Page 19 of More Than Meets the Eye

“Shepherd? Yes! Yes, we’ve been trying—put him on the phone right now.”

“Watch how you talk to Tess,” Jack growled.

“Jack? Jack! I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Tess—Miss Callahan. Jack, I am so glad to hear your voice. The man I sent to talk to you fell off the grid hours ago, and things are at a critical juncture, and?—”

Reynolds, his face like a thundercloud, leaned over the table to speak into the phone. “This man. Is his name Quark?”

Silence. Then the voice said tentatively. “Who is this?”

“This is Sheriff Paul Reynolds from Riverton. More to the point, I’m Quark’s boss.”

Silence.

Reynolds growled and continued. “And his alpha. Or at least I was. Whatever you sent him into got him killed.”

7

Tess

“This is why we need you, Shepherd. The danger lives right next door to you,” the NACOS guy said.

“In Riverton?” I asked.

“No. Miss Callahan.Literallynext door to you. Carlos Gonzalez is the killer. He wants to stop NACOS from existing. He and the rest of the vampire high council.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said hotly. “Carlos isn’t a killer!”

“He’s avampire,Miss Callahan,” the voice on the phone said slowly and condescendingly.

“How did you know Carlos lived right next door to Tess?” Jack asked in that deceptively calm voice that meant he was a hair’s breadth from violence. “Are you spying on us?”

“We have … information.”

“Does your information also tell you that the Dead End sheriff is Carlos’s sister?” Susan’s laugh was an icy sound. “Are you accusing my brother of coming to hisfriendTess’s house andkilling a deputy sheriff in her garage?”

Click.

“He hung up on us!” I grabbed Jack’s phone and hit redial.

The number you have dialed is not in service.

Please hang up and try again.

Sheriff Reynolds finally spoke up again. “Guy’s got some juice to get his phone disconnected so fast.”

I waved a hand. “It’s an app. Anybody can do it. But we can track him down from?—”

“No need,” Jack said. “I know who it is. I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard his voice on conference calls. And yes, he has juice. Things just took a turn for the worse. As far as I know, he’s still at the Pentagon.”

Susan ran her hands through her dark hair. “Name?”

“Brigadier General Barstow. Career Army. Ran Special Forces missions. Lucky and the boys would know him. He is not a good guy.”

Jack had his understatement face on.

“Brigadier General?”

“A one-star. I never met him. I don’t like that he knows my name, although I’d have expected that, after the first vampire war. But that he knows about Tess? And where she lives, and that Carlos lives next door?” Jack shook his head, and flickers of hot amber glowed in his green eyes. The tiger wasn’t far beneath the surface tonight. “I may need to take a trip to D.C. and remind some people why they never, ever want to get on my bad side.”

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