by Lauren Esker
And yet—
She might as well be a eucalyptus leaf in a flood for all the control she seemed to have over the changes Avery was making in her life. And she didn't care. In fact, opening that door had made her realize how few doors she'd opened since she'd come here.
She had left Brisbane and gone halfway around the world for a fresh start, but in the end, she might as well have stayed home. All she ever did was go from the house to work and back again. The only time she got out and did anything was when Erin and Tim took her somewhere. All the sightseeing she'd done around Seattle had been largely because of their hospitality and earnest desire to show her their new home.
It wasn't something she'd done on purpose. She had never intended to isolate herself. It just seemed ... well, safe. Comfortable. Easy. And maybe it was something she'd had to do, for a while, giving herself time to heal from her psychological breakdown so that she could slowly begin to expand outside her shell of home and work.
Except staying inside had become habit, and she'd never taken those extra steps, never opened herself back up again.
To her own surprise, she missed Avery already. Her fingers twitched to call him. Maybe just a little text, to let him know she was thinking about him ...
Then she got to her office, and all thoughts of Avery fled. There were two police cars parked at the curb.
What the hell?
The outer office door was standing open. Nicole stepped inside and stared around, confused and frightened. The filing cabinets were open, there were dark smudges of fingerprint powder on everything, and two police officers were talking to a distraught-looking Kathryn.
"Nicole!" Kathryn broke away from the officer she was talking to. Her usually tidy hair was a mess, her eyes red-rimmed. "Where were you? I left messages, I emailed, I even called your house—"
"Whoa, hey, calm down. It's okay." Nicole caught Kathryn's arms. "I'm so sorry. I texted you that I was going to be late."
"I know, but ..." Kathryn rubbed her hands over her face. "I'm okay," she said, to herself more than anyone. "It's just ... I never realized when I took this job that it was going to be like this."
"What happened?" Nicole asked, with a sinking feeling that she was going to hate the answer. One of the worst parts of the job was dealing with angry, abusive family members. There had been times when she or one of her caseworkers had had to call the police because they genuinely believed they or someone else was in physical danger. So far, they hadn't had to deal with any of the horror stories she'd heard about—caseworkers being attacked, offices being vandalized—but she supposed her luck had to run out eventually.
"We were broken into last night," Kathryn said.
Nicole's first thought was Thank God it wasn't worse. She looked quickly around the room. The computers, the only thing of any real value in the office, were all still there. Nothing at all was missing that she could see. "Did they take anything?"
"We're still trying to figure that out, ma'am," one of the police officers said. "Are you in charge?"
"I am." Nicole introduced herself, and for the next few minutes got a detailed run-down of all the excitement she'd missed.
Kathryn hadn't realized anything was amiss when she'd come in this morning, but as she settled in and started working, she had started thinking things were slightly off. A desk drawer that should have been closed was open. Mike's computer was turned on, when all the computers should have been turned off at night.
"And so then I started looking around," she said. "And I went into your office and found a muddy boot print in the kitchen. It was much too big to be any of ours."
And, now that she was looking, she'd found more and more things amiss. The filing cabinets' locks were scratched as if they'd been jimmied, and some of the files were in the wrong places. She was pretty sure the intruders had been in the computers too. The computers had passwords, but Nicole knew most of her staff kept them written down on sticky notes discreetly stuck inside their desks or under their keyboards. In fact, she tried to remember if she still had hers on a note tucked into the back of her bottom desk drawer. It was a bad habit she'd always turned a blind eye to. She mentally composed a sternly worded memo regarding computer security.
Nothing, however, was obviously missing. Most of the computers had been turned back off again. The police took a bunch of prints, but Nicole couldn't see anything coming of it. All the workers in the office had their fingerprints on file, having gone through a state background check during the hiring process, so those would be easy to exclude. But there were always people in here, touching things. Clients. Lawyers. Kids.
"Looks like somebody was looking for something," the lead officer remarked. "Any idea what that might be?"
"It could be almost anything," Nicole admitted. "We often have non-custodial parents wanting to know where their kids are, or grown-up adoptees wanting access to court-sealed records. The worst part is, I'm afraid someone's been put in danger from whatever these assholes managed to find, but I don't even know where to begin looking. We don't have any active threats right now. I simply haven't got a clue how to narrow it down."
She gave the police the information for the active cases of most concern—those with violent relatives involved, or ones who'd recently got out of prison, or court cases currently pending. After that, she showed the police out in the knowledge that, in all likelihood, she would never know why this had happened or what private consequences might have resulted from it.
"I'll call a locksmith and have the locks changed," Kathryn said.
"I'll inform the building manager," Nicole sighed. That was going to be a fun conversation.
Kathryn came in a little later as Nicole was standing in the kitchenette attached to her office. She'd gone to make a cup of tea and had discovered that, of all things, the spoon she used to stir milk into her tea was missing. Had a burglar pocketed it? Or had she simply put it in a drawer and forgotten in the usual end-of-the-day shuffle?
