She’d heard it too. Not a dream.
“Now?” I asked. I checked the time. Eleven o’clock. What could he need help with at this hour?
“Oh, good. I’ll text you the address.”
“I didn’t mean—” I stopped and shook my head. Andy had called me. Weeks of no response, and now he was calling me for help. The FBI calling me for help. It was everything I wanted. Only, suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted it at all.
“Ms. Renard? Are you still there?”
“Text me the address.”
It hadn’t been the answer I’d intended to give. And as I hung up and sat there staring at the green new text alert on my phone, it occurred to me that I’d agreed to a two-hour drive, a commitment that would last past midnight. “I am an idiot.”
“Yes you are,” Peasblossom said. She fluttered down from the doorframe to perch on my knee. “I want you to bring my travel bed.”
I sighed. “Why not? One of us should get some sleep.”
“And it might as well be me.”
I grabbed another Coke from the fridge, reconsidered, and grabbed two. Majesty was nowhere to be found, so I ignored Peasblossom’s snickers long enough to heat a dish of cat food, and left it in the center of the floor for him. A stop in the bedroom to grab the bed from Peasblossom’s dollhouse, and I was ready to go.
It was strange not having Peasblossom to talk to on the drive. It made the interior of the car darker, somehow, the quiet…quieter. I tried the radio, then turned it off. I wasn’t in the mood for it. Any of it.
“My, this all looks familiar.” I sighed and leaned my head against the headrest, looking at the same construction cones I’d passed less than two hours ago. If he’d called a little sooner, perhaps I would still have been in the area.
I groped for the first can of Coke, popping it open without my usual satisfaction. I had a decision to make. Mother Hazel owed me a favor. Anything I wanted. All I had to do was confirm I wanted it. Confirm I’d accepted my prize, despite my earlier anger. She probably thought I was giving up. Maybe I was.
“Do you still want to be an investigator?” I asked myself. “Do you want more cases like this one? Watch more good people ruin their lives in one moment?” A surge of anger rushed through me and I slammed my hand on the steering wheel. “He was hanging a dog.”
“Oi, you’re loud.” Peasblossom sat up in her silky pink sleeping bag, shoving the tiny sleep mask I’d made for her farther up her head so she could squint at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”
Peasblossom huffed out a sigh and smoothed her blanket over her lap. “They'll be fine. All of them.”
“You don’t know that. Thinking you’re all right with becoming a werewolf isn’t the same as being one.” I pressed my lips together. “Emma was upset she shot him. He treated her like dirt and she still feels bad.”
“You think that’s a bad sign?”
“All the werewolves we’ve met that were really happy. What do they have in common?”
“Good flea medication?”
“No.” I rolled my eyes. “They were at peace with both sides of themselves. They gave their instincts and their drive to succeed the same respect they gave their social side, the side that obeys society’s laws.”
“And you don’t think Emma has that balance.”
“No. I don’t. I think if Emma were at peace with the part of herself her beast will personify, she would have stood up to Oliver much sooner. And she wouldn’t feel poorly for having killed him, because she did it saving another life.” My vision blurred and I blinked back tears. “And they tore her away from Stephen, the man she trusted to guide her through this.”
“Sergeant Osbourne is a good man. If he sees this separation is too detrimental, he’ll put them back together.”
“You’re right.”
Peasblossom crossed her arms behind her head, lying back down on her sleeping bag. “You know, Mother Hazel always says everything is a witch’s business.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, then took another fortifying sip of Coke.
“Well, I suppose that means it’s your business to check in on Stephen and Emma from time to time. Make sure Sergeant Osbourne’s methods meet your standards.”
I snorted, barely refraining from getting a nose full of soda. “You want me to interfere in pack business?”
“Again,” Peasblossom pointed out.
I considered that as I studied the road. Meddling in the affairs of werewolves was dangerous. Very dangerous. Unwise.
And…very witchy.
“It is my responsibility, isn’t it?” I said.
“If you feel responsible for all the bad things that happened, it seems it’s only right you take responsibility for seeing things through.”
I considered that the rest of the way to Andy’s house. There was a certain ring of logic to it. I felt guilty for my part in the whole situation, guilt that my brain recognized as ridiculous despite my heart’s insistence on clinging to it. Would it be so outrageous to take responsibility for it?
I was certain Liam would think so.
Did I want to risk making the alpha angry? I already had a dream sorceress sending nightmares after me. Did I need to add an alpha werewolf to that list?
