Her Detective Wolf

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Her Detective Wolf Page 2

by Alice C. Summerfield


  Tessa didn’t know anyone who would.

  She stomped on her work boots, packed her lunch, and ate her breakfast, putting the dishes in the dishwater when she was done. Then she filled a thermos with coffee – the stuff they brewed in the pot at work was complete crap – grabbed her keys and her lunch, and left for work.

  Tessa’s day job was as a mechanic, and she loved it. It was sometimes hard work, but she loved that she got to move around, work with her hands, and sometimes interact with computers. Occasionally, she even got to drive cars that she never could have afforded in her lifetime. On those occasions, she may or may not (but definitely did) pretend to be a lady Bond, star of her own action adventure franchise. (Even in her imagination, Tessa didn’t pretend to have the patience or paranoia necessary to be the star of a spy thriller.)

  Unlike most dragons, who probably could have afforded those sorts of cars if they wanted them, Tessa didn’t have old family money to fall back on. She didn’t have any sort of family at all to fall back on, never mind their money. For better or worse, she was out on her own, and she liked it that way. Really.

  She was even liked with her work hours. Tessa generally worked forty to fifty hours a week across four days a week, working ten to twelve hours each day. Sometimes, she even picked up a few extra hours of work on the occasional Friday. That left her Friday through Sunday for her personal endeavors, the majority of which time was taken up by her garage band, Rosin Flux. Sometimes, they even had a couple of gigs.

  It was a fun life.

  And ten hours later, after a long, occasionally very interesting, and sometimes trying shift, Tessa was too tired to keep worrying about pieces of pizza that she had probably eaten and then forgotten about eating. She felt ridiculous for thinking that there might be anything wrong with pizza disappearing. That was literally what it was designed to do – disappear into your mouth (and reappear later on your thighs or butt).

  You’ve been watching too many scary, suspenseful movies lately, my girl, thought Tessa as she drove home that night. Happy thoughts before bed from now on!

  Otherwise, she’d end up going to bed with her wrench again. She’d lost track of it in her sleep and woken up with it digging into her side. It hadn’t been her favorite way to start the day.

  At home, Tessa got cleaned up. She had a quiet night in, restarting the episode of Benny’s that she had tried to watch the other day and thoroughly enjoying it this time. She ate dinner in front of the television and read some before deciding that it was time to get ready for bed.

  There was still some of the grilled honey pork left, so Tessa packed it back into its Tupperware and put it back into the refrigerator. She went to scrape the cut off bits of fat in the garbage, where she saw something that made her freeze. In her chest, her heart lurched and then began to race.

  There, on top of the garbage, lay a white bottle of Slim Fast.

  Tessa hadn’t drunk it.

  And Madison wouldn’t have thrown it away. She usually washed the plastic bottles out and put them in the recycling.

  And yet, there it lay: an empty bottle of Slim Fast on top of her garbage.

  At least, she thought that it was empty. Reaching into the garbage, Tessa gave the bottle a swift, experimental heft.

  Yup, it was empty; very, very empty.

  With exaggerated care, Tessa returned the bottle to where she had found it. Then she went to the refrigerator. The bottles of Slim Fast standing at the front of the refrigerator were exactly as they should have been: standing neatly two by two. But, when she began pulling the bottles out, Tessa discovered that there were four bottles in one row and three in the other. Someone had taken a bottle of Slim Fast from the back of one of the rows.

  There were seven bottles of Slim Fast when there should have been eight.

  Unless Madison drank one before she left? Tessa thought hopefully.

  She didn’t see why Madison would have done it, but Tessa found that she wasn’t above hoping for it, anyway. Otherwise, something disturbing was going on.

  Fishing out her cell phone with a shaking hand, it took Tessa a few tries to get past her password, never mind calling her roommate. Somehow, Tessa managed.

  Impatiently, she listed to the phone right. Instead of leaving a message, she called back. She called back five times before Madison finally picked up, snarling down the line, “What?”

