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was filled with excitement.
    Trying to keep the fear out of her voice, Bree told him about discovering the hand and how Kelsi attempted to steal it.
    Liam leaned his arm against Bree’s; she relaxed to his warmth. “So how’d you get the hand away from her?” he said. “And what happened to Kelsi? Where is she now? Give me all the details. Da wouldn’t say much.”
    Bree hesitated. She really wanted to tell him, needed to tell him . But even she hadn’t come to terms with what she’d almost done. Before she could change her mind, she locked her eyes on his and said, “I was ready to bash Kelsi’s head with a flashlight. What kind of person does that? I could have killed her.”
    Liam stood and turned his back on her, taking away the warmth she’d treasured. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything.
    “It’s not like you’re a murderer,” Liam said.
    She looked up. Although she knew he was trying to make her feel better, he had punched each word and she had felt the blow.
    “She was stealing from you,” Liam said.
    “Or was she stealing from the bog, just like we were? I mean, I just don’t know what I would have done if I really had to do it. We hit a German shepherd once with our car. The dog ran into the street out of nowhere and my dad didn’t have time to stop. The thud it made when it hit the car…I’ll never forget that noise or what it felt like. It was awful.”
    “This isn’t the same. You were in danger and had to do something.”
    “I know, but I was so caught up in it all I was willing to—”
    “ But you didn’t.” Liam wrapped his arm around Bree and tried to pull her against him. At first she resisted—if she let go she might lose it completely—but then she eased into him and gave herself up to his embrace.
    And she felt so secure.
    “You’re upset because you’re the kind of person that cares.” He lifted Bree’s chin, gazed into her eyes, and then leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. “And that makes me the kind of guy who cares about you.”
    His lips were like butter on Bree’s skin, and she smiled. “Thanks.”
    “Any time. You know I’m here for you. You want to go down to the kitchen for a Coke or something?”
    “Sure. That’d be great.”
    They waited for Bree’s dad in the hallway outside the lab. Growing up as lab rats, they both knew drinks and food were prohibited.
    Liam said, “What’s he doing in there anyway?”
    Bree shrugged. “He always holes up when he’s trying to figure something out. Sometimes he doesn’t even come out to eat. I learned to deal with it a long time ago.”
    The door latch clicked, and Bree turned to the noise behind her. Her dad had emerged from his office and now crossed the lab. When he entered the hall, he said, “Liam. What are you doing here?”
    “I just dropped in to see Bree, but I’m heading out now.”
    “That’s good,” her dad said, “because we have to get going. It’s late and I want to get started on the hand first thing in the morning.”
    Liam raised an eyebrow. “You think there’s anything to what Bree said—that the hand could have come from an actual lycanthrope?”
    Her dad crossed his arms. “Like I told Bree before, we’ll know what it is when we know it. I’m not ruling anything out at this point—human, animal, or lycanthrope. We don’t know all the facts.”
    Bree bit her lip, thinking how few facts they really had right now.
    Kelsi had said to stay away from the hand. Why?
    Who else was after the hand?
    And what would happen now?

Chapter Fourteen
     
    Mashey Hotel, Largheal, Ireland
     
    Bree toweled off from her shower, slipped into a pair of gray sweats and a faded tee-shirt, and knocked on the door separating her hotel room from her dad’s. “Dad? Can we talk?”
    “Just a sec,” he said. A minute later he walked through the door with a glass of whiskey in hand. He sat on the edge of Bree’s bed.
    “What is it, Bree?”
    “I don’t know,” she said.