The air stank of damp, charred wood. The smell made the hackles of Finn’s beast stand up. It growled at him as it began to pace.

An old sedan stood parked just off the farm’s main entrance. The trunk stood open, but moonlight shone around it, not inside. Finn’s first instinct was to ignore it—Cora wouldn’t be in there anymore—but a flutter of midnight against shadows drew his eye.

“You see that?” Kane murmured, and his hands moved away from his sides as if sensing he might need to attack someone or something.

He’d refused to give the agent a gun, of course. The whole reason he had Kane with him was so he could keep an eye on him. He’d been helpful, but Finn doubted it was because he was suddenly on their side.

I want to find her just as much as you do.

Although his words had rang true, Finn knew he wasn’t being a good Samaritan. If Kane found Cora, and somehow got rid of those protecting her, he would have her down at the DEA’s office fast as he could drive her there. Fuck, he’d probably radio in for a helicopter.

Finn approached the trunk obliquely, pistol straight, finger curving around the trigger guard. When he was close enough, he stepped to the side and aimed the gun straight into the deep well of shadows.

It was purest night inside there. Nothing to see. Except…something moved.

Finn stepped closer, straining to see something in the darkness.

A small rock struck the bottom of the trunk’s lid.

Darkness burst from inside.

Finn leaped back, gun training on a crow as it flew out the trunk, cawing miserably at them for disturbing it.

A flashlight shot a beam of light on the trunk’s lid, and then darted down.

Finn dropped the arm holding his pistol. Miguel’s slack face watched them dispassionately from the trunk. It might have been the play of the flashlight on his face, but Miguel looked as if wore a smug sneer on his dead lips.

Too late. We came too late, his beast howled.

Miguel’s throat had been slashed violently enough to expose the blood-streaked cartilage of his trachea. Or perhaps the crow had been ripping out strips of flesh after the scent of Miguel’s blood had drawn it here.

This close, blood hung heavier in the air than whatever fire had so recently been doused.

From the calculating gaze he found on Kane’s face when he turned around to head for the farmhouse, it seemed the man was trying to figure out why Finn hadn’t jumped when he’d thrown the stone.

The man would never know it, of course, but the only time he felt alive was when he was close to Cora.

Kane could have clubbed him over the head and he wouldn’t have flinched.

The closer they drew to the farmhouse, the emptier it felt. Finn opened the screen door as quietly as possible. Luckily, it was well oiled and barely made a sound.

“Careful,” Kane murmured behind him. “The man has at least two pitbulls.”

Finn stopped walking. He sensed Kane coming up behind him, standing too close for comfort, but he couldn’t urge his feet forward any more.

“Pitbulls.” His voice was surprisingly even.

“Yeah,” Kane murmured. “At least two. Guy has a thing for them.”

“You couldn’t have told me this before we opened the fucking door?” Finn whispered back furiously.

“They would have attacked by now.”

“Then why warn me?” Finn said through his teeth.

“Rather safe than sorry,” Kane said, and it sounded like he was wearing a smile.

Finn swallowed hard. It wasn’t that he was scared of dogs, but he’d only ever been on the receiving end of their attacks. Pitbulls had jaws of steel, and the tenacity of a fucking mountain goat making its way up a sheer cliff.

Finn crept deeper inside the house.

The first door to the left was a small sitting room. A fire was dying on the heart, only red hot coals still glowing.

That wasn’t where the smell had come from.

Finn moved to the next doorway.

A dining room.

“Christ,” Kane muttered behind him. “You’d think someone like Zachary West could afford a maid or two.”

Finn didn’t want to agree, but he had too. The place was a mess; dirty dishes, flies…a rat scurried away into one corner when Kane shone his flashlight over the filthy table. The light trained on two plates. Cleaner than the rest, they both had remnants of a meal on them.

The sight made Finn’s skin crawl. It was possibly Zachary and Duncan had eaten here before heading to the party, but—

“At least we know he doesn’t plan on killing her just yet,” Kane said almost conversationally from behind him. Apparently, the man had surmised that the pitbulls were in fact not here, because he didn’t bother lowering his voice.

“He fed her,” Finn supplied, turning on his heel and catching the faintest trace of surprise in Kane’s hazel eyes.

