Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson

back.”
    Lindy felt a pang of wistfulness. It had been a long time since someone had “watched her back.” She could hardly remember what it was like.
    The pilot announced their descent into Chicago, and the seatbelt lights went on. Alex started to raise his seat tray. “Tell me about what happens when we land,” Lindy suggested.
    “We’ll go straight from O’Hare to the hotel where we’re all staying. The Bureau is putting us up for a month, or until we find new homes, whichever comes first,” he said. “We’ll get a couple of hours to shower and sleep, and be at the BPI headquarters at 10 a.m. for a briefing. The rest of the team will meet us there, with the exception of Ruiz, who’s still in the hospital.”
    Lindy bit her lip. “It’s interesting to me that they left one alive,” she said.
    “How do you mean?”
    She shrugged. “Giselle . . . she’s a sociopath. She does anything Hector wants, but she’s in it for the fun. That’s what she thinks killing is: fun. I’d keep an eye on this Ruiz guy. Giselle is like a cat with a whole nest of mice: She might be saving him to play with later.”
    He nodded. “I was gonna call the hospital to check on him this morning anyway. I’ll send a message to add to the guard on his door.”
    He pulled out a cell phone and fiddled with it, turning it back on and putting it to his ear. Lindy reminded herself that she was going to need a new one of those soon. She started to mention it to him, but he put up a finger. “Hang on, I have voice mail.” He listened, frowning, then leaned over to wake up Agent Eddy. The agent behind them woke up with a start and leaned forward to put his face near the crack between their seats. “There was a development overnight,” Alex said quietly.
    “Another missing kid?” Eddy asked.
    The SAC shook his head. “They found two of the bodies in a culvert outside of Heavenly. About twenty minutes ago.”
    “How long have they been dead?” Eddy asked immediately.
    McKenna’s face was expressionless. “ME says about six hours.”

Chapter 8
    Chicago, IL
    Early Monday morning
    When the call came on Monday morning, Ruiz was awake, flipping channels on his hospital room television. He would only accept the bare minimum of morphine, and that was only because the pain was too intense for him to think without it. The goddamned vampire had very nearly disemboweled him, and after a day and a half in surgery he had twenty staples and sixty stitches, inside and out, holding his guts in. Since then he’d slept only when his body’s exhaustion finally overcame the pain, but it always woke him up again within a few hours.
    The call came from Sarah Greer, the Chicago BPI’s office manager. Sarah was a no-nonsense, slightly brusque woman in her late forties or early fifties, and she had a soft spot for Ruiz. They both told it like it was, she’d said once. Like most of the surviving BPI staff, Sarah had dropped by to see him on his first day in the hospital, but unlike the others, who’d left after a cursory visit, she returned the next day with homemade cookies and a stack of cheap paperbacks. She was good people, and unlike most of his well-wishers, Ruiz was pleased to see her name on the caller ID.
    “Hey, Sarah,” he croaked. His voice was hoarse with disuse, because speaking consumed energy he didn’t have. “What’s going on?”
    “Agent Ruiz,” Greer said, and he recognized the heaviness in her voice.
Someone’s dead.
Of course. He felt stupid: Why else would she be calling this early? “The sheriff’s department in Heavenly recovered two of the kids’ bodies this morning. I thought you’d want to know.”
    He blinked, pushing the button on his hospital bed to make himself sit up. He hadn’t expected to recover any more bodies. He’d expected to encounter several new shades. “Which ones?”
    “Budchen and Harrison.”
    Two of the earlier victims, taken nearly two months ago. Ruiz cursed. Rachel Budchen was the