He was still on the floor and I actually felt a tiny bit bad. However, I was glad he was down and I left before he could come after me and get his payback. This job was sucking so bad and I had a feeling it was only going to get worse.
Chapter 5
“If I told you once I told you twenty times, Blood Sucker. If you hold your needles like that it’s gonna be lopsided,” Granny chastised Dwayne as they knitted up a storm.
“You’re just pissy because I’ve already knitted twelve scarves to your nine, Fido,” Dwayne huffed, knitting like the Devil himself was on his heels.
The living room was a disaster. Yarn, needles and patterns littered the overturned furniture. My BFF and Granny sat on the floor in the middle of the calamity sweating up a storm. Well, Granny sweated. Vampyres didn’t have pores. The scarves were hideous—all holey and messy and weird, but there was a ton of them. Completely unable to piece together any probable story of what had happened I stood in silence and gaped.
“Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies,” Granny informed me, not even glancing up from the fuchsia thing she was creating.
“Did you bang him?” Dwayne asked while still completely absorbed in his puke green masterpiece. “I have money riding on it.”
“No, I didn’t bang him,” I yelled. “What in the hell happened here?” I hoped my volume and quick change of subject would throw them.
No such luck.
“I say the hickey on your neck proves my bang theory,” Dwayne said, held up the horrific scarf and dropped his needles in exhaustion. “I win, Furball.”
“Bull honkey,” Granny snapped. “My quality is far superior.”
“There was nothing in the rules that implied quality,” Dwayne stated calmly, secure in his victory.
“What happened to the living room?” I asked as I began to right the furniture.
“Well, we had a little debate,” Granny said, eyeing the pile of crap they’d created.
“It turns out Granny has sharper fangs and a slightly better right hook and I’m faster and have a far superior sense of smell,” Dwayne informed me.
“That ain’t nothing to brag about, Vein Eater,” she sniffed indignantly. “Fangs trump smell any day of the week.”
“She has a point,” I added.
Dwayne laughed and wrapped a pink scarf around his neck. “I can smell species.”
This shocked and silenced both me and Granny. I was totally unaware that Vamps could identify species by scent. That was huge. I could scent a shifter and I knew if it was a wolf, but it took more than just smell to correctly identify what kind of shifter.
“I call bullshit,” Granny said and wound a baby blue scarf around her neck.
“That was a rabbit that delivered the pizza,” Dwayne said and handed me a shiny silver scarf. “You’ll need this to cover the welt on your neck.”
Ignoring the comment and the ugly, holey neckwear, I zeroed in on Grandma. “You ordered pizza? From Juju?”
Juju was a rabbit shifter and made the best pizza known to man. It was so damn good that every wolf in the surrounding area had voluntarily given up eating rabbit in their animal form. No one would take the risk of accidentally eating Juju. No one.
“Yes, I did and apparently Bat Boy isn’t joking. You knew he was a rabbit?” she demanded.
“Of course,” Dwayne answered smugly. “And he’s boffing a weasel.”
“Juju and Sara Mary Munchouse are doing the nasty?” I gasped and dropped down on an upended plaid ottoman. That was too much to stomach. Juju was five feet tall and weighed a hundred pounds sopping wet and Sara Mary was six feet tall and came in at a conservative three hundred. The physical mechanics were mindboggling. Shoving the images into the far recesses of my brain in the “never pull those up again” section, I got back to the more important issue.
“There’s Juju pizza in this house and you didn’t tell me?”
“I was a little busy kicking your dead friend’s ass,” Granny said. “Go help yourself.”
“I will,” I muttered and hauled tail to the kitchen. It had been a full year since I’d eaten Juju’s pizza and my mouth watered at the prospect.
“Junior came by and left you a stack of files,” Granny said as she snagged a slice. “He gave your buddy the evil eye till Dwayne asked him if he’d had butt implants and wanted to touch them to make sure they were real.”
I choked on my pizza and asked myself yet again why I’d let Dwayne come with me.
“I really wish I’d known he was Hank’s older brother. I would have mentioned impaling you on a regular basis,” Dwayne said earnestly.
Again, I choked.
“Looks like Hank the Hickey Maker struck again,” Granny stated gleefully with a mouthful of double pepperoni.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded. Juju’s pizza suddenly tasted like cardboard in my mouth as the reality hit. I had thought they were joking. “Did that hairy dork leave a mark?”
