Scratch any cop hard enough and you’ll find intuition. Most of the time it’s an educated guess so reflexive it seems like a hunch, courtesy of working the edges of human behavior for a long time.

A hunter, on the other hand, is normally a full-blown psychic. Messing around with sorcery will do that to you. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe. Doesn’t matter.

Still… why me, Monty? “Why not just set IA on it?”

“Them?” He made a dismissive gesture. “Look, Marv was a good cop. Maybe it got to be too much for him, maybe not. He had a wife, she’s getting his pension, and if something…”

I waited.

“He was my partner,” Monty finally said, heavily. As if it explained everything.

Maybe it did. If he was just uneasy, or wanted to know why, he was no different from the people who come to me looking for their loved ones. Everyone who disappears is someone’s kid, someone’s friend, someone’s lover. Even if they’re not, they deserve someone to care about finding them.

Even if that someone is only me.

Kutchner had pulled the very last disappearing trick anybody ever does. If it didn’t look kosher to Monty and he wanted to do right by the widow by having someone quietly look at it so the pension wasn’t interrupted, it was reasonable. More reasonable than a burning warehouse and a throat-cut Trader.

I leaned forward, holding out my right hand. The leather cuff on my wrist slid a little bit under my coatsleeve, over the scar. “I won’t promise anything. It’s not my type of case.”

Monty’s shoulders sagged as he let me take the file. It could have been relief or a fresh burden. Vacations never last long enough. “Thanks, Kiss. I mean it.”

I almost winced. Leather creaked as I made it up to my feet, sighing as my back twinged and settled into aching. The scar burned, a reminder I didn’t need, just like the reek of smoke clinging to me. “Don’t call me that, okay?” A few days looking into this, it’s the least I owe him.