"A few weeks."

"Unacceptable. Too much profit will be lost in that amount of time."

"Your property is stashed in a very inconvenient place."

"I can help with that by providing some muscle and accessories."

"I prefer to rely on my own accessories, but the muscle will come in handy."

Another silence. "I'll give you a week to come up with some useful information that will a.s.sist me in reacquiring my property. If you prove to be a valid source, we'll discuss fees and bonuses."

Click.

Asia listened to empty air for a few seconds, then hung up the phone and watched her hands shake. She'd pulled it off, made the contact, sounded like a pro who reacquired property every day. Sounded like someone who wouldn't flinch about reacquiring living property when it was necessary.

So no-looks Meg wasn't just the thief; she was the stolen property? Someone worth enough that several people had been hired to find the feeb?

"If Asia Crane, SI, had this information, what would she think?" Asia muttered.

She picked up the phone and called Bigwig. "What kind of person could be stolen property?" she asked as soon as he answered the phone.

A crackling excitement filled the phone line. "We've picked up a couple of whispers that a blood prophet wandered off," he said. "Men have been searching the Northeast Region for some sign of her. You think you've found her?"

Asia's thoughts spun so fast, she could barely think at all. Meg was a ca.s.sandra sangue? No wonder White Van had tried to grab her. No wonder someone had pressured the Lakeside government to help find her. That skin must be worth thousands and thousands of dollars. Maybe even a million!

And it was surrounded by fangs, claws, and beaks that could render it useless.

"Do you think you've found her?" Bigwig asked again.

"I don't know. Maybe." Asia hesitated, trying to figure out who would give her the best offer for her help. "Someone tried to abduct the Courtyard's Liaison today, so I'm going to have to be careful about asking questions."

"You think she's there? In the Courtyard?" A pause. "Yes. Yes, that makes sense. The mayor has been quite frustrated by the lack of progress the police have made with regard to the thief I told you about. So the prophet and thief are one and the same."

Have to decide now, Asia thought. Gamble on someone who might make good on his offer, or stick with the men who can guarantee I'll have a show that lasts enough seasons to make me a very rich woman? "Yes, I think they are."

"Even if we can't find the original owner, there are others who-"

"I already found him." There was a weight to the silence that followed her words, so she pushed on. "I did some investigating and searched the apartment of the would-be abductor. I found a phone number. I got off the phone with the interested party just before I called you. He's sending in his own people, but we'll receive a finder's fee and some compensation for continued a.s.sistance."

"I guess you do want to star in your own TV show."

She grinned. "I guess I really do." After promising to give him daily updates, she hung up and moved around her apartment, unable to relax.

Something in his tone of voice. A lack of confidence that hadn't been there until she told him she'd already made contact with the man she a.s.sumed was Meg's Controller.

Had Bigwig hoped to sell Meg to the highest bidder? Or had he hoped to tuck the feeb away somewhere, to be used exclusively by his chosen few?

Didn't matter now. The hired muscle was heading for Lakeside. Time to change her focus. And that meant Darrell was going to get lucky after all.

And her luck was changing too. Bigwig and the other backers might be unhappy about a blood prophet slipping through their fingers, but she would bring them something even better: a small, furry bargaining chip.

CHAPTER 17.

When Meg stepped into the office's front room on Moonsday morning, she found a Wolf staring at her from the other side of the counter. A glance at the go-through confirmed the slide locks were still in place. That didn't instill any feeling of safety, especially when the Wolf stood on his hind legs and plopped his forelegs on the counter in much the same way a man would rest his forearms.

Backing through the Private doorway, she eased the door closed, turned the lock, and bolted for the telephone in the sorting room. Her hands shook, making it harder to dial, but she got through to Howling Good Reads.

"There's a Wolf in the Liaison's Office!" she shouted.

Bewildered silence filled the phone line before John Wolfgard said, "Isn't there supposed to be?"

"Not a furry one! Where's Simon? I need to talk to Simon!"

More silence. Then, warily, "He's there, at the office."

"No, he's not. I know what Simon looks like as a Wolf, and that's not Simon!"

"That's Nathan," Simon said, walking in from the back room. "He's on duty this morning."

Meg hung up the phone, then picked up the receiver, said, "Good-bye, John," to the dial tone, and put the receiver back on its cradle.

"Did you open the front door?" Simon asked, fishing in a drawer for the office keys. Finding them on the counter next to the phone, he picked them up and took a step toward the Private door.

"No, I didn't open the door. There was a Wolf in the way!"

He stopped and studied her. Gave the air a little sniff. "You're acting strange. Is it that time of the month?"

She shrieked. His human ears flattened in a way human ears shouldn't, and he backed away from her.

In the front room, the Wolf howled.

Then Simon seemed to remember who was the leader. He stopped backing away, and his amber eyes suddenly had that glint of predator.

"You weren't afraid of me when I was Wolf," he said. "Why are you afraid of Nathan?"

