He wanted to lean down and press a kiss to that creamy skin. Tally didn't have freckles there. "Don't worry," he assured her, intrigued by his discovery. "I'll be back to surly and uncommunicative soon enough."

"Idiot." She laughed as he took a seat beside her, on the side closest to the door. No one would be able to get to her without going through him. He was about to give in to temptation and reach out to play with a strand of her hair when he heard footsteps. Rising, he went to the door and opened it.

A tall man - dark hair, dark eyes, possible weapon in a shoulder holster - exited the staircase behind the maitre d'. Clay heard him dismiss the restaurant employee and head directly to the door. "You must be Clay Bennett." Reaching him, the man extended his hand.

"And you must be the SOB who tried to pin a tail on me this morning."

He heard Talin gasp but ignored it, his attention on Santos's reaction as their hands dropped away from each other. The man was smooth, he'd give him that. Not a flicker of surprise marred his expression. "You sound very sure."

"He sang like a canary." Clay had taken care of the tail before going Down Below.

"Ah." Santos raised an eyebrow. "That explains the lack of a communique from him. Is he still alive?"

"For now." Clay moved back, allowing the other man to enter but blocking his access to Talin.

Santos closed the door behind himself. "Talin, you're looking well."

"Uh-huh."

Clay was pleased to see Talin's skeptical expression as she eyed her boss's elegantly cut suit. The man looked like a corporate shark, but Clay's animal saw him as something far more interesting - a predator clothed in human skin.

Giving them a meaningless smile, Santos took a seat. "Perhaps we should order first?"

Clay returned to his chair. "We've already eaten, but coffee might be good."

Talin picked up the menu pad and input selections for both of them. "I'll have coffee, too. Maybe a slice of cake."

"You'll excuse me if I eat. I've had a rather hectic day." Santos made his selections and sent them through as Talin sent hers. "I've just come from a private hospital."

"One of the kids?" Talin's concern colored the air.

"I'm afraid Max is no longer in play."

Clay tensed at the tone of his voice. "What happened?"

"He was attacked." Santos's eyes went flat, deadly. "Beaten into unconsciousness."

Talin sucked in a horrified gasp. "Is he - "

"He has several broken bones and some cranial swelling but he's alive, thanks to an interruption by a group of civic-minded individuals." The Shine director passed over a card. "That's the private facility where we moved him after we realized what had happened. It's far more secure than the public hospitals."

Clay looked at the card, recognizing the area. "Any idea who attacked him?"

"We're assuming it was the same person or persons who vandalized Talin's home - Max wasn't able to tell us anything." He folded his arms in front of him and smiled. It was a shark's smile, full of teeth. "He got one of them, though. The others took the body, but from the blood splatter and tissue left behind, it was a head shot."

Clay was surprised to find he liked Max, was furious the cop had been targeted. "Let me guess - DNA came back 'record unknown'?"

"Of course. But we were able to determine the race as human." The hand he'd placed on the table clenched. "Casualty or not, the attack succeeded in taking Max, and therefore Enforcement, out of the equation. We believe he'll recover fully but until then, you appear to have become our best source."

Talin took a shaky breath but her next question held an edge. "Dev, you keep talking about 'we' and 'our.' Who are the others?"

"Shine's backers. They control the board."

Clay heard a sound coming from inside the walls and identified it as a dumbwaiter, likely part of the "olde-worlde" charm advertised on the restaurant's menus. "Tally, would you do the honors?" He had no intention of turning his back on Devraj Santos.

A quick, adrenaline-inducing brush of her hand on his thigh and she rose. "Just don't start expecting this every day."

Santos remained in place while she went to retrieve the dishes. "Thank you," he said when Talin put them on the table. He didn't attempt to reach for his plate until she'd retaken her seat. Trying to appear friendly. Harmless. Yeah, right.

"Why come to us instead of going to another cop?" Clay asked, ignoring his coffee. "Our chances of having anything are close to nil."

"We've had an interest in DarkRiver for some time." Santos took a bite of his pasta. "You're surprised by my candor."

