Konrad is the perfect gentleman, better trained in chivalry than a hunting dog with a shelf of gold trophies. But I've watched how boys treat Lattie long enough to know how this game works, and that it's wise to leave what he's selling on the counter and the money to buy it with firmly tucked in my pockets.

He opens every door to every business we enter, offers me his hand at every step, even the curbs, and stands just close enough to my side to plant the idea in the minds of onlookers that we are together and he is a protector. He hangs on my every word, interested in my interests, a smooth talker with honey under his tongue and a pinch of sugar as a reward if I bite.

It doesn't take long for me to read him as thoroughly as an old paperback.

Konrad isn't a gentleman at all—he's a flirt.

When we left the café, we walked to a sleek grey sports car which he unlocked with the remote and a flash of orange lights. It was then that I got the first nagging suspicion that he must be living as a human; I've never known a werewolf to own a car. That said car was also parked in the farthest corner of the lot—is he living his human life as a health nut, trying to get in every step he can? Or maybe catering to his gentleman persona, walking farther so others don't have to.

As he drove down the road toward town, myself sitting tense in his immaculate passenger seat—the whole car was immaculate—another theory struck me: what if it isn't his? Maybe he's borrowing it and parked it far away to avoid the risk of scratches. Maybe he stole it and wanted it somewhere where it wouldn't draw attention.

Stop, I scolded myself before reminding myself that solving a grand theft auto case wasn't my objective. My objective is finding Sophie Schwarz's murderer.

Konrad's car didn't smell like her. In fact, there was nothing to give the slightest suggestion that she had ever sat where I sat or in any other seat in that vehicle. It smelled entirely of Konrad, of his natural chemical scent, his human cologne, and the polished interior of a new car. As soon as I profiled these scents and determined Sophie's to be absent among them, I remembered that he can profile scents as well, and that mine is one sure to catch a werewolf's interest. It always has.

"Do you mind?" I asked, my finger on the window button.

"Not at all," he replied, because a gentleman would never tell his companion 'no.'

Once in town, he parked parallel on the street and I led him up and down the sidewalks, introducing him to the various businesses and shops, most of which he insisted we enter. When we passed residences, I shunned them and directed his attention ahead to the next business or point of interest, the most recent being an ice cream parlor: Schneider's Eisdiele.

At the register, the cashier tells us our total. I reach for my wallet in my pocket but Konrad is faster.

"It's on me," he says quickly, already paying the girl and handing me my mint chocolate cone.

I blink, all of it happening so fast. "What? Are you sure?"

"Of course," he smiles, turning to leave the shop, "I'm happy to."

We walk out the parlor doors. He goes first, holding the door open for me and waiting for me on the sidewalk, ice cream cone in hand.

"You don't have to do that," I say finally, feeling a squiggle of irritation arise low in my chest. He doesn't just hold it until I can take it, like a normal human would. He holds it fully, making a show of it, never allowing me to touch it myself. This is another clue suggesting that he's living as a human, and has been for sometime; werewolves aren't taught to hold doors.

Konrad shrugs, letting the door fall shut behind me. "I like to. You don't like it?"

We stroll down the sidewalk at a relaxed pace, licking our ice cream. Besides the woodsy, nostalgic scent of his species rolling off of him in generous abundance, he doesn't carry a threatening aura. It's easy to be comfortable around him despite his being a stranger, and realizing this makes that comfort go away. That's what a serial killer would want: their victim to let their guard down.

"I..." I begin, fighting down troubling thoughts of what could be going on inside his head, of what had gone on in Sophie's—what ice cream flavor had she gotten? "...don't think it's necessary," I finish.

He turns his head to look at me as we walk and his blue eyes study my face with too much adoration for knowing me for such a short amount of time. "You like doing things yourself, don't you?"

This time I can't maintain my congenial mien. I crack, and a disturbed wrinkle breaks across my brow as I look back at him.

"I..." Again I stutter. It's such a strange question to ask someone, but it's consistent with his act: he's showing interest in me, bait for me to trust him, to be interested in him. "What other option is there?"

He frowns at me but says no more. We reach the end of the sidewalk, and when it comes time to cross the street Konrad's arm extends subtly out in front of me—as mine had done with Lattie—to deter me from going until he goes first. Again, I smother out that irritating squiggle that's provoked by it.

We hurry across the road, holding tight to our ice cream until we reach the safety of the adjacent sidewalk.

"I know I've commented on your German before, but it really is exceptional," Konrad says, falling back into our previous loping pace. "What's your native tongue?"

I struggle to swallow a lick of ice cream, my throat too tight. "English."

He nods. "I can see that. So how did you learn German—No, let me guess." He pauses for dramatic effect, turning to me with bright eyes. "I bet you taught yourself."

Despite myself, I can't help but to laugh, rolling my eyes at the absurdity of it all. "I did, actually."

Being interested in me may be part of his act, but I can't deny that he's good at this routine. He's learned me somewhat, more than anyone else would have in this short time.

