlan headed for the saloon. He wanted, needed, a drink. And he wanted time to consider what the clan would need to do in order to stake a claim in Bennett.

* * *

* * *

“Sheriff?”

Virgil looked at Kelley. The fear smell had been in the shop before he’d entered, so he knew he wasn’t the cause. “What?”

Kelley wiped a hand across his forehead. “That man said a couple of things that made me think he was fishing for information about Abby.”

Virgil growled. “He said her name?”

“No.” Kelley shifted from one foot to the other. “But he said some things that reminded me of how Abby had acted around some gemstones just before we moved to Bennett. It … caused some trouble between us. Made me see things differently. Just because our marriage is over doesn’t mean I want her to get hurt.”

“He’s trying to sniff her out.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then we’ll have to sniff out the rest of his pack before he finds her.”

* * *

* * *

Two men were sitting at a table, drinking beer and playing checkers. Two other men, dressed almost identically in what Parlan considered a work uniform, stood on either side of the bar. The bartender had black hair, dark eyes, and olive skin.

Sanguinati. Gods, weren’t any of them blond-haired and blue-eyed? Or had they bred any other coloring out of their species?

The other man had medium brown hair, green eyes, and an easy smile. Young, with that first real-job eagerness. Watching him shuffle a deck of cards and add a bit of flash to the hand work before he dealt out two hands of cards, Parlan smiled.

The Sanguinati looked at him. “Can I get you something from the bar?”

“Whiskey from your best bottle.”

While the vampire retrieved the bottle and a glass, Parlan moved closer to the other man. “You work here too?”

“I’m the saloon’s professional gambler.”

You’re hardly that. Takes more than a few fancy moves to be a professional.