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revealed nothing.
    “Hell of a way to spend a Saturday night,” one of the investigators said.
    Or a Sunday morning, because Cody and Kyle ended up spending the night in New Mexico, following what turned out to be false leads. By the time they got back to Kyle’s Arizona headquarters, it was late on Sunday. Another two hours of checking records also failed to turn up anything. Cody huffed into his coffee cup and tossed it aside.
    “How do you do this all the time?”
    “What?” Kyle raised an eyebrow.
    “The deaths. The unsolved mysteries. The fucked-up shitheads responsible for them.”
    Kyle’s eyes traveled along the office wall, landing no place in particular. His brow furrowed, and suddenly Cody wished he hadn’t asked. Because his packmate’s eyes showed pain then gritty determination. The man was a cop for a reason, even if he didn’t reveal much about his past.
    Kyle swallowed, and then pulled back into focus. “This is the hard part—waiting, thinking, messing with false leads. But catching the bastards—that feels good.” He looked at Cody, his eyes burning with resolve. “We’ll solve this case. I promise you that.”
    “We’ll get the bastards, all right,” Cody replied, thumping his tilted-back chair back to the floor.
     
    At that moment, though, there was nothing to do but to call it a night. Cody headed to Kyle’s place, where he planned to bunk for the night instead of driving all the way back to the ranch. The house—the old blacksmith’s house, out on the far edge of Twin Moon territory—was as messy as Kyle’s life had once been. But he’d gotten himself together remarkably well for a human inadvertently turned wolf in a messy biker brawl that included a rogue shifter. That the cop even survived his wounds was a small miracle. Only the strongest humans survived those kinds of wounds and became shifters.
    Kyle joined Twin Moon pack shortly after recovering and slowly found his way into a new life. Still, it was obvious that the man had a long way to go before he was comfortable in his own skin—both skins, to be precise. He spent too much time on his own, staring off into space, studying the ghosts of his past. Or maybe he was dreaming of something forever out of reach. Whatever it was, the man seemed more empty shell than soul. The girls loved it, though. Kyle had that wounded warrior aura they just couldn’t resist.
    Cody threw his friend a sidelong look and wondered for the first time if he got tired of it, too. Tired of loose and empty hookups instead of… Instead of the steady rightness of a mate’s company.
    And off his mind went again on another round of imagining something that couldn’t be.
    Cody brooded throughout their pizza dinner and the first half of the football game running on the TV, unable to shake the image of the dead woman’s startled eyes. Eyes so much like Heather’s. His legs twitched with the impulse to go check on the schoolhouse. Except Heather would be home today. His pulse jumped at the idea. He could track her down. She lived somewhere in town, didn’t she?
    Right. He’d show up unannounced and say…what exactly?
Hi, Heather. I needed to check that you’re okay. I need to hold you close.
    Like that would get past her armor.
    Or maybe a different tack.
I can’t forget our kiss. Want about a million more like it.
The kiss echoed in his mouth now, taking the edge off the acid taste that still clung there after the morgue.
And, by the way, I want you to be my mate.
He could just imagine how well that would go over.
    Cody tried shaking off the feeling. He shouldn’t, couldn’t think of Heather now.
    Kyle pointed the remote at the TV. “Hey, Code.” He hit mute but kept his eyes on the game.
    “Yeah?”
    “Want some advice?”
    Cody worked his jaw from side to side. “No.”
    Silence filled the room until Kyle hit the sound button, flooding the space with cheers.
    Cody let another tackle go down before giving in. “Okay, what?”
    “Let