Page 125 of The Dog in the Alley

Which explained why die-hard adherents like Armstrong didn’t feel the need to wear masks. Because they believed they were too ‘pure’ to suffer any ill-effects from it. The site of course didn’t say anything about the fact that quite a few humans who didn’t undergo any sort of transformation ended updead, but who cares about those details?

“This woman is a fucking piece of work,” I said out loud.

Raj looked over, eyebrows up in a question.

I waved the packet I was holding. “Louise Dunn. Fucking human purist.”

“They’re all human purists, Hart,” Raj pointed out.

I made a face. “Ugh.” He was right, of course. I wasn’t evaluating her file to find out if we’d accidentally put in a normal person who didn’t think the only good Nid was a dead Nid. She was in our pile because her name had shown up on a list of people who were at the very least okay with, if not active participants in, the horrific murder of multiple Arcanids.

What I had to figure out was whether or not she had some means of accessing people’s government files.

Ten minutes later I had my answer.

Louise didn’t, but her grown daughter, Julep—who the fuck names their kid after a goddamn drink?—absolutely did.

Julep—whose name just got weirder the more times I thought about it—was a fuckingsocial worker. The whole point of her job was tohelppeople. Instead—

I told myself to slow down a little with the judgment.

First of all, I didn’t know that Julep was providing information to her mother. It was possible that the fact that they lived just outside of Durham and four Nids had disappeared from the same area were a total coincidence.

Possible. But not likely.

But if Julep Howell—married to Luke Howell—had given her mother access to people’s records…

I reminded myself, again, not to assume the worst.

Maybe there was more to it than just Louise convincing her daughter to give her people’s information so that she could have them killed. Maybe… The best scenario I could come up with was that Julep really thought her mother was helping the people whose information she passed on.

Or that her mother had somehow stolen her password or somehow gotten access to her files…

“Dunn’s daughter is a social worker with Durham County Social Services,” I told Raj.

Raj looked up. “She on our list?”

“No. But Dunn’s job doesn’t give her any other way that I can find of accessing information about Nid status.”

Raj frowned, chewing. “Does it have to be her?”

I sighed. “No. But she’s local to Raleigh-Durham. Nobody else on the list is.”

“There are other options,” Raj pointed out. “Someone with access to federal records. Someone else in North Carolina with access to state records.”

I went back to the list. I knew we didn’t have anyone with a federal job, or even a federal contractor—Raj had run the whole list against federal employee databases. But there were two other people from North Carolina.

Dallas Petersen worked for a construction contractor. Unmarried. No kids. Parents were dead. Checking his social media accounts—which were public, which suggested he maybe wasn’t all that bright, since most of his accounts made absolutely no attempt to hide his distaste for the arcane and anyone touched by it—suggested that his friends were like him, blue-collar and unconnected to anyone who might have access to police records.

Taylor Sweeney was a stylist, had a similarly open social media feed, and friends who were into fashion, nail art, and small dogs. Also no connections I could find that would provide access to records, either.

I shared this with Raj.

He pressed his lips together. “You can buy information,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, I know. But this just seems… Too coincidental.”

“Then chase it,” he said. “I trust your gut, Hart.”

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