by RJ Blain
A smart wolf didn’t interfere with another woman’s hunt.
“Forget it, Peter.”
“Samantha!”
“Forget it, Peter. We’re riding this one all the way down like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. Thanks for the help, and take care.” Samantha hung up, cocking her head towards me. “I didn’t like that job anyway.”
When the phone rang again half a minute later, the old witch ignored it.
Chapter Eight
Samantha stopped for gas twice before we reached Cleveland. I kept my mouth shut, staring at the clock for most of the trip, watching the minutes tick by.
Eight hours later, and Samantha hadn’t said a word since hanging up on Peter. Blaming myself wouldn’t fix anything or clear my name, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were about to do something we’d regret.
If I didn’t do everything just right, I’d take Samantha down with me in a blaze of glory. I stared out the window. Thick clouds hastened the darkening of the sky.
“Do you have a sewing kit?” I asked.
Samantha gestured at the glove box. I popped it open, fishing out a little pink box. The corners of my mouth twitched, but I decided it was in my better interest not to comment on the color. Grabbing my purse, I pulled out my wallet and threw the rest in the back.
At least being a werewolf had some perks, though I hoped I never had to see an eye doctor. They’d question how a human could possibly have night vision.
I could feel Samantha stealing glances at me as I attacked the seams of my wallet with the pair of tiny scissors I had liberated from the sewing kit. “Mind finding us an Enterprise or somewhere with a mall nearby so we can dump the tank?”
The Grand Master of the Silent Treatment glared at me. One day I’d have to find out how she managed to turn on the GPS navigation unit embedded in the center console and order it to the nearest rental place without uttering a single word. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve accused her of being a wizard.
But then again, angry witches weren’t to be tangled with if possible.
The phone rang. I jumped, the scissors stabbing into my finger. I hissed, shaking my hand before sucking at the wound.
To my surprise, Samantha answered. There was a long moment of silence.
“Samantha?” Peter asked.
The old witch grunted. I bowed my head, resuming my tedious task of picking out stitches.
“Allison’s been cleared for now. They’re not even going to bring her in for questioning due to the overwhelming evidence there was no way she should have committed the murder. The severity of her allergies and the trip to Walmart both helped establish her alibi.”
Samantha answered Peter with a huff.
“Right. Queenie, are you there?”
“She hasn’t run us off a cliff or shot me yet,” I replied, picking out another stitch. “How did you find all of this out?”
Samantha glanced at me. When I turned to face her, she nodded before focusing her attention back on the road. I nodded in reply. Dealing with Peter was something I could do. Maybe by the time I was done with him, she’d decide to speak to me again.
“Friends in high places,” he replied in a neutral tone.
I arched my brows. “Friends in places high enough to flaunt police procedure?”
“It’s in our better interest to see your name cleared.”
Somehow I resisted the urge to snort. Truth supported his statement. Peter didn’t care where I got my money, so long as it looked like I had more cash than sense. With the balances I ran through one card alone, one day’s interest alone could pay a month’s salary for an employee. If I was accused and imprisoned, they’d lose a lot of potential income.
“Don’t suppose you know who set me up?”
“No idea. It’s being looked into. I can’t tell you any more than that.”
Wrinkling my nose at the SUV’s dashboard, I yanked out another stitch. “Fine. Thanks for the help, Peter. Don’t call back.” I paused. The line remained connected. While Peter was just another human, I’d known him for long enough I started to regret the hard edge to my voice. I forced my tone to soften. “Goodbye, Peter.”
Samantha punched the disconnect button with a little more force than necessary. “That sounded like a rather final goodbye, Allison.”
“With a little luck, it is. You can change your mind, Samantha. I can go at this alone. Will your kids be okay without you?”
“They’re with their mom, living their lives as they should. It’s not a problem.”
“Bullshit,” I spat.
“It’s true, Allison. I love them, but they were never mine.” Samantha’s sigh froze me from the inside out.
