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"Oh, I have no doubt you’re dangerous, lady," he said softly, his blue eyes glinting "The question is, are you a murderer or merely a fruitcake?"

Chapter 9

Murderer The word see brain with a resonance that was both fa inside said Then, frighteningly, yes

I grabbed , and wasn’t entirely sure whether it was due to the weakness still washing through my body or that whispered revelation I finished the coffee in one quick gulp that scalded my throat, then pushed to rip on the table that kept ritted teeth

"Not yet" He leaned back in his chair and continued to study htly narrowed eyes "But you and your brother should consider yourselves to be persons of interest"

"If you do the damn check, you’ll discover we shouldn’t be" I spun and headed for the front door

A chair scraped backward, then footsteps followedopen the front door

"What?" I said it without looking back or even stopping

"There’s very little blood on your car and the dah extensive - doesn’t look recent Also, if you hit the roo hard enough to roll the car several times, why isn’t its body anywhere in the i observations, both of them "Can I see the car?"

"No And don’t leave town, Hanna" He said it softly, but his words seeht as I retreated down the street

I was a suspect

And the worst of it was, even I wasn’t so sure that I shouldn’t be Everything was so screwed up - both this situation andseemed possible

I hit the main street and turned to head back to the villa, then paused

Harris had said that Evin used the phone in the pub Why would he do that when there was a perfectly usable phone at the villa?

With curiosity stirring, I spun around and headed for the pub It was easy enough to find All you had to do was follow the noise Music and laughter ran riot through the air, and the aromas of wolves, beer, sweat, and hu and repellant

The building reht have been constructed out of red brick rather than wood, but it o stories, ide verandas on both levels and old-fashioned swinging doors

Obviously, no one orried about security in this place But then, if this was a olf town, it’d be a brave soul that tried to steal anything

I pushed through the doors and stepped into the main bar The place was packed, and it was hard to see the bar let alone Evin or a phone

I looked around for ato the left of the doorway Three olves, the other two hu the eye of the tallest woman She had dark skin, dark hair, and a somewhat broad nose, and she reminded me a little of Harris, except that her eyes were a warm brown "Can you tell me if there’s a public phone here?" I had to raise my voice to be heard above the din

"At the back," she shouted, pointing with her glass

I waved her a thanks and headed that way Everyone was so tightly packed it was difficult to get past anyone without actually touching them, and while the experience wasn’t exactly unpleasant, it wasn’t really exciting, either Which eird I mean, I was a female ithout a mate, and this bar was full of males in the prime - and not so prime - of their lives Once upon a tienerally having a good time as I squished past them all ButI had to put up with, then escape

No, that little voice inside whispered, it’s not that Ben lost his soul mate, and he still desires He can still enjoy sex and the co to recall who Ben was Myto take their oeet ti

I eventually found the phones at the rear of the room near the two bathrooms, but Evin wasn’t there Maybe he’d made his call and was somewhere else in this cauldron of humanity and wolves I couldn’t siven the sheer number of male wolves in the room

I found a spare chair in the corner and stepped up, looking out over the sea of dark heads in an atteold one There were several blonds and the occasional brown, but no redheads Maybe he’d gone back to the villa

I stepped down and pushed h the crowd But I was barely halfway across the roo chest It felt like I was hitting a brick wall

"Ouch," I said, rubbing my nose as I stepped back and looked up And up Christ, he had to be at least six and a half feet tall

His skin, like that of many of the wolves in the room, was dark, and his face was flat and broad of nose His , and his eyes

So within me shivered

His eyes were brown, but there was little warmth in them, little humanity

"Little lady, you just spilled lanced at his hands and realized he wasn’t even holding a glass My gaze shot up to his again There was so out ofthe two of us and s that this - whatever this was - was a game they’d played often

"I’et a kiss in replacement for my drink" He reached forflickered in his eyes He didn’t like being rejected Well, tough

"Move," I said "Or I will lanced over his shoulder "Hear that? You think I should be scared?"

"Please," I said, with the barest hint of a growl running throughso fast I didn’t have tiainst his body He srass Not a pleasant coan to egg hio Just one little kiss"

"Over my dead body"

"It would be my pleasure," he whispered, and swooped

I shifted my face so that the kiss landed onhis fingers and yanking them backward as hard as I could Bone snapped and he hissed in pain But pleasure flicked through his eyes and his exciteot off on pain Great

So I gave hiet happy about, and kneed hier than I knew, because he went down like a ton of bricks His friends - charmers that they were -

ju to help him

"I did ask you nicely to move," I said, then looked up as the crowd parted and footsteps approached, toHarris The man obviously had a nose for trouble

He looked fro on the floor, and I swear a slight sain, his expression was all dour and businesslike

"I guess I should have also warned you to stay out of trouble," he said, voice heavy