"I feel so violated," Kathryn said softly from the doorway. "I know it's stupid. We work with people who have to deal with much worse things every day. But ..."
"I know. It feels like such an invasion." She'd cleaned up the muddy footprints after the police took photos, but she could still see where they'd been, as if the burglars had left a psychic imprint to go with their physical one.
And the worst part was not knowing what it was all about. Had their burglars found what they were looking for, or would they come back? Maybe when Nicole or one of her caseworkers was working late?
You can't dwell on that stuff, she told herself firmly, and opened cupboards until she found a box of plastic spoons. Just keep moving forward.
As she made her tea, she thought about the puppies, and the mystery surrounding them. Could the break-in have anything to do with that?
Surely it was just a coincidence. How could it possibly be related?
Still, she should probably call Avery and let him know.
Yeah, that's totally the only reason why you want to call him. Sure.
But then she fell into a whirl of busywork. They had to do an inventory of everything, especially sensitive files, and meanwhile there was also the necessity of shuffling her caseload to accommodate having lost the entire morning, sending a reassuring text to her sister just in case Erin had been alarmed by Kathryn's frantic attempts to leave messages, and writing a brief memo re: computer security and passwords. She was just finishing up the last task when her phone pinged to let her know there was a new text.
It was Avery.
Leaving town on errand that'll take all afternoon. Lunch first? :)
She called him back. "You put smileys on your text messages?"
"You've got something against smiley faces?"
"I just don't usually expect them from guys."
"At least they aren't the kind with little noses," Avery said.
This made her laugh. "My sister uses smiley faces with noses because she thinks it makes them look like koala faces. Wai
t for it." And she texted him: See? :o)
"I can never unsee that. Thanks."
She hit Send on her memo and leaned back in her chair, stretching until her back popped. "I'm glad you called. We had a, uh, a thing here this morning, and I wanted the SCB to know about it."
Briefly, she told him about the break-in. Avery made a low sound she belatedly realized was a growl.
"Are you okay? Is it safe for you to be there?"
"It's perfectly safe," she said. "It's broad daylight, business hours, and the police were all over this morning. I might try to make sure nobody works late for a few days, just in case."
"You don't even sound concerned. Has this happened before?"
"Not quite like this," she said, "but I've always known it was a possibility. To some of the people we deal with, we're a bunch of meddlers who want to break up their families and take their kids away. I've had to take police on family visits with me, because the parents threatened me physically. One of Kathryn's clients sent her death threats. It's something that happens in this line of work, Avery."
There was a pause long enough she wondered if the connection had dropped, before Avery said, "I hate the idea that I might have put you in danger. Your entire office, really."
"You didn't," she said. "My job did. Even if this is related to the kids you brought me, handling their case is my job and I'd have done it whether it was you or Jack or any of the other agents who'd come knocking on my door. And we don't even know if it's related."
"Rationally, I know that," Avery said. He sighed. "In any case, I'd like to come over and sniff around a bit, if that's okay."
"Well, the police were already here," she said, and then caught up to his meaning. "Oh. You mean literally sniff around."
"If you don't mind."
"I don't mind a bit," she said. "I believe someone was picking me up for lunch anyway."
***
Avery showed up half an hour later, and in short order managed to thoroughly charm Kathryn. Nicole was pretty sure that Avery had no idea how charming he actually was. It was, she thought, a combination of his natural reserve and his equally instinctive friendliness and visible interest in the person he was talking to. It was a dash of hard-to-get combined with a generous helping of friendly gregariousness, plus those sparkling blue-gray eyes. The result was absolutely devastating. Kathryn was in her forties and married for twenty years, and even she seemed susceptible.
Avery looked up when he noticed Nicole watching from her office, and strolled in. He was using his cane, but not leaning much weight on it, making her wonder if the cane, too, was a sort of protective coloration, a subtle way of leading people to make certain judgments about him.
"Hi," he said. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then came around the desk, leaned down, and gave her a quick kiss which was aimed at her cheek, a twin to the one she'd given him earlier. She turned her head to receive it full on the lips, making his eyes widen slightly before she felt his lips spread into a smile on hers.
"Not that it's any of my co-workers' business, but I'm not trying to hide," she said, grinning back at him. "Just let me finish up a few things here. You know, I'm afraid I never actually asked what your afternoon errand was."
"I'm going out to talk to one of the local werewolf packs about missing kids." Avery smiled, a quick lopsided tug of his lips. "I did the easy ones this morning, the packs that had phone numbers and email, and I might have a lead on a pack that's been looking around for some missing members. They don't have a phone, though, so I'll be driving out there after we're done."
"Oh!" she said. "Can I come with you?"
Avery looked startled. "Why?"
"I swear I'm asking professionally, not as a busybody. If you've found the family of the children, my office will need to be involved. And besides, I've never met any of the local werewolves. I'm not about to pass up an opportunity to establish communications with them." Not to mention a chance to exercise her newfound conviction to get out of the city every once in a while. The time spent with Avery was a nice bonus.
"I mentioned earlier that I'm not exactly the goodwill ambassador you want for the werewolf community, right?"