"Yeah." What surprised Clay more was that though he'd forced Santos to take the less secure seat, the other man had subtly angled his chair so he could keep the exits in sight. Interesting. He'd expected a desk jockey and gotten a soldier.

"I don't understand." Talin pushed aside the cake she clearly no longer had an appetite for. "I thought this meeting had to do with the missing children, not DarkRiver."

Santos's face became a cool, dangerous mask. "It does. But the abductions are part of a larger issue."

"Is Shine behind them?" Talin asked point-blank.

"We aren't taking them off the street, but we are responsible."

Chapter 24

"Why?" Talin whispered. "Why would you hurt them like that?"

"We aren't killing the children." The other man put down his fork, having finished his meal despite the distasteful topic. Another betraying act. Soldiers ate when they could. "We're responsible because we're too good at identifying them. At which point, somebody is betraying that information to the others."

Clay couldn't figure out one thing. "From what I know, Shine has a lot of political power - why didn't you push harder with Enforcement?"

"It's not a secure system - leaks happen on an hourly basis." Santos took a long drink of water. "We chose Max because he has a natural shield against Psy interference and integrity. There aren't many like him. To pressure Enforcement would've done more harm than good in this case."

"Why?" Talin insisted. "No one else is doing anything to find these kids."

"On the contrary, we've been trying from the start." His skin pulled taut over his cheekbones. "But our enemy is too good at hiding. That's why we've stopped recruiting."

"I wondered about that," Talin murmured. "You haven't sent out street teams for months."

"We can't risk fingering any more children." He shook his head. "We're also trying to protect the ones already in our system, but you know these kids. Most of them move to their own rhythms."

Talin didn't argue. "What can you tell us?"

"They're being taken because of their abilities."

"We already knew that," Talin responded.

"We think the Psy are taking them."

Clay kept his face expressionless in spite of that unexpected bit of news. "Why?"

"These children represent the best humanity has to offer. They are the brightest stars in our arsenal - a potential threat to Psy power." He nodded at Talin. "Your ability to remember everything you ever see is almost a Psy ability in itself."

True enough as far as that went, but Clay didn't buy it. Neither, it seemed, did Talin. "There are gifted kids around the world. Heck, a lot of them are in special schools, ripe for the picking. Why take only Shine children?"

"Because" - Santos's tone turned bitter - "we've painted bull's-eyes on their backs."

An answer that told them exactly nothing, Clay thought. "Why the interest in DarkRiver?"

"You have Psy connections." The other man leaned back in his chair but continued to keep both hands in view. "Your alpha is mated to a cardinal. Sascha Duncan's mother, Nikita, is a Councilor."

"That relationship has been terminated," Clay said, knowing he was betraying no secrets. Nikita had made it publicly clear that she no longer considered Sascha her daughter.

"You also have Faith NightStar, the strongest F-Psy in the world. She has ongoing links with the PsyNet."

"She subcontracts her services." Clay shrugged. "She's not in the Net." The biggest information archive in the world, it could only be accessed by those Psy uplinked to it. Sascha and Faith had both cut that link on their defection to DarkRiver.

"That doesn't mean she's not in touch with others who are uplinked." He paused but Clay remained silent. "The deciding factor is that DarkRiver has shown itself both capable of, and willing to, go up against the Psy. The foundation's backers believe you may prove amenable to helping us mount a search and rescue operation for the children."

"You had to have followed me to get to Clay, so you know the pack's already agreed to help," Talin said, cutting through the bullshit in her direct way. "You could've told us your theories in a simple call."

Santos's lips curved at her arch reference to the fact that he hadn't given them anything worth shit. "I wanted to express the foundation's support of DarkRiver's actions. You will have our total cooperation."

"We want to put people inside Shine to weed out the spy," Clay said.

"We can't allow that, but we're taking all possible measures to corner the culprit."

"Nice definition of total cooperation," Talin muttered.

"So, in a nutshell - you have nothing we don't already know and you came to give us permission?" Clay let the leopard's arrogance out to play. "Is that right?"

Santos's hand fisted against the tablecloth. "There are things we're not ready to share."