Skin Trade(109)

“If I said it’s the right thing to do, would you laugh at me?”

He smiled. “No.”

“You coming, Forrester, or is chatting up your girlfriend more important?” Shaw called.

We let it go, and Edward moved away with the officers still left on the scene. Most of them had vanished when the officer down call came through.

Bernardo followed Edward, but Olaf hung back and said, “I would stay with you.”

I yelled, “Ted?”

He looked back, saw the big guy, and called, “Jeffries, catch up.”

Olaf hesitated, then turned and started at a march/trot to catch up. Training will tell, and he’d fallen back into that fast march without thinking about it.

I watched them get into the SUV. Edward never looked back. I trusted him to take care of himself and wished I were going along. There was also that small part of me that felt if I were there he’d be safer; everyone would be. God complex, me? Surely not. Paranoia? Maybe. All I knew was that more than almost anything else in the world, I did not want to explain to Donna and the kids why Edward would never come home to them.

Another uniform led Victor over to stand with me and Morgan and the handful of officers still with us.

I looked at Victor in his designer suit. He looked so much more elegant than the rest of us, but it didn’t matter. No matter what we looked like on the outside, the police had labeled us freaks, and they were done playing with us for the day. Now it was left to the humans to chase the monster down and kill it, if they could. The fact that I was standing here with Victor said, clearly, that at least some of the Vegas PD considered me one of the monsters. You don’t let monsters hunt monsters. Why? Because there’s a part of every human being that believes that the monster’s sympathy lies with its fellow freaks. Because that’s where their sympathy would lie. In the end, it’s not us they don’t trust; it’s themselves.





43




VICTOR WENT TO stand in front of Morgan. “Detective Morgan, without Marshal Blake and me, you have no hope of taking Martin alive.”

I said, “We have two officers missing, presumed injured or dead. It’s not about taking him alive anymore, Victor.”

“But if he dies, we lose the chance to find Vittorio’s daytime lair,” Victor said.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. We could pretend that it does, but your tiger gave up his safety when he touched the officers.”

“You won’t even try to get them to bring him in alive?”

“They don’t trust me anymore, Victor. I went too weird on them.”

“Your friend Forrester, then.”

“Until they find the missing officers, it doesn’t matter.”

“What if killing Martin means you never find the officers’ bodies?”

I turned to Morgan. “What about that? That Martin Bendez may know where your officers are?”

“I’ll radio it in, but you called it, Blake. The moment he touched our officers, we’re not going to be able to contain this.”

“He is a very powerful weretiger,” Victor said. “He will not be easy to kill.”

“That a threat?” Morgan asked.

“No, honesty. If Martin has gone rogue, and you won’t allow us to try to use metaphysics to contain him, then killing him from a distance is your only hope.”

“So you’re telling me to try to get our men to take him alive, and to shoot him from a safe distance.” Morgan smiled and shook his head, and I knew the smile for what it was now, his version of blank face. “You can’t have both, Victor.”

“I know that, Detective. I’m telling you I’d rather bring him in alive for the information he holds, but without the marshal and me, you have no hope of taking him alive. So if we are truly to be sidelined, then you must get a sniper in place with silver ammunition and take him out.”

“I’ll give your advice to my superiors.” Morgan was still smiling, but his tone made it clear he either wouldn’t do what Victor asked or thought the advice was amusing.

I didn’t find him amusing; I found him honest. Morgan walked away, maybe even to do what Victor wanted done, but I doubted it.

I looked around at the other officers. “Sorry you’re missing out on the tiger hunt babysitting us.”

“My wife won’t be sorry,” one man said. His name tag read Cox. He was older, maybe late thirties.

“I’m sorry,” one of the other officers said, “I mean a real hunt for a weretiger. How often does that happen?” I turned to find that this officer, Shelby by his name tag, looked bright and eager. I fought the urge to sniff the air and go, Hmm, rookie.