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“Sorry,” she said to the were. “I just…” That damn knot appeared again.
“It’s okay.” Lucas leaned in. “It hurts … to lose people we care about.”
Della recalled that Lucas had lost his grandmother not too long ago.
Burnett settled back in his chair. “So what did you get?” he asked Lucas again.
“I picked up six different traces. Three were weak, like half-breeds.”
“Six?” Della asked. She realized what she’d missed. Something important. “The traces I got at the jewelry store, they didn’t … ring familiar. I don’t know if they belonged to the same guys I saw earlier.”
“You saw them?” Burnett asked.
“It was around seven-thirty. I went out … for a bit. I picked up their scent and dropped down. They were walking about half a block from the store.”
“When you got their trace, did it include blood?”
“No,” Della said. Had she even seen the killers? She needed to quit making assumptions.
“How good of a look did you get?” Burnett asked.
“Pretty good. They were around my age, maybe a little older.”
“Were they in gang attire?”
“No,” Della said. “They looked like some young weres out on a Saturday night.”
“That may have been exactly what they were,” Burnett said. “But even if they are innocent, they might have seen something. Do you think you could describe them?”
“Yeah,” Della said.
He had her describe their facial features and typed her answers into his phone.
Pocketing his phone, he turned the cup in his hands as if hesitating to broach another subject. “Did the spirit give you anything?”
“No. She was confused.” Then Della remembered her cat. “Her cat was with her and then wasn’t. I heard someone say the cat was still alive and for someone to get it to a vet.” Della swallowed another lump. “We know weres and felines don’t mix.”
“And the fact that it had any life in it at all could mean it wasn’t weres,” Lucas added.
Della couldn’t argue.
Burnett sighed. “We’ll know more when the autopsies are in.”
“Has the family been notified?” Della remembered that their daughter lived in California.
Burnett looked down at his cup. “The police are taking care of it.”
Della got a vision of Mrs. Chi holding her red tabby. She’d loved Chester. “Can you find out where they took the cat?”
Burnett nodded.
Silence filled the diner. Only a few forks clicked against plates. “I want to work the case,” Della said.
Burnett raised one eyebrow. “You’re already working one.”
“You work two or three cases at a time,” Della countered.
“I’m not seventeen.” He frowned.
