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Nick takes me to a dinerthat serves breakfast all day since I haven’t eaten yet. After that, we head into the office to update Director West on our case. Nick promises me we aren’t stuck, but I still feel a little helpless. Especially when we look up the house where Galina and Sabin dropped off their goods for our collector and learn that it’s owned by a bank that has repossessed it. The collector must be wholly unconnected with the house and only picked it because they knew it was abandoned and that no one would disturb it or care that they’d broken in to do their business. I go over every inch of the house with my hands, but as I suspected, I get no imprints. It’s another dead end.
“What now?” I ask as we leave the house and climb back into Nick’s truck.
He starts up the engine and shrugs. “Now we follow the next lead.”
“Do we have a next lead?”
He chuckles at my skepticism. “Not at the moment.”
“So then…?”
He glances my way and smirks. “We find another one.”
I blink at him. Baffled. “How?”
His eyes stay on the road. It’s started snowing again. “By asking around.”
As he says this, I realize we’re almost to the club.
“You’d be surprised how much you can learn simply listening to local gossip.”
“So that’s why you spend so much time at Underworld, even when you’re on the clock,” I tease.
He laughs. “No one said business can’t sometimes be pleasurable.” He shoots me a wink and adds, “It also helps that I can’t get drunk, so having a drink on the job is no big deal.”
I shake my head and chuckle.
The club is just starting to fill up when Nick and I arrive. We come in the employee entrance and find Terrance in his office. “Not manning the entrance?” I ask, knocking on his open door, teasing in my tone. Terrance loves nothing more than standing out front of the club acting as a surly bouncer.
He sits back in his chair and scowls down at the papers on his desk. “I took too many days off in a row. I’ve got to catch up on stuff.” He gives me a grimace. “I’ve also got to find a new bartender now that you’re quitting. I can’t keep making Rook fill in when he’s got his own job to do.”
I wince. “Sorry. I wish I didn’t have to quit.”
Terrance frowns at me. “You’re needed elsewhere. The fey are counting on you, Nora.”
I sigh. No pressure.
Nick chucks his arm around my shoulders. “Well, can’t say I’m sorry to have stolen our girl from you. It’s fun having a partner. Never thought I’d care for it, but I’m actually enjoying it. Come on, Jacobs. Let’s go talk to our informant.”
“We have an informant?”
Nick chuckles and shoots Terrance a smile. “See you later.” He gives Terrance a salute and drags me out the door.
“Don’t be causing any trouble in my club, you two!” he shouts after us.
Out in the main room of the club, the dance floor is just starting to fill up. Nick drags me over to the bar, which isn’t crazy busy yet. Rook and Wulf are behind the counter, laughing and joking together as they fill drinks. A pang of sorrow hits me right in the heart. I’m really going to miss this job. But I can admit that last night with Nick, chasing down leads like real detectives was kind of fun.
As we find a couple of empty stools at the counter, I’m struck by how much the two alpha shifter brothers look alike. The family resemblance is strong. They’re both so handsome, and they have a lot of the same mannerisms. Not to mention, their personalities are so similar that they could almost be mistaken for twins instead of just family.
Rook spots us first. I lean over the bar and he meets me in the middle for a quick kiss. “How is it being on that side of the bar?” he asks me, filling two glasses without being asked—a beer for Nick and a water with lemon for me.
“Strange,” I admit. “And a little sad.”
Rook sighs, but the smile never leaves his face. “I’ll miss working with you, too, but you’ll make a great FUA agent. Your talents really are wasted behind this bar.”
Nick lifts his beer. “I’ll drink to that.”
I snort. “You’ll drink to anything.”
