Free Shepherd's Moon by Stacy Mantle Page B

rest of the now lukewarm coffee and tossed the empty cup into the nearby trash bin — without a cheer.
    Billy picked up on my impatience and closed the file, passing it back to me.
    “I’m driving,” he called out, heading back to his Mustang.
    I shook my head. “You can drive — but we’re taking my car.”
    “C’mon, Alex.” He caught the keys I tossed at him. “We never take my car.
    “Did you ever think there might be a reason for that?”
    “Yeah—you have a problem with fast cars.”
    “No,” I corrected, “I have a problem with obnoxiously loud cars that are totally worthless for surveillance.”
    He tipped his head, his amber eyes glowing as he looked up at me. “But nothing will out perform that baby in a high-speed pursuit.”
    A soft click indicated the doors were unlocked, but before I could reach the handle, Billy had the door open. It was something he insisted on doing and despite my stance on feminism, I let him. “Well, considering that we’re not technically allowed high-speed anything, that’s completely unimpressive.”
    “Do you even know where to look for this guy?”
    Sliding into the leather interior, I pulled out my phone and opened the map I had downloaded earlier. “I think our best bet is Tempe Lake.”
    “Any reason for that assumption?” He slid into the driver’s side and waited for me to fasten my seatbelt.
    I sighed but ultimately complied. I hate wearing a seatbelt, but the damn car would sound an alarm every eight seconds until I fastened it. Billy had offered to fix it on a number of occasions, but Brock wouldn’t let him. The wolf worried more about my safety than he should. But, considering I’m the only easily destructible member of the pack, it made sense.
    “Cassie sent me a list of all the known kill sites, and they all happened within a ten-mile radius of the lake. But, none of them occurred at the lake. I pointed to the map.
    “This may be a good starting point. It’s secluded, has a steady water supply and it’s close to the University. And animals don’t generally make a mess in their own cage.”
    He grinned and started the car, the motor a smooth purr in the night. “Have you even been in our rooms?”
    I grinned. If I didn’t have Jace and Aida running the household, we would all be lost. “Okay—so it’s not really a well-thought out theory. But it’s something.”
    The tires screamed against the blacktop as he placed the car in gear and floored it. “Yeah, it’s something.”
    The second we hit the freeway, Billy began a steady monologue about everything from the domestic disturbance call he received yesterday to our neighbor’s cat, which he had finally frightened off his car for good. One thing Billy is good at is keeping a conversation going for hours. Lost in my own thoughts, I closed my eyes and dozed.
    “So what happened with Richard’s cat last night?”
    The question startled me into full attention. “What are you talking about?”
    “I know he sent you out on some kind of secret mission and I know you didn’t take any of us along. I also know you spent some time with a cat, and it wasn’t any of ours.”
    “How do you know that?”
    He wrinkled his nose. “Coyote, remember?”
    Damnit. I didn’t want any of the pack to know a chimera was running around town unsupervised. The curiosity factor would attract most of them and I didn’t want to spook Daniel.
    I shrugged. “A friend of his needed some help—it wasn’t a big deal.”
    “A friend…” He said doubtfully.
    “Yeah,” I answered slowly. “A friend.”
    “What about the cat?”
    “She had a cat.” I sensed him staring at me, but refused to meet his eyes. “What?”
    “A female friend, then…” It wasn’t a question and a grin turned up the corners of his mouth.
    Exasperated, I turned to him. “Do you have any idea how annoying it is to live with a detective?”
    He smiled and kept his eyes on the road. “Wait, does Richard have a new