Her Detective Wolf

by Alice C. Summerfield

  “Throw in a second pillow, and it’s a deal.”

  “Done,” agreed Ajax with no little amount of relief.

  And perhaps he looked worse than he thought, because Judith and Willis weren’t just amenable to letting them go back to his place, they actually offered to walk him back there.

  “Nah, that’s all right,” said Ajax. “Tessa’s got me well in hand, right Tess?”

  “Right,” said Tessa, surprisingly determinedly. Maybe he actually looked as bad as he felt.

  “We know that everything is in disarray,” said Wallis, “but looking around, is anything obviously missing?”

  Tessa looked around quickly.

  “I can’t tell if all the pieces are still here, but at they left at least part of my various tool sets here. My laptop is still on the shelf. But I don’t see –” There, Tessa’s expression faltered. From the doorway, she surveyed her bedroom for a few more seconds before saying carefully “I don’t mean to be a pain, but there is one thing that I’d like to ask. I had a little Japanese puzzle box in my room. Inside of it was a baby’s bracelet. I was just wondering if the thieves or whatever had stolen the bracelet.”

  The two detectives swapped a look.

  “We’ll keep an eye out for it,” promised Judith, and Willis nodded his head.

  Judith and Willis would too. They were good eggs.

  Tessa left her keys with Judith and Willis, who promised to drop them in her mailbox for her, and then they left. Getting back upstairs took longer than it ever had before, especially since Ajax still had enough pride as a man not to want to a pretty, cool chick like Tessa to see him take a breather on the steps.

  When Tessa knocked and Derek answered his door, Ajax was entirely happy to see his partner.

  Derek, however, didn’t look entirely happy to see him. He gave Ajax a quick once over, then his mouth pressed into a thin, unhappy line.

  “You definitely overdid it,” said Derek grimly.

  “Maybe just a touch,” admitted Ajax, because he was past denying that, at least. Now, he just wanted to take his meds and get some rest. Hopefully, he’d feel better in the morning.

  “C’mon,” said Derek, while moving to wedge his shoulder under Ajax’s other arm. “Let’s get you bed, tiger.”

  “Wolf,” corrected Ajax.

  “Yeah, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it,” countered Derek.

  Since Ajax’s head was ringing, he let that go. But tomorrow was a new day, and Derek definitely wasn’t going to get the last word on it. He was definitely, definitely going to be better by then.

  Chapter 07 – Tessa

  The next morning, Ajax looked completely wretched. Looking at his pale, drawn face, Tessa felt guilty.

  We definitely overdid it yesterday, she thought unhappily.

  But what could they have done? They had wanted to knock off hours before they actually had, thanks to whoever had broken into her apartment and beaten up her roommate.

  Poor Madison.

  I’ve got to remember to call the hospital about her today, thought Tessa.

  Unlike Tessa, Madison had a family. She had a mother and father, brothers and sisters, and even grandparents to fuss over her. As long as Tessa remembered to check in on her periodically, she’d probably be okay.

  As long as she wasn’t hurt too badly, that was.

  Briefly, Tessa bit her lip.

  She also had to call her boss. Pete wasn’t delighted that she wanted to take that day as well as Thursday off, but under the circumstances, even he could see that it was necessary. Friday, she already had off.

  “And don’t you worry,” said Pete. “We’ll have extra work hours for you whenever you get this thing – whatever it is – sorted out.”

  “Thanks,” said Tessa, feeling genuinely touched.

  The extra work hours would probably mostly be repairs that, by begging off, she wouldn’t be able to do that day or the next one. But Pete hadn’t had to offer them back to her. He could have given those hours to someone else.

  “A person can’t live like this. Your home’s your castle, so you go do what you’ve got to do to secure your castle.”

  “You’ve got that right,” said Tessa grimly.

