“See? Toldja I could help you. Next time, let me in right away. I don’t have time to chase you all over town.”
“Don’t spoil it, Oz.”
Chapter 22
“So we’re not going to talk about it.”
“No, we are not.”
David shrugged. “Fine.”
“Good.”
“We’ve got bigger things to worry about,” he added.
“Duh.” Annette groaned. “Sorry. This happens when I hang around Pat and Oz too long. I’ll rephrase: Oz has hidden depths, and trying to keep him out of this is looking more and more like a critical error.”
“Sure. Sure. That. Yep.”
“Oh.” Annette blinked at him. “Oh! You were referencing our bloodlust-fueled mack session.”
“Aw. It sounds super romantic when you put it like that.”
“I think we’ve both made it clear there’s nothing romantic about anything the two of us are doing right now.”
Ow. “Noted. Now, about Oz—you gonna let him put his paws in now?”
“Clearly I can’t keep his paws out,” she replied dryly. “So yes.” When they’d left the studio, Pat was rummaging for something besides an apron for Oz to wear out on the town, while Oz pledged to keep digging, which was great for their case. Though David hoped to God he wouldn’t have to sit through another forensic accounting lecture when it was over.
“And what was Nadia squawking about?”
“Our crippling stupidity and carelessness.”
“Sounds about right. Speaking of, maybe it’s time for burners.” He’d shut his phone off yesterday and wouldn’t turn it back on anytime soon. In all the excitement, he’d forgotten to suggest Annette do the same.
“Out here, maybe,” she replied, waving at the cityscape as they approached the hospital. “But cell phone signals don’t work so well in Pat’s studio. The chance of someone tracking us in there are beyond slim.”
“And out here?”
“Well. Don’t we want them to? Isn’t our new terrible plan awfully like the old one? Except we’re now dodging Judge Gomph? Or are we not dodging him?” She turned in her seat to face David, nibbling a thumbnail while she thought out loud. “Is this when we concoct a scheme to trick Gomph into incriminating himself, and then the forces of good will pounce, punish him, and exonerate us?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Well, David, since we aren’t discussing that devastating kiss, I guess we’re back to the necessary routine of saving Caro and Dev and, subsequently, our jobs.”
“Devastating, huh?”
“Don’t read into it,” she warned. Then, pensively: “What the hell am I supposed to say to Gomph when I see him? ‘How could you?’ ‘Were you always evil, or is it something new you’re trying?’ ‘It’s no use protesting, you’re the only one who knew where Caro was, now get the hell out and take your gavel with you and on your way out, please rot in hell forever?’”
And now, the tricky bit. He cleared his throat. “There’s one other person who knew.”
“Yes, but I’ve decided to trust you.”
“That’s not what I… You really thought I might be in on it?” He was equal parts hurt and pleased. Maybe not so soft after all.
“I considered the possibility. But you’ve had ample opportunities to kill all of us.”
“Maybe I’m biding my time.”
“Maybe you’re not that stupid.”
“Thanks! I think. But there’s someone else who could have guessed Caro was going to your place.”
Annette frowned. “Bob doesn’t count. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d be astonished if he recalled anything other than the Secret Santa nonsense. He couldn’t have… Dammit.”
“Yeah.”
He’d hated to say it, so he was relieved when she made the same leap of logic he had. If she couldn’t stand the idea of Judge Gomph trafficking in brutalized kids, or, at best, abetting traffickers of brutalized kids, she’d probably vomit blood at the thought of Nadia brutalizing kids.
For his part, he wasn’t sure. Nadia was a pain in the ass, yeah. A snob and a half, and high maintenance AF, but so? Plenty of people were into that. Probably.
But into what Lund was into? That was a leap. She’d helped them break into his apartment. He thought she was going to cry when she saw the photos. God knows he nearly did, and he thought he’d seen everything.
“No. David, no. We’ve worked together for years. And that brittle I’m-above-you-peons act of hers? Is an act. She might not love the kids, but she hates the abusers. She’d never countenance this. And don’t forget—she’s the one who reminded us that we’re supposed to be better than Stables.”
“Yes, it was very convincing.”
Annette just looked at him. “You don’t know her. Now sit down—”
“I’m driving! You can see me driving! Why wouldn’t I be sitting down?”
“—and I’m going to tell you why Nadia’s not the villain in this piece. See, a couple of years ago, when we first started working together—”
“Wait until I’m sitting down.”
* * *
“Good heavens! There’s a tiny child down there!”
Annette stepped past Nadia and squinted, but on her best day she couldn’t see as well as Nadia on her worst. She could make out a flash of red among the rocks, brush, and stunted trees, but not much else. And she couldn’t see any movement at all.
“Alive?” She flared her nostrils, relieved she couldn’t scent any decay.
“Shall we find out?”
“That’s rhetorical, I think. Because you’re naked by now, aren’t you? I’m going to turn around and you are going to be naked. I think that’s a new speed record.”
Nadia didn’t reply, as she was too busy sprouting feathers and talons, and then she swooped past Annette’s shoulder, climbed, circled, then folded her wings and arrowed toward the red blob. Which was amusing for several reasons, not least because the woman had just been complaining about the “unbearably frigid” fall weather (sixty degrees and sunny, or, as Annette’s mother used to call it, swimsuit weather).