I kept silent, staring down at the wallet. Its seam was half destroyed, but I was unable to force my fingers back into motion.
“Look, I knew this would happen someday anyway. I can’t stay young forever, I guess. What about you? It’s a lot harder for you to hide,” Samantha continued with a shrug.
“Do you have your real ID on you?”
That earned me a snort. “Of course.”
I returned to my work. Stitch by stitch, I dismantled the rest of the seam. I dug my fingers into the opening and pulled out three cards. “It’s not a problem. How good are you at cutting hair? You’ll need to match a style.”
Samantha laughed, but it was a short, bitter sound. “I think can manage. What’s the plan?”
“I’ll get a rental. There’s something I need to pick up from Atlanta.”
“Atlanta? Don’t tell me we’re going to your condo.”
It was my turn to snort. “Hell no. I need something from a storage unit in the outskirts. It’ll take ten minutes.”
“We’re driving how far for a ten minute detour?”
I couldn’t quite manage to smother my smirk. “I thought you liked road trips.”
“Allison…”
“Fine, fine. I need to pick up some papers so I can get a new cell phone.”
If looks could kill, I suspected I would’ve been a pile of cinders in the span of a minute. “How is a cell phone going to help us?”
“You’ll see.”
“You know I hate when you do that, right?” Samantha drummed her fingers on the wheel.
“Less talkie, more drivie.”
“Hotel first,” Samantha grumbled.
I countered with a dainty sniffle. “How about dinner?”
“Dinner, hotel, then rental.”
“Deal.”
Samantha hummed. “How does steak sound to you?”
“Buffet?”
There was a moment of silence followed by a soft, snorted laugh. I glanced at Samantha. Worry lines marred her brow. “Just how hungry are you?” she asked.
“I could eat a horse,” I quipped.
Samantha whipped her head around and stared at me, her eyes widening with alarm.
“Damn it, not a live one! Eyes on the road, eyes on the road!”
Spitting curses at me, Samantha forced her attention back to driving. Tapping my ID and credit cards against my leg, I craned my neck to try to catch a glimpse of the moon through the clouds.
My wolf slumbered.
~*~
Once upon a time, I suspected the long mirror had been mounted on the wall instead of leaning against it. Peeling paint and the warping of the frame distorted my image. I shivered, eying the cracking paint covering the tacky wallpaper, expecting an army of termites to come pouring through at any moment.
The stench of smoke numbed my nose, and judging by the sweet smell, I doubted the last tenant had cared much for tobacco. I tried breathing out of my mouth. Could werewolves get high from second-hand smoke? I suspected I’d find out before morning.
I closed my eyes and listened to the snip of the scissors. With each cut, weight fell away from my head. I could feel the locks fall around my feet, tickling as the hair settled to the floor.
“Go shower,” Samantha ordered. “If I cut the rest as is, it’ll look like
a rat’s nest.”
I snorted. Changing into a wolf and back to human again hadn’t done my curls any favors. The car ride hadn’t, either. “That’s not far from how it should look,” I reminded her.
“A punkish pixie cut is far more refined than a rat’s nest.”
“Fine,” I muttered, stalking into the bathroom. Maybe a shower would purge the creepy-crawly, too-filthy-to-be-legal feeling from my skin. Being dirty beat having allergies, though. The knob for the cold water was stuck, and not even my inhuman strength could turn it. I eyed the hot water warily. Maybe I could scald the wolf out of me.
A smart woman would’ve tested the water outside of the tub. Jaw set with determination, I turned the hot water on as fast as I could before retreating out of the spray.
Cold water burst out.
I ground my teeth from disgust, trying not to stare too hard at the streaks in the tub I hoped were from rust. Taking the quickest shower of my life, I toweled off, hoping I didn’t contract fleas. When I emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in the cheapest bathrobe Walmart sold, Samantha stood opening and closing the scissors.
