Monster

by Jennifer Blackstream

  I’d only met Stephen briefly, but I had to agree. His self-control was impressive. “Stephen told Liam that he found the body when the victim was already dead. He said he shifted to better get the scent of the perpetrator, then lost control and ate part of the body.”

  Kylie didn’t react, remaining still in her seat. “I know.”

  “Do you believe him?” I asked.

  She was silent for a minute, staring out the windshield at the road with the same empty gaze. The silence dragged on long enough that I thought she wouldn’t answer. It was on the tip of my tongue to apologize, to tell her I wasn’t asking her to speak against her coworker, when she spoke.

  “The werewolves and I share a responsibility. We all have hungers we must control, and jobs that test those hungers every day. Stephen is too experienced to make such an elementary mistake.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Even if I were to agree that it’s possible he lost control, it doesn’t match with the rest of the story.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She looked at me, and it took a concerted effort not to flinch. In that moment, I became a model driver—eyes on the road, full attention on keeping my hands at nine and three.

  “If I made such a mistake and allowed my hunger to rise to where it overwhelmed the years of self-control and willpower I’ve built up to avoid such temptation…a few bites would not be sufficient to restore my senses.”

  I shifted uneasily. “So you’re saying—”

  “If Stephen’s hunger was strong enough to overwhelm him, he would have eaten much more than a few bites.” She looked out the window. “Also, I imagine the shame that would have followed his failure would have driven him to run, either to his alpha to beg forgiveness, or away from his alpha in self-loathing. Liam would not have found him on the reservation.”

  A thought occurred to me, and I pressed my lips together, not wanting to say it out loud.

  “What is it?” Kylie asked.

  I sighed. “I just thought of another problem with Stephen’s account. You’re right, he’s a well-trained police officer.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why didn’t he mention the victim was shot? He found the body, still warm, recently dead. Wouldn’t it have been a little obvious to a ranger he’d been shot?”

  “I see.” Kylie stared into the distance, her face betraying little of her thoughts. “Yes, that is troublesome. This is my house.”

  The last sentence was so abrupt that I nearly passed her driveway. I shot Peasblossom a warning look where she was perched on the center console with my GPS. She’d turned the volume all the way down so she could change the destination without me noticing. “We’re not going to Goodfellows right now. And I wasn’t kidding about the no honey. You have to eat real food.”

  Peasblossom kept looking me in the eye. Slowly she put the GPS down, braced her foot on the edge, and shoved it off the console. It bounced off the center dash and hit the floor with a dull thud.

  I gritted my teeth and pulled into Kylie’s driveway. “That was petty.”

  Kylie waited for the car to stop, then opened her door. “Thank you for the ride, Shade. It is good you’re someone a person can count on for help.”

  There was something about the way she said that last bit, something about her tone that made me think she meant something more than getting a ride home. She closed the door before I could respond, and I stared after her as she walked up the sidewalk to her front door and disappeared into the dark house.

  “Well,” Peasblossom said slowly. “That was weird.”

  “What do you suppose she was getting at?” I asked, still staring at the closed door.

  “I don’t know. And I don’t care. I’m tired. Take me home.”

  I bit my lip but put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. “Remind me to ask Liam if there’s anything else I need to know about Kylie…”

  Chapter 11

  “You are not royalty, and if you keep acting like you are, you’ll force me to take drastic measures. I told you, you can’t be here. Now get out!”

  Majesty looked into my eyes from his position on my desk a few feet away, feline gaze never wavering. His thin kitten body belied the cold confidence in his stare, the arrogance that ran through every line, every muscle. He lifted a grey paw, the morning sunlight streaming through my office window giving the fur an ethereal shine.

  “Don’t do it,” I warned him. I tensed to take a step forward, but stopped, not wanting to startle him. The desk was new, and polished. If I scared him, he might use the keyboard as a launch pad, and I didn’t want my laptop to slide off to die a horrible death on the floor of my new office.

