Page 51 of Midnight Auto Parts

This way? Oh crap. As in without the sauce. The sauce I had been relying on for flavor. Which I had forgotten to add. There wasn’t a speck of seasoning on his meal.

“I give up.” I banged my forehead on the table. “I’ll have to live on Josie’s cooking until I die.”

“That’s what sisters are for.” She came to inspect my work. “The even sear on this is impressive.”

“If Josie hadn’t distracted you,” Matty added, leaning over Kierce’s shoulder, “this would have been a gold-star effort.”

“Me?”Josie laughed out loud. “Idistracted her?”

Ignoring them as they returned to their pillow fighting, I homed in on Kierce to gauge his sincerity.

“I ate a raw diet for centuries.” Kierce speared another slice. “This is a luxury.”

“Does that mean what I think it means? That you caught your own food and skinned it?”

“Wildlife is plentiful in Abaddon, and I had no reason to leave between tasks.”

“What happens to Badb when you go home?”

“As long as I’m able to protect her, I bring her with me. She enjoys the hunting.”

Curious if that was the reason why she spoiled him with purloined meals when they were here, I missed it when Carter returned loaded down with bags of food and sodas tucked underher arms. The smell hit me like a two-by-four to the gut, and I didn’t waste time stealing the top container and digging in.

One look from Carter convinced my siblings they didn’t want to stick around for the next part, the actual reason she had come to visit. I would have expected them to kick up a fuss about me working another of the 514’s cases, even if it involved one of my clients, but they left without making a peep.

Either they were tired of me ignoring their advice, which had never prevented them from sharing it, or learning the worst had already happened, that I had died, put them at ease.

“We located tracks leading from a point between the trees to the SUV where you found the body and back again, but there’s nothing beyond that.” Carter sat on the armrest of the couch. “The paw prints are the size of my head.”

Cradling Badb, the brat, Kierce and I talked it out with Carter. “No tracks at either of the other vehicles?”

“None.” She tugged at her collar. “I could almost believe that aliens did lift these women in a cone of light off the highway then lower them into the middle of the woods when they were finished.”

“The creature who ate the second victim doesn’t fit.” I attempted to place Badb on a pillow beside me, but her beady black eyes pierced me, and I settled back in with her. “Has the autopsy been done yet?”

There was always the very, very,veryslim chance a cougar had been at fault for the gory scene.

“We put a rush on it,” Carter confided, “but it’ll be tomorrow at the earliest.”

A familiar expression lit her face, and I spotted her angle before she mustered up the courage to ask.

“You’re hoping I’ll swing by the morgue,” I guessed, and she proved me right with a grin.

“I wasn’t going to suggest it,” she hedged, “but since you offered, that would be a great help.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“The bones are another matter.” Kierce, who had been staring off, deep in thought, tuned in to us again. “Three distinct irregularities confined to a five-mile radius. There must be a connection between them.”

Disappearing women and vehicles. Obvious predation. And the surfeit of bones.

“I can’t see one yet,” Carter admitted, “but I agree.”

“A predator that size would have been noticed.” I couldn’t move past that point. “The amount of meat it required would be massive. Either more people would have gone missing, or the deer population would have dipped low enough hunters grumbled about it.”

“Perhaps it’s a shifter.”

Carter and I whipped our heads toward Kierce as his theory solidified into possibility.

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