It makes me wonder how many victims he's claimed.

"I knew it!" He shouts out a victory holler, pumping his fist. I laugh at him, and in the process of doing so I suddenly find my elbow bumping his where we walk. We'd drifted closer. I step away.

"Tell me something in English," he says when the laughter is over, seeming genuinely excited in this request.

"You don't speak it?"

He shakes his head. "Can you translate for me?"

I narrow my eyes suspiciously at him, though my grin prevails. My curiosity is twinged. "Go."

"Ich kenne ein schönes Mädchen," he says, his eyes locked brightly on mine.

I suppress my reaction and do as he wishes. I translate his words to English. "I know a beautiful girl."

"Sie spricht Englisch..."

I smile at his stupidity but speak through it, copying his trailing tone. "She speaks English..."

"Und isst Minz-Schokoladeneis."

"And eats mint chocolate ice cream." I shake my head at him, returning to German. "You are ridiculous."

"Am I?" He grins. "I made true statements and learned some English along the way. Is language not amazing?"

"It is," I agree, "But that's besides the point."

"Hmm," he hums, "Perhaps you can give me English lessons sometime." I can hear his flirtatious smile, but I refuse to look over to see it.

"I'm not a good teacher." I crunch into my waffle cone indifferently. He's a flatterer of both physique and intellect. Sophie had a physique like Lattie's—I try to remember, did Konrad look at Lattie at the café?—but I wonder what intellectual talent she showed him, if he is who I hope he isn't. How many languages did she speak?

We're getting farther and farther away from the hubbub of the town, farther away from any watchful eyes. This sidewalk will soon end, too, and a portion of it ahead is broken and crumbling from abandonment and disuse.

We reach it. Konrad lurches forward, his lower half stopping whilst his upper half continues on. It's out of reflex that I catch him in time, my torso turning to face his, my arm hooking around his abdomen.

A human couldn't have done it; a human couldn't have moved fast enough to catch him as wholly as I did, as firmly and surely as I did.

He smiles devilishly. He knows that as well.

"You're quick on your feet," he comments, gradually standing up from where I'd caught his weight.

"And you're a bumbling moron," I snap, because that's the only type of person who could trip over those blatantly obvious, flat defects in the concrete. He didn't trip at all. He faked it.

When I realize what I've said, and with what tone, my face blazes with heat. Out of the two of us, he's the better one at keeping character. "Uh, sorry."

He ignores both my insult and my apology. He acts as though neither of them happened and instead continues smiling, satisfied with himself, as though he'd gotten something he'd wanted.

"Oh, here—" he reaches out his hand, drawing his thumb across my cheek. "You had ice cream on your face."

I push his hand away, a smear of pale green on the pad of his thumb. I stare at him, dumbfounded, unable to do anything else.

"You should watch your step," I say hollowly, staring into those smug blue eyes, grasping for something, anything, to say to avert from the obvious fact he's just discovered.

I've been gathering clues, and so has he.

He straightens, his shoulders squaring. He's perceived the threat in my numb words, a threat that I didn't feel myself, that I didn't communicate but that I meant nonetheless. "Should I?" He asks.

I scan the setting beyond him, my mind finally settling, finally focusing. The edge of town is behind him, the streets empty, the few businesses on this side facing in a direction so that we would be in their storefronts' peripherals, if visible from the insides at all. Behind me lies the forest. In no direction stands a witness. "You should," I reiterate.

My cell phone rings in my jeans pocket. I don't make a move to retrieve it. It rings once, twice, then drops.

"Wrong number?" Konrad asks, humor in his quirked brow.

It starts ringing again. On the third cycle, I pull it from my pocket and raise it to my ear.

"Hallo."

"Leila?" Zakai's voice is warmth in the middle of winter, a flood of mutated familiarity that I still struggle to recognize.

"Yes," I breathe out in English, my eyes still fighting Konrad's for dominance.

"Can we meet up? To talk?"

I shift my weight, swallow down the gradually rising beat of my heart.

"Yeah. Yeah, we can." I won't schedule our meeting in front of him. I don't want him on his radar, or to hear any more of his voice than he already has. Zakai and I speak in English, a language Konrad claims to not understand, but that isn't enough. "I'll call you back later."

I don't wait for Zakai's response. I end the call.

"Next appointment?" Konrad asks.

I watch as a couple exit a deli. They carry their sandwiches to a table on the restaurant's outside patio and sit down in full, unobstructed view of us.

"Something like that. Do you want to see the woods now? I know some trails." I turn and point behind me, at the towering forest at the edge of the asphalt. "There's a historic marker through there. Where the founders of Heisenbühl built their homestead."

There isn't. The founders of Heisenbühl built their home some odd meters behind Konrad. The town popped up around it.

"Thank you, but no. I think our tour is over." A knowing gleam crosses his eye, and a smirk forms on his lips. "I saw what I wanted to."