Page 35 of Red Dragon’s Heart

They pulled up outside and Zak entered some information in his phone. Almost immediately, a store employee came out and started loading bags into the back of the truck.

“What?” he said, at her surprised look. “I ordered from the pet store. I could have placed about sixty grocery orders in the time it took you to shop for the rats.”

The employee disappeared into the store and came back with another load of bags. “That’s a lot of sandwich meat,” Maddie murmured.

He rolled his eyes. “I needed bread, too. And mustard. You think I’m a barbarian who just eats lunch meat straight out of the Tupperware?”

She twisted and looked behind her. “I see leafy greens poking out of that bag.”

“Must be a mistake.”

They drove away, but they still didn’t go back to the warehouse. It took her a bit of time to realize where they were going.

Back to her warehouse—the one they’d escaped from last night.

After a few minutes of debate, she said, “Do you really think this is a good idea? According to the news, it’s still an active investigation scene. What if someone notices us?”

“They won’t. And we’re going now because I want to see what they’re investigating.”

She stared straight ahead, one hand on Grayson. Zak obviously wasn’t going to listen to her, but her roiling stomach still told her this was a bad, bad idea.

They turned down the road in front of the warehouse and rolled slowly by. No one did seem to notice that—there was a crowd of curious onlookers behind a temporary barrier, as well as police, workers clearing debris from the parking lot, and even a TV crew.

Some of the civilians inside the barrier were conferring and looking agitated—probably the owners, or representatives of the bank that held their mortgage. Hopefully they’d kept the insurance premiums up to date.

They probably had—the guys with the clipboards looked like insurance adjustors. But there were other large men standing to the side who screamed ‘private security.’

Eric’s people? In order for her to be a suspect, Eric must have been in touch with the police. Or they’d found her bag? She’d only managed to get the computer out. The bag didn’t have anything in it to identify her, but her fingerprints were on it. Hell, they were all over, inside.

At least there weren’t any bodies this time. She hoped. The way the shapeshifters had turned on each other, anything could have happened.

Zakerek was parking the truck behind the building next door.

“This is a bad, bad idea.” This time she said it out loud.

“If you’re thinking about staying in the truck, forget it,” he said. “You might drive off with all my groceries.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “We made a deal.” But it was a tempting idea. All her things were in the truck. She could take off, and maybe hide herself better this time.

Zak gave her a sideways glance. “Right. And nobody ever breaks a deal. Especially humans.”

She didn’t want to break the deal, really. She owed him, not to mention that she was probably safer with him than anywhere else, now that he was planning on protecting her.

“Take the keys, then, if you don’t trust me.” She did not want to get out of the truck.

“You’re a science geek. You can probably hotwire it.”

He got out, came around and opened her side. “Out.”

“I can’t leave the kitties in a closed vehicle. They might die.”

“It’s not hot out. They’ll be fine.” He plucked Diana off his shoulder and put her—protesting—in the box with her brother.

Then he took Maddie’s hand and half-helped, half-dragged her out of the truck. “Stay close to me,” he said. “Like, right next to me. The cloak only works on both of us if you do.”

“The what?”

He let out a sigh. “Invisibility, okay?”