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Sam jerked his head toward his office, and with a sinking heart I followed him in. He shut the door behind us. “What were you doing when you got shot?” he asked. His eyes were bright with anger.

I wasn’t going to get blamed for what had happened to me. I stood right up to Sam, got in his face. “I was just checking out library books,” I said through my teeth.

“So why would he think you’re a shifter?”

“I have no idea.”

“Who had you been around?”

“I’d been to see Calvin, and I’d . . .” My voice trailed off as I caught at the tail end of a thought.

“So, who can tell you smell like a shifter?” I asked slowly. “No one but another shifter, right? Or someone with shifter blood. Or a vampire. Some supernatural thing.”

“But we haven’t had any strange shifters around here lately.”

“Have you gone to where the shooter must have been, to smell?”

“No, the only time I was on the spot at a shooting, I was too busy screaming on the ground with blood running out of my leg.”

“But maybe now you could pick up something.”

Sam looked down at his leg doubtfully. “It’s rained, but I guess it’s worth a try,” he conceded. “I should have thought of it myself. Okay, tonight, after work.”

“It’s a date,” I said flippantly as Sam sank down in his squeaky chair. I put my purse in the drawer Sam kept empty and went out to check my tables.

Charles was hard at work, and he gave me a nod and a smile before he concentrated on the level of beer in the pitcher he was holding to the tap. One of our consistent drunks, Jane Bodehouse, was seated at the bar with Charles fixed in her sights. It didn’t seem to make the vampire uncomfortable. I saw that the rhythm of the bar was back to normal; the new bartender had been absorbed into the background.

After I’d worked about an hour, Jason came in. He had Crystal cuddled up in the curve of his arm. He was as happy as I’d ever seen him. He was excited by his new life and very pleased with Crystal’s company. I wondered how long that would last. But Crystal herself seemed of much the same mind.

She told me that Calvin would be getting out of the hospital the next day and going home to Hotshot. I made sure to mention the flowers he’d sent and told her I’d be fixing Calvin some dish to mark his homecoming.

Crystal was pretty sure she was pregnant. Even through the tangle of shifter brain, I could read that thought as clear as a bell. It wasn’t the first time I’d learned that some girl “dating” Jason was sure he was going to be a dad, and I hoped that this time was as false as the last time. It wasn’t that I had anything against Crystal . . . Well, that was a lie I was telling myself. I did have something against Crystal. Crystal was part of Hotshot, and she’d never leave it. I didn’t want any niece or nephew of mine to be brought up in that strange little community, within the pulsing magic influence of the crossroads that formed its center.

Crystal was keeping her late period a secret from Jason right now, determined to stay quiet until she was sure what it meant. I approved. She nursed one beer while Jason downed two, and then they were off to the movies in Clarice. Jason gave me a hug on the way out while I was distributing drinks to a cluster of law enforcement people. Alcee Beck, Bud Dearborn, Andy Bellefleur, Kevin Pryor, and Kenya Jones, plus Arlene’s new crush, arson investigator Dennis Pettibone, were all huddled around two tables pushed together in a corner. There were two strangers with them, but I picked up easily enough that the two men were cops, too, part of some task force.

Arlene might have liked to wait on them, but they were clearly in my territory, and they clearly were talking about something heap big. When I was taking drink orders, they all hushed up, and when I was walking away, they’d start their conversation back up. Of course, what they said with their mouths didn’t make any difference to me, since I knew what each and every one of them was thinking.

And they all knew this good and