By the time I pulled into Andy’s driveway, I wasn’t any closer to reaching a decision. Worse, I’d finished both sodas, and was in rather desperate need of a restroom.
I knocked on the door with more enthusiasm than I intended, and when Andy opened the door, I spoke before he could get a word out.
“Bathroom?”
He blinked, then pointed at a small staircase. “Down those stairs on the left.”
I nodded and proceeded as quickly as I could without falling down the stairs. A few minutes later, relieved and refreshed, I found Andy sitting at a bar across from the bathroom. We were on the lower level of a split-level home, and the room I walked into now was spacious, with only two pillars in the center to break up the large space. The bar stuck out from the east wall, with two small windows at the top of the wall on either side. The opposite side sported a large sliding glass door, and if it hadn’t been nighttime, natural light would have flooded the room.
It was a testament to how scattered my thoughts were that I didn’t notice the files until Andy got up from the bar and paced to the far wall. Once I noticed them, I couldn’t help but stare. There had to be at least twenty piles lining the wall from one end of the room to another, and at least ten thick files in each pile. I stared as Andy knelt down and lifted one file, paged through it, then put it back down. He walked to the end of the line of files and chose another one. Again, he paged through it and put it back.
“What is all this?” I asked.
Andy didn’t look up. “Unsolved cases. Some solved, but possibly solved wrong.” He closed the file and looked up at me. “I was hoping you’d go through them with me and tell me if there’s any chance something Otherworld is holding it up.”
“You want me to…” I gaped at the files. “That’s a lot of files.”
He nodded and pointed to the far end. “I’ve organized them by date, with the oldest cases down there leading up to the most recent cases here. Open cases are on the bottom of the piles, closed cases on top.”
“Why the solved cases on top?”
He met my eyes. “Those convictions might have put the wrong person behind bars.”
I walked over to the piles and lifted the first folder. I opened the folder and found a picture of a brown-haired man with striking blue eyes that bored right through me. Doubt bit me, hard. All these files held the lives of real people. What if there were more Emmas here? Was I ready to commit to a path filled with more evenings like this one?
“Andy, I’ll be honest. I’m not sure I'll keep going with private investigations.”
He frowned and looked up from his file, seeming to notice my mood for the first time. His attention slid from my hair, in wild di
sarray from all the tugging I’d done, to my clothes still wrinkled and soda-stained from my earlier tantrum. “Bad day?”
“Yeah.” I put the file down and smoothed my hair back from my face. “I solved a murder today. The victim was a complete bastard. Evil, even. And the woman who shot him… She’s a good person. I don’t blame her—I mean, I understand why she did it.”
“And you arrested her anyway?”
I looked away. “Yes. Well, sort of. It’s complicated, as werewolves are, but… Let’s say she’s being punished.”
Andy set his file down on the pile nearest him, then frowned, picked it up again, and put it on the pile next to it. Then he took a step closer.
“And now you feel like crap? You wanted to let her get away with it.”
I nodded without looking at him. “Yes.”
“Could you have let her get away with it?”
I bit my lip, considering that for a second. “I think so.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” The word came out harsher than I’d intended, but I was in no mood to field the same question fifty times.
“Good.” Andy nodded.
“What?” My temper sparked, fueled by all the caffeine and the resulting jitters. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means—”
“I’ve been calling you for weeks, and you couldn’t pick up the phone, to return a single phone call. You call me tonight just before the witching hour, asking me to drive two hours to help you without so much as one question about how I’m doing, or how busy I am, or even a fleeting thought to how tired I might be, and now you’re going to stand there and take satisfaction in my misery?”
Andy blinked, then looked at the sliding glass door as if just noticing the late hour. “What time is it?”
“After midnight,” I said. I jabbed a finger at Peasblossom, who’d carried her sleeping bag to the top of a stack of folders. “She should be in bed.”
“I am in bed,” she grumbled. “And if you’d stop shouting, I could be asleep.”
Andy avoided looking at Peasblossom. He ran a hand through his hair, drawing my attention to the fact it was wet, as if he’d showered before I arrived. Now that I’d noticed, I realized he smelled good, that strong scent of body wash before it faded.
Concentrate, I told myself.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so late. I’ve been working on this”—he gestured at the files—“and I guess I got tunnel vision. And I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls. I was thinking things through, and I didn’t want to talk until I knew what I’d say.”
“And you decided what you would say is ‘help me’?”
He considered me for a long minute. “The last time we spoke, you were bound and determined to be a private investigator. You wanted to catch bad guys—alone, if I recall.”
