Page 124 of Forget Me Not

And Ray would, no matter the cost.

Calvin had had Ray’s number before Cal had andlongbefore Ray.

“The loneliest knight in the kingdom?” Ray asked it quietly, resigned to Penn’s teasing.

Penn grinned. “Calvin was probably holding that in since he met you.” She stretched across the corner of the table to pat Ray’s arm with just the tips of her fingers. “And was he wrong?”

Ray cut her a sideways look.

Penn was unfazed by his displeasure. “You know, in a weird way, I think this is the heart of why these things center on you. This is almost like another person was obsessed with Ray Branigan. Maybe once they picked you to be the spark to all this, they had to study you. Maybe they already were studying you. The more you hide, the more they want. The more you reveal, the hungrier they get. Honestly, Ray, you could try being less compelling.”

“Sorry, how many fairies sighed after you as we came in?” Ray asked her in return.

“It’s the leather jacket,” Penn revealed, leaving Ray to wonder if she truly believed that. “We should get you one, but Cal might blow a gasket on the spot. Or just blow you.”

“Are you drunk?” Ray drew his eyebrows together.

Penn did the same back at him before dropping her shoulders and then laying her head on her arms. “No. I’m just tired and feeling a little—a lot—of things, and I can’t sort through anything because we have an unknown deadline, don’t we? And unlike you, I don’t deal with stress by whatever it is you all did this afternoon that had Cal humming like an electricity tower and Benny stopping to touch your neck and your shoulder before he left.” She turned her head to consider Ray with interest.

Ray lifted his eyebrows.

“Hmm.” Penn had a poker face. “You look tired but calmer. Will you tell me later?”

“You want details?” That surprised him.

“So somethingdidhappen!” Penn cackled a little, poker face gone. “Well, well. I guess the movies really are wrong.”

Ray rubbed his nose. “I don’t know. I don’t know about other weres. It wasn’t me sharing Cal. It was Cal sharing me. And it’s pack.”

“And Benny is shiny and it helped you feel better making him feel better.” Penn’s smile was kinder than before. “I mean, I hope he felt better. Sure looked it.”

Ray rememberedsatisfactionin his nose and come in his mouth and Cal delighted at Benny’s heavy breathing.

He nodded.

Penn went sharp again, just for a moment. “The only were in Los Cerros will do as he pleases, as makes him happy.”

Ray frowned for Penn saying something so close to what Cal had said, but didn’t contest it. Ithadmade him happy. And the others too. He could’ve rolled around in that feeling. the lightest he had felt since he had come to in that alley. He didn’t know what kind of were that made him, and he could guess what some humans might think, and he had no idea what he was going to do, or how long he had to do it, but he had been enough, and he had made Cal proud.

“Now, before we get lost in locker room talk,” Penn carried on as if she hadn’t brought it up in the first place. “How shall we start on the rest of this? Up-down or down-up? Starting at the bottom and working up is more likely to get results, but will give those at the top more time to hide any evidence that might connect them to this. And, of course, it’s the low-level people involved who will be more likely to face any consequences. The rich and powerful might pay a fine, get probation if we’re lucky. Probation, for, you know, trying to have you killed.”

“Unless they were very careless, I doubt there will be any direct connection from me to anyone at that level.” Ray had turned away from a lot of bullshit, but he still knew how the system worked. “If you… if we get them for anything, it will be an accounting thing, or a tax thing, or a technicality.”

“Yeah.” Penn harrumphed like an old human man. “But I don’t have to like it. We should put that magic of yours to use anyway, and keep digging.”

“I don’t—” Ray was never going to win that argument, so he snarled silently at her and moved on. “Unlikely to not be connected to the PD. Someone high ranking, very likely, at least one, with something personal or financial to gain.” And maybe a grudge against Ray, or in Penn’s words, an obsession with him. He sighed. “The rest, excluding those two in the comic shop, are being used as a convenient tool, like me.”

“Except those tools all have guns they are too quick to fire,” Penn pointed out. “But the two in Guerrero’s…. They knew what they were running toward before they even got there.”

Ray sat up although the chair constrained him. “I haven’t seen anyone around the house. Or heard them. If they were far enough away, with devices to help them see or hear, I wouldn’t know. But that is the sort of operation thatwouldget noticed and commented on by others. There are a few still, like us, who don’t like what’s happening, even if they haven’t….”

The department had forced out even its favorite son, Calvin Parker. Anyone else who might object to the way of things would get the same treatment. Most were smart and left early in their careers.

Ray pressed on. “Calvin and I were followed there. That’s more likely.”

“They took the opportunity once you reentered the village?” Penn mused. “It’s not a long shot. Cal is here all the time. They just had to wait for him, if it came to that. You’d follow eventually.”

Ray’s snarl was not silent this time. “Using officers on the street to serve as their eyes.” And those officers had done it.

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