  Now that the shock had worn off, she was mad enough to blow fire. Who did these jokers think they were? They couldn’t just waltz into her apartment, beat up her roommate, and potentially steal her baby bracelet, the only link that she had ever had to either of her parents. When she and Ajax found these guys – when, not if – she was going to stomp them flat. They’d be sorry that they’d ever messed with her.

  But first, they had to find them.

  After breakfast, Derek and Gabriela retreated to the guest bedroom to get ready for their day. That was when Tessa struck.

  “So,” said Tessa, drawing out the word. “What am I going to do today?”

  Ajax blinked at her.

  “You?” he said blankly.

  “Yeah, me, because you look like death warmed over,” said Tessa, as she loaded the dishwasher with the breakfast plates. “You need to rest.”

  “I thought you had work.”

  “I took today and tomorrow off. I already had Friday off, so there was never any conflict there. So, what are we going to do today?”

  “Mostly research,” said Ajax. “It’s usually pretty tedious and boring. You could’ve gone to work, if you wanted.”

  “And leave it all to you? Nah. This is my problem.”

  And she wasn’t going to let anyone else get hurt by it – or hurt again, as the case may be.

  “Besides,” added Tessa in a gentler tone of voice. “You need your rest.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  “Because you look like death warmed over,” said Tessa frankly. “You honestly don’t look that much better than Madison did when we found her.”

  “I don’t even have blood in my hair!”

  “Yeah, but you’ve got the rest of it down pat,” fired back Tessa. “It would frankly be a relief to us all, if you went back to bed.”

  “You could, you know,” said Ajax’s partner, Derek, coming out of the bedroom in a suit and slim tie. “There’s a computer guy, who works as a consultant for one of my brothers’ companies, Dial A Defender. He could help her with the research, while you sleep it off.”

  “And how much is that going to cost?” demanded Ajax suspiciously.

  But Derek waved him off.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Derek. “It’ll be a favor between brothers. I’ll make the calls on my way to work.”

  He didn’t specify where he meant brothers by blood or brothers in arms, and Ajax didn’t ask.

  Instead, Ajax sent her the photos that he had snapped the previous day of the junk shop’s records and helped her make up a list of questions that needed to be answered regarding the things that she had bought as well as each piece of info contained in the photographs.

  Then, after Derek had hauled himself off to the police station, Gabriela had trundled herself back to her home office, and Ajax had (thankfully) taken himself back to bed, Tessa had waited to hear back from Derek. While she did, she tidied up her sleeping area by folding the blanket, stacking her pillows on it, and rearranging the couch’s cushions. She wiped down the table and then went to take a quick shower.

  Tessa was drying her hair when Derek finally called to say that the consultant, who went by the name of Sharkbytes, would be waiting for her call with bated breath.

  Tessa called him immediately.

  After their very brief introductions, Sharkbytes said “All right. Send me the pictures of the information, and we’ll go from there.” Then, a few moments later, “Huh. That’s interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “Look at the third table,” instructed Sharkbytes. “All of that seller’s stuff sold inside of forty-eight hours to three buyers, and there was a lot of it too. I don’t know how common or uncommon that is, but none of the other sel
lers that you sent me can make the same claim. Some of them seem to have had stuff lingering in that shop for over a month. So, it might be interesting to there with the recently deceased Mr. John Lee.”

  “Yeah,” said Tessa. “Um, which one of us should do that?”

  Tessa really, really hoped that he wouldn’t say it was on her. She would have had no idea where to even start with that. Google? Maybe?

  Fortunately, Sharkbytes said “I’ll do it,” and Tessa nearly sighed with relief.

  Between them, they divided up the work. He was in charge of pulling up some basic background info on all the previous owners of her new stuff, as well as track down the names of the people that she would need to get to appraise her purchases. She would then make the necessary appointments to get all of her stuff appraised.

  “I’ll get the appraisal names to you first,” said Sharkbytes. “Then while you’re calling around to set that up, I’ll start on the background research, okay?”

  “Sounds like a plan!” said Tessa chipperly.

