“It still doesn’t make his lack of siblings or relations that unusual.”

“If he was a much older man, I’d agree. But he isn’t and it just feels wrong.”

“So you think he’s been bumping off his relatives?”

He grinned again. “What I suspect is something far more exciting than just a spot of family bloodletting.”

I couldn’t help smiling at the excitement lighting his features and churning the air. He really did get turned on by this sort of intrigue—and it was damnably hard not to react to it.

“So, hit me with it,” I said in a wry voice. “Or are you intending to drag out the suspense as punishment for me not submitting to your werewolf wiles?”

“Well, damn, I hadn’t actually thought of that—”

I punched his shoulder lightly and he laughed. Just for a moment, it felt like old times.

“What I suspect,” he said, softly and rather melodramatically, “is that while our John Nadler might not be a ghost, he could be the next best thing.”

I gave him a deadpan look. “I will resort to greater violence if you don’t get on with it.”

He laughed again, and the sound ran across my senses like a summer rain, warm and inviting. “I think what we’re looking for is not just a man but rather something a whole lot more. John Nadler, I suspect, is a face-shifter.”

Chapter 6

I blinked in surprise. “But they test DNA at birth. If he wasn’t human, then it would have been discovered. Mistakes like that just aren’t made.”

“Helki werewolves are not the only ones capable of face-shifting,” he said. “I know for a fact the military has human face-shifters. Did a story on it quite a few years ago.”

“But from what I’ve heard, they’re rare.”

“Rare doesn’t mean impossible. But I rather suspect that the Nadler who was born fifty-six years ago is dead, and that a face-shifter has taken over his face and his life, and that’s who is now running the consortium.”

I frowned. I certainly knew how easy it would be to assume someone else’s appearance, having done it myself. But stepping fully into their life was a whole different matter. “What makes you suspicious? The lack-of-relatives factor?”

“In a way, yes. Nadler was an only child, as was his mother. But his father had two brothers and one sister, and they provided Nadler with a total of five cousins.”

“And they’re all dead?” That did raise my eyebrows. You’d think at least a couple of the cousins would still be alive, considering that some of them had to be younger.

“All dead, and all within a three-year time span.”

My frown deepened. “Something like that would have raised suspicions with the police or at the coroner’s office.”

“Not if each and every one was classified as either an accident or natural causes.”

“And were they?”

“Yep.”

At least that explained why Stane hadn’t picked up on this. He didn’t have Jak’s naturally suspicious nature. “So if your suspicions are right, and a face-shifter was cleaning Nadler’s house in preparation for a takeover, what about business partners and the like? They’re often more familiar with someone than relatives are, simply because they spend more time with them.”

He grinned and raised a hand, signaling to the waiter for two more beers. I finished the remnants of my first and slid the glass toward the waiter as he appeared with the second one.

“Ah, now this is where it gets really interesting.” Jak’s excitement ramped up another notch. I took several gulps of beer, but it didn’t do a whole lot to quench the rising flame of desire. Damn it, I would not go there. He continued. “Nadler supposedly had a partial breakdown when his parents died in a car accident. He took six months off work, and when he came back, his colleagues noticed a change in him, but put it down to the recent trauma. Interestingly, he left that business two weeks later to run the newly formed consortium.”

“A consortium with a paper trail so convoluted it’s almost impossible to track down its true beginnings.”

“Exactly.” He raised his glass and clicked it lightly against mine. “All roads point to the man we know as Nadler being a face-shifter.”

“You’ve made a case for it,” I agreed. “But it’s no certainty, and it’s not something his lawyer can tell us. Hell, if a face-shifter has taken over Nadler’s life, then there’s no saying that the Nadler the lawyer sees is the one everyone else involved in his day-to-day life does. He’s a face-shifter, remember.”

He frowned slightly. “Hadn’t actually thought of that.”

I grinned. “Sorry to burst your excited little bubble.”

“Oh, you haven’t.” His expression held altogether too much warmth and a whole lot of sexual hunger. And that, I suspected, wasn’t so much about the desire that raged between us as it was about the thrill of a case that had him intrigued. Which wasn’t saying he didn’t want me; it was just that I wasn’t the prime motivator of said hunger.

