by RJ Blain
She would, too.
“Will you cross her lines?”
“I certainly have no desire to be gelded, sir.”
“No sane man does.”
I hesitated to label Sassy’s father as sane, but I played along, pretending he hadn’t goaded Sassy’s mother into kidnapping him and holding him hostage until he agreed to settle down. “I’ve done some limited research on the lycanthropy virus. As far as I know, there are three legal ways to contract the virus, and one of them is off the table.”
Sassy wouldn’t sleep with anyone, and while it made me uncomfortable thinking about it, I had no doubts she was still a virgin. Her father had it right; Sassy acted like a wolf more than a cheetah when it came to men, and she’d keep the first man she slept with for life. In that, we were well-matched. I’d done my time around the block before swearing off women, and the next time I settled down, it would be in a permanent relationship.
“Son, you’ve been doing yourself too much damned reading. I could go grab a knife, cut you up, and bleed all over you. As long as you had a chance to decline, it’s legal. There ain’t no damned law on the book stating you can’t get infected if you want to. Them laws are all about making sure the virus ain’t forced on anyone unwilling. But here’s your real problem. My kitten’s stubborn, but she’s smart. For you to be coming over here and daring to ask me about the virus means you’re serious about her. She’ll come around, but she’s going to be having one of her hissy fits for a while over it.”
Hissing mad I could understand. Sassy wouldn’t be hissy. She’d be murderous, and I gave myself even odds on if she’d target me or her father first. “My other option is to be infected during an accident. An accident created by my own stupidity is fine, but from top to bottom, it’d have to be an accident.”
“Charlie got himself a new ATV a few weeks back. He’d be right interested in taking you for a ride on it. That thing loves bucking him off, and without fail, he comes back bloodied to hell. The seats got permanent stains on it, I reckon.”
“Survival’s important, sir.”
“Right you are. And that thing is a death trap. But if you don’t come up with a safer way to handle it, I reckon that’s your best bet for getting infected while it being a genuine accident. But since survival is important, here’s what I can do for you. I’ve got plenty of toys a pair of idiot boys can bleed over. You and him are the perfect pair to be young and reckless over my tools. You’ll even be able to tell an angel the truth when we’re done, and you won’t even peep a hint of a lie. And well, if you knock yourself out while playing and Charlie bleeds all over you, well, these things happen. My kitten needs herself a sturdy, reliable man. Given my way, you’ll be in the ER when you’re supposed to be calling my kitten this afternoon, so I’ll take care of tellin’ her the part about how you and her brother decided to act your shoe size rather than your age.”
I could see Sassy forgiving me for an accident. Eventually. Who could blame me for wanting to play with her father’s power tools. He had a lot of them. He had an entire shed of them waiting for my use. He had so many power tools I could build an entire house without needing to go to the hardware store. “Why help me, sir? The last time I came over, you rearranged my face.”
“Don’t worry yourself about that, son. I was testing to see if you were tough enough to handle my kitten. The way I see it, she’s hoping her white knight gets a little dirty working to earn her. She’ll learn she’s signed up for a handful one of these days.”
I drank the toxic sludge he called coffee to buy myself a few moments. “Did I pass?”
“Sure. You had the balls to come back over after I busted up your face. It took you a while, but I busted your face pretty good. A man has to dust off after that. The others I’ve busted up just hid and whimpered like newborns, and not a one of them has even dared to come onto the block. I’ve caught you dropping my kitten off in your truck several times. It took you half the time to work up the nerve to come here solo, too.”
I needed to stop underestimating Sassy’s father. “Were you expecting me to pay you a visit?”
“I sure as hell have been hopin’ you would, truth be told. My kitten likes you something fierce and hasn’t figured out she don’t have a hope in hell dating anyone else. I give it no more than two or three years until her virus snaps and she goes loco and pounces. I figure all you’re doing is keeping her virus from straining itself landing you. It’d be quite the mess if she went loco because her virus was itching to mate. I’m partly to blame. I raised her to be stubborn. Her brothers are aware you’re on her menu, but they value their lives so they keep their mouths shut. She been clingy lately? That’s usually the first sign a kitten’s ready to become a queen among felines.”
“She licked chocolate syrup out of my hair and off my face for two hours last night and left in a mood.”
“I thought your face was lookin’ a bit off today, redder than normal. You still a teetotaler?”
“I had a beer yesterday before I dumped chocolate syrup and cotton candy over my head so her hard work at booby trapping my apartment wouldn’t go to waste.”
“Seems you had yourself an eventful day yesterday.”
“I’d say. A little boy and his mother were gunned down at Park Lane. I was working down the street when it happened.”
“I take it you and my kitten are going to be involving yourselves with that one?”
“Yeah. We are.”
“Good. Ain’t right hurting the little ones. You let us know if we can help.”
“The killer left confetti made from, what I can tell, newspaper scraps. One has the number one. The other has a date: April 10th. No year. That’s where I’m going to be starting. Maybe if I can figure out why that date is important, I’ll be able to get some leads.”
