“Should I wear it?” Nick said. “If I’m wearing a wedding band and you’re not, won’t that look-”

His gaze went to my hand and he stopped, then grabbed it and lifted the ring finger, complete with both engagement and wedding ring. I’d worn the engagement ring on and off for years, and “on” for the past five, a sign to Clay that I was staying.

As for the wedding bands, while he’d worn his for fifteen years, to show that he considered himself married-whether I agreed or not-my own had stayed in the original case.

“When did you start wearing-?” Nick began.

“When I got pregnant. Though I may have to stop wearing it soon. It’s getting tight.”

“Ah.” Nick smiled and dropped my hand. “Didn’t want to walk around looking pregnant and unwed. I’ll lay dibs on how fast that comes off once the baby’s here.”

I reached for the door handle. “It’s not.”

Clay grabbed the door and opened it for me. Nick jumped forward and pushed it shut again.

“Whoa, hold on. You’re going to keep wearing it? Even after the baby?”

“What? You think I’m willing to have Clay’s baby, but not wear his ring?” I grinned at Clay. “We’re even thinking of making it legal.”

“Wha-? Married? What happened to ‘not in this lifetime, no way, no how’?”

“Did I say that?”

Clay opened the door. “More than once.”

“Damn.”

“But I won’t hold you to it.”

“Good of you.”

“Wait a second,” Nick said. “When did all this-?”

The closing of the door drowned out the rest as we headed into the hall.

Shanahan’s secretary wasn’t talking, but when we “suggested” taking our baby investment elsewhere, she admitted that he called in daily for messages. We gave her my cell phone number and Nick’s. If Shanahan was the zombie’s controller-and the one giving the orders to kidnap me-then if his secretary announced he’d had a visit from a blond pregnant woman, anxious to speak to him, he might make the logical leap. In fact, he probably would. All the better. With any luck, the opportunity to set up a meeting and catch me would prove irresistible.

Jeremy and Antonio’s search of Shanahan’s house hadn’t revealed anything that would tell us where he was. They’d gathered a few leads-his ex-wife’s address, restaurants he liked to frequent, the name of his golf club and such. Chances were that a guy on the run isn’t going to pop by the club for a round, but unless we came up with something better, they’d check it out tomorrow.

Broken

After dinner, the Pack headed to the warehouse district where we’d first found Rose. It was barely dusk, butthe area was empty enough that we didn’t need to wait until nightfall. Jeremy wanted us to try hooking up with Zoe at Miller’s again. She hadn’t called, maybe because she didn’t plan to or maybe because she hadn’t remembered anything, but she was now our best source of information on the Shanahan family. First, though, we’d hunt for Rose.

We found her trail easily enough. Found a whole snarl of them, so many that it was difficult to tell whether any of them were fresh.

To untangle the mess, Jeremy split us up into two teams. He assigned Nick, Clay and me the west side of the area.

The second tendril we followed led to the side door of an empty building plastered with yellowed and curling club vertigo coming soon signs. One look at the building, with its boarded-up windows and spidery cracks in the foundation, and I could have predicted to the hopeful club owners that their dream would never see fruition, buried under a mountain of astronomical contractor quotes. Or maybe the owners hadn’t been as enthusiastically naive as they seemed. Schemes for new clubs were great cons for bilking youthful investors.

At the doorway, Clay stopped, then bent for a better sniff of the ground.

“Got an exit trail too,” he said. “Been and gone.”

I looked around to make sure no one was passing either end of the alley, then crouched and inhaled.

“More than one ‘been and gone,’ ” I said.

“Could be her hideout,” Nick said. “Can we get inside?”

Before I could answer, Clay did. “We should get Jeremy and Antonio first.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” Nick said.

“Gotta be careful these days.”

Nick looked over at me-at my stomach-then nodded. “I’ll run and grab them.”

We stayed just inside the doorway until our eyes adjusted to the dark. The only source of light was the ribbons of moonlight peeking through the planks covering the windows. Even after our eyes adjusted, we could see little more than shapes.

“Should we Change?” I whispered to Jeremy.

He peered inside. “I think it’ll be easier to search like this for now.”

“Split up, then?”

Jeremy nodded. “We’ll stay on this floor. You three take the north side. Meet back here when you’re done.”

The search was slow-going. Rose’s scent permeated the place. Her trails seemed to crisscross in and out of every room, and there were plenty of rooms to crisscross through. From the outside, the place had looked like a warehouse, but in here it was a warren of small rooms, as if it had been converted to offices at some point before its decline. Searching as wolves would have been near-impossible. Turning door handles with your teeth is a real bitch.