Kane nodded, and shone his light just ahead of Finn as they headed for the hallway.

They searched the bathroom, a small storage room, and a guest bedroom. Then Kane’s flashlight shone a yellow circle against the slightly ajar door down the hall.

Master bedroom.

It was always the master bedroom, wasn’t it?

Finn fought hard for breath as he moved down the hall. He could already sense the room beyond was empty, but at the same time his beast had begun to pace and wicker to itself like an unsettled horse.

He pushed the door open, and couldn’t wait for Kane’s light to sweep the room so he fumbled for the light switch.

Light blossomed.

“Mother Mary have mercy,” came Kane’s voice behind him. He couldn’t quite make out if the words were reverential, filled with disgust, or both.

Finn stepped inside, immediately pressing the back of his hand against his nose. It didn’t help; rank putrefaction hung in the air like a diseased fog.

His eyes kept shying away from the body on the bed. Not because he’d never seen a corpse at such a late stage of decomposition, but because he kept thinking he recognized those bloated features.

Kane stepped past him, his flashlight going into his pocket as he crouched beside the bed to study the dead body.

Finn checked the en-suite bathroom. Empty, and filthy. The smell in here was almost as bad as it was in the room.

He came to stand beside Kane as he took his phone from his pocket.

It was a call he didn’t want to make; his throat closed up at the thought. But Lars and Bailey had to know that he’d failed.

That they’d failed.

Kane took a pen from his pocket, and leaned closer.

Finn grabbed his arm, yanking him back. “The fuck are you doing?” he snapped, in a voice too loud for this room.

“Checking something,” Kane murmured, tugging his arm free. He glanced up at Finn, as bright eyed as a professor sharing intimate knowledge of some arcane subject with a pupil. “He’s American, see, but I’m convinced there are Santerian influences in some of the punishments he meters out to his enemies.”

“Punishment?” Finn repeated, wondering if Kane even realized what he was saying.

“Yeah. Look.” Kane used the pen to wedge open the corpse’s jaw. Then he shone a flashlight inside the boy’s mouth. “See?”

Finn’s mouth twisted in disgust, but he crouched a little lower so he could look past the row of surprisingly even teeth.

“Tongue’s gone.” Kane wiped his pen on the bedspread as he got to his feet. “He probably fed it to one of his dogs.”

Finn’s fingers tightened around the cellphone until the casing dug into his palm. Kane shrugged, slipped the pen back in his pocket, and made his way out of the room with a quiet, “Wonder how big this property is?”

Those even teeth were bugging the hell out of Finn. He looked back at the body, trying to see past the decomposition to the bone structure below.

High, defined cheekbones. Sharp nose. Square jaw.

Angel. Which was impossible, because Miguel had—

Miguel was dead in the trunk of the car parked outside. Had he brought Angel back here to show to Zachary? Had Miguel been a traitor?

He’d been the falcon. The one Javier had sent to bring Cora to his compound.

Finn went to a crouch, his arm on the bedspread.

If he and Lars hadn’t been with Cora the day he’d brought her to the compound, she might have wound up at Zachary’s side more than a month ago. But something had told Finn to take her all the way to Javier—something he regretted to this day after the shit Javier had pulled…but maybe it had been better than what had been waiting for her here.

Except…Zachary had still gotten exactly what he wanted.

He had Cora.

We failed her. We failed her. We failed her. We—

Finn swayed forward as he squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden yapping litany in his head.

To steady himself, he pressed his fingers to the bright Zapotec mat under him. When he’d urged calm onto his mind a second later, he became aware of something hard under his fingertips.

Finn looked down.

There, on the carpet, lay a dark bracelet. He picked it up and laid it in his palm to inspect it.

The clasp had broken off.

He stood, turning to the door as Kane came back inside the room.

Kane’s eyes went to the jewelry, and a touch of darkness seeped into the man’s eyes.

“He must have realized it was a tracker.” Kane’s voice was sullen. When their eyes met, Finn felt a pull toward the man. Something inexplicable, like the gravity of a black hole—felt, but not seen.

“Guess he wanted to make damn sure we’d never find her.”