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However, if there was a chance, I’d take it.

“Okay, then.” I made a decision. “What do you need me to do? Other than the obvious.”

“Do you, uh, care if I keep ‘pursuing’ this Seraphina thing?” she asked. “I seriously think there’s something here. She’s alive. She’s here. I just need to find where here is.”

Her pursuing the Seraphina thing meant that I’d have to take more shit than I already had. Things would go a little bit nuts.

But I’d give her that play.

“Okay,” I said. “Just don’t go too far here. I’m willing to help in any way I can, but I won’t let you drag me or mine into the mud. This department still has to function to save lives, but if people are worried about me and my character, that will impact my job and my ability to keep the peace.”

“Deal.” She stood up. “I’ll run everything I do by you first if it’s going to be a big deal.”

I stood up and offered her my hand.

She took it, her eyes filling with tears. “I swear, I won’t hurt you.”

I didn’t think that she was going to accomplish that. But if it got someone back…

Fifteen

You have a smile that could light up a psych ward.

—Black to Jessamy

Jessamy

I came to a stop near the field that housed a couple of horses and crossed my arms over my chest.

This was the fourth time in a row that I’d stopped on my way to get coffee to find the water frozen over as well as zero food in the bowl, nor hay anywhere in sight.

Hell, there wasn’t even a single ounce of coverage for the horse to get into to shelter himself from the elements.

And, sometimes, that was acceptable under the right circumstances, but not in this one.

It’d snowed several feet in the last eighteen hours.

There was no blanket on the horse, no food, no water, no shelter…yeah, this wasn’t going to work for me.

Plus, this was the same freakin’ person that’d given me shit the last time that I’d pointed it out to her.

I marched up the steps to her house and knocked.

I was going to go to jail for this…

The owner yanked open the door, a cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth, and her tits swinging under a threadbare t-shirt that looked like it needed to be retired last decade.

She had on jeans that looked like they could’ve used a wash three years ago, and socks that had so many holes in them that she might as well not be wearing them.

“You!” she snarled, causing the end of her cigarette to flick off and hit the snow on her porch.

“Me,” I said.

“Get off of my porch!” she screamed.

The next flick of ash hit her shirt and burned a hole through it.

Well, that explained why there were so many holes…