Which didn’t make the desire surging through me any easier to ignore. I dropped my gaze back to my beer and took several slow, deep breaths. They helped about as much as the cold beer.

“Thing is,” he continued, “the lawyer will at least be able to describe the Nadler he knows well enough for me to work up a sketch, and we can go from there.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Oh, I’m full of them.”

“There’s no denying you’re full of something,” I said dryly. “But I’m not sure I’d call it ideas.”

His soft laugh shivered across my senses enticingly. Damn, damn, damn.

“Well, I’d offer to show you exactly what is filling me at the moment, but I rather suspect you’ll refuse.”

“Don’t you know it.” Thankfully, my phone chose that moment to ring, cutting off any other comments he might make along those lines. It was Mike. “I’m guessing it’s bad news, seeing not much time has passed.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “The tickets will be dropped off at the office tomorrow at nine, and you can pick them up anytime after that.”

“Excellent.” I gave Jak the thumbs-up. “Thanks heaps, Mike.”

“Glad to help,” he said, and hung up again.

“Fantastic,” Jak said as I put the phone away. “What time do you want me to pick you up?”

“It’s supposed to be a chance meeting, remember? I’ll meet you there.” Besides, he and I confined in a car was not a good idea if he was going to continue radiating desire so strongly. My brain and emotions might want to keep their distance, but my hormones remembered the good times, and they were more than willing to take the chance and dance with him again.

“Not because of any ruse, but because you don’t trust me,” he commented, amusement crinkling the corners of his dark eyes.

“Not one iota. You, my friend, have seduction on your mind.” I finished my drink and stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Bring your dancing shoes,” he said.

I snorted in disgust, and his laughter followed me out the door. Damn him to hell, I thought, and fleetingly wished I hadn’t argued with Lucian. It would have been nice to ease the ache of desire in his arms. I could always go to Franklin’s, a discreet up-market wolf club I often used at times like this, but even as that thought crossed my mind, my nose was wrinkling. The club had lost some of its appeal lately—mainly because Lucian had a sexual repertoire my usual partner at Franklin’s had no hope of competing with.

Azriel appeared beside me as I walked up the road to the taxi stand. “The face-shifter theory is an interesting one.”

His voice was still very formal, and irritation swirled. But did I really want the easygoing, warm version when desire raged so badly inside me? Yes, that insane part of me whispered. Most definitely. I ignored it and said, “It would certainly explain why no one can find Nadler.”

“If he is being so cautious with who sees him, it is also probable that he is not only keeping an eye on his lawyer’s movements, but he would have ensured that the lawyer could not actually describe him.”

I stopped and looked at him. “Mind tampering?”

He nodded. “It’s possible.”

“But that implies our fake Nadler is more powerful than we’d thought.” And probably more dangerous, although his actions with the soul stealer gave more than enough warning about the lengths to which he was willing to go.

“Exactly,” Azriel said. “I do not think it wise for Jak to accompany you to this ball.”

“There’s no way in hell he’s going to remain behind. He wants this story, Azriel.”

“Maybe so, but that is neither here nor there. Do you agree that it would be better for him not to appear?”

I frowned. “Yes, but if we stop him, he’ll be furious.” And knowing Jak as well as I did, I had no doubt he’d pursue the story without us, and that, ultimately, could be even more dangerous. At least this way we had some control over his actions.

“He can be stopped and yet still think he was there,” Azriel commented.

My gaze searched his for a moment—although why, I have no idea, given that he was still in retreat mode. “So you’ll keep him at home somehow, but feed him false memories afterward?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t work. He’s a reporter, and reporters talk. He’ll discover soon enough that no one can remember seeing him there and he’ll suspect I’ve done something.”

Azriel raised his eyebrows. “But what if—as far as everyone was concerned—he did appear?”

Meaning he’d become Jak? “How is that going to keep him safe? I mean, for all intents and purposes, everyone will think he was there.”