Even when wet, my head felt a lot lighter without the majority of my thick mane.
“The picture,” Samantha demanded. I scooped the ID off of the dresser and tossed it to her.
“Allison Victoria Hanover? Are you serious? Dear god, it says you’re forty-seven.”
I grinned. “The haircut helps pull it off.”
“No shit. How long have you been running this ID?”
The question was expected, but I didn’t want to think about the years. It was my true name, a whim I had regretted not even a month after I had created the identity. The memories I had sworn to forget roused each and every time someone said my name. “Thirty years,” I whispered.
“That long? Damn, woman. How are you going to pull this off? You don’t look a day over twenty-five.” Samantha went back to snipping the scissors at the air, her expression neutral.
“I just say I was blessed with longevity and a little help from the modern marvels of cosmetic surgery. Don’t worry about it,” I replied, gesturing to her weapon of mass hair destruction. “Do your worst.”
Samantha wrinkled her nose. “I’ll make it a little longer than the picture so it looks more natural.”
Without answering, I sank into the tattered chair, leaning my back against one of the chair and dangling my legs over the other while Samantha went to work. It’d been a long time since I’d cut my hair to play the other Allison—the one I didn’t want to acknowledge or rely on, but had to.
“You didn’t tell me about this Allison.”
I flinched. “I don’t like her.”
“How can you not like her? She’s you, isn’t she?”
“Maybe that’s why I don’t like her,” I muttered.
“Fine, if you’re going to be that way about it. What do we do after we get to Atlanta?”
“Once I have a new cell, I make arrangements for your new job?”
The snip of the scissors ceased. “What makes you think I’m looking for a new job?”
“I’ve a hundred thousand reasons why you are, paid out over the course of a year.”
After a long pause, the snipping resumed. “That’s not fair.”
“Sure it is. You pay the kids’ mother to let you pretend her kids are yours. It’s not cheap. You couldn’t have been making a lot of money with Amex.”
“You’re right, I wasn’t.” Samantha tugged on my hair. “I wasn’t making enough.”
I heard the hurt in Samantha’s voice and winced. “Well, I’ll fix that. It’s hard work, and your boss is a real bitch, but you’ll have enough to pay off your debt to Peter without starving yourself.”
“Four point six,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Million. My debt.” Samantha kept cutting my hair.
My mouth opened, but no sound emerged. How had the witch gotten into such a dire financial state? I didn’t have the courage to ask. Wealth was a game I played well, maybe too well. Past experience warned me that a werewolf in trouble—financially or physically—was dangerous. A witch driven into the same corner could be equally lethal. If she snapped, she wouldn’t just hurt herself.
I kept quiet. If Samantha wanted to talk, she would. If she didn’t, nothing I could say or do would make her utter a single word.
“I was paid forty a year, and client expenses were my responsibility.”
Rage washed through me, hot enough to make sweat bead on my brow. I flushed, and for a moment, all I could think about was hunting Peter down and tearing his limbs off one at a time so I could listen to him scream. “You’re serious. That’s it?”
“That’s it,” she replied in a quiet voice.
“In New York City.”
“In New York City. I was an add on, an extra hired through a firm. They only kept me because I could deal with you.”
“Damn it, Sammy. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t want your pity.”
I flinched. “I’m not offering pity. I’m offering an honest-to-god job you’re qualified for. Sure, your boss isn’t the nicest person in the world, but it’s a job, right?”
“I don’t want your pity,” Samantha repeated.
It was hard not to make a disgusted sound. I swallowed back the urge, struggling to keep my tone neutral. “I’ll start pitying you once you’re worked half to death during crunch time.”
Instead of answering, Samantha combed her fingers through my hair. I waited. When the silence remained unbroken, I sighed. “It’s not pity, Samantha.”
“What sort of job?”
“There’s a company called Smith & Sons Legal in Atlanta. It’s the primary face of Marrodin.” I drummed my fingers on the tattered upholstery before tracing one of the many stains marring the fabric.
