I heard deep voices soft and low at the door. I was able to turn my head and see around Dev's head enough to see Nicky naked at the partially open door, but couldn't see who he was talking to. Then he opened the door, and Edward walked in, which made me suddenly look down to see how much of me was covered with sheet. It hadn't seemed that important a minute ago.

Dev had not only my arms pinned, but the sheet trapped at about my waist level between us. At the moment his arm covered some of my breasts, but some is not enough when the person who just walked into the room isn't a lover. Yes, Edward was one of my best friends, but it wasn't the same as having a best girlfriend.

I could reach my sheets with my hands pinned, but I couldn't actually get any more sheet to cover me because it was caught between Dev's body and mine. Crap! I did the only thing I could: I hid behind Dev and said, 'Just a minute, Edward.' I planned on my voice being calm and matter of fact. I failed.

Edward laughed, that rare real laughter for him, and the fact that he did it in front of Nicky meant he approved of him in some way. 'I'll turn my back until you cover up.' His voice was made up mostly of laughter. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard him sound quite that pleased. It wasn't just this moment of embarrassment for me, as I poked Dev and made him blink awake so I could grab covers; I thought it was Donna and her working her issues, so that there would be a wedding. Maybe I was being all girly and projecting, but Edward was happy. When we met years ago we were both pretty miserable; I just didn't know it.

'I'm moving, I'm moving,' Dev said, as I pushed at him a little furiously.

Edward was standing with his back to the bed like he'd said, but his shoulders were shaking with laughter. Nicky stood beside him totally nude and totally comfortable, as he watched me struggle to hide my nakedness and drag all the covers off Dev. He didn't care any more than Nicky did stupid wereanimals and their lack of modesty, and stupid me still caring this much.

Edward was bent almost double, laughing so hard it sounded like he was having trouble breathing. 'Glad I could lighten your morning,' I said, grumpily.

It made Dev grin, and then Nicky chuckled.

I pointed a finger at Dev. 'Don't you dare.'

Dev's mouth quirked as he fought not to laugh. Nicky's face was alight with suppressed laughter. I fled to the bathroom with the king-size sheet wrapped around me like the most oversized robe in the world, grabbing my overnight bag as I moved, so that I actually tripped over the sheet and fell in the doorway to the bathroom.

'Motherfucking son of a bitch!'

That was it; both of them laughed out loud. I gathered my sheet and what was left of my dignity and closed the door to the bathroom to the sounds of masculine laughter. I rolled my eyes at myself in the mirror and realized that I had no idea why Edward was in our room. I was betting it was business, which meant crime to solve, bad guys to catch, and a mysterious master vampire to find. That took the smile off my face, but I realized not entirely. Yeah, things were bad, and last night had been brutal, but I could still hear the men laughing to themselves. It was a good sound, and not a bad way to start the day.

CHAPTER 55

Marshal Hatfield sat in Deputy Marshal Chapman's office on the edge of her chair with the warrant of execution spread on the edge of his desk. She wanted to sign it over to me. There was precedent for it, but for some reason Chapman didn't want her to do it.

Hatfield gazed up at him with hollow eyes. I wondered if she'd slept at all. Her hair was coming loose in strands as her ponytail sagged at the nape of her neck. She'd looked so crisp and together yesterday; now she looked like she needed a hug. I wondered if she had anyone in her life who could give her one.

'I don't understand, sir. It would have been Marshal Blake's warrant in the first place, if she hadn't been shot.'

'The warrant was assigned to you, Hatfield, and we expect you to fulfill it.'

A look of near pain came over her face; lines that hadn't been there before showed sharp and harsh. I'd have put her under thirty, but in that moment I put her over, but it wasn't age it was just stress. It'll mark you up. Sometimes the marks fade and sometimes they don't. Just as smile lines are the mark of every happiness you've ever had, so some lines are the mark of every disappointment carved into your flesh as surely as any scar.

'Technically, sir, Hatfield is a part of the Preternatural Branch of the service just like we are,' Edward said.

'I'm aware of that, Marshal Forrester.'

'Well then, sir, you are aware that we are not in your direct line of command because you're regular service and we're preternatural service.'

Hatfield blinked at Edward, as if she weren't tracking everything, but she'd heard something that seemed important.

'Hatfield was in my direct command for several years, Forrester; she knows her duty.'

'I thought our duty was to execute each warrant in the most efficient way with the least loss of life,' I said.

Chapman frowned at me. 'Of course,' he said.

'Then Blake should take this warrant,' Hatfield said. 'I'll still work with her and Forrester to complete it, but I'd feel more comfortable with her in charge of the overall investigation.'

'You have been a law enforcement officer longer than Blake. You have five years more experience than she does,' Chapman said.

'I do, and there are men on the force who are ex-military and she's never been that either, but none of us have her background in dealing with the undead, sir. I believe that my lack of experience in that area led directly to the five deaths yesterday.'

'You can't blame yourself because Blake and Forrester here didn't share information.'

I pushed away from the wall. 'I was unconscious in the hospital, Chapman. How was I supposed to share information?'

He looked at me, then gave a little nod. 'Perhaps that was unfair; if so, my apologies.'

'I didn't arrive in the state until after Marshal Blake was shot,' said Edward. 'I didn't know the facts of the case until dark the next night; in what way did I conceal information that would have prevented the deaths yesterday?' His voice was quiet, calm, but held enough suppressed anger to set fire to something. I'd never heard Edward sound this angry as Ted.

Chapman shifted on the balls of his feet, hands clasped behind his back like an echo of being at ease in the military. His gray hair was cut high and tight. I'd have said Marines, but it felt more like Army. Marines fucked about a little less and were less likely to rise as high in rank as Army, due to a certain cussedness that seemed to go with being a nonpracticing Marine. You had Marines who rose to high rank, and you had ex-Army who were as stubborn as a Marine, but it was usually the other way around.

'Sir,' Hatfield said, 'I knew about the rotting vampires in Atlanta. I read the same information that Blake and Forrester did, but I failed to make the logic leap that these vampires might need fire just like the ones in Atlanta did. I'd never seen anything like them, and I thought ... heads blown up, spines damaged, hearts ... I could see through their chests, sir. I thought that was dead enough; I was wrong.'

Hatfield's willingness to fall on the grenade for what had happened made me like her better, and it was even true. She should have erred on the side of caution, and she hadn't, and people were dead because of it, but ... she was letting the guilt tear her up.

'They were missing civilians, Marshal Hatfield. We owed it to their families to identify them before the bodies were burned,' Chapman said.

'Are you saying it's become acceptable practice to not burn vampires once we've taken their heads and hearts?' I asked.

'Outside of special circumstances, it has worked very well. We've closed missing-person cases that were decades old.'

Huh. 'I honestly hadn't thought about that, sir, that some of the vampires that go bad would be filed missing persons from decades and probably cities away.'

'It's given closure to families who had given up on ever hearing news.'

'But you need an intact head for dental records, so only decapitations, not blowing the face away with an AR or shotgun, right?' Edward asked. His voice was a little less hostile, but not much.

Chapman nodded. 'Exactly; many people don't have their fingerprints on file.'

'If you're looking at people missing for decades, then dental records don't always help either,' Edward said. 'It's routine that when a dentist retires, old patient records aren't kept track of if the patient isn't being referred to another dentist.'

'That is true.'

'How are you identifying the dead vampires then?' I asked.

'DNA of surviving family members, female in particular.'

'Because the maternal line carries the most direct DNA,' I said.

He nodded. 'Yes, most people don't know that.'