“Well, you’ll want to be checking the Sunday papers for that date; no one’s printed daily papers in years. It’s all digital now or on Sunday only. If it’s a newspaper it’s printed on, that’s where you’ll go first. Could be someone just using newspaper stock and printing it themselves. Any sign there’s anything else on the sheets?”
“I’ve got samples at home to check. It’s on the list for later today.”
“Dean’s an artist. Hand over your keys, and I’ll send him over to have a look-see. You check them for prints?”
“No. They were in my clothes and likely contaminated, but the cops have samples, so if there are prints, I’ll find out about it.”
Sassy’s father raised a brow. “You gone and got yourself somebody on the inside?”
“For this job? Yeah. I got somebody on the inside ready to feed me intel. It was that bad.”
“The ones that involve the little ones always are. So, tell me. How do you like your recklessness? I’ve raised nine boys, and every single one of those brats liked their recklessness in a different way. If you want to sell my kitten on the idea it was an accident, then you need to be reckless in a way that’s all you. The accident will come. After all, my brats will be involved. I’ve got everything you might need. As a note, my wife is expecting a new shed by the end of the week, and I couldn’t help but notice you brought your truck.”
I raised my brow, sipped my coffee, wished I’d had the balls to decline a drink, and struggled to keep from grimacing over the assault on my taste buds. “Yours too tired to hit the lumber yard?”
“Damn straight my truck’s too tired to hit the lumber yard, but she won’t hear about getting me something new until she’s got her new shed and we’ve torn down the barn down the way and put up something new. Noah done wants to get himself some new horses and some head of cattle, and his place don’t have the space for all the livestock he’s fixing to get.”
When Sassy’s father issued an invitation to help with the manual labor, it was accepted. Without question or argument. “Why not? I don’t have anything else to do today beyond bailing Sassy from a bad date.” Sassy’s father didn’t need to know I was supposed to be ge
tting more photos for Heatherow on top of hunting a serial killer. “You’re going to call for Dean?”
“Charlie, too. I reckon it’ll take them two hours to come on by. Plenty of time to hit the lumber yard and get a load in.”
“Why don’t we take a ride to my place, pick up the samples, and get the first load on the way back? It’s more efficient that way.”
I’d also get to keep my keys and keep Sassy’s brothers out of my apartment.
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll go put my kitten’s new toys in the safe and give the brats a call so they can make themselves useful for a change.” Sassy’s father headed for the door to fetch the shoes and purse.
I found it funny even her father wouldn’t come between Sassy and her shoe and purse fetish. Fortunately for my peace of mind, only a fool would steal from a cheetah lycanthrope’s home. ‘Never steal from someone who can run faster than you’ needed to be hung from his door.
Maybe I’d make him a sign for Christmas; he appreciated twisted humor almost as much as his daughter.
Chapter Five
Sassy’s father prowled around my apartment, a scowl fixed in place. “This ain’t big enough for cubs or kittens.”
One day, I might understand why Sassy’s father referred to his daughter as a kitten and his sons as cubs. I figured it had something to do with rarity; that Sassy’s father had a daughter at all seemed impressive. The Dallas coalition had one breeding pair: Sassy’s parents. No one knew how Sassy’s mother had picked up the infection, although most bet it was luck of the draw from a magical hot spot.
Sassy gave the local cheetah population hope there’d be another generation, although no one wanted to be the sacrificial lamb from my understanding of the situation.
Cheetahs. Either they were unmated and randy with their colony fellows or they lived and breathed for children.
Unless I wanted to stir the old man’s ire, I’d have to nip his concern in the bud. “Moving is an option.”
“Better be. One cub would tear through here and leave nothing but rubble. Sassy’s just like her mother, and once she gets her hands on you, there’ll be a lot of cubs in your future. I’m hopeful for at least several kittens, too. The coalition’s thinking about looking for women wanting the virus.”
“That’s only going to work if you’ve got some cheetahs willing to leave the coalition lifestyle to settle down with a permanent mate.”
“It’s like you actually pay attention. I’m impressed. A few of the older males are thinking about it. Sassy’s too young for them, and everyone in the coalition’s already figured out she’s got her heart set on you despite her being too dense and stubborn to figure that out yet. Truth be told, I expect you’d be invited to help with work in the yards until an accident happened to make sure my kitten gets what she wants. With you as her breeding male, there’s some hope some of the teen boys will pick themselves kittens before the virus takes hold too strong.”
Great. Sassy’s father already had us boosting the local cheetah population. I wondered why he thought I might be able to change how the virus ticked for cheetahs. “I see you cats have been gossiping again.”
“That’s what us cats do best. If there’s gossip to be had, we have it. But, being serious here. This place wouldn’t last ten minutes with a single cub, and I’m concerned it won’t survive my kitten for long.”
Considering she’d booby trapped my apartment with cotton candy, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream, I was inclined to agree with him. I needed to check into the reality of lycanthropy-infected children before Sassy’s father filled my head with dread and nonsense. Shaking my head at the insanity, I retrieved everything I had on the Park Lane murders, photographed the scraps so Sassy’s brother could review them, and fetched my tool kit along with my work gloves. “There are a lot of steps between our current situation and even the thought of cubs. Frankly, I give myself a fairly high chance of being rejected because she partnered with me only after I promised there would be no relationship between us.”
