Page 38 of More Than Meets the Eye

I promised. After she drove off, I looked at Tess. “So, any thoughts about dinner? Lizzie and I don’t have to go out there until well after dark. Probably around ten.”

“Okay, good, because Carlos is coming over for dinner. I’m going to go make him a pecan pie.”

“Why doesheget pecan pie?” I definitely did not sound sulky.

She laughed and kissed me. “You absolutely get pecan pie. Oh, and I’m going with you tonight.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” I growled. “And, before you say it, I don’t care if you threaten me with not getting any pie. Your safety is more important than any baked goods.”

“Wow. You reallymustlove me.” Tess walked into the kitchen and put her rifle back in the closet. “But I’m still going with you.”

“Absolutely not.”

I was still arguing in the truck when we went to pick up Lizzie three hours later.

14

Tess

(At my house, before we left to collect Lizzie for the full moon run)

Dinner was fun. Jack and Carlos did their usual chest-puffing banter, and I mostly ignored them. But when the talk turned to serious things, we shared information on Brigadier General Barstow, and most of what we thought we knew was smoke and air.

“Brigadier means one star, right?” I thought he’d said so.

Jack nodded. “Yes. With a rep like his, they won’t let him get much higher, but he’s a fixer, and the military does like their fixers.

“The vampire high council has no dog in this hunt, as our father liked to say,” Carlos said, startling me. I mean, I knew he was Susan’s brother, but it was hard to think of a vampire having a dad.

“You don’t care about NACOS?” Jack looked skeptical. “Hard to believe.”

“It’s not that we don’t care. We think you’d be better off with a unifying organization. It’s more that it’s none of our business how you do it. Unfortunately, however, we, too, have heard of this General Barstow. The elders among us hate him like fire.” Carlos looked at me with a hopeful smile. “Is there more pie?”

I laughed. “For you, yes.”

After I put another slab of pie on his plate, Carlos continued. “If Barstow has his sights set on you, we need to find out why and encourage him to back off.”

“We?” Jack asked.

“Yes. It’s not random that he knew I lived here. Definitely not random that he called you to accuse me of murdering someone.Enormouslynot random to accuse me of murdering someone in Tess’s garage.”

“A shifter killed him,” I said. “The M.E. confirmed it.”

“Susan told me. But shifters can work with vampires, so it’s not like Barstow will believe I’m innocent. Or, if he’s trying to frame me, he’ll continue to accuse me of hiring someone to do the job. What about this internal pack warfare?”

“Not really a thing,” Jack said. “And Tess says Reynolds’ wife is very well-liked by everyone in town. I don’t think he’s our killer, but it sure is convenient to throw him under the bus for it. That may have been the reason behind the phone calls. Make it look like Reynolds or one of his allies is threatening me, so we’ll start looking at him.”

“Subtle and twisty,” I said with a hint of admiration. “If so, we have that rarest of killers: a smart one.”

Carlos laughed, but Jack didn’t.

As I thought more about it, my smile faded, too. “The last thing we need around Dead End is another intelligent, twisty criminal.”

Carlos nodded. But then he brightened and grabbed a small brown paper sack he’d plopped on the seat next to him at the kitchen table. “I almost forgot! I brought you something from Romania.”

“You really went to Romania? A little on the nose, isn’t it?” Jack asked dryly.

I just laughed. “It’s on brand, Carlos.”

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