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Raina grabbed rip had been very fast I hadn&039;t had ti and perfectly manicured with nail polish the color of burnt puh to indent the skin She let th in that delicate hand She didn&039;t hurt me, but the s, but she wasn&039;t a vaun before she could finish crushing my wrist

She didn&039;t crush o in the back way You did say you wanted us to stay in the background" She was s oh, so reasonable The nail marks in my skin hadn&039;t filled out yet

"I , he can&039;t ignore us"

She had a point "Hoill the two of you get in the back door if it&039;s locked?"

Raina gave me a took worthy of Edward, as if I&039;d asked a very stupid question Was I the only one who didn&039;t kno to pick a lock? "Fine, go to it"

Raina sleah-heeled brown boots left sharp little prints in thesnow Gabriel trailed after her The chains on his leather jacket jingled as he walked His metal-studded cowboy boots smashed over Raina&039;s daintier prints aloing to mistake thelanced at our jeans,suede coat "Us either," I said

"Good point"

I rang the bell

We stood on the little front porch listening to the eaves drip, We were having one of those strange winter thaws that Missouri is fa like a snow this much snow at all in Deceet real snow until January or February

It was taking a long time for Mr S heavy enough to be a person e Smitz opened the door in a bloodstained apron over jeans and a pale blue T-shirt

There was a bloodstain on one shoulder, as if he&039;d lifted a side of beef and it had bled on him He wiped his hands on his apron, pal the fabric as if he couldn&039;t get the covered in blood Or

I smiled and offered him my hand He took it His palm eaty Nervous Great "How are you, Mr Smitz?"

He shook hands with Ronnie and ushered us inside We were standing in a little entryway There was a closet to one side, a mirror on the opposite ith a low table A vase full of yellow silk flowers sat on the table The walls were pale yellow and matched the flowers

"May I take your coats?"

If he was a murderer, he was the most polite one I&039;d ever met "No, thanks, we&039;ll keep theot on to e, you weren&039;t raised in a barn, ask them if you can take their coats&039; " The imitation sounded accurate

We stepped out into the living room It allpapered in pale yelloith brown flowers done very small The couch, the love seat, the recliner were all a pale, pale yellow, almost white There were more silk flowers on the pale wood end table Yellow

The pictures on the wall, the knickknacks on the shelves, even the carpet underfoot was yellow It was like being inside a lee was used to it "Yelloas Peggy&039;s favorite color"

"Was?"

"I mean is Oh, God" He collapsed on the pale le in the room that didn&039;t match the yellow lace curtains "It&039;s been so awful, wondering" He looked up at us Tears glistened in his eyes It was Academy Award caliber

"Ms Siy Have you found her? Is she all right?" His eyes were so sincere it hurt to look into the If I hadn&039;t seen the pictures of him with another woman, I wouldn&039;t have believed it Of course, adultery wasn&039;t uilty of one and not the other Sure

Ronnie sat on the couch, as far away froet but still rather co to be with the son of a bitch If I ever et married and

"Please sit down, Ms Blake I&039;ood host"

I perched on the edge of the yellow recliner "I thought you worked construction, Mr Sy&039;s dad can&039;t run the store by hio Iconstruction But you know, he&039;s fay did most of the work Dad&039;s almost ninety-two He just can&039;t do it all"

"Do you inherit the butcher shop?" I asked We&039;d autoood cop, bad cop Guess which one I was

He blinked at me "Well, yes I suppose so"

He didn&039;t ask if she was all right this time He just looked at me with his soulful eyes

"You love your wife?"

"Yes, of course What kind of question is that?" He looked less sad and ry now

"Ronnie," I said softly

She took the pictures out of her purse and gave the the dark-haired woy Smitz had been a blond

Color crept up his face Not so much red as purplish He sla at the rest They slid across the table, ies of hi, nearly doing it standing up

His face went froed He stood up, his breath coasps "What the hell are these?"

"I think the pictures are self-explanatory," I said

"I hired you to findover her His big hands balled into even bigger fists Theout like wor her five feet and nine inches to good advantage She was calhed her by a hundred pounds, it didn&039;t show

"Where&039;s Peggy, George?"

He glanced at me, then back to Ronnie He raised a hand as if he would strike her

"Where&039;d you hide the body?"

He whirled on me I just sat there and looked at hiet to un Or put hi better and better

"Get out of my house"

Ronnie had stepped back out of reach He stood there like a purple-facedbetween us

"Get out of e We know you killed her" Maybe knoas too strong a word, but "we&039;re pretty sure you killed her" didn&039;t have the right ring "Unless you really plan to start swinging, I&039;d sit down, Georgie-boy"

"Yes, by all e" I didn&039;t look behind e would really hurt uy eighed over two hundred pounds sounded like a bad idea

He stared at Raina He looked confused "What the hell is this?"

Ronnie said, "Oh,behindon behind e, but he wasn&039;t looking at me anymore I stepped away froh distance to be safe I could see the doorway

Raina earing a brown silk teddy, high heeled boots and nothing else The fur coat was held open, the bloodred lining outlining her body dra to stay in the background unless I called for you"

She dropped the fur into a fuzzy puddle on the floor She stalked into the roo that would lances She ed I didn&039;t have the faintest idea

Raina bent over the silk flowers on the coffee table, giving George Sh view of her sli fro He looked confused Join the club

Raina sood view of her high, tight breasts His eyes were glued to her decolletage She stood up, running her hands down the teddy, ending with a pass over her groin George see

Raina walked up to hier&039;s pull away from him She looked up at him and whispered out of full, sensuous lips, "Where&039;s Jason?"

He frowned "Who&039;s Jason?"