  “When did you get home?”

  “What? Who is this? Tessa?”

  “Yes, it’s Tessa,” said Tessa brusquely. “And when did you get home? I found one of your Slim Fasts in the garbage, and it –”

  “Are you eating my groceries?”

  “No, of course not! I –”

  “And I’m not home! I’m still in Utah with Bobby.”

  Tessa’s heart plunged in her chest. “You are?”

  “Yes!”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  Tessa hung up on Madison, the silence in the apartment loud after her phone call with her roommate.

  I’ve got to get out of here! Tessa thought, grabbing her wallet on her way to the door.

  Next stop: the police station.

  They didn’t laugh her out of the room, but it was close. Apparently, few people took a woman in a pair of flipflops and her pajamas seriously, especially if she was complaining about food going missing in her shared apartment.

  “It was probably just your roommate,” advised the desk officer almost kindly. “You ought to see about moving into your own place, even if it’s just a studio. My first solo apartment was only three hundred and fifty feet, but after the dorms, it was paradise.”

  “I don’t live in the dorms! I’m twenty-five!”

  “Well, whatever you’re using for moisturizer, it’s really working,” said the desk officer brightly.

  “And my roommate isn’t home! That’s the problem!”

  “Yeah, it’s always the worst when they run off after eating all your food and leaving a mess,” agreed the desk officer. She looked about twenty-five too. “Seriously. Think about what I said about studio apartments. They’re cramped, but entirely yours. It’s worth it.”

  Making an annoyed noise, Tessa stormed out of the police station.

  What a waste of time, Tessa seethed.

  She’d been tired even before she found the stupid bottle of Slim Fast, and now, she was exhausted. She had stayed up hours later than usual and to no effect. Nothing was going to be done about the weirdness that was going on in her apartment.

  Apparently, she was on her own.

  Somehow, that seemed more ominous than usual.

  On the way home, Tessa seriously considered sleeping in her car. In fact, she was still mulling over the possibilities when she got back to her apartment complex. It wouldn’t have been the first time that she had slept in her Sweetie.

  The parking lot was darker than usual, a handful of lights having burned out in the middle of the big lot. The lights at the front of the parking lot were still working, though, as were the ones at the very back of the lot. It was towards the back of the lot that Tessa headed.

  With the ease of practice, she nosed her wide, vintage car into one of the apartment complex’s narrow slots. At the very back of the parking lot, her slot had a sapling growing to one side of it, which drastically reduced the number of sides on which some careless knob might ding her car.

  Tessa took the threat of dings very seriously.

  She was making her way across the lot – more specifically, she was walking through the darkened area – when a man loomed out of the shadows in front of her.

  A second figure stepped out of the shadows behind her.

  Tessa’s pulse kicked up a notch. She didn’t slow her pace. She didn’t let her steps so much as waver. Her heart pounding in her throat – and her dragon’s scales itching beneath her skin – Tessa breezed past the man that had so clearly meant to block her way.

  Behind her, there was a short, surprised silence, a very brief exchange of sharp
words, and then the sounds of feet slapping against pavement. The two shadowy forms scrambled to catch up to her, one striding on either side of her. Having seen them rush to catch up to her, Tessa was much less intimidated by them.

  “We’d like a word with you,” said the one.

  “No, thank you,” said Tessa firmly. “I’m busy.”

  There were another two figures lying in wait in front of her. Given how heavy the shadows were in that part of the parking lot, Tessa didn’t think that she would have been able to see them if not for her dragon’s eyes. As it was, she didn’t think that they knew that she knew that they were there.

  Or something like that, at any rate.

  “That wasn’t a request,” growled the man to her right.

  Great, thought Tessa, annoyed. I’m getting mugged. Or maybe I’ll be lucky if it’s just a mugging that they intend. At least I’m a dragon…

  Even better, she was a dragon, who was outside. The sky was the limit – literally, for her.

