Page 91 of Red Boar's Baby

“It’s unlikely to hurt you, for one thing,” Caine said. “It affects shifters in their shift form, and produces unpredictable and temporary effects.”

“Unpredictable?” Costa said, and “Temporary?” Diana said at the same moment. She sounded disappointed.

The corners of Caine’s mouth twitched. “Yes. It’s meant to be used in the shifter fighting rings, as a sort of—well, I guess you’d call it a kind of doping. Shifter steroid use.”

“We were speculating it might be something like that,” Costa mused. “Vic thought so. According to him, shifters on the fighting circuit have their shift forms and capabilities tracked, so anything that throws a monkey wrench intothatcould make some serious money for someone who knew it was going to happen.”

Caine nodded. “From what we’ve managed to get out of the scientists, that’s exactly it. They’re still working on the formula, and as you found out, Diana, the side effects can be unpleasant.”

“No kidding,” Diana said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to fight in the state I was in at first. Kinda getting on board with it now, though. How long exactly istemporary?”

“That’s another thing that’s still in flux as they work on the formula. Maybe a few days to a few weeks.”

“Farley’s going to be disappointed to hear that he’s losing his wings,” Costa said. He grinned, but the grin slowly faded as he thought about the other set of maybe-temporary wings on the ranch. “What about Emmeline—that is, the little girl? She’s another test subject, isn’t she?”

“Ah, that’s where things get interesting.” The speaker was Mavis, coming up the steps with her medical bag in one hand. “Yes, I’m still making house calls,” she added to Costa. “Nice place out here. Pretty country. One of these days, I’d love to see it in daylight.”

“It’s starting to look like I’m going to host the next SCB company picnic out here,” Costa said. He realized that his hand had moved over to cover Diana’s while they were talking, as he noticed Mavis looking at it. He defiantly curled his fingers around Diana’s. “Now what’s interesting, exactly?”

“Emmeline,” Mavis said. “That’s what you’re calling the little girl?”

“Yeah.” Costa found himself suddenly defensive. “Does it matter?”

“It matters in the sense that we know who she is now.” Mavis pulled a chair over. “And her real name is Madison Tyler.”

“Madison,” Diana breathed. “Well, it starts with an M.”

Costa couldn’t sort out what he was feeling. Madison. It was nice to know after so long, but it was strange to think of her as anything other than Emmeline.

But she had a family somewhere. Loved ones who missed her, who she deserved to go back to.

“Her family must be frantic,” he said. “Was she abducted?”

“She turned up in the search for missing children that the interns have been running,” Mavis explained. As she spoke, she took out a blood pressure cuff and gestured for Diana to provide an arm. Diana rolled her eyes but did so. “She went missing from a foster home in a Phoenix suburb a couple of months ago.”

“Foster care?” Diana asked, as Mavis firmly repositioned her arm and checked the reading on the cuff. “What about her parents?”

“Not in the picture. Teen mom who gave her up and severed parental rights shortly after birth, father’s unknown, and probably the one who was the shifter. She was slated to be adopted by a couple in Phoenix, but that fell through when she vanished, and they’re currently adopting another child. We think,” Mavis added, briskly removing the cuff after making a note of the reading, “that someone in the foster system was paid off to find and supply a shifter child to the lab.”

Costa felt a hot surge of fury. “Do we know who?”

“Not yet, but we’re working on it.” Mavis also looked angry.

“That’s horrible,” Diana said, her voice a near-snarl. “Has it happened to any other kids?”

“Not that we know about at the present time. Now that we’re watching out for it, we can be on guard against it. Nicole Yates was saying that she and the Seattle SCB are working on a system for better tracking of shifter children in foster care, since they have special needs that most children don’t. So this will provide a good incentive to get her project moving, as well as giving us a way to help prevent such things happening in the future.”

Caine had listened to all of this quietly with his fingers laced together between his knees. Abruptly he spoke up. “Why a child, instead of an adult test subject?”

“Ah, yes, that’s where it gets truly interesting, in an awful way. For adults who have come into their full shifting capabilities, it’s temporary. But the head researcher from the lab—I refuse to dignify her with the term ‘scientist’—told me that children, and especially young children who haven’t come into their shifting yet, might be permanently changed. They were only starting to explore that option, and Emmeline, or Madison, seems to be the only test subject they have so far.”

“And the only one they’ll ever have,” Costa said with conviction.

“Indeed.”

“Do we know how she got on the plane?” Diana asked.

Caine spoke up. “It’s pure speculation so far, but it’s safe to assume she was picked up from the lab in Alamagordo to be transported somewhere else. The flight safety agencies have closed the case on the crash as an accident, but the SCB is running a set of toxicology reports on the deceased pilot. We may never know exactly what happened on that plane, but there’s a good chance the pilot had a fatal attack of conscience when he found out the cargo was a kid, and they decided to get rid of him, one way or another.”

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