Night Broken (Mercy Thompson, #8)(85)

“We are familiar with the … alleged assault,” said Agent Orton.

“Have you seen the security footage from that?” asked Torbett before Adam could speak.

I got my heel on Adam’s foot, but he’d cooled off considerably and frowned at Torbett.

“No,” said Orton. “However—”

“I have.” The older man’s voice was cool. “I assure you that an assault took place, and the bastard got what was coming to him.” It was nice that he agreed there had been an assault, but was there anyone in the whole world who hadn’t seen me assaulted? Anyone except Orton, that is. Maybe we should have just put it up on YouTube. I forced my hands to unclench before anyone noticed.

“The issue remains,” said Agent Kent, taking up the charge as the senior agent stalled out. “That we believe, Ms. Hauptman, that you have not been entirely forthcoming about whether or not you are human.”

“Are you?” I asked again. Because my nose told me that he was not.

“Yes,” Kent said, believing he told the truth. “How about you, Ms. Hauptman?”

“No, you aren’t,” said Adam, intrigued. His head tilted, and he took a deep breath, so everyone would know what sense he was using to determine it. “Fae. Though you aren’t even a half-blood. Maybe one of your parents?”

Agent Kent just stared at him.

“You might talk to them and ask,” I suggested. “Do you have trouble with metals?”

“I have a nickel allergy,” he said defensively.

“This isn’t about Agent Kent.” Orton had had time to recover. “We’ve determined that Ms. Hauptman is a potential threat to the public safety, and we are bringing her in as a murder suspect who has supernatural powers that make her too dangerous to be incarcerated in the usual ways.”

“Under what authority?” asked Jenny.

“Under the Humanity Act that established the agency I work for, Ms. Trevellyan, and the discretionary detention provisions in the Patriot Act. We can detain Ms. Hauptman indefinitely as a possible terrorist.” Orton’s tones were smug.

I wasn’t afraid of their taking me. But I was terrified of what Adam would do to ensure that they did not. Adam, though, wasn’t tense at all. I frowned at him. Why wasn’t he upset?

“Are you acting on your own, sir?” asked Larry Torbett.

“I have my orders,” said Orton repressively. “Ms. Hauptman, you aren’t going to give us any trouble here, right?”

“I’m not,” I said, still watching my husband, who seemed pleased. “But I wouldn’t go counting your prisoners before they are safely in your detention cell.”

Larry Torbett smiled at me. “Well said, Ms. Hauptman. Mr. Hauptman, you should know that I have in my possession documentation that someone in high places would like a pet werewolf and was not opposed to kidnapping to achieve his desires. How presumptuous of him to try to use the law to enable him to do so. Who is your supervisory agent, Agent Orton?”

Orton frowned at him. “Supervisory Agent Donald Kerrigan. Ms. Hauptman, I would advise you not to resist arrest. That will only add to your troubles.”

“Allow me to clarify matters, before this goes too much further, gentlemen,” said Jenny. “Agent Orton, Agent Kent, Mr. and Ms. Hauptman, this is Larry Torbett, Ph.D. Dr. Torbett is teaching a four-day seminar at WSU TriCities on fae-human relations. He retired two years ago from a government think tank in Washington, D.C., though the president called him back to help deal with the mess last year when the fae retreated to their reservations. He was also my law professor, which is why he is staying with me. He asked to join us out of curiosity and boredom, I suspect.” She smiled at the continued clueless looks she was getting. “But the layman would better know him as L. J. Torbett, editor of the Watchdog Times.”

The Watchdog Times was an influential Web-based magazine that wrote and recirculated pieces about government mischief. Recently, it had engineered the forced retirement of a state judge in Pennsylvania caught giving harsh jail sentences in return for kickbacks from the privately run state penitentiary and was responsible for the highly publicized trial of a federal official who was spending ten years in jail rather than the cozy estate in the Bahamas he’d used tax dollars to pay for.

The Watchdog Times had also cleared the name of a conservative senator who was accused of having sex with a minor. They hadn’t saved his marriage, but they’d saved his career, mostly, and certainly rescued him from a jail sentence when they proved the whole thing had been set up by his political rival—and that the boy in question had been a very young-looking twenty-three-year-old who’d been well paid to act his part.

If he said he had documentation, L. J. Torbett had documentation.

“You were asleep when Jenny asked if I’d mind if her old friend joined us,” murmured Adam to me. “Jenny said he’d thought that it was odd that Cantrip Agents were first on scene, and asked to sit in this afternoon.”

I leaned against him and watched the old lawyer turned journalist wipe the floor with the Cantrip agents.

“This,” he said, “is a disgrace. That government agents who should be above reproach lend themselves to such a scheme is appalling.”

“You can say what you’d like,” said Orton with dignity. “But that doesn’t change my orders.”