They tried to hide their heritage, both to humor me and to protect the tribe I despised, but their efforts wouldn’t hold up under close study. Not to mention that bringing the police into the picture would also mean bringing in my mother and grandmother. They would realize-just as quickly as I had-that the girls weren’t normal runaways. They were Amazons. And they would insist on informing the tribe.

Bringing me back to problem number one.

So, calling the police, like any normal grown adult human would do when faced with a dead body on her porch, was out.

I was trapped by my own lies, and it pissed me off.

My gaze dropped to the body beside me, zeroing in on a thin strip of leather barely visible beneath the hair covering her neck.

I reached out and let the thong run over my cupped hand until the tiny stone figure I knew would be attached to its end landed in my palm. A leopard, black, his lips pulled into a snarl. I could almost feel anger pulsing in the tiny creature. This girl, like the first, like me, wore her family totem on her back and around her neck. It was the only piece of out-of-the-ordinary adornment aside from the tattoos that both girls had worn. I’d taken the first girl’s for that reason.

I lifted her head and slipped the totem free.

With the tiny leopard tucked inside my pocket, I felt a little better. I had a plan, too late for this girl or the previous one, but maybe it would keep there from being a next.

Still, I muttered an apology as I pulled the corners of the old blanket on which the girl lay over her body and bundled her like a newborn infant. I would perform what Amazon burial rites I could and leave her corpse where the police would find it-hopefully, soon.

It wasn’t much, but this time-I patted the lump of stone resting in my pocket-it wouldn’t be all I’d do. I couldn’t-wouldn’t-reveal myself to the Amazons or the police, but I also couldn’t sit back and do nothing, not again.