I took a breath to answer, but he held up a hand.
“I won't beat you up over magically drugging me and ditching me again. I understand why you did it. I’m letting it go. I want to talk about the future. A future where we help each other. I’ll bring you cases; you help me deal with the Otherworld.”
“I told you, I’m not even sure I'll keep doing this.”
“Then at least let me explain what I meant when I said it's good you feel like crap.” He took another step closer, holding my gaze. “If you like every victim, hate every murderer, and are happy and at peace after every case, then you’re only doing your job for half the population. The fact is, bad things don’t just happen to good people. Sometimes they happen to bad people. And sometimes good people do bad things. Justice only works if everyone gets it. Sometimes you'll hate the victim and love the murderer. You’ll be angry and depressed after you solve those cases, and that sucks, but it also means you’re getting justice for everyone. It’s a lesson that takes some cops decades to come to grips with. So in a way, you’re ahead of the curve. Which tells me you’re following the path you were meant to take.”
His words sank in, and the knots twisting my stomach, eased, released. I could breathe easier now, though I still felt like crying. I guessed that was a good thing.
I looked around at the case files. “These are all cases you think might have ties to the Otherworld?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. “Mind if I make a quick phone call?”
“Go ahead.”
I called Mother Hazel. The old crone answered on the fifth ring.
“Yes?”
“Hi, Mother Hazel?” I smiled. “You owe me a favor.”
* * *
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THE BLOOD TRAILS SERIES is a fusion of fantasy and mystery that combines a classic private investigator/whodunnit with the sarcasm and magic that’s made the Urban Fantasy genre so famous.
THE BLOOD PRINCE SERIES is a sensual paranormal romance series that twists beloved fairy tales into original tales of love, adventure, and…well, blood. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and ultimately, you’ll need to sink your teeth into the next book as you follow a desperate desire to find out just what the werewolf, the vampire, the demon, the angel, and the god are really up to…
THE BLOOD REALM SERIES is a spin-off /continuation of the Blood Prince series. Though these books can be read in any order, to get the most out of the epilogues, I always recommend following the suggested reading order HERE.
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All of my books are written in the same universe (yes, even the Urban Fantasy, which is contemporary, not historical like the Blood Prince/Blood Realm series—and you’ll have to read Deadline to find out how I managed that…). Be ready for crossovers and cameos!
Jennifer Blackstream Newsletter
OTHER BOOKS BY JENNIFER BLACKSTREAM
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Urban Fantasy
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Blood Trails Series
Temptation (prequel, mailing list exclusive)
Deadline
Monster
Taken
Corruption
Mercenary
Caged
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Paranormal Romance
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Blood Prince Series
Before Midnight
One Bite
Golden Stair
Divine Scales
Beautiful Salvation
Bonus Novel: The Pirate’s Witch
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Blood Realm Series:
All for a Rose
Blue Voodoo
The Archer
Bear With Me
Stolen Wish
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Join my mailing list to be alerted when new titles are released.
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Short stories are not listed here, but can be found on my website here.
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Ahoy, ebook pirates!
All right, so here's the deal. Certain online retailers have affiliate programs whereby people can earn referral fees for sending people to shop on their site. It's sort of like a "finder's fee" negotiated by a burly sea captain. Or perhaps a roguish treasure hunter. Maybe a dragon-shifter with a head for business... I digress. Basically, when you click on a referral link, the online retailer pays the associate (in this case, me) a very small percentage of whatever you spend during that session. So if you click that link and buy, say, LEGO Super Heroes Super Hero Airport Battle for $75.70, then the retailer takes your $75.70 and gives me somewhere around $2.
Now, some of you are reading this because you got your hands on a pirated copy of one of my books. I'm not going to lecture you, or shame you, or beg you to stop. I spent an hour last night begging my daughter to go to sleep, so I'm all groveled out for at least the next 12 hours. All I'm going to say is this: If you got any enjoyment out of my work, please consider clicking on the link below the next time you need to buy something from one of these very popular online retailers I’m sure you already shop at. You won't be spending a penny more than you would have anyway, and I'll get a little compensation for all the time and effort I put into writing the book so I can continue to write more books.
Clicking the link is not an acknowledgement that you pirated one of my books. Even if you are a wonderful person who paid for this book, if you'd like to use this link to help me earn enough money for the next Lego set with a superhero in it (even though we all know my son's going to build it, then discard the majority in favor of playing with only the little people) then you can click the link too.
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