  But even knowing that – knowing that, unless they were something unexpectedly awful, she’d be fine – didn’t keep Tessa’s muscles from tense, her heart from racing, or her hands from missing the weight and heft of her wrench. A Gilligan’s Island lunchbox was a poor substitute for the security of a wrench.

  Vaguely, in the corner of her brain that was neither indignant nor afraid, Tessa had the suspicion that she was supposed to be thinking of her fangs and claws and maybe her element, not a tool of her trade. But she wasn’t one of those dragons that could partially transform or deliberately call on their powers in their human form. She was either a dragon or she was human, and that was it. And usually, that wasn’t a problem.

  Usually.

  Even my mugging isn’t going right, thought Tessa, as annoyed with herself for her shortcomings as she was with the muggers for providing her with this opportunity in which to discover that she couldn’t even do this part of being a dragon right.

  “Lady, we’re with the police,” growled the man to her left. “And you’re under arrest.”

  Tessa stopped dead in her tracks.

  It was the perfect end to a perfectly horrible few days.

  Chapter 02 – Ajax

  Stakeouts were the worst. And after eighteen hours sitting in a cramped apartment, eating bad takeout, and watching what had to be the vainest man in the city conduct his business, Ajax was ready to go home, take a hot shower, and go to bed.

  At least this case will be wrapping up soon, thought Ajax, as he trudged out to the parking lot.

  He was in his vehicle and on his way home, when his cell phone began to ring. A glance at the display on his dash, and Ajax nearly sighed.

  He couldn’t ignore her.

  Thumbing a toggle on his steering wheel, he called “Hi, ma!”

  “Ajax, my darling!” cried his mother. “What is this I hear about you not coming to the family’s Halloween party?”

  “I’m busy,” said Ajax.

  “With a girl?”

  “I’ve got work.”

  His mother scoffed. “You always have work, Ajax! If you don’t take time off, you’ll burn out. Take an evening for yourself. Come spend time with your family. You know you always loved the family’s Halloween party. And your cousin Diana says that she’s got someone who’s perfect for you.”

  Ajax winced.

  His cousin Diana always brought girls that she’d like to hang out with, not necessarily ones that he’d be attracted to, never mind want to take out for coffee sometime.

  “Ma, I don’t want cousin Diana to set me up.”

  “Do you have someone of your own that you want to bring, then?”

  “No, ma, but –”

  “So, let your cousin set you up,” said his mother sternly. “You can’t find the right one, if you don’t meet a few girls.”

  “I can meet girls!”

  “And yet, you have no girlfriend. And I have no grandchildren! I want to hold your children in my arms, before I die, Ajax.”

  Ajax huffed out an annoyed breath.

  “You and pop aren’t that old,” he snapped, his tone harder than he meant it to be, but he had always hated it when his mother said stuff like that.

  “We will be at the rate you’re going,” sniffed his mother, as Ajax turned into the parking lot behind his apartment building – the unusually dark parking lot behind his apartment building.

  Ajax frowned.

  All sorts of mischief could happen in the dark, most of it criminal in his professional experience. And lit – or rather, unlit as it was – that parking lot was ripe for mischief.

  He didn’t like it.

  Ajax liked it even less when his head lights swept across an ugly tableau. A woman sandwiched between two men in suits, another two men in suits lurking near a familiar shape; one that he saw every day dozens of times over in the parking lot at work.

  Probably a refitted police cruiser, he decided, as he pressed down on the brake pedal. They sell them at police auctions sometimes, I think.

  Because there was no way that this was above board. Nothing in the official protocols permitted officers or detectives to corner a lone woman in a deliberately darkened area, not even if she was some particularly dangerous kind of shifter. It was allowed with vampires, course, but that was a different situation entirely. Direct sunlight was fatal to them, after all.

  Wrenching his car into park, Ajax said sharply “I’ve got to go, ma. Talk to you later,” and hanging up, he went to help the unfortunate woman.

  “Hey!” Ajax shouted, as he slung himself out of his car. “What’s going on here?”

