“That makes sense,” Randall said. “He killed her three months later, second night of the full moon. Head shot. Justified—she attacked him right out on the street. Nothing but bad luck there. Grudges carry over sometimes. Then a month later, Sergeant Caulder goes to join his son, misadventure that time… he turned up dead in Golden Gate Park with a missing foot. Then the kid’s uncle. His grandfather’s last rookie too. Six cops in the end, and all of them tied to that dead kid somehow. So I confronted him, and he told me to prove it. Didn’t even bother to deny it.”
“But you couldn’t.”
“I could not. I couldn’t evenexplainit. How did he know one wolf from the other? How could he set any of that up? And he thought that meant there was nothing I could do. He was right, officially. Unofficially, I told everyone who owed me anything—and that’s a list—that he wasn’t fit for active duty. He didn’t get fired, but he was dumped into the armory to do work as an inventory clerk, and I made it clear that he’d stay there for as long as he was in San Francisco. A month later, he transferred to San Diego. I tried to put the word out about him, but it didn’t take. I worked out why when Piper went down. That’s everything I’ve got on Franklin, Officer Marlow, and it won’t be enough. Like me, you’d have to prove it before you could take it to court. The dashcam footage provides motive, but you still have to explain the method.”
“It’s somewhere to start,” Marlow said. “Thank you, sir.”
“Anything I can do to help,” Randall said. “Maybe you should talk to that reporter.”
“Who?”
“Well, that’s what she called herself,” Randall said. “I looked her up after she called, and the only byline she had was on a podcast.”
“She was looking into Franklin?”
“No. No. The kid’s death,” Randall said. “Or the tragedy around it, rather. Death as infectious disease or something ridiculous like that. I couldn’t help her much, but maybe she turned up something that could help you.”
“Maybe she already did,” Marlow said. “Was her name Clara? Clara Walker?”
“Something like that,” Randall said. The expectation he was about to hear something awful settled in his voice as he asked, “What happened to her.”
“She killed herself,” Marlow said. “Jumped off a bridge.”
“Fuck,” Randall said. “You know, I always wondered if I’d let him down, if this was something I could have stopped. He looked like a good cop once. That’s why I took him on to the Night Shift. Now I think there’s just somethingwrongin that man.”
He hung up.
“Stay safe,” Cade said. He kissed Marlow, hard and sharp and with the tang of blood mixed on their tongues as wolf-sharp teeth scraped Marlow’s lips. “Stay out of trouble. At least until morning when I can do something about it again. The city can fend for itself.”
“I’ll be fine,” Marlow said. He meant it. Probably. Seventy-five percent at least. After that, it was down to luck. “And so will the city. I’m not the only Night Shift officer, you know.”
Cade snorted. “You’re the only one I’d piss on if you were on fire.”
“That’s almost romantic.”
“Yeah, well,” Cade said as he stepped back. “We are dating.”
“Oh?”
“We’ve been on three dates now,” Cade pointed out. “You’re practically my boyfriend.”
Marlow tried to pretend that statement didn’t make his breath catch just a little in his throat. “Am I, now? What’s the tipping point on that?”
“Oh, you’ll know,” Cade said.
He was always an arrogant bastard, but this close to the full moon, he was cocky too. It was stupid how ridiculously cute Marlow found that. Even though it did mean Cade was about to shift into a killing machine that probably still wanted to tear Marlow’s head off.
“Is there—”
The short, impatient whine of the taxi’s horn interrupted Marlow’s question. They had places to be and a deadline to get there.
“Don’t eat anyone I know,” Marlow said as he ducked into the car. The heavy door—bulletproof and reinforced—made a final-sounding clunk when he pulled it closed after him.
“No promises,” Cade mouthed through the glass before he waved them off.
The inside of the cab smelled of fear, sweat, and curry—the take-out bag was on the front seat, strapped in with its own seat belt. Technically, night-hacks were only allowed to run until the first wolf hit the streets. A fare in progress could be finished, but then they were supposed to head back to their depots or home—whichever was closest.
Instead, they just stayed on the road as long as someone was willing to pay over the odds on a jacked-up fare. And there was usually someone who thought it was worth it to get that contract deliveredtechnicallybefore the deadline or sneak in a last-minute bid to undercut a wolf competitor.
