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Bobby added, “We can wear silver next to our skin to hide what we are or wear it with clothing between us and the metal.”
“Well, aren’t you just being helpful,” Duke said.
“You’ve known me most of my life, Duke. I’m still me.”
“What slaughtered your uncle wasn’t human, so the boy I helped coach is gone. He died in Africa when that leopard got him and what came home was a monster.”
“That’s enough,” I said.
“You don’t get to tell me what’s enough in my own jail.”
“I think I just did.”
“The two of you don’t have to like each other to work together,” Livingston said.
“Oh, good,” I said. “For a minute there, I was worried that Duke and I would have to make nice.”
“Blake,” Newman said, and the one word was sort of pleading.
“If I have to call you Marshal, then you call me Sheriff.”
“Duke,” Livingston said, not pleading, more warning.
I sighed, took a deep breath, and let it out slow. “You’re right, Newman, Captain. We don’t have to like each other to be professional on the job.”
“Fine,” Duke said. “Then let’s get this done, so you can go back home and we can dislike each other from a distance.”
I nodded. “Works for me.”
20
WE KEPT KAITLIN safe by having Livingston stand over them with a shotgun aimed at Bobby’s head. The barrel of the gun was so close to Bobby that if Livingston had pulled the trigger, it would have pretty much decapitated him. It was one of the few absolutely surefire ways to kill a shapeshifter or a vampire, so it seemed even more important that Bobby stay in human form and not give Livingston an excuse to do it, which was why I was in the cell with them to metaphorically hold Bobby’s hand. I couldn’t really do it, because Kaitlin was taking evidence from more than just his feet, and holding his hand would have put me in the line of fire.
Newman was standing outside the locked cell with Leduc. The sheriff had tried to get us to give up our weapons because it was procedure. He’d conceded that Livingston needed his to shoot the monster, but he tried to insist on me giving up mine just like the first time I got into the cell. Not only no, but fuck no.
“Once someone’s pointed a gun at me, Duke, I don’t give up my weapons to them again.”
“And I don’t let weapons just waltz into my holding cells for the prisoner to take.”
“Duke,” Livingston said, “just let it go. If the prisoner so much as twitches wrong, I’ll kill him before he can grab for anyone’s weapons.”
I could have added that if Bobby had started to change into a leopard, he wouldn’t have been going for our weapons. He’d have been too busy growing his own. But I didn’t say that out loud. They were spooked enough without me overexplaining.
Deputy Wagner came to the bars on the wall that the two cells shared. “Do you really think that Bobby didn’t do it?”
Newman answered, “We think it’s a possibility.”
“You mean, I could have killed him, and he was innocent?” His voice rose with the edge of guilt and panic that it had had earlier when he was hysterical in front of the cells.
I flicked my gaze to him. His hands were wrapped so hard around the bars, they were white. His face looked anguished. God, he was emotional.
“You didn’t kill Bobby,” I said. “You didn’t even shoot him.”
“But I tried.”
“It’s okay, Troy,” Bobby said, and his head moved as if to look back at the other cell.
“Don’t move that much,” Livingston said, and his words were almost a growl, which meant he had a lot more testosterone floating through his body than the outward calm, cool, professional demeanor showed.
