Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(25)
Author: Patricia Briggs

The lack of interest they were spawning might also simply have been city survival skills on the part of their observers. Anna had grown up in Chicago. In a city, you don’t look at anyone whose attention you don’t want to draw. Who wants to have a big scary wolf decide you might be interesting?

Brother Wolf was on a leash, because Bran thought that the leash and collar made a lot of difference to the humans they ran into – and not much difference to the werewolf. The collar was store-bought from a big-box pet store and came with the cute plastic clasp designed to make sure someone’s dog didn’t get caught and choke to death. It meant that the collar wouldn’t even slow a werewolf down before the plastic broke.

The name on the collar he wore was Brother Wolf. Bran had disapproved. He liked the names to be less truthful, more friendly and cute. Unusually, Charles’s brother had told her, Charles had held out until his father gave in.

The address Leslie Fisher had provided led them to one of the skyscrapers, a tall but narrow edifice squeezed in between two even taller buildings. Anna would have picked it out even without the giant black numbers tastefully etched into the glass over the main door because it was the one with police cars parked in front of it.

No one looked at them when they entered the building, though there was a small group of officers huddled up in the foyer. A young man in a security uniform manned the desk; he looked upset.

On impulse, Anna walked over to him. "Excuse me. Were you on duty when the young woman went missing?" She waited for him to ask her for her credentials, but either he was too shocky or he’d just gotten used to answering any and all questions put to him.

"Lizzie," he said, his eyes drifting over her face, down to Brother Wolf and back up, as if not looking at the giant wolf in front of his desk might make the scary thing go away. "Her name is Lizzie. She came in about eight and I never saw her leave. Neither did the security tapes." He swallowed. Glanced down at Brother Wolf again.

"Who used the elevator after she came in?"

"Tim Hodge on the fifth floor. Sally Roe and her partner, Jenny, on the eighth. That is the biggest dog I’ve ever seen." He sounded a little apprehensive.

"And Lizzie is on the twelfth."

"That’s right."

"How many people use the stairs?"

"Businesses on the first three floors," he answered, frowning at Brother Wolf. She could hear his heartbeat pick up as something instinctual kicked in to tell him that there was a big predator on the end of her leash. Though he continued talking, he took a step back. "A couple of the people on the fourth and fifth floor take the stairway down sometimes, but mostly everyone who lives here takes the elevator."

Brother Wolf took a step forward.

"And where is the stairway?" Anna asked, then hissed, "Stop that," to her mate. If it had been Charles, she would have been certain he was only teasing – the wolf was a different matter.

Brother Wolf turned his head toward her, his eyes half-veiled, and let his ears slack a little in a wolf smile. All of which didn’t mean that he hadn’t been interested in hunting the young man down – just that he also had enjoyed teasing her.

"Over there." The security guard pointed just beyond the police officers. "I’ll have to buzz you in. For that, I’ll need some ID."

"Do you have to buzz people out?"

He shook his head. "Against the fire code, I think."

The stairs would have been a better way to exit. The door was out of the way and didn’t chime, as the elevator’s doors did, to announce when someone was leaving. She’d take Brother Wolf up that way – if she could talk her way around the ID thing. She hadn’t brought any with her, and wouldn’t have used it if she had. She wouldn’t lie with a false ID, and she had no intention of giving them any more personal information than she could help, not unless Bran told her differently.

"Do you have a card from Agent Fisher or Agent Goldstein of the FBI?" Anna asked.

He looked at the small collection of cards on the desk in front of him. "Agent Fisher. Yes."

"Why don’t you buzz us in and call her. She called me in and I left in a hurry and forgot my purse and ID. She’s expecting me."

He frowned at her.

"Really," Anna said dryly. "Woman with werewolf. It’s hard to mistake us for anyone else."

The security guard’s eyes widened and he took another good look at Brother Wolf – who slowly wagged his tail and kept his mouth closed. Apparently he’d decided not to torment the young man.

"I thought they’d be bigger," the security guard said, unexpectedly. "And…you know. Grayer."

"Less civilized, more slathering?" asked Anna with a smile. "Half-human, half-wolf, all monster?"

"Uhm." He gave a quick smile and kept a wary eye on Brother Wolf. "Can I plead the fifth on that? You’ll still have to wait until I call for confirmation. If I don’t know you, you don’t get in without ID or an invitation."

"Did the police already ask you about the people who came in today?" Anna asked.

The guard nodded. "Everybody. Police, FBI, and possibly a dozen other agencies and people as far as I could tell. Starting with Lizzie’s father."

"I don’t need to repeat their work, then," Anna said.

He gave her a polite smile, picked up the phone, and called the number from a card resting on top of the desk. "This is Chris at the security desk downstairs. I have a woman and a werewolf down here."

"Send them up," said Leslie Fisher’s voice. She sounded a good deal less calm than she had when she’d called Anna. She hung up without ceremony.

Chris the Security Guard nodded at Anna. "I’ll buzz you through. How come you’re taking the stairs? Twelve stories is a lot."

"He doesn’t like elevators," Anna said. "And it sounds like, if she was kidnapped, maybe her assailant would have taken her down the stairway because you’d have noticed him in the elevator." She indicated the wolf with a tip of her head. "He’s got a good nose. We’ll check it out."

Chris looked at Brother Wolf with less fear and more interest. "It would be good," he said, "if he could find her fast."

Anna nodded. "We’ll try."

BROTHER WOLF TROTTED up the stairs scenting the people who’d come this way. There were old scents – several people had dogs and someone had the worst cologne…and six or eight fresher scents. As he and Anna moved up at an even and steady pace, the other scents fell away, leaving just a few. He could smell the woman who cleaned here – she came up often – but there was another that overlaid it, fresher by days.