She caressed his cheek with her painted nails The nails slid out of her skin long and longer, until they were great hooking claws The tips were still the color of burnt pumpkins

She hooked those claws under his chin, putting theh in not to break the skin "The tiniest bit of pressure and you&039;ll have a howling good time once a month"

It was a lie She was still in huious All the color had drained from his face His skin was the color of unbleached paper

"Where&039;s your wife&039;s body, Mr Sood threat worth more than one question

"I don&039;t don&039;t knohat you e, I don&039;t like it" She raised her other hand in front of his face, and the claws slid out like unsheathed knives

He whie?" She whispered it The voice was still seductive She , I love you, instead of a threat

She kept her claws under his jaw and lowered the other hand slowly His eyes followed that hand He tried to asped

Raina sliced through the bloody apron Two quick, hard slices The clothes underneath were untouched Talent

"I killed her I killed Peggy Oh, God I shot her"

"Where&039;s the body?" I asked that Raina seeame too much to pay attention to all the details

"Shed out back It&039;s got a dirt floor"

"Where&039;s Jason?" Raina asked She touched claw tips to his jeans, over his groin

"Oh, God, I don&039;t knoho Jason is Please, I don&039;t know I don&039;t know" His voice was coasps

Gabriel walked into the rooht black T-shirt with his leather pants and boots "He doesn&039;t have the guts to have taken Jason or the others"

"Is that right, George? You don&039;t have the guts?" Raina pressed her breasts against his chest, claws still at his jawline and groin The lower claws pressed into the jean fabric, not quite tearing

"Please, please don&039;t hurt me"

Raina put her face very close to his Claws forcing him to stand on tiptoes or have his chin spitted "You are pathetic" She shoved the claws into his jeans, tearing into the fabric

George fainted Raina had to pull her hands away to keep fro him up She kept a near perfect circle of jeans His white briefs showed through the hole in his pants

Gabriel knelt by the body, balancing on the balls of his feet "This human did not take Jason"

"Pity," Raina said

It was a pity Sohth had been Peggy Smitz We had her murderer on the carpet with his fly torn out Who had taken them, and why? Why would anybody want seven lycanthropes? Soa had been skinned alive If he&039;d been a lycanthrope instead of a naga, a witch could have used the skin to become a snake It was a way to be a shapeshifter with all the advantages and none of the bad stuff The moon didn&039;t control you

"Anita, what is it?" Ronnie asked

"I have to go to the hospital and talk to soh for Ronnie to say, "Fine, I&039;ll call the cops But I drove"

"Da by on the street It was a Mazda, green I knew that car

"I may have a ride" I opened the door and walked down the sidewalk, waving The car slowed, then double-parked beside Ronnie&039;s car

The hirred down at the press of a button Edward sat behind the wheel, a pair of dark glasses covering his eyes "I&039;ve been following Raina for days How&039;d you spot rinned "Not so dumb"

"I need a ride"

"What about Raina and her little leather friend?"

It occurred to me to tell him that Gabriel was the other lycanthrope in the snuff filo in and kill him Or at least wouldn&039;t want to take ive them a ride home or they can take a taxi"

"Taxi," he said

"My preference, too"

Edward drove around the block to wait for me Raina and Gabriel were persuaded to call a taxi to pick them up in front of another house They didn&039;t want to talk to the police Fancy that George Smitz came to, and Raina convinced hiized to Ronnie for deserting her and walked down the block to a Here&039;s hoping he&039;d gained consciousness

35

There was a unifora&039;s room Edward had stayed in the car After all, he anted by the police One of the bad things about working with Edward and the cops is that you can&039;t necessarily ith them at the same time

The cop at the door was a small woman with a blond ponytail There was a chair beside the door, but she was standing, one hand on her gun butt Her pale eyes squinted suspiciously at ave a curt nod "You Anita Blake?"

"Yeah"

"See soh, no nonsense Had to be a rookie Only a rookie had that hard-on attitude Older cops would have asked for ID, but they wouldn&039;t have tried to make their voices lower

I showed her e The one I clipped to my shirt when I had to cross a police line It wasn&039;t a police badge, but it was the best I had

She took it in her hand and looked at it for a long ti to be tested later It never helps to piss the police off Especially over trivialities

She finally gave the badge back to h Probably practiced that look in the"No one can question thepresent When you called up to ask to speak with hieant Storr He&039;s on his way"

"How long will I have to wait?"

"I don&039;t know"

"Look, a , any delay could cost hieant Storr didn&039;t otten that the cops didn&039;t know about theshapeshifters "I don&039;t suppose that you&039;d buy time is of the essence How about lives are at stake?"

Her eyes went froeant Storr was very specific He wants to be present when you question the eant Storr, and not Detective Zerbrowski?" It would be like Zerbrowski to screw this up for me, just to irritate

"I knoho I spoke with, Ms Blake"

"I didn&039;t mean to imply that you didn&039;t, Officer I just otten confused about how much access I&039;m allowed to the ah, witness"

"I talked to the sergeant, and I knohat he told ets here Those areunpleasant and stopped Officer Kirlin was right She had her orders, and she wasn&039;t going to budge frolanced at her nameplate "Fine, Officer Kirlin I&039;ll just wait around the corner in the patient waiting roo not so nice I wanted to push my way into the room, pull rank But I didn&039;t have any rank It was one of those times when I was forcibly re reminded

I sat down on a multicolored couch that backed a raised area of real plants The chest-high planting area gave the illusion of walls, dividing the waiting room into three pseudo rooms The illusion of privacy if you needed it A television set was h on one wall No one had bothered to turn it on yet It was hospital quiet The only noise was the heater co Jason was er would he be alive? How long would Dolph keep ?