“Not just missing—more than likely dead. Check the folder,” Angela said and poured me a shot of whiskey.
With trembling hands I opened the folder. This had to be a joke. I felt ill. I’d gone to high school with Frankie Mac and Jenny Packer. Jenny was as cute as a button and was the cashier at the Piggly Wiggly. Frankie Mac had been the head cheerleader and cheated on every test since the fourth grade. Oh my god, Debbie Swink? Debbie Swink had been voted most likely to succeed and could do a double backwards flip off the high dive. She’d busted her head open countless times before she’d perfected it. Her mom was sure she’d go to the Olympics.
“I know these girls,” I whispered.
“Knew. You knew them. They all were taking classes at the modeling agency.”
“What modeling agency? There’s no modeling agency on Hung Island.” I sifted through the rest of the folder with a knot the size of a cantaloupe in my stomach. More names and faces I recognized. Sandy Moongie? Wait a minute.
“Um, not to speak ill of the dead, but Sandy Moongie was the size of a barn…she was modeling?”
“Worked the reception desk.” Angela shook her head and dropped down on the couch.
“This doesn’t seem that complicated. It’s fairly black and white. Whoever is running the modeling agency is the perp.”
“The modeling agency is Council sponsored.”
I digested that nugget in silence for a moment.
“And the Council is running a modeling agency, why?”
“Word is that we’re heading toward revealing ourselves to the humans and they’re trying to find the most attractive representatives to do so.”
“That’s a joke, right?” What kind of dumb ass plan was that?
“I wish it was.” Angela picked up my drink and downed it. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” she muttered as she refilled the shot glass, thought better of it and just swigged from the bottle.
“Is the Council aware that I’m going in?”
“What do you think?”
“I think they’re old and stupid and that they send in dispensable agents like me to clean up their shitshows,” I grumbled.
“Smart girl.”
“Who else knows about this? Clark? Jones?”
“They know,” she said wearily. “They’re checking out agencies in New York and Miami.”
“Isn’t it conflict of interest to send me where I know everyone?”
“It is, but you’ll be able to infiltrate and get in faster that way. Besides, no one has disappeared from the other agencies yet.”
There was one piece I still didn’t understand. “How are humans involved?”
She sighed and her head dropped back onto her broad shoulders. “Humans are running the agency.”
It took a lot to render me silent, like learning my grandma had been a stripper in her youth, and that all male Werewolves were hung like horses… but this was horrific.
“Who in the hell thought that was a good idea? My god, half the female Weres I know sprout tails when flash bulbs go off. We won’t have to come out, they can just run billboards of hot girls with hairy appendages coming out of their asses.”
“It’s all part of the Grand Plan. If the humans see how wonderful and attractive we are, the issue of knowingly living alongside of us will be moot.”
Again. Speechless.
“When are Council elections?” It was time to vote some of those turd knockers out.
“Essie.” Angela rolled her eyes and took another swig. “There are no elections. They’re appointed and serve for life.”
“I knew that,” I mumbled. Skipping Were History class was coming back to bite me in the butt.
“I’ll go.” There was no way I couldn’t. Even though my knowledge of the hierarchy of my race was fuzzy, my skills were top notch and trouble seemed to find me. In any other job that would suck, but in mine, it was an asset.
“Good. You’ll be working with the local Pack alpha. He’s also the sheriff there. Name’s Hank Wilson. You know him?”
“Yep.” Biblically. I knew the son of a bitch biblically.
***
“You’re gonna bang him.”
“I am not gonna bang him.”
“You are so gonna bang him.”
“Dwayne, if I hear you say that I’m gonna bang him one more time, I will not let you borrow my black Mary Jane pumps. Ever again.”
Dwayne made the international “zip the lip and throw away the key” sign while silently mouthing that I was going to bang Hank.
“I think you should bang him if he’s a hot as you said.” Dwayne made himself comfortable on my couch and turned on the TV.
“When did I ever say he was hot?” I demanded as I took the remote out of his hands. I was not watching any more Dance Moms. “I never said he was hot.”
“Paaaaleese,” Dwayne flicked his pale hand over his shoulder and rolled his eyes.
“What was that?”
“What was what?” he asked, confused.
“That shoulder thing you just did.”
“Oh, I was flicking my hair over my shoulder in a girlfriend move.”
“Okay, don’t do that. It doesn’t work. You’re as bald as a cue ball.”
“But it’s the new move,” he whined.
Oh my god, Vampyres were such high maintenance. “According to who?” I yanked my suitcase out from under my bed and started throwing stuff in.