Page 32 of Her Dragons

“Okay,” said Garrity, calmer than I was.“What do you know about this Reinhardt, besides what kind of relationship he had with Ms. Turner?”

Cooling off a little, I said, “He’s some kind of corporate boardroom type, with this drug company.”The nameof it escaped me.I turned to Jake.“What the hell is the name of that company again?”

“Harbor Pharmaceuticals,” Jake reminded me.

“Yeah, Harbor Pharmaceuticals,” I said back to Garrity.“He’s just a few years older than Jake and me, so he must have clawed his way up the old corporate ladder pretty fast.Probably chewed his way through some other people to get there, knowing him.”

There was a beat of silence.From the look that Garrity and Edgars traded just then, I could tell something was up.

“What?” I said.

Garrity said, “We have people undercover, working a case on a black market for untested, illegal steroids made to affect Drakes.The network traces back to an unnamed executive at Harbor Pharmaceuticals.”

“Oh my God,” Jake softly said.I felt the same quiet shock as he did.

“It’s pretty dangerous crap,” Garrity went on.“It makes male Drakes bigger, stronger, more resistant to injury than normal.Also tougher — and meaner.It enhances the muscles, the strength, the reflexes.And it juices up the adrenaline.A Drake hopped up on this stuff gets wilder, crazier, and faster — way faster.Imagine a roid rage in a human, then picture that with one of us.That’s what this stuff does.”

I shared the horror in Jake’s voice when he said, “And Lily’s ex, this abusive lunatic, is the ringleader of a black market selling that kind of crap?”

“Our people undercover haven’t been able to get the name from their informants,” said Edgars.“He’s got people protecting him, like these characters always do.But it’s somebody in that company.”

Through clenched teeth, I said, “It’s him.It’s Reinhardt.It’s gotta be him, I know it.”

Garrity said, “Knowing it isn’t the same as proving it.We’ve got to find this guy.We’ve got people looking for him to question him now.”

“Question him, hell,” I said.“Get the bastard in titanium cuffs like you did me at the Joust.Get his ass out of the boardroom and behind bars.And find Lily and get her the hell away from him once and for all.”

“One thing at a time,” said Garrity.“Like you said, from that note left on the piano, Reinhardt is the one who has her.”

“He is!” I almost shouted, as sure of that as I’d ever been of anything.

Garrity made a palms-down motion, telling me to be calm.“So, then, we start by finding him.If he had this abusive, possessive interest in her like you were saying, then where he is, she probably is too.And he has to know that you know he sent someone to get her.”

I had too many thoughts clawing at my head, none of them good.Which is why Jake had to be the one to ask the cops, “Well, do you have any leads on where he might have taken her, or where he might be?”

“Yeah, we do,” replied Edgars.“Our sources say Reinhardt has a house on a property outside of town where there’s not much else besides forests.Out of the way, isolated place.”

“Like he ‘isolated’ Lily,” I grumbled.

“We think that’s the most likely place for him to be, since he’s tipped his hand to you.He won’t have her at his place now.We’re sending people to that house to look for him.”

“Where is it, exactly?” I asked.“ ‘Forest land outside of town’ covers a lot of territory.He could have her anywhere in all that.So where is this house?”

“We know where it is; that’s enough,” said Edgars.“Our people are on their way there.You’ll know something when we know something.”

“Like hell!”And this time I did raise my voice to match my racing heart.“I want to know where this place is!If Reinhardt has done anything to Lily, dammit, I want to look him in the face before I rip out his throat!”

“That’s exactly why you’re not going there,” said Garrity.“That, and it’s police business.You’ve got no business in it.”

I charged up to him, showing scales and horns on my face, ignoring who he was, just like I did back at that Joust.“No business?Look, you’re not the one who found her in the park, half out of her mind!You’re not the one who took her in and took care of her!So don’t you tell me what my business is…”

Garrity held up scaly, clawed hands as a warning.“All right, calm down and back off or I’ll get you back in cuffs.”

Raising my own claws at him, I hissed and said, “Wanna try it?”

Jake clasped his hands on my shoulders, pulling me back.“Alex, stop,” he said.“I’m scared too.I want to help Lily like you do, but this isn’t the way.”

“Better listen to your friend,” Garrity warned.

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