  Helpless, I could only watch as Majesty stepped onto the first key. The blinking cursor vomited a line of aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa across the computer screen, followed by vbbbbbbbbbbbbb and iooooooooooooooo as Majesty continued to climb into his chosen napping spot. I gritted my teeth.

  “Get off my computer. You’ll get fur in the keys, and so help me if you break it, I’ll have you buzzed. Have you ever seen a hairless cat?”

  The kitten didn’t blink. His furry bottom landed on the right end of my keyboard, sending another scattering of randomized alphabet over the screen. With all the languid calm of a king lying on a bed of silken sheets, he eased onto his side. Velvety eyelids drifted closed, and the air filled with a soft, steady purr.

  My eye twitched.

  “Run him under the faucet!” Peasblossom suggested from her safe perch high on the bookshelf. “That’ll teach him!”

  “I’m not running him under the faucet.” Counting to ten to keep my temper, I waited for Majesty’s sleek body to give up the last bit of tension, then snatched him off my keyboard. The little devil had the nerve to mewl in protest, offering a tepid glare from half-lidded eyes. “See here now, you cannot sleep on my keyboard. And you cannot be in my office. You’re violating my lease.”

  “You ran me under the faucet,” Peasblossom grumbled. “I don’t see why he’s too good for it.”

  “I ran you under the faucet once, when your dress was on fire,” I reminded her. “And you were on fire because you didn’t listen when I told you not to fly back and forth over the candles.” I returned my attention to the kitten. As always, the hum of magic from the innocent-looking feline throbbed against my senses, a constant reminder of the spell that had frozen him in time, his body unable to age as it should. Every day the magic felt stronger, more…chaotic. It would have to escape sometime, and it was anyone’s guess what would happen when it did.

  It was possible that Majesty understood a lot more than you’d expect of a kitten. At least, that was my theory. I took a deep breath and tried again. “Look, my lease for this office states—”

  “No animals,” came a deep voice.

  I closed my eyes. Of all the rotten timing.

  Bracing myself for the coming unpleasantness, I opened my eyes and faced my landlord. Declan Grey wore his usual faded black suit, looking not so much like a businessman as a chimney sweep that had fallen on hard times. Or an undertaker. Deep lines creased the skin around his hazel eyes, no doubt a result of all the squinting he did. Like now.

  “Mr. Grey, I—”

  “That,” he said, pointing to Majesty, “is a violation of your lease. It will be fifty dollars for the violation, and your rent will go up an extra fifty dollars a month as well.”

  My mouth fell open. “Mr. Grey, I did not bring Majesty to work with me. He stowed away in my bag. I have no intention of—”

  Declan blinked, surprise momentarily chasing some of the sourness from his face. “You call the cat Majesty?”

  Heat filled my cheeks. “I didn’t name him.”

  “So, you refer to him by his title?”

  If it had been anyone else, I’d have said he was teasing me. But Mr. Grey did not tease. From what I could tell, he didn’t smile or laugh either. What was more, his expression suggested
that while his derision for the cat was considerable, he understood why I might consider myself beneath the fluffy beast.

  “He will not invade this office again,” I said evenly. “I trust you can forgive a single transgression? I am a valued member of this community, after all.”

  “Yes, Dresden’s own medicine woman,” he said, his tone mocking. “A midwife and nanny who parades herself as a doctor.”

  Perhaps I could recommend a proctologist to get that stick out of your bum.

  “Fifty dollars for the fine,” he said. “But in consideration of all the ‘good work’ you do for the community, I will postpone the increase in rent for the next violation.”

  He said “good work” in a way that robbed the words of sincerity. My fingers twitched at my side, the urge to cast a spell almost unbearable. Once again, I wondered when my temper tied itself to my magic.

  “Not that I think you’ll be here for a second violation.” He glanced around my office, still unfinished. His attention lingered on the computer keyboard that still bore furry evidence of Majesty’s nap, and one eyebrow twitched upward before his gaze returned to me. “You don’t seem to have any clients. I guess people don’t want to hire a nanny to solve serious matters.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I’m in the middle of a murder case. I’m working with the Cleveland Metropark Rangers.”

