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I gri iven me with the copies I’d requested Leave it to Lieutenant Vasquez to send someone to consult just because she happened to be a member of a species who could pull off thein the paranoret the idea out of his head that all of us freaks knew each other He also seemed convinced we had some sort of extra preternatural sense that allowed us to solve a murder without norue and I wondered if Amanda had filled in the lieutenant It alie He talked to the paranore normal detective, but that didn’t mean he went out of his way to do it Did Lieutenant Vasquez know everything? Probably, except for the spell A the victi every i dotted and t crossed, and that included keeping her boss in the loop

Claire Simons’s body had been released to her faue A soht blue scrubs ht through there"

I glanced at Marisol, a look she pointedly ignored, and followed her into the rooht before, even with rayer, and the fluorescent lights diht red hair

"Guess this is where you use your succubus super sense to figure out if it was one of your kind who did this, huh?"

The laugh that bubbled out of her chest seemed to surprise her more than it did me, and she went silent after only a few seconds Her pluness relanced ather attention back to Rebecca

"Vasquez wants ed and placed her hands on the table, and then bent down to exaed the fabric away andover the bruises on Rebecca’s wrists

I felt a e about otherworlders astoundedthe fact that he ran the unit responsible for investigating OW-related crio area Succubi weren’t sensitives and Marisol couldn’t sense anything different than a nor the victim would, even if a succubus had killed the woe, had ters They exuded a sexual vibe--some more subtly than others--and they could pull power froh to kill someone, perhaps Someone like our victiy as I was-- the body with her manicured nails surprised me I crossed my arms and examined the succubus as she examined the victim I shouldn’t have expected her to be queasy around the dead--she was a cop, after all The succubus was a detective who had been at the rank longer than I had, though she couldn’t be more than a year or two my senior

Marisol threw the sheet back over the body with a speed that made me start When she turned to face me, all the friendliness had disappeared from her expression A sht," she said "I’ve seen enough"

"And?"

"And what? You don’t honestly think I can just look at her and kno she died, do you?"

"No, but--"

She waved her hand at u the door behind her

I followed her, leaving the flustered technician in our wake I finally caught up in the hallway outside of theand turning to face me

"Sorry I was rude," she said "I don’t like dead bodies I wanted to get out of there" Her expression appeared open again She didn’t smile exactly, but her eyes ide and filled with elimpsed before had never crossed her face

I frowned at her, unconvinced The body hadn’t seeone into the room Maybe she’d just hid it? Not all cops handled dead bodies and blood and gore as well as others It was possible she couldn’t deal with that kind of thing, or at least preferred to deal with it as little as she could e in her job

"Sure, no proble certainly supported her assertion, but it was the fact that her reaction fit my impression of her that convinced ood at reading people For now, I’d have to trust et to a lunch appointment I know you can’t say for sure, but do you think the killer could be a succubus?"

"Succubi don’t kill their prey; it’s unheard of" She flattened some invisible wrinkles on her jacket with her palms "I’ll let the lieutenant know" She turned and headed for the door

I reached the parking lot before I realized she hadn’t actually answeredI frowned at the unfahlin"

"Hello, Kiera" The smooth voice on the other end of the line was unent Byrne?" I tried, and failed, to keep the snippiness out of et a look at the body?"

"No, I thought I’d take a quick trip to Hawaii instead I have an appointet to I’ll call you later"

He chuckled and I snapped the phone shut The

Chapter Two