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this.”
    She felt her dad’s hand on her knee. “You don’t have to.”
    She looked at him, could see in his eyes he believed it. If she asked him to, he would kick Mica out of the back of the van and drive the hell out of there to wherever she asked. But they wouldn’t get far. And she couldn’t run away from this. This was her chance to make things right.
    Kress wanted her to question Ryan, find out what he meant about a beast woman and what he knew about The Return. Fine. Jessie, however, planned on doing more than that.
    She was going to heal Ryan.
    If you’ve got it in you , her niggling voice of self-doubt added. This voice sounded a lot like Craig, but meaner. Just always so dang negative.
    “Let’s make prints, peaches,” Mica said, poking her head between the front seats. That woman was such a freak.
    Craig gave Jessie’s knee a pat.
    Jessie nodded. “I’m good.”
    The three of them climbed out of the van and almost made it to the front door before a man in a blue uniform with a Taser and a radio on his belt came out to intercept them. He looked grandpa old, with a round belly on an otherwise bony body. His white beard had nicotine stains in the mustache and around his chin. The glasses he wore had Buddy Holly frames with lenses that magnified his eyes so that he looked permanently frightened.
    “You can’t park that here,” he said in a wheezy grandpa voice.
    Craig pulled the special wallet he’d been given with the special badge inside and the special ID that said FBI. Jessie almost snickered when he fumbled to flip open the wallet and flash the badge.
    The security grandpa squinted through his Hubble lenses, moving his lips silently as he read the ID. He really studied the thing, as if he could tell a fake FBI ID from a real one. In this case, the fake ID was issued from the same place that made the real ones, so it was a waste of the old man’s effort.
    He snorted in a satisfied, Barney Fife sort of way. “Dr. Hasjef’s been expecting you.” He looked at Jessie. “This bring your kid to work day?”
    “Something like that,” Craig said and moved past the guard as if he didn’t exist.
    Old Grandpa Rent-A-Cop hooked his thumbs in his belt under his belly bulge and let the three of them go inside, though he looked like he desperately wanted to argue about it.
    The rode the elevator to the eighth floor and stepped out into a short hall with a door on either end. Both doors were made of thick steel with small square windows reinforced with what looked like chicken wire. The hall itself smelled funky, a layer of disinfectant covering up some more sinister stink underneath. Even Jessie’s vampire senses couldn’t pick it out. Maybe her imagination, more than anything else.
    The door to the left had no signage to indicate where it led. In fact, it didn’t have a handle either, just a metal plate where the handle would normally be and a round lock. The right door had a blue plastic sign fastened to the wall beside it that read: Adult Inpatient Mental Health . About a foot below this sign was a button that looked like a doorbell with its own accompanying sign: Ring Buzzer for Access .
    Craig leaned his thumb on the buzzer. They waited no more than thirty seconds before a face peered through the window—Grandpa must have radioed up that they had arrived. Next came the sound of a bolt snapping, and the person behind the door pulled it open.
    A pretty woman with ebony skin, her hair in braids, and wearing a flower-print nurse’s smock, greeted them with narrow eyes. “My name is Shanna. Are you the federal agents?”
    Craig showed her the badge and ID, flipping the wallet open more smoothly this time.
    She only gave it a cursory glance, her attention roving to Jessie, who stood to Craig’s left and a step behind. “She’s with you?”
    “Yes,” Craig said.
    Shanna pursed her lips, eyes never leaving Jessie. “Seems strange having a little girl along with you, don’t it?”
    “Only if you