He leveled an assessing stare in my direction before accepting the portfolio. “Let me give you my cell-phone number. I’m out a lot.” Reaching inside the leather case, he pulled out the sheet with the wolf portrait on it, then, before I could object, scribbled a number along the bottom.

“I have notepaper,” I replied, staring at the sample of his work. I knew it was only a copy, that he had to keep an original somewhere else, but the depiction of the wolf was so accurate, the eyes so piercing, it seemed criminal to use it casually for scrap. It didn’t help that the wolf was the traditional symbol for my clan. In fact, on the small of my back was a tattoo eerily similar to the one resting on the desk in front of me.

“But this is more memorable. I don’t want you to forget me. Besides, I can see you like wolves.” His gaze dropped to the wolf fetish nestled between my breasts, then flicked back to my face.

I stiffened in response. With a grin, he slid the paper across my desk toward me.

My eyes jumped from the image of the wolf to his tan face. Brown eyes filled with shrewd assessment stared back at me-like he expected something more, a reaction of some sort. A flutter of disquiet passed through me.

Without pausing to think, I placed my hand palm down onto the image, then held my breath, waiting. I’m not sure what I expected. It was silly, really. He was a man, and men just didn’t have the power needed to convert ink into something more. And even a priestess couldn’t create an image on paper capable of containing energy. Tattoos could only contain energy when attached to a living, breathing being, making it all the stranger that the dead girls’ tattoos had been removed. Realizing I was back to thinking about the teens and making assumptions about what the killer knew, I frowned, then knocked the thoughts aside. Back to the problem at hand.

Under my palm, the paper felt cool and smooth-not even an indentation where the drawing was. Because it’s just a copy, dimwit. Feeling silly, I jerked my palm up and balled my hand at my side.