  “I was unaware they had a program that let children ride along pretending to be police officers. How fortunate for you that there’s no age limit on that program.”

  Magic crackled inside me, and I looked away before the sight of that sneer could make me do something I’d regret. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to meet Sergeant Osbourne at the station, and I don’t want to be late.”

  “But you will be.” He took a long, smooth stride to the door, battered jacket fluttering behind him. “Don’t forget the fifty dollars. I expect it to be in my mailbox by sunrise tomorrow.”

  The door closed behind him, and I gave myself three deep breaths before I trusted myself to move.

  “I don’t like him,” Peasblossom announced, popping out from the book she’d hidden behind.

  “Neither do I.” I glared at Majesty where he’d curled up in my arms while I was talking with the landlord from hell.

  The demon spawn was asleep.

  “Unbelievable,” I muttered. “Come on; we have to drop him off at home on the way to Rocky River.”

  I packed up my laptop—my entire reason for stopping by the office in the first place—and hauled myself through the door. Peasblossom wisely chose not to comment when I allowed the sleeping kitten to stay in my lap for the drive home. I didn’t want him to wake up and make a nuisance of himself, that was all.

  Peasblossom tugged the miniature pad of Post-its into position on her lap as she leaned against the passenger seat and grabbed the piece of pencil lead she used to write with. “All right,” she said, “time to review our goals for the day. Goal number one: find out which of our suspects owns the right caliber gun to have fired the bullet that broke Violet’s house.”

  “Goal number two: talk to Vincent and find out if there’s anything else he’s hesitating to tell Liam.”

  “Ah, yes, the wizard. Whose phone number was not in the phone book, and whose number we could have had last night if a certain witch had gotten off her bum and gone into the station to ask for it instead of hiding in her car from a mean werewolf detective.”

  I groped for the cup holder, only to realize with true sorrow I’d resisted the desire to grab a can of Coke before I left. “Goal three: talk to Stephen. And make goal four visiting Oliver Dale’s apartment.” Something tugged at the back of my mind, and I bit my lip.

  “What?” Peasblossom rested her piece of lead on the paper. “You’re making that face.”

  “What face?” I asked absently.

  “The one that means you’re ignoring something you shouldn’t ignore and you’re deciding how bad the consequences of ignoring it will be.”

  I arched an eyebrow at her. “That’s one of my looks?”

  “A popular one.”

  I sighed. “I’m thinking of Stephen. Why did Mother Hazel give me this case? Was it to prove Stephen’s innocence because he looks so guilty? Or was it to make sure he’s convicted despite the fact that everyone seems to like him? Does she think Liam can’t solve this case on his own? Or that he won’t do what was necessary? What role am I meant to fill?”

  “Sheesh, no wonder you’re making that face.”

  Orange construction cones offered an interesting alternative route, and for a moment I allowed myself to focus only on not giving in to the urge to ignore them and drive straight down the highway that seemed perfectly clear as far as I could see. Peasblossom scribbled on the Post-it, no doubt adding her own goals to the list. Shopping at the local market for more organic honey would feature prominently.

  For a split second, I wished I had someone to talk to. Someone who’d been an investigator longer than I had, someone who could give me a straight, objective, non-Otherworld view of the facts. Like an FBI agent.

  “You’re making that face again.” Peasblossom tapped the lead on the paper. “What’s wrong?”

  “Our last case,” I said quietly. “We didn’t leave things in a good place with Andy.”

  Peasblossom put down the bit of pencil lead, but didn’t interrupt.

  “I know I’m being silly. It’s not like I knew him very well; we weren’t friends. But still, he was part of my first case, and I had this stupid idea that he was going to be an ally, someone who would help me grow from wanting to be a private investigator to actually being a private investigator. I helped him, helped him with something no one else on his team could have handled.” I squeezed the steering wheel. “I know there were more cases I could have helped with. And he wanted to learn. He would have worked with me again, I know it. And now…”

  “He doesn’t hate you,” Peasblossom said. “He’s just mad. People get mad. Give him time.”