“She was wrong. She’ll even admit it one day. Technically, doing reckless things with her brothers isn’t breaking your promise. At the end of the day, my little kitten will appreciate your ingenuity.”
His little kitten would bankrupt me in a month if I kept buying her shoes to avoid instant death. Maybe I’d buy her a stupidly expensive dress to go with her new shoes. An entire ensemble might distract her long enough for me to confess my every sin and beg for forgiveness.
It was her fault I’d grown to love everything about her. I bore no responsibility. Any sane man would love Sassy given time.
“That’s the expression of a defeated man,” her father stated in his coolest tone.
“The wolf’s taking her to a fast food joint. I spent thousands on shoes. I’m wondering if I showed up at one of her dates with the shoes if she’d kill me.”
“I already agreed to help make certain you’re infected during a terrible accident involving power tools. You’re going to give my kitten gray hairs with your fussing.”
Why had I gone to Sassy’s father for help? Oh, right. Desperation. “Think your colony of cubs would be interested in helping to track a killer and double-cross some politicians? I’m going to need to free up some time on my schedule if I have to recover from a tragic accident involving power tools. Can we keep the accident to something that has minimal recovery time? Sassy might kill me if I miss too much work and dump our contracts on her lap.”
“They’d do it for fun. What’s the deal with the politicians?”
“I need incriminating photos of one, an opportunity for said politician to defuse the situation, and no links back to me. My hire gives me a bad vibe, and my current photo and intel pool isn’t robust enough for my liking.”
“That’s not like you.”
“No, it’s not, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole mess,” I admitted. “I’m going to forward my gallery of the pictures I took at Park Lane. My hire had me following a woman hoping to secure compromising photos.”
“Woman’s name?”
“Sharon Gray.”
“Lycanthropy positive, non-contagious, wolf strain. Hunting for a mate. She’s been eyeing the colony, as she’s the adventurous type. She’s active in political circles. If he’s a politician, she’s probably slept with him. She’s a single mother of three.”
“She has kids?” I blurted.
“She gave them up for adoption at birth to a mated wolf pair in Houston. Her twin sister and her mate. Her sister’s barren. The missus and I took a turn with her younger child; she didn’t want anyone knowing about him until she could get a hold of her sister and make arrangements for adoption. The other two are twin girls, two years older than the boy.”
My eyes widened. “She gave them up for adoption to her sister? But why?”
“She loves her pups something fierce, and she loves her sister, too. Far as I reckon, she doesn’t want them embroiled in any scandals, so she hid her pregnancies and made sure no one outside of the lycanthrope circles knew they’d been born. This way, she gets the best of both worlds. The pups think of her as their godmother, so she gets to see them, they view her sister as their mother, and since they’re twins, no one can really tell from a DNA test they’re Sharon’s pups.”
“Now I’m really confused,” I confessed. “Does Sharon’s sister also have pups of her own?”
“No. She developed ovarian cancer before she’d contracted the virus, and she had her ovaries removed. There won’t be any pups of her own, unfortunately. So, Sharon did the only thing she could; she had a few pups so her sister could become a mother.”
Whenever I thought lycanthropes couldn’t surprise me any more, they always did. “I’ll confess, she doesn’t seem like the type of woman to do something so selfless at first glance.”
“She’s a tricky one, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect her family. In that, she’s as wolf as one can get. I’d make sure you don’t take your search beyo
nd the local area. Some things are best left secret.”
On that, we were agreed. I also made a mental note to stop underestimating Sassy’s father. “Know anything about Senator Sterling?”
“Typical political playboy, bisexual, and he likes his kinks rough. That’s common enough knowledge. He likes the publicity, as it gets him more sexual partners without having to work for it. His wife likes her kinks, too. If he’s your target, go to town. He likes the attention, and in his case, any publicity is good publicity. I can get you a list of his clubs, and I bet you can talk him into posing for you with partners who want the notoriety, too.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I breathed in deep and considered flinging myself out of the nearest window. “Just how common is this knowledge?”
“Very common among lycanthropes; he’s a risk taker and isn’t against infection, so the unmated play it safe with him. He gets on well with the coalition because he can flit in and out of the couplings without bringing any drama with him. His wife tags along with some of her girlfriends as voyeurs, too. Wouldn’t be any of my business, but Sterling wanted a round with one of my older brats.”
Shit. “Over eighteen?”
“My brat was twenty-two when he made the rounds. He’s never eyed my younger brats, and he’s careful about antagonizing the mated pairs. His general rule of thumb is that unless his future partners are over the age of twenty-five, he gets the okay from the parents. It’s weird, but I’d rather weird ethics than no ethics. Now, all that said, he did have an interest in my little kitten after she turned eighteen, but I warned him off. He’s not her type.”
“She can’t stand cheaters.”
“Yep.”
I could easily see Sassy having a major altercation with a politician like Senator Sterling. “Please tell me he didn’t approach her directly.”