Tempting Danger by Eileen Wilks Read Free Book Online Page B

assisting in that investigation.”
    Turner’s straight slashes of eyebrows lifted. “You’re blunt.”
    “But I did use my polite face. Chief Delgado sent you to me?”
    “He did. I called him this morning, offering my help. If you want to catch a lupus, you need to know something about us, and I doubt you do. That’s not a criticism. There’s very little real information available.”
    “You mean Hollywood didn’t get it right with Witches Sabbat? ” She shook her head. “Next you’ll be telling me Charlie Chan wasn’t really Chinese.”
    He chuckled. “Point taken. He was played by an Occidental actor, wasn’t he?”
    “Sydney Toler, among others.” Lily would never admit she had a sneaking fondness for the old Charlie Chan movies, chock-full as they were of cliché and stereotyping. But they were so much more fun than James Bond or Bruce Lee. Chan had relied on brains, not technology or kung fu, to defeat the bad guys. “Your information might be difficult for me to verify.”
    “And you have no intention of trusting me. Understood. But I’ve a strong interest in seeing this case solved quickly. I want to see only one lupus blamed for the killing, not all of us. And I don’t want that one to be me. I didn’t do it, but you’ll need proof to believe that.”
    Taking a sip of the cooling sludge in her mug, she studied him. It wasn’t unheard of for a lupus leader to cooperate with the police. If a werewolf went on a rampage and wasn’t caught, the repercussions for all lupi could be severe. People tended to panic about that sort of thing. And there was a bill coming up in Congress—the Species Citizenship Bill—that could be affected by adverse public reaction to the case.
    But the lupi version of cooperating with the police didn’t necessarily involve niceties like testimony or evidence. They’d been known to deposit a body at a police station with a note saying that the problem had been taken care of.
    She set her mug down. “Last night you said you didn’t have any idea who killed Carlos Fuentes.”
    “I don’t.”
    “I won’t tolerate any form of vigilantism. Murder is murder in my book.”
    “An admirable attitude. Of course, the law only considers it murder if we are killed while two-footed.” He waved that aside. His hands were graceful and long-fingered, like a pianist’s. It was hard to imagine them turning into paws. “But you misunderstand. I’m not offering to find your killer for you. I’m offering to brief you on lupus culture and habits.”
    If he was dealing straight, this was a first. On the candid and forthcoming scale, the lupi ranked about even with the Mob or the CIA. “I do want to talk with you,” she said, reaching for the printer cable and plugging it into her laptop. “But I’m due in the captain’s office in . . . damn,” she muttered when she glanced at her watch. “Two minutes. If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the other room, Sergeant Meckle could get you a cup of coffee.”
    He winced. “Are you referring to whatever is in your mug?”
    She smiled. “Too strong for you?”
    “You give it to suspects to soften them up, right?”
    “Only works on the wimps.”
    He shook his head. “I’m in trouble. Already you’ve discovered my weakness. I’m a coffee snob.”
    It wasn’t what he said so much as the way he said it. She burst out laughing. “Don’t let anyone tell you you do humble well. You don’t.”
    “We can’t expect to master every skill.” He smiled, and his gaze flickered over her—too briefly to be insulting, but his appreciation was obvious. “I have the feeling you don’t do humble well, either, Detective.”
    “My grandmother claims that humility is the public face of envy.” And why was she talking about Grandmother to this man?
    The little ping that had landed with a tug in her belly might be a clue. He’d probably picked up on her response, too, dammit. He’d been winning at boy-girl games for a long time. She