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slow to get to the crime scene,
and
I was the one who’d been stupid and left the garbage bag. This guy was just doing his job. I thought about his face when that werewolf had changed. Without really meaning to, I imagined him having a family—kids, even. I looked back up at Cruz, but I couldn’t see his left hand to look for a wedding ring. “But this kind of thing has happened before, right?” I argued. “And then you just pay him off or whatever?”
    There was a growl of warning in his voice now. “It has happened, but each time, it has been so much simpler to just remove the obstacle. Besides, I am not convinced that your policeman will be willing to work with us.”
    To my own surprise, I heard myself pushing. “Dash, I know that I’m not your favorite person right now, but I’m respectfully asking for you to let me try to fix this. I think I can get through to this guy. Let me tell him the history. If that doesn’t work, you can always kill him later.”
    Dashiell was quiet again, and I waited, glancing out the window at the cop in question, who was glaring at me with his arms folded across his chest.
    Finally, Dashiell said, “All right, Scarlett. I’ll let you follow your instincts on this matter, but I still need you here. And if Officer Cruz tells even one person about the Old World, I won’t be killing just
him
. That’s not a threat, Scarlett. It’s a promise.” And he hung up the phone.
    I leaned forward and rested my head against the wheel. Not. Good.
    Cruz opened the passenger door next to me, and I jumped. “Well?” he said. “Let’s go.”
    I shook my head. “I have permission to fill you in on some stuff, but you can’t go with me tonight.”
    He held up my keys, letting them jingle. “You sure about that?”
    Crud.
Way to think ahead, Scarlett
. I held out my hand. “Give me the keys.”
    He shook his head, looking mulish. “I’m risking my job just by letting you walk around free. I’m not leaving until I get some answers.”
    It probably wouldn’t be a great idea to Tase the nice police officer. I ran through my other options—get out of the van and run, call the powerful angry vampire to reschedule, or just take the damned cop with me. While I was thinking, Cruz rolled up his jacket sleeve and looked pointedly at a silver Fossil watch.
    “Fine,” I sighed. “Here’s the deal. You can come with me, and we’ll talk on the way, but when we get there, you will stay in the car.”
    “Yeah, sure,” he said casually.
    Crap, crap, crap
. I started the van and pulled out of the garage, heading west toward the 101 freeway entrance on Sunset. I felt Cruz staring at me the whole time.
    “Okay,” I finally said, “what do you want to know?”
    “That guy was a...a...”
    “Werewolf,” I supplied. I couldn’t blame him for the hesitation. Pop culture has built this whole supernatural thing up to the point where it’s practically a cliché. Even the werewolves think it sounds silly to say
werewolves
. “Yes. I haven’t met him, I don’t think, but he must be part of the local pack.”
    “There’s a
pack
?” He was already beginning to sound dazed.
    “Yes. Our pack is small in proportion to the city’s population, but this isn’t the most werewolf-friendly town, as you might imagine. Better than New York, though.”
    “Okay...I’m assuming if werewolves are real, there’s other stuff, too.”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “How does it all work?”
    “Dude, I don’t know. It just does.”
    His voice was skeptical. “Please don’t make me threaten you again. It’s just kind of tacky.”
    I sighed. How had Olivia first explained this to me? “Fine. Back up a second. The first thing you need to know is that there’s magic in the world. Not bunnies-being-pulled-out-of-top-hats magic—I mean like this completely wild, powerful force. The second thing is that Darwin got a lot of stuff right. Thanks to evolution, every species in the world is part of an enormous family