Free Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson

many people, I can’t really see him going quietly.”
    The anger drained from Lindy as quickly as it had arrived. “No.” She closed her eyes for a moment, unable to push aside the sudden image of Hector as a smiling, golden-haired child, helping her steal buns from the kitchen maids. “He won’t.”
    She knew her tone was still guarded, and McKenna seemed to pick up on the reluctance. He glanced around for a second to make sure no one was looking at them, and then passed her a worn manila folder. “Why don’t you look this over?” he said quietly. “I showed you some photos before, but this is everything we have on the missing kids case.”
    She recognized the manipulation but nodded and accepted the file, the tracking bracelet jingling on her wrist. Glancing around to make sure no one was paying any attention to her, Lindy flipped open the file and started reading from the beginning.
    Most of the information she saw had been published in the newspapers: the names of the seven missing teens and the small towns where they’d vanished. All seven lived within about an hour’s drive from Chicago, but there was no other discernible pattern. Five of the seven were still in high school, and their experiences varied widely: a cheerleader, an overweight tuba player, a valedictorian-elect. The remaining two had graduated high school but stayed at home: Ethan Harrison had no college prospects and had kept working at his dad’s farm, and Chloe Davis, the girl taken the night of the botched raid, had been accepted to Northwestern but deferred for a year to save up some money.
    In her head, Lindy cursed at Hector in every language she knew. When she’d read the whole thing, Lindy passed the file back to Alex.
    “Okay,” she said wearily. “What do you want to know?”
    “Let’s start with how you know it’s him,” McKenna suggested.
    She wasn’t ready to tell him about Hector finding her online, and couldn’t see how it would be helpful, anyway, so Lindy said, “I’ve suspected for a while, but I knew for sure when you showed me the photos in the car. The pile of bodies, that’s Giselle’s signature move. And Giselle works for my brother.”
    McKenna nodded approvingly, as if she’d passed a test. “Did anything in the complete file stand out?”
    “A few things.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “First, the ages. He wants teenagers because they’re easier to manipulate than adults. I’m guessing most of these kids weren’t taken, exactly—they willingly left with Giselle or Hector or one of his people, maybe without even being mesmerized.” Alex nodded. “Except for Bobbi Klay,” she went on. “A tiny percentage of humans are fairly immune to shade saliva, just as a tiny percent are incredibly susceptible to mesmerization.”
    Alex was surprised. He took out a small notebook and started scribbling. “That’s interesting. You think Bobbi Klay was one of these?”
    “I do. When they couldn’t control her they decided to cut their losses and use her as a food source.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized they had come out too cold, too
vampire.
It showed on Alex’s face. “Sorry,” she added quickly. “I didn’t mean to be callous. I’m impressed with Bobbi, really. She was a fighter, and she deserved better.”
    He nodded, accepting the apology. “Okay, that’s good to know. What else?”
    She ticked off another finger. “Second, no one else has mentioned that Sophie Allman and Chloe Davis are cousins.”
    He shrugged. “It’s a tenuous connection: Allman’s father and Davis’s mother are estranged, and they live nearly two hours apart. The girls had only met a few times.”
    She thought that over for a moment, and asked, “Are there any other connections between the missing kids?”
    “No, why? What’s he doing with them?”
    “I don’t know for sure, but I assume he’s transmuting them.”
    Alex nodded. “Our profilers suggested as much. But to what