They’d decided to spend their lunch break at Minnehaha Park, a break they were drawing out so as to avoid the office, and Bob, and the Secret Santa madness. “It’s September!” Annette had practically screamed. “Fifteenth!” This while Nadia texted lewd emoticons to everyone in the office, then pretended she hadn’t hit Group Send on purpose.
Fleeing to a park had been the only sane response to such madness. And they were apparently the only ones on the grounds who weren’t park employees. They hadn’t seen or scented anyone else during their walk, nor had they run across anyone frantically searching for a missing child wearing something red. Which did not bode well, for unsavory reasons.
It was an unlikely place for a fall, she thought as she waited for Nadia. There were several warning signs posted along the trail, complete with a symbol of a genderless cartoon figure helplessly cartwheeling over a cliff, presumably to its death, and a slope that clearly led to a steep drop. It was also a nasty place for a fall. The ravine was at least forty feet deep, with unforgiving boulders and nothing to cushion a plummet but rocks and dead brush.
If someone threw a bag of puppies down there, I will be very. Fucking. Irritated. And if someone threw a… Good God, it hardly bears thinking about.
Nadia reappeared beside her and shifted back in midair, landing lightly (and nudely) on her feet, ice-blue eyes bright in her flushed face. “She’s alive! Knocked about and bloody, and she’s got a horrid forehead gash that will need stitching, poor darling. But she hasn’t been down there long. She doesn’t seem to be dehydrated, and she’s no more than two or three years old, poor clumsy child.”
“I’ll call 9-1-1.”
“And she’s a Stable,” Nadia warned.
“I figured.” If the child had been a Shifter, she likely would have shifted from instinct if nothing else. And it was likely her other self would have been far better equipped to await rescue, or even gotten out on her own. “Should I try to get down there? Help you bring her up?”
“We don’t have the appropriate equipment, and I worry we might cause her further injury. I’ll keep her company so she doesn’t thrash about. She thinks I’m a magical eagle who gives rides to fairies in the woods.”
“Well, there’s really nothing to disprove that.”
“You’re so charming when you care to take the trouble.” Nadia preened. “But you stay here. I know you’re tough, Annette, but it’s really quite steep and you’re awfully, ah… What’s the opposite of ‘light on your feet’?”
“I don’t know, what’s the opposite of ‘not condescending at all’?”
“I’m sure you can figure it out if you think about it for a bit.”
“I see what you did there!” Annette hollered as Nadia shifted and swooped back down. She gathered the woman’s clothes in a tidy bundle and called Emergency Services, reporting an injured minor who needed rescuing, with a possible concussion and broken bones.
Then there was little to do but wait and wonder if, on the way back, she could talk Nadia into stopping by Milkjam Creamery for Thai Tea ice cream cones. Which would only happen if they didn’t have to answer too many awkward questions about how they happened to notice a girl child alive at the bottom of a ravine no one could see into or reach without mountaineering equipment.
That was the trickier side of their work and always had been. She and her kind were outnumbered thousands to one; it was a simple fact of life as well as population statistics. So when a Shifter needed an ambulance or was robbed or had to report a missing person, odds were the person or persons who came to help were going to be Stable.
So right there, they had to be careful what they said and did. Most of her kind preferred to deal privately with such problems: hire a Shifter private eye, go to a Shifter physician, hire a Shifter accountant to explain why romping through a forest at midnight was deductible.
IPA was the only all-Shifter government agency in existence, as far as she knew. Perhaps they would eventually have their own police precincts and schools. Oh, but that sounded bad, 1960s bad: separate but equal.
Except plenty of Shifters didn’t think Stables were equal. Some of the most intelligent people she’d ever known viewed Stables with pity and condescension at best, animals at worst, locked into one shape, never evolving, just wallowing in their destructive instincts. Her own father had explained it rather crudely when she was a child: “A six-week-old puppy knows not to shit where she eats. Stables still haven’t figured that one out.”
And always, always hanging over their heads was the constant fear of discovery by the wider world of Stables, the most rapacious, destructive predators in the history of the planet.
One thing at a time. Focus on what’s in front of you. So to speak. Good advice, and not a moment too soon. Behind her, from the south, she could hear a small group approaching. Not running or shouting, and it was too early for the paramedics. So, then: park visitors. Two males and a female.
No, she realized when all three of them blanched when they saw her. Not visitors. Or, at least, not there just to visit.
“Hey!” the taller man barked. “What are you doing?”
Rude. “Watching.”
The taller one lowered his head and stepped forward, pushing with his shoulders like he was trying to get through a crowd. “What’s going on?”
“A rescue operation,” she replied pleasantly. “Isn’t that good news?”
“A rescue?” The woman, small and slight, with dark-blond hair pulled into a ponytail, was cupping her elbows in both hands. “But why? There’s, um, there’s no one down there.”
“Of course there is.”
“No, there isn’t.” This from the smaller male.