"I know," she said. "But I could either go with you, or go alone later and introduce myself as a stranger. And besides, could having me along really make things worse?"
He gave a sharp laugh. "Why the hell not. Is your afternoon open?"
"Not yet," she said. "But I can make it so. I'll need a little while to open up my schedule. Weren't you going to sniff around?"
"I was." He jerked his head at the outer office, where Kathryn was working on paperwork. "She knows, right?"
"She knows. She's not one of us, but she's married to one. Warn her before you shift, though, so you don't startle her. And you can lock the outer door if you want."
Avery went back into the outer office. Nicole took a deep, fortifying breath, and started the process of shuffling her afternoon schedule again. When she looked up once more, there was no sign of Avery, but Kathryn was intently watching a corner of the room with a look of fascination. Nicole smiled to herself. A minute later, the familiar black wolf prowled into her office. She could swear he looked amused.
"Are you behaving yourself?"
Avery gave a shiver of his midnight coat. He was not wearing the blue collar today, she noted. He poked his nose into the corners of her office, then into her lap, resting his head on her thigh and making her jump.
"Really, Avery, you're a very naughty wolf."
With a twitch of his low brush of a tail, he trotted into the attached kitchenette. She could hear his toenails clicking on the floor as he moved around.
Nicole jumped up and went into the outer office. Kathryn was staring toward Nicole's office door with a transfixed look on her face.
Nicole grinned. "Did he shift out here?"
"He did," Kathryn said. "That was amazing. He just ... sort of melted into a wolf. I've seen George do it, of course." George was her husband, a hedgehog shifter. "But it's still so magical. I can't get over it."
"I guess it's easy for me to forget how much of a miracle it really is," Nicole admitted. "For me, it was mostly just 'Nicole, tell your sister to stop biting your brother and shift back right now'."
Kathryn laughed. "I guess it would be. None of our children got the shifting trait. I admit I was a little disappointed, and I know George was, but I can't imagine what raising shifter children would have been like."
Nicole made a mental note to talk to her brother-in-law about adding Kathryn's family to his ever-expanding software tree of blended shifter/non-shifter families. His and Erin's life's work was trying to figure out what made some people shift and others not. In the meantime, though, she'd come out for a reason. "Did he leave his clothes out here somewhere?"
Kathryn pointed. Avery's clothing was neatly folded on the edge of Mike's desk, with his cane leaning against the side. She gathered it up and took it back to her office. Here she found Avery standing up with his paws on her desk, sniffing her computer.
"Find anything?" she asked, setting his things on a chair.
Avery shook his wolf's head. He shifted and was suddenly sitting in her chair, naked. From the outer office, there was a faint, startled squawk from Kathryn.
Nicole hastily shut the door. "You know, regular people are a little more concerned about nudity than we are."
"I'm not completely unconcerned about it," Avery protested. "It's just easy to forget."
He started getting dressed, a process Nicole watched with mingled regret and relief. Getting caught with a naked man in her office would be a great way to lose her job. But ... naked Avery was very nice to look at. She hadn't had a chance to get a good look at him in daylight yet, aside from very briefly on their scent-trailing excursion, but with Jack and Casey there, she hadn't really wanted to look like she was staring. She couldn't help remembering the feel of his compact, muscular body pressed against hers, the way the soft fuzz o
f dark hair on his chest had tickled her skin—
"Good Lord, put your eyeballs back in your head," Avery said, his playful grin vanishing into his sweater as he pulled it over his head, only to emerge undaunted from the other side. "Do you realize you're at work?"
"I'm not the one who decided to go starkers in my office," she pointed out.
He snorted, and sat down to lace up his shoes. "To expand on the answer to your earlier question, I can't find any trace of the werewolf scent I was following at the park. Just lots of human smells. When shifters are in human form, though, I can't tell the difference by smell. Obviously I'd know if they were right in front of me, but following the scent trails around ... no dice."
"Can you tell how many different people broke in?"
He shook his head. "Too many other people going in and out. It's just a mishmash. Is there anywhere in here you could definitively say the intruders went that no one else did?"
Reluctantly, she had to admit she could not, especially after the police had been all over the place.
"Anyway," Avery said, shrugging into his jacket, "the werewolf, or whatever it is, would've been miles away when this happened, apparently stalking either me or the kids. Odds are pretty good this isn't related. But at least now we have a little more to go on, even if absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Do you still want to come along this afternoon, by the way?"
"I cleared everything off my schedule except an appointment at four that I really can't get out of. Can you get me back by four?"
"I should be able to, if we leave right now. You mind eating in the car?"
"Lead on," she said, grinning. "If we ever manage to have a normal date, I'll probably die of shock at this point."
She told Kathryn she'd be back by four, and followed Avery into the hall. "You know," she said as they went down the stairs, "that other werewolf, if it is a werewolf—it might just be curious about you. Maybe it's never met one of its own kind before."
He started to answer, then hesitated. "You know ... you might be right. Maybe the reason why it smells so odd to me is because it grew up feral, and never got socialized by its own kind."