  “But what if it’s affecting the way I handle this case now?” A thread of thought unraveled in my brain, and I tried to follow it before I lost it. “What if I’m trying to prove Stephen didn’t do it because I don’t want another colleague angry with me? I should have pushed Liam to let me talk to him. I should have insisted, done whatever I had to do to convince him it wasn’t optional. Stephen was there, he had the victim’s blood on his face, and he admitted to eating the body.” I waved a hand, almost striking the rearview mirror. “And yet here we are, twenty-four hours later, and I still haven’t talked to him.” I smacked the steering wheel. “I’m new to being a PI, but I’ve been a witch for a long time. My strength is in talking to people, getting them to open up. And I haven’t used that skill on the one person who matters most.”

  Peasblossom considered that, her tiny brow furrowed in thought. “I think,” she said slowly, “there might be a different lesson here.”

  “Oh?”

  “You didn’t trust Andy to handle himself against an Otherworld suspect. You tried to protect him for his own good, and he got mad. Maybe you’re doing the same thing to Liam.”

  I frowned. “How?”

  “Well, you’re worried that Stephen did it, and you’re trying to prove someone else did it because you don’t want to upset Liam. But it seems like what you’re thinking is that if Stephen did it, it’s up to you to prove that, or else the wrong person will go to jail.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Peasblossom twirled her bit of lead. “You’re upset with yourself because you think you’ve been giving Stephen a pass because you don’t want Liam to be angry with you like Andy is. But what if you’re not pursuing Stephen because you learned something from working with Andy? You learned that you need to trust your partner, trust their instincts. Liam is a cop, and an alpha. It’s possible you haven’t been pushing Stephen as a suspect because you trust him. Like you should have trusted Andy.”

  “So I’m not avoiding pushi
ng Stephen as a suspect because I want Liam to like me,” I said slowly. “I’m not focusing on Stephen as a suspect because I trust Liam the way I should have trusted Andy. I trust his professionalism and his instincts, and if he says he doesn’t believe Stephen did this, then that means something.” I slid a glance at Peasblossom, surprise mixing with awe. “You know, you really are very wise.”

  The pixie threw her hands in the air, flinging the shard of lead to bounce off the door before vanishing in the gap between the seat. “That’s what I keep telling you!”

  I laughed, my spirits rising. Peasblossom was right. I was working this case, and eventually, I would need to talk to Stephen. But I wasn’t working alone. I had Peasblossom, and I had Liam, however awkward our partnership might be. Together we would find out who killed Oliver Dale. No matter who it turned out to be.

  When I arrived at the ranger station, my good mood was back. I had bounce to my step, the walk of someone with renewed determination and optimism—right up until the moment I got to Liam’s office and got a look at his expression. His face was somber, but there was a distinct excitement in his body language. Happy, but trying not to look happy. As always, his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and he stood beside his chair instead of moving the files off it so he could sit.

  “Good morning, Shade.” He raised his mug of coffee in greeting and took a sip.

  “Good morning,” I said warily. “Has there been a break in the case?”

  Liam gestured for me to have a seat. “There has. Last night we got a search warrant for Anthony Catello’s apartment.”

  I froze with my hand on the back of the chair. “You what? You said you couldn’t get a warrant until the court opened this morning.”

  Liam waved his free hand. “I’m sorry, I must have misspoken. I forget you’re new to this.”

  A blatant lie and an insult. I lifted my chin and refused to sit.

  “Anyway, as I was saying, we got a search warrant.”

  “On what grounds?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “On the grounds that he had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the murder. He was at the park near time of death, with a .40-caliber gun. He hated Oliver Dale, and he believed that on that night, Oliver was an immediate threat to his beloved dog’s life.”