  “Stay out of this, sir,” said the nearest man. He half turned to face Ajax; one arm raised to shield his eyes from Ajax’s headlights. “This is official police business.”

  And then he had the gall to flip a badge at Ajax!

  Not so close that Ajax could have gotten a good look at it, even if they weren’t doing this in a darkened parking lot, but Ajax admired the flick of his wrist as he did it. It was much more debonair than his own.

  Mentally, he made note of the fact that the nearest suspect was six feet tall and a hundred and eighty-five pounds or so with dark hair, shadowed features, and no obvious birth marks, scars, or tattoos. His nearest associate was both smaller and lighter in build, probably in coloring too, while all the rest were, unfortunately, too far away for Ajax to get a good look at them.

  “No, it’s not,” said Ajax. He didn’t bother to go for his badge. He had a feeling that he was going to need the use of both his hands in a moment. “I’m Detective Ajax Mytaras with the KPD, and you’re under arrest for impersonating a police officer.”

  There was a split second of absolute stillness.

  “Oh maaaaan,” whine a man’s voice, breaking the tableau, and as if that was some sort of signal, the four of them scattered like roaches.

  Ajax lunged at the nearest man – he only needed one to make any sense of this – and they went down in a tangle of limbs. They were rolling around on the ground, grunting and punching each other, and Ajax was trying not to breathe too deeply because the other guy smelled awful, when there was a burst of pain in Ajax’s temple.

  And then there was nothing.

  Ajax’s first thought was how much his head hurt. His second, that he was going to be sick. But maybe he said that part out loud, because then there were hands helping him to roll onto his side.

  Dry heaving hurt his head.

  “Ssshhh,” said a woman’s voice. He didn’t recognize it. “I’ve called an ambulance for you. They’ll be here shortly. And the police. The other police, I mean.”

  Ajax really didn’t think it was that bad. Groaning, however, also hurt his head, so he kept that observation to himself. Instead, he took stock. It was hard to tell past the throbbing in his head, but Ajax thought that he was otherwise intact.

  There was, however, an awful acrid scent in the air, like burnt asphalt. As a werewolf, he had a stronger sense of smell t
han many other kinds of shifter, even in his human form. He didn’t know if the woman could smell the burnt asphalt, but every time that he breathed it in, the scent of it made his stomach flip-flop, probably worse than the head injury.

  If they didn’t move and soon, he really was going to be sick.

  Driven by his unhappy stomach, Ajax tried again. Ignoring the way that it made his head hurt, he said “Need to move.”

  To someone else, she said “He wants to move.” There were several beats of silence, during which Ajax worked to quell his rebellious stomach to no effect, and then she said “You can’t. You have a head injury. And anyway, this is where I told the 911 dispatcher that you would be.”

  Bravely, Ajax opened his eyes.

  He had expected it to hurt, but it didn’t. It was nice and dark out, after all. Feeling encouraged, he pushed himself into sitting up right.

  There was a woman sitting on her knees next to him – pretty, his hazy mind supplied, with high cheekbones, large eyes, and ridiculous pajamas – and she had a cell phone pressed to her ear. She looked worried.

  “The scent… It’s making me sick,” managed Ajax, while trying to push himself to his feet. That made his head spin. He staggered and coughed, bile burning the back of his throat.

  “I don’t smell anything,” argued the woman, even as she reached out to steady him. “It just smells like a parking lot. Gasoline, maybe?”

  Definitely not any sort of a canine shifter then, thought Ajax, despite being miserably unwell.

  Despite her protests, though, she helped him to move away from the site of the stink, her hands strong and locks of her hair falling in both of their faces. The stench was on them too, of course – her, who had been sandwiched between the two men, and him, who had been rolling around with one – but that was a lingering trace compared to the site of their tussle.

  What sort of shifter smelled so bad that it lingered?

  Ajax didn’t know, but he really wanted to find out. No one got away with sucker punching – well, sucker kicking – him.

 

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