  Good or bad, though, she really couldn’t have said. This really wasn’t her area of expertise. But she had already put her faith in Ajax, who seemed to believe in Derek, who in turn thought highly of this Sharkbytes guy. And this Sharkbytes guy seemed pretty confident that the police were going to let her back into her apartment sometime in the near future.

  While Sharkbytes ran down those names for her, Tessa got caught up on her trade publications. These days, knowing how to align brakes or rebuild a transmission was no longer enough. There were a lot of computer parts in cars these days, which made some things easier and others more complicated.

  For lunch, Tessa ordered a few pizzas, one meat lovers, one pepperoni, and one with all the kinds of cheese available, no fun toppings in sight. She wasn’t sure what, if anything, Ajax liked on his pizza, but with three shifters and a human in residence in the apartment, Tessa was certain that they’d all get eaten by someone. They threw in a fistful of garlic knots and a coke for her troubles.

  Ajax slept through lunch, but that was okay. He probably needed the rest. And cold pizza had its own charms, after all.

  When Sharkbytes called back with the list of names, Tessa began calling around.

  For the books, he had found three likely prospects: two professors at the nearby university and a bookstore that specialized in old books. Calling around the university, Tessa discovered that one of the professors had office hours that afternoon; the other, early next week. The bookstore said that she didn’t need an appointment; walk-ins were welcome.

  There was only one local appraiser of fine china, but they were willing to take walk-ins until next week, when the appraiser went on vacation. Tessa definitely hoped to have this mess sorted out by then.

  On her own strengths, she evaluated the Gilligan’s Island lunchbox’s worth. As she had suspected, her ten dollar lunch box was worth a hundred and fifty dollars, tops.

  He had pulled up the names of two furniture appraisal places, both of which were willing to make appointments with her for late Friday morning. She would have liked to get in sooner, but the stools weren’t going to be delivered before then. Although, after her description of the piece that she would like evaluated, one of the clerks was willing her to be cautious regarding her hopes, which Tessa interpreted as an oblique warning not to get her hopes up regarding the value of her bottlecap stools.

  She had to wait on getting the painting evaluated too, although on the assurances of one of the framing associates at Michael’s, she made a couple of appointments at local galleries to have it evaluated late Monday afternoon.

  There, Tessa hesitated, considering. On the one hand, she could wait for Ajax to wake up. On the other, she had his lists, and she wasn’t an idiot. The sooner that she got through this research stuff, the quicker her problem could be resolved; at least, that was what she hoped would happen.

  And she wasn’t human like Madison or likely to believe in another police escort, should another be offered to her. If there was another incident, she would fly away… very, very carefully; exceedingly carefully. Because just as storm dragons could called storms to them and earth dragons were rumored to call earthquakes just as often as they grew new vegetation, fire dragons burned.

  In a highly populated areas or densely forested areas or pretty much anywhere that she wanted to remain more or less intact, her powers could be devastating. Not for the first time, Tessa wished that she was the kind of dragon that could blow fire while in her human form.

  If wishes were horses, then everyone would be driving a Lamborghini, thought Tessa. But it might not be crazy to invest in a can of pepper spray or even a taser.

  Carrying a taser would make her feel like a lightning dragon poser, but needs must. And if she was really, really lucky, no one would ever have to find out about her acquisition.

  Mind made up, Tessa grabbed her wallet, the list of questions, the books, a china teacup, and a china plate then quietly left Ajax’s apartment, locking the front door behind her.

  She went to the university first, because she had the shortest window of opportunity there.

  To say that the professor was unimpressed with her battered used books would have been an understatement.

  “I’d say that the three dollars you paid for this volume was about the right market value for it,” said Professor Hatakikomi, after flipping through her first book. “There is absolutely nothing special or valuable about these books.”

  The second wasn’t any more valuable, though the professor commended her for managing to obtain a copy with clean pages and such tight binding.