“There’s no need to take my word for it. Oh, and that’s a lovely jailhouse tattoo. The tears aren’t filled in, though. Does it signify time served, or people you tried to kill? Well, it’s not important.” She gestured to the edge of the ravine. “Peek for yourself.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s nobody down there.”
“It’s odd that you know that. And you’re so definitive! So then, prove me wrong. How about you step over here and take a look?”
“How about you fuck the fuck off—”
“Fuck the fuck off? How would one even begin to fuck the fuck off?”
“—and mind your own business?” This from the larger, bulked-up male, who made the mistake many such men did: he assumed that hours in the gym made him an authority figure.
“I’m fine right here.” She could see them more clearly now, hear them better. She was hyperaware that there was little to no wind, and that she had the sun at her back, and that the three of them smelled like fear, heavily spiked with aggression. She could feel her pulse pick up in response as she filtered the data: shocked to see her. No running or shouting. Quick to assure her that there was Nothing To See Here. Trying to drive her off with a threat display. Absolutely would not walk up to the edge.
“You dumped her, didn’t you? Or she fell because you weren’t paying attention, and you got the hell out so you wouldn’t get in trouble. The latter, I’m guessing, given that you smell like happy hour in a dive bar and haven’t brought help back with you. Chicken wings and Budweiser with just a smidge of meth. Jesus wept.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“And you.” She nodded at the woman who wouldn’t look at her. “You talked them into coming back, didn’t you? But only to reassure yourself there was no saving her. Then you could resume your life, presumably with one or both of these men, with minimal guilt.”
Tell them there’s an ambulance coming? One likely followed by a police unit?
No. They might run.
“They’re my husband and my brother,” she burst out, glancing at both men, then looking away. “We grew up together.”
“Lorraine, shut the fuck up.”
“We’re family,” she gasped, and fell silent beneath the larger man’s glare.
“Family.” I may vomit. Yes, I really think I might. And I would hate to lose that outstanding banh mi I had for lunch. “And your daughter?”
“She’s, uh, I mean, she’s mine. Not, um—”
“Oh Christ.” Annette rubbed her forehead. “You got pregnant by another man while your husband was inside. Now he’s out and he doesn’t want any cuckoos in his nest.”
“What?”
“This is your Big Test of True Love. Get rid of your daughter, and you can all go back to being the Terrible Musketeers.”
Before she could elaborate, or kick someone, there was the sound of furiously beating wings as Nadia shot out of the ravine and soared above them, hoarsely screaming what Annette assumed was the red kite equivalent of “you all suck.”
“Oh, look! I found my bird. That’s twice! I should buy a lottery ticket. I just keep finding things. Isn’t that lucky? Oh, good God.” The two men had their heads together, while the woman stayed on the outside of their little group, studying the horizon like she’d never seen it before. “You’re trying to figure out if you should toss me over the side or run away. Or both. And I’ll be honest, I’m rooting for options one or three.”
Their eyes widened, and she realized she was grinning at them so broadly her cheeks hurt.
(“Sometimes…when you do that…you look like you have a thousand teeth.” Pat, blood pouring from the six-inch slash down his face, both of them trying to keep their balance on the slick floor; he didn’t pass out until she dragged him across the threshold to the ER.)
Before she could say anything else, Nadia swooped in to land. Annette ob
ligingly stuck out her arm so Nadia wouldn’t feel the need to roost on one of the men’s skulls. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?”
“What the fuck is that?”
“Stop that, you’ll hurt her feelings. She’s… Ack!” Annette brushed the feathers away from her face as Nadia displayed her six-foot wingspan. “The poor thing was a helpless, hideous bag of bones and feathers when I found… Ow! Dammit, Nadia! I’ve only worn this sweater twice!”
Q. Why didn’t I wrap her skirt around my arm as a shield?
A. Because I’m an idiot.
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
Annette glanced over at the smaller man. “Oh, don’t look at me like you’ve never seen someone in a public park using a raptor to hunt small game.”
“What?”
Nadia’s wings fluttered as she stomped up and down Annette’s arm, further destroying her sweater. “Small game. Rabbits, shrews, voles, chicken nuggets. She loves ’em all. She is a fiend for shrews! And honey mustard dip. Winter’s coming, she has to fatten up for… Ow!”
The smaller man approached, indicating true bravery or abject stupidity, and made shooing motions at a deeply unimpressed Nadia while Annette held back her snort. The larger one had chosen option one (or three) and came right for Annette, doubtless planning to punch her into compliance if the balled fists were any indication, then toss her into the ravine to keep his stepdaughter company until they died of thirst or exposure.
So she broke his jaw.
Nadia, meanwhile, had arrowed straight for the smaller one, and his shrieks were louder than hers. His arms windmilled as he tried batting her beak and talons away from his face, and Annette (almost) sympathized. A hawk didn’t look like much from a distance, but in a full-on attack, all the prey can see and hear and feel are the furiously beating wings and screaming and slashing of a predator with an unbreakable grip and a beak like a razor. It was so sudden and painful and disorienting, the prey would run in any direction to get away, which is why he plunged over the edge and into the ravine.
Bears Behaving Badly Page 14