“October is a long way off,” the gruff voice said.
“That’s why we’re here now.”
A figure emerged. Garrett Cole. Fifties, maybe older. Lean and weathered. Gray hair cropped short. Eyes that had seen too much and trusted too little.
He had a rifle in his hands, barrel angled down but ready. Siren felt Reed go rigid beside her. The smell of adrenaline hit her nose. Sharp. Immediate.
His bear was surging.
She didn’t look at him. Didn’t draw attention. But she shifted her weight slightly, ready to put herself between them if Reed lost control.
“Jackie said you’d be coming.” Garrett’s voice was flat. “Didn’t say there’d be two of you.”
“He’s with me. A witness. He has information about an outfit running anti-shifter operations.”
While she talked, she listened to Reed breathing. Shallow. Too fast. She could almost feel his bear clawing at the inside of his skin.
Then his breathing slowed. Steadied. The adrenaline smell faded by a degree.
He’d held it. Barely.
Garrett looked at Reed. Looked back at Siren. If he’d noticed anything, he didn’t show it.
“Let’s walk,” he said, and turned into the trees.
He led them through the trees to a secondary location about a quarter mile from the clearing. There was a small camp in a hollow. A fire ring with cold ashes and a canvas tarp strung between trees for shelter. There were a few logs to sit on. He clearly didn’t live here. This was more of a meeting place.
Garrett sat on a log and gestured for them to sit across from him. He didn’t offer any food or water. Didn’t make small talk.
“What do you have?”
Siren gave him the outline. The Crown Mountain conspiracy. The sabotage attacks on shifter businesses across the Northwest. Jason Prescott’s arrest. Carl Unger, the bartender who’d been feeding information to someone before they decided he was a liability and took him out.
“We have a recording of the murder,” she said. “Reed.”
Reed pulled the field recorder from his jacket and looked at her for confirmation. She nodded and he hit play.
The sounds of the night filled the clearing. The distant murmur of music bleeding through from inside the brewery. The voices.
“I’ve been patient.” Carl Unger’s voice. “Two years of feeding you everything. Who’s talking. Who’s not. I flagged that dispatcher before she became a problem. I earned my way out.”
Garrett’s face was still as he listened to the recording. When it was over, Reed turned it off. The wind moved through the pines, and nobody spoke.
“That voice,” Garrett said finally. “The handler.”
“Do you recognize it?” she asked.
“No. But I recognize the type.” He rubbed his jaw. “That’s not some thug. That’s someone who’s done this before and will do it again.”
“That’s why we brought this to you. What do you know about PMCs that take anti-shifter contracts?”
Garrett was quiet for a moment, staring at the recorder like it might start talking again.
“There are rumors,” he said. “About private military contractors who’ll take jobs nobody else will touch. Suppression. Intimidation. Elimination. Most of them are bullshit. Cowboys playing soldier, in over their heads.”
He pinned her with his gaze.
“But there’s one outfit that’s different. They’ve been operating for maybe ten years, and nobody knows who runs it. Nobody’s ever seen their faces or connected them with a specificoperation. But they take anti-shifter contracts. They execute and they disappear. No evidence. No witnesses. No loose ends.”
