Amusing as the image was-it also rang horribly possible.

I jerked open my desk drawer and rummaged for the card Reynolds had given me on his first visit.

So far as Zery was concerned, better to ask forgiveness than permission. Okay, not so much with a warrior; you might not survive the forgiveness stage. But since I was damned sure I wasn’t going to be gifted with permission, it was the only option left to me.

I picked up the phone.

Detective Reynolds was in.

“I found something I think you need to see,” I said, my eyes focused on the bear telios. If I concentrated on the girls, I wouldn’t think so much about how angry Zery was going to be when she found out I’d gone to the police before her.

“Really?” He sounded bored, but it was an act. There was a little lift on the “L” that gave him away. “And what would that be?”

“You near a computer with Internet?” At his affirmative, I read off the URL. “Scroll down to the third row, then over two pictures.”

“How’d you find this?” Tense-not bored at all.

“A client sent it to me. She liked one of the tattoos and wanted to see if I could replicate it. I recognized the bear and leopard from the pictures you showed me.” Peter had tried the story with me and it hadn’t worked. Didn’t mean it wouldn’t work with Reynolds.

“Quit the bullshit.”

Or not.

“You’re welcome,” I replied.

“Welcome, my ass. When are you going to come clean? Who are these girls and why won’t you tell me?”

Amazons, and because it wasn’t really my secret to give up. But maybe it was time, and maybe I could convince Zery of that…maybe.

I twisted in my chair and turned my back to the tattoos on my screen. For some reason I couldn’t face them right now. “I didn’t know those girls. I swear that.”

“But you know more about them than I do. I’ve run every check I can think of and come up with diddly-and not much of that. What do you know?”

I took a deep breath. I wanted to tell him. I really did, but…“I don’t know those girls. I had never laid eyes on them-” I cut off what I was about to say.

“Had never laid eyes on them? That didn’t sound complete.” He took a breath. I could tell he was struggling for control. “You had never laid eyes on them before what? That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? Finish the sentence.”

He was leaving something unsaid too-or else. Tell him what I knew or else…he’d arrest me? Question me? Make my life living hell? I didn’t know and didn’t want to find out. Still…“Before you showed up with those pictures.”

There was a muffled curse, then the sound of his phone being slammed down. I listened to the angry buzz of the dial tone, then slowly slid the handset back on the receiver.

Well, the ink was injected there. No going back.

Now to prepare Zery.

Chapter Eighteen

I sought strength in a piece of quiche before facing Zery. It was good. Having a hearth-keeper around really had some benefits-at least until hearth-keeper junior showed up. I guess I’d see if having fresh-baked quiche for lunch balanced out waking to a baby screaming at two A.M.

After picking the crust off the quiche that was still in the pie plate and popping it into my mouth, I squared my shoulders and went in search of Zery.

She was on the phone and, lucky for me, she looked happy.

“We found another girl who went to that bar and she named two others. The first is at the Florida safe camp. The other two are somewhere between Illinois and California. When they arrive in California, the queen knows to keep them there. We’ll find out what they know and keep them there, watched and safe.”

“How are you going to do that?” The Amazons had a complex structure. Each Amazon had loyalty to their family group, identified by their telios, and to the six reigning queens-especially the queen whose safe camp they were visiting. But for the most part, we hadn’t changed a lot from our nomadic past. We had tribe loyalty and were constantly pressured to follow tribe rule, but I’d never heard of an Amazon (outside of the queen and high priestess) being grounded to one safe camp. It went against one of our basic tenets of survival and our history as nomads-keep moving, never settle in one place too long.

“We’ll do it.” Her expression dared me to say otherwise.

“You think that does it? You think the killer was only targeting the girls who went to the bar?” I was truly curious. I wanted to believe rounding up the girls and keeping any others from visiting the bar would stop further killings, but I just didn’t know.

“Pisto’s taking another group to the bar tonight. Dana told her about parties they went to after the bar closed. Next party, we’ll be there.”

And what? Beat each and every person there until they admitted to being the killer?

“The parties are probably on the weekends,” I said for lack of anything else to add.

“Maybe.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”

I ran my finger over the top of a file cabinet that sat by the door. It came back coated in dust. I wiped the dirt on my jeans. “I need to talk to you about something.”

She stood up and walked around to the front of the desk. “Talk.”

“I…” Despite the fact that most of the tribe still despised me, Zery trusted me right now. I didn’t want to say anything to endanger that, but her trust also meant maybe she’d at least listen to me when I suggested it was time to bring the Amazons out into the open.

“Like I said before, the police contacted me. Earlier, before you moved into the gym.”

She tilted her head. “You mentioned that. They thought you might know something about the girls’ tattoos.”

I nodded. “He’d taken them to some Milwaukee shops. Artists told him it looked like my work.”

“And?” She hadn’t moved an eyelash.

“And nothing. I told him I didn’t know anything.”

Her posture softened, but her gaze didn’t. If anything, it became more piercing. “But you didn’t tell me. When you saw those tattoos, you had to know the girls were Amazons. Why didn’t you warn me?”

She knew as well as I did that I had told her-that I had left the stone fetishes at the safe camp. She was giving me a second chance to explain that. I ignored her offer.

“We didn’t exactly leave things on the best of terms.”

She started to say something, but I barreled on. “Point is, this cop, I’ve gotten to know him some. He really cares. He really wants to find the killer, and I was thinking that we haven’t been making a lot of headway. Maybe we…you…should talk to him.”

She pulled back like I’d slapped her, or tried to. “Have you been gone that long? We don’t work with humans. And we can certainly police our own problems-we’ve been doing it for millennia.”

“But the Amazons have never had to deal with a problem like this. No one has ever preyed on the Amazons. And you seem dead set on not believing Alcippe could be involved. Who does that leave?” I didn’t wait for her to state the obvious: me. I kept going. “If it isn’t someone in the tribe, it’s someone outside of it. Outside of your reign. You’ll have to deal with humans sooner or later.” If the killer wasn’t Alcippe. But no matter what, I still believed the Amazons opening to the outside world was the right move-that ultimately their insistence on a closed community was what had led to the girls’ deaths. And I didn’t want Amazons to reveal everything about who they were, just be more open, stop looking down on people who weren’t Amazons, be more aware of how the world had changed.

Her lips thinned; the skin surrounding them turned white. “We can take care of our own.”

I took a step forward. “I never thought you’d let arrogance cost Amazons their lives. The police can get information we can’t. Why not use that?”

“You’re pointing fingers at me? What about those fetishes? How did you get them? Maybe Alcippe is right-you too, for that matter. Amazons have never been ‘victims.’ We’ve never had to fear anyone because, loose as our structure is, we respect tradition-know what being an Amazon means, know how important keeping ourselves separate is. But then you leave, mingle with humans, live as a human, raise your daughter as one.