  A quick stop by the used bookstore confirmed Professor Hatakikomi’s opinion regarding the value of her books, then it was off to the appraiser of fine china, where Tessa’s pretty used china was deemed only slightly more valuable than her used books had been. Apparently, she’d paid a competitive price there too.

  Her case-related errands finished for the day, Tessa swung by first the grocery store and then the mall for a couple of things before returning to home base to report in.

  Like a secret agent, thought Tessa with a smirk, although she doubted that Bond ever actually had to do his own legwork. It was still a fun thought. And the legwork hadn’t been nearly as boring as Ajax had threatened – probably because it was going to directly affect her life, and hopefully for the better.

  When she got in, Tessa headed first to her apartment, which proved to be blocked off with crime scene tape, then back to Ajax’s place.

  At the door, she hesitated, feeling uncertain.

  To knock or to invite myself in, thought Tessa. That is the question.

  In the end, she split the difference and knocked.

  She only had to wait a few moments before Ajax appeared at the door, his cell phone pressed to his ear. He blinked at her, looking briefly bemused then smiled. Stepping back, he gestured Tessa into the house.

  She was just slipping past him, the voice of the woman on the phone a low but strident murmur, when he rolled his eyes and said “No, ma, I’m not punishing you! I don’t want cousin Diana to bring her friend for me, because –” More murmuring. “No, you and dad aren’t going to die before you see all your grandchildren! You’re not even that old!”

  Inside the apartment, Gabriela and Derek were nowhere to be seen. That suited her down to the ground. Poking the distracted Ajax in the side, Tessa pointed at herself, her bags, and then the bathroom door.

  “Oh sure, Tess,” whispered Ajax, putting one hand over the phone’s receiver. “Go ahead. But go ahead and use my bathroom, okay?”

  Through the cell phone came a horrible screeching sound.

  Her shopping bags in hand, Tessa retreated to his bedroom and the bathroom beyond it, grinning to herself as Ajax said, in utterly despairing tones, “You heard that?”

  Laughing, she shut the door behind herself.

  Chapter 08 – Ajax

  “Why did you not call your mother back?”

&nb
sp; As an opening salvo, it was friendlier than when she’d caught him as a teenager trying to sneak into the house at dawn but markedly less friendly than, say, last Tuesday when he had swung by with a basket of oranges just because he’d seen them and thought of her. And it hadn’t gotten any better from there, especially since Ajax found that he’d rather be viewed as an inconsiderate son than worry his mother with the details of the last few days. His mother worried about him enough as it was. She didn’t need to worry about any of that stuff too.

  And then it had gotten worse. Tessa came home from wherever she had gone off to, and, even though he had covered the phone’s receivers, his mother somehow still heard their undertones.

  “What is this?” his mother had cried. “Ajax Nikolaos Mytaras, have you moved in with a woman? Is she Greek?”

  “You heard that?”

  “I am your mother. I hear everything! Especially the secrets!”

  Ajax grinned. Amused and fond, he listened indulgently to her motherly indignation. Deeper in the apartment, there was a familiar squeal of pipes as Tessa turned on the shower.

  He absolutely refused to think about that while on the phone with his mother.

  Eventually, the conversation had turned back towards tomorrow night’s Halloween party, and in the present, his mother said sternly “And don’t forget to bring your Tess! We want to meet her. I can’t believe that you haven’t brought her to meet your family before this, Ajax.”

  In his seat, Ajax straightened.

  “Ma,” he began, only to be cut off.

  “It will be a big party. Girls like big parties. And it will be a good opportunity for her to meet everyone and for everyone to meet her.”

  Tessa certainly didn’t seem the shy type, but –

  “Ma, it’s not like that between us. She’s –”

  “Just freshening up in your bathroom,” said his mother ominously, and reflexively, Ajax gulped.

  “Only because her apartment was broken into and her roommate is in the hospital,” said Ajax quickly.

  “I would not want to stay alone in such a place either,” agreed his mother.