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Fair Game

(The third book in the Alpha and Omega series)

A novel by Patricia Briggs

To all those who live in the dark fighting monsters

so the rest of us stay safe

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PROLOGUE

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Leslie.

The year she turned eight, two things happened: her mother left Leslie and her father to move to California with a stockbroker; and, in the middle of a sensational murder trial, the fae of story and song admitted to their existence. Leslie never heard from her mother again, but the fairies were another matter.

When she was nine, her father took a job in a strange city, moving them from the house she’d grown up in to an apartment in Boston where they were the only black people in an all-white neighborhood. Their apartment encompassed the upper floor of a narrow house owned by their downstairs neighbor, Mrs Cullinan. Mrs Cullinan kept an eye on Leslie while her dad was at work, and by her silent championship eased Leslie’s way into the society of the neighborhood kids who casually dropped by for cookies or lemonade. In Mrs Cullinan’s capable hands, Leslie learned to crochet, knit, sew, and cook while her dad kept the old woman’s house and lawn in top shape.

Even as an adult, Leslie wasn’t sure if her dad had paid the old woman or if she’d just taken over without consulting him. It was the kind of thing Mrs Cullinan would have done.

When Leslie was in third grade, one of the kindergarten boys went missing. In fourth grade, one of her classmates, a girl by the name of Mandy, disappeared. There were also, throughout the same time period, a lot of missing pets– mostly kittens and young dogs. Nothing that would have attracted her attention if it weren’t for Mrs Cullinan.

On their daily walks (Mrs Cullinan called them ‘busybody strolls,’ to see what people in their neighborhood were up to), the old woman began stopping at missing-pet notices tapedin store windows and taking out a little notebook and writing all the information in it.

‘Are we looking for lost animals?’ Leslie asked finally. She mostly learned from observation rather than by asking questions because, in her experience, people lied better with their lips than they did with their actions. But she hadn’t come up with a good explanation for the missing-pet listand she was forced, at last, to resort to words.

‘It’s always good to keep an eye out. ’ It was a not-quite answer, but Mrs Cullinan sounded troubled, so Leslie didn’t ask her again.

When Leslie’s new birthday puppy – a mutt with brown eyes and big feet – went missing, Mrs Cullinan had gotten tight-lipped and said, ‘It is time to put a stop to this. ’ Leslie was pretty sure her landlady hadn’t known anyone was listening to her.

Leslie, her father, and Mrs Cullinan were eating dinner a few days after her puppy’s disappearance when a fancy limousine pulled up in front of Miss Nellie Michaelson’s house. Out of the dark depths of the shiny vehicle emerged two men in suits and a woman in a white flowery dress that looked too summery and airy to be a good match for the men’s attire. They were dressed for a funeral and she for a picnic in the nearby park.