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said. “Once anyone who’s anyone will be there.”
    The bad toupee seated atop Dan’s head bobbed slightly as he nodded his head in agreement. “Good work. Very good work.” His eyes looked her up and down. “You do have something better than that to wear, don’t you, Ari?”
    She gritted her teeth. She didn’t mind being called Ari, but he always did it like he was talking down to her, and it drove her nuts.
    “Something wrong with my outfit?” she asked, looking at the clothes she was wearing.
    “You don’t go to a place like Route Fifty wearing a rumpled T-shirt, pants with stains on them, and whatever those things are,” he said with a wave at her sneakers.
    “Sure I do,” she said. “I’m not dressing up for anyone.”
    Rolling her eyes as Dan began to go on a tirade of dressing the part, she turned and left the office.
    “Goodbye, Dan,” she said loudly over his protests, and fled the office, closing the door firmly behind her.
    “Route Fifty?” James said as she took a seat back at her dilapidated desk, her mood brightened by her approval to pursue the story she truly wanted. “That’s an upscale place. You’re really going to wear that?”
    She glared at him. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? It’s just a club, James. I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m going to be dancing or anything. It’s for work.”
    James looked skeptical at her claim, then shrugged his shoulders and resumed typing away on his keyboard.
    It was just for work. They were going to go in, ask for Benjamin, and leave.
    Weren’t they?

***
    “Shit,” she cursed aloud.
    She had nothing to wear.
    “Why did I have to listen to them?” she complained out loud, rifling through her closet once more, trying to find something, anything that would be appropriate for the evening.
    There was nothing. Arianna Jones did not go clubbing. She went to the sports bar three blocks away and drank beer and played pool. That was her lifestyle, and even then, that was when she had some extra cash to burn, which wasn’t very often.
    The double doors to her closet hung open. The racks were filled and hangers covered the open space. But it was all T-shirts and jeans. There were no dresses. She wasn’t comfortable wearing them. No skirts either. Frowning, she picked out the cleanest shirt she could find, and put on a pair of jeans that, though not skinny jeans, at least didn’t hang off of her like most of the ones she preferred.
    I showered and washed my hair. How much more can be expected of me anyway? It’s not like Mr. Handso— Ajax —is going to be focused on me anyway. There’s going to be a veritable buffet awaiting someone like him when he walks inside.
    Whipping the outfit on, she breathed a sigh of relief that it still fit since she hadn’t worn either in quite some time. Arianna proceeded to pull her hair back into its customary tight ponytail, and then settled her glasses on her face.
    “Good enough,” she muttered, grabbing her purse and pencil from the shelf near the door. The beaten red purse fell comfortably across her shoulder and the pencil clipped easily to the pocket on the right side of her shirt. All of Arianna’s shirts had pockets on the breast. She had to carry her pencil somewhere handy. Pockets worked best.
    A quick call summoned a taxi to her house a few minutes later.
    “Route Fifty,” she told him, then pointedly ignored the astonished stare the driver gave her.
    After a minute of hesitation he shrugged and headed out. Arianna barely noticed. Her mind was elsewhere. She was focused on the issue at hand. What the hell had happened to Benjamin? But there was more to it than that. If the government or a corporation had taken him and the other shifters, and they were experimenting on them—if those were true—the question then changed.
    What the hell are they trying to accomplish?
    She made a mental note to ask Ajax about that, to see if he had heard any rumors about what they might be trying to