“That’s the place you work.”
“Right, it is. Anyway, Marrodin owns a lot of corporations. Small business, legal firms, and even banks under a network of branch companies. You’d work for them as a secretary.”
Samantha snorted, tugging at a lock of my hair. “I have no experience in secretarial.”
“Can you book hotels, rentals, planes, or vacation homes?” It was well enough she was focused on my hair so she didn’t see my grin. If she did, I had no doubts she’d slap me.
“You know the answer to that.”
“Can you run errands to stores? Keep track of a calendar? Route calls as instructed? Use common sense? Take notes in a meeting?”
“Well, yes,” she replied, doubt deepening her tone. “But I’ve no actual experience. Who would hire me, a concierge for a credit card company, in that sort of role?”
“You just leave that to me. The point is, you have secretarial experience. You’d have to coordinate some meetings, but I’m sure the other secretaries there can help you with that.” Getting Samantha hired wouldn’t be an issue, but I couldn’t help but worry how she’d handle the stress of the job.
Then again, she managed to put up with me often enough. If anyone had a good chance of success at Marrodin, it was her.
“Go look in the mirror,” Samantha ordered.
I rose from the chair, turning to face my reflective nemesis. The first thing I’d have to do, I decided, was invest in a straightening iron. Samantha had somehow managed to tame my mane, to a certain degree. It still looked like a beaver had chewed on my head despite her efforts. My ID had straighter hair, but I hoped most cops would write it off as a bad perm. “Perfect.”
“It doesn’t look much better than a rat’s nest,” Samantha replied, disappointment in her voice.
“Nothing a straightening iron can’t fix. And anyway, Allison Victoria Hanover is too busy to care about her hair,” I replied with a dainty sniff. I could maybe fix it with a little witchery of my own, but I’d wait for that until after Samantha was asleep.
“How much does the job pay?”
“That I can’t tell you. A least
a hundred thousand, but I’ve seen some get offers of two-fifty or higher. It depends. What I do know is if you last three months, you get stocks, a raise, and benefits.” It wasn’t quite a lie. The pay did vary for the position, but Samantha didn’t need to know why it varied.
Samantha stared at me, her mouth open and her eyes wide. “That’s crazy.”
“So is your boss.”
“And you’re sure you can get me this job?”
The hope in Samantha’s voice hurt. How could I have been so blind not to see my old friend’s plight in the first place? “Positive. There’s been an opening for a while, and I think you’ll be perfect for it. But I’ll warn you now, there’s a lot of turnover in the position.”
“How much turnover?”
I laughed. “It’s almost legendary. Everyone in Marrodin has heard about it. You know, I can’t actually remember the last time one of them managed to stay a full month. Serves them right, too. The job needs someone who can be quiet, do their work, and that’s it.”
Samantha’s eyes brightened, focusing on me with the same intensity of a moth drawn to a flame. “Okay. What’s the dress code?”
“I recommend you do not show up to work naked. Use your judgment. Your boss doesn’t care about how you look. Your boss, however, cares about your performance. Be honest. If you don’t know how to do something, ask. You’ll get one chance to learn.” I paused, arching my brow at the old witch in silent challenge.
To my surprise, she cringed. “And the other secretaries?”
“Samantha, if you last a month, you’ll be their new best friend. None of them want to deal with your boss.” I grinned. It wasn’t a lie—not really. I pushed the other secretaries away easily enough. A degrading comment here, a ruthless nickname there, it all worked to keep them at arm’s length.
Samantha, however, was different. I didn’t have to worry about other short-lived mortals trying to get too close to me, not with her as my secretary.
“Oh, god. What am I getting into?”
“You’ve got a one way ticket to hell in a hand basket, Sammy. VIP seats, too. Just don’t be late.”
“Who will be my boss?”
“You’ll see. Or, as the case may be, you won’t. Keep your cell phone close. Answer by the third ring.”