"He's got big feet!" Which was true, but beside the point. It was just the first thing that popped into her head.

"What?"

An insulted-sounding arrrroooo came from the other side of the door, a reminder that Wolves also had big ears.

Meg closed her eyes, then took a deep breath and let it out. Took another one. She wasn't going to get anywhere with either one of them if she kept sounding like a ninny. And she was having some trouble explaining to herself why she had that moment of panic. "A strange Wolf is scarier than a familiar Wolf, especially when you're not expecting any Wolf at all."

Simon waved a hand, dismissing what she thought was a perfectly logical point. "That's Nathan. He's staying. As the Courtyard's leader, I made that decision."

"As the Liaison, I should have been informed before a change was made to this office."

Simon took a step toward her. She took a step toward him.

"Arrrooooo?" queried Nathan.

"Someone paid that man to take you away, Meg," Simon growled. "Someone tried to hurt you. So a Wolf will be on guard when the office is open. Nathan is an enforcer for the Courtyard. He's one of our best in a fight."

"But-"

"It's decided."

She wasn't going to win, wasn't even going to sway him enough to have Nathan stay out of sight. She glanced at the Private door and lowered her voice. "What happens if he bites a deliveryman?"

"That'll depend on whether he's hungry."

She wanted to say, Ha, ha. Very funny. But she was pretty sure he wasn't joking.

And she was sure he was right about the man who grabbed her. Sometimes dealing with the Others filled up her head so much, she forgot about the Controller.

"I should have been consulted." She tried that tack one last time.

His only answer was to open the Private door, then unlock the front door and flip the sign to OPEN.

At least he had to use the go-through, since there was a Wolf clogging up the counter. When he came back into the sorting room, he tossed the keys in the drawer-and tossed her a look that made her want to slug him.

"Mr. Wolfgard . . ."

He turned on her, baring teeth that lengthened as she watched.

"If you say another word about this, I will eat you, and I won't leave so much as an ear for him." He jerked his head toward the front room.

Then he was gone. She flinched when the back door slammed.

She peered into the front room. Nathan was no longer hanging over the counter. He was lying on the floor, staring at the Crow perched on the wooden sculpture outside. As soon as she stepped into the front room, he looked at her.

She tried a smile. "Good morning, Nathan. Sorry about the confusion."

He lifted a lip to show her some teeth, then pointedly turned his head and went back to staring at the Crow.

Yep, Meg thought. He's insulted, and I'm not going to be forgiven anytime soon.

Retreating to the sorting room, she flipped through the Pet Palace catalog to see if there was anything she could order that would change that.

"Harry, Nathan. Nathan, Harry."

The deliveryman looked at the Wolf and paled. The Wolf looked at the deliveryman and licked his chops.

Meg figured the morning was going to go downhill from there. But Harry surprised her.

"Heard on the news that there was some trouble here," Harry said. "No details, but there never are about such things when it involves the Courtyard." He studied her. "That trouble was here, in this office?"

For answer, she pushed up her sleeve enough to show him the bruise on her wrist. "A man pretending to make a delivery grabbed me. Mr. Wolfgard showed up before he could do anything else."

Harry pursed his lips and made a peculiar sound with his teeth. Then he huffed out a breath. "The Crows out there are good for warning you about trouble, but they don't have the muscle to take care of trouble once it gets through the door." He rapped his knuckles on the counter. "You take care, Miz Meg."

He left, giving Nathan a brisk nod on his way out.

The rest of the morning went along much the same way. There was a knee-jerk reaction when a deliveryman walked in and spotted Nathan. Most said something along the lines of, "You got a new helper? What happened to the Crow?" Meg took this to mean that dealing with a Crow might be peculiar, but it was much preferred to dealing with something that weighed as much as you did and growled at you.

Only one deliveryman refused to come inside once he spotted Nathan, and that was the man who had paid too much attention to Sam and the harness the pup was wearing. She ended up calling Lorne at the Three Ps to run over from his shop and take the packages, because Nathan blocked the door, preventing her from going outside while that particular man was there.

After the mail was delivered, Meg checked her list against the previous week's. She looked at Nathan, who was sniffing around the front room in a way that made her hope he knew the difference between a counter and a tree.

"That's the last of the regular morning deliveries," she said, hoping she sounded bright rather than demented. "I'm going to be working in the sorting room for a while. You want to go outside for a few minutes and stretch your legs?"

He didn't respond, so she went into the sorting room to deal with the mail and other deliveries. A minute later, she heard the Crows. When she peeked through the doorway, she saw Nathan outside, moving back and forth in the delivery area, nose to the ground. Then he raised his head and howled.

"Well, that will help traffic," she muttered as answering howls penetrated the building from several directions.

We are here.

That was always the message. But she had the feeling people wouldn't have to go into Howling Good Reads anymore to catch sight of a Wolf.