He looked unconvinced, but before I could think of a more convincing argument, my phone rang from the pocket of my pj pants and I stood as I answered it, padding to the cabinets in search of coffee mugs.

“Did I wake you?” my father asked, his voice rough with exhaustion.

“No, I’m up. Did you find anything?”

“Owen found Eckard’s address, but we had to call Michael to find out what he drives. I have no idea how he gathers information like that so quickly.”

“He has friends in the Dallas PD, and serious computer skills.” The first cabinet held only paper plates and a case of Coke, so I moved on to the next one.

“Do you have something to write with?”

I glanced around the tiny kitchen and found a pad of Post-it notes in a magnetic case stuck to the fridge, and a chewed-up pencil in the silverware compartment of the otherwise empty dish drainer. “Yeah, go ahead.”

I wrote as my father read Adam Eckard’s address, then noted that he drove a black 2001 Ford Explorer. “Thanks, Dad. We’ll be on the road before the sun comes up.”

“It’s a bit of a drive, and if he works a normal nine-to-five, you probably won’t catch him before work.”

I shrugged, though he couldn’t see me. “If not, we’ll check out his place.”

My father sighed. “Be careful, Faythe.”

“I will.” Finally, the third and last cabinet yielded three coffee mugs and a half-empty bag of powdered sugar. There was no creamer, because Marc took his coffee black.

The sugar was for French toast, his favorite breakfast. He ate half a loaf at a time.

After I hung up, I poured myself a mug of coffee with extra sugar—trying to make up for the lack of creamer—and took my mug into the bathroom along with shampoo and a change of clothes from my bag. I’d wake the guys up after my shower, because otherwise, they’d use all the hot water before I got a shot at it.

When I got out of the shower, my coffee was cool enough to drink—if not quite sweet enough—and I emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later with mostly dry hair and an empty mug. All three guys sat at the table, Ethan and Dan drinking from Marc’s last two mugs, while Parker cradled a white foam cup he’d found in one of the cabinets.

“You guys get showered and dressed.” I poured the last of the coffee into my mug and turned to face them, leaning against the countertop. “Dad came through with Eckard’s address, and that’s our first stop.”

“We know.” Ethan waved the Post-it I’d scribbled on.

Parker stood and drained his cup. “I’ll make breakfast if you’ll start some bacon while I shower.”

“Deal.” I wasn’t much of a cook, but even I could handle throwing a few strips of meat into a skillet.

Twenty minutes later, Ethan—the last to shower—emerged from the bathroom barefoot and shirtless, a strand of black hair plastered to his forehead. He slid into the fourth chair just as Parker set down two paper plates piled with a dozen fried eggs. Ethan snatched a strip of bacon from another plate—we’d cooked two pounds—while Parker went back for twelve pieces of buttered toast and a jar of grape jelly.

Marc didn’t have milk or juice, so I was on my third cup of bitter black coffee. It was nasty, but after only two and a half hours of sleep, it was also necessary.

We left the house before seven in the morning, but it took us nearly an hour to get from Rosetta to Fayette, where Eckard lived. Plus another twenty minutes to find his house. Adam Eckard lived in the right half of a duplex, and shared his driveway with the left half of the duplex next door. His side of the driveway was empty, except for several oil stains, but we knocked on the door just in case. Or rather, I knocked on the door.

Since we couldn’t force our way inside in broad daylight, the guys watched from the car as I stood on the double front porch alone. I was confident I could take a single stray on my own, if I needed to, considering that unless he knew to sniff my scent immediately, Eckard probably wouldn’t realize I was a werecat.

And the guys were confident they could get to me very quickly, in case I was wrong about that. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Eckard wasn’t home.

“You lookin’ for Adam?” The screen door to the other half of the duplex swung open on my left as I turned toward the car, and I whirled around to find a little boy watching me, one hand still on the door handle. He was no older than eight and, in spite of the temperature, he wore only a pair of worn-out jeans and a faded short-sleeved T-shirt, his feet bare on the cold concrete. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes glassy with fever, and a single whiff of his scent told me he was sick. Some kind of infection, which had no doubt kept him home from school.

Behind me, the back door of Parker’s car opened, and I glanced over my shoulder to tell Ethan I was fine. He nodded but jogged down the cracked walkway toward me, rather than getting back into the car.

“What’s your name?” I asked the boy, as my brother’s footsteps slowed to a stop just behind me.

“Jack,” the child said, his eyes widening as Ethan knelt at my side, putting himself roughly even with the boy’s line of sight. My brother smiled, but Jack only stared, neither intimidated nor frightened by the presence of two strangers.

“Jack, are your parents home?” I asked, and his fever-dull eyes rolled up to meet my gaze.

“My mom’s still sleepin’.”

I stifled a flash of irritation with the mother who should have been awake, giving the poor kid some Tylenol and making sure he stayed hydrated. “We’re looking for your neighbor. Mr. Eckard,” I said, answering his earlier question. “Do you know him?”