“A big one,” Dwayne gushed. “You so banged him.”
“I did not bang him. I racked him.”
“Whoa,” he said, bending at the waist in sympathy. “You’re really mean.”
“You know what?” I shouted. “I’m not mean. He’s mean. Mean and stupid and full of himself and wanky and fat and ugly and mean and dumb and…”
“And you want to bang him?” Dwayne added unhelpfully.
I dropped to the floor in defeat. Pizza wasn’t going to help. The only thing that would help at this point was running again, but that was out of the question. I had a job. Maybe I got it under false pretenses, but I was a good agent and I knew it. I would find out what was happening here, end it and then I was gone. I had to leave or I would fall back into a trap that would tear my heart to shreds from the inside out. “Yes. Yes, I want to bang him, but I won’t. I have a small amount of self-respect left and I plan to hang onto it for dear life.”
“Honey child, what happened?” Granny asked as she slid down the wall and plopped down on the floor next to me. “What could have been so awful?”
Dwayne got comfortable on the other side of me. Usually being sandwiched by people made me itch, but these people loved me…warts and all.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumbled.
“Sometimes talking about painful things helps, Essie,” Dwayne said gently. “I’ll go first. About two hundred and fifty years ago during a great famine there wasn’t enough food for the humans and they got really skinny and tasted like burnt peas and rancid hummus—it was harder than hell for a Vampyre to eat. I accidentally killed a lovely fellow from my glee club and I just felt awful about it, so I started drinking pig’s blood and let me tell you—that was gross. Pigs are cute—well, piglets are and all I could find were damn piglets. They would stare at me with those little piglet eyes…I love Charlotte’s Web. The book is waaay better than the movie. Don’t you think? Anyhoo, I got so upset, I moved on to sheep. Several Vamps I knew were even…wait, what were we talking about?” Dwayne asked.
“I honestly don’t remember,” I whispered fearfully as I prayed he wouldn’t continue his bizarre confession.
Granny was quiet. She was either contemplating Dwayne’s story or trying to come up with one that would top his. I shivered as I realized she would go to her standard fare and regale us with anecdotes from her stripping days, which could easily morph into a demonstration…I had to stop the madness before it began.
“I have to read files tonight,” I explained as I un-wedged myself. “You should take Dwayne out and show him the town—maybe go to the beach or stroll down Main Street.”
“She’s got that covered,” Dwayne squealed. “We’re going to a drag show!”
“In Hung?” I asked Granny. “There’s a drag club in Hung?”
“Three,” she replied. “And two Shifter strip clubs.”
How did I not know this? I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. If she was still disrobing in public, I didn’t want to know. There wasn’t a th
erapist alive that could wipe that image out of my brain.
“Okay, um…you guys have fun, and Dwayne, if you’re going to eat you need to be discreet. We’re used to a variety of Shifters down here, but not Vamps.”
“Don’t you worry about nothin’. I’ve got his back,” Granny said. “Anyone calls him a blood sucker or homo will answer to my fist, my boot and my Taser.” With that lovely nugget she left the room to get gussied up.
“Oh my god, if I were into women, I’d marry your granny so fast.” Dwayne preened in front of the mirror.
“Um…awesome,” I gagged. “If you say anything that foul again, you’re walking back to Chicago. Tonight.”
“It would be a little weird to be your grandpa,” he mused.
“Do you do it on purpose?”
“Do what?” he asked, confused.
“Leave me with images that no amount of psychotherapy could remove? Burnt peas and rancid hummus are now seared into my brain along with you and Granny and the fact that you clearly sang in a glee club.”
“Those were difficult times, Essie. You think you have problems? Try running naked through coals while being pelted with boar’s teeth.”
Nothing. I had nothing.
“You ready, Dead Boy?” Granny asked.
Oh, hell to the no…She was dressed in a boob tube, peasant skirt and sequined kitten heels. Weres did not look their age. Granny could easily pass for mid-forties even though she was in her eighties, but a boob tube was wrong on anyone over five.
“Granny, I really don’t think you should…”
“You are smokin’ hawt,” Dwayne yelled as he fist bumped my elderly grandma.
What the hell was I thinking? He had more than two hundred years on both of us. Weird was my new normal—accept and continue.
“Okay then, try not to get arrested and be home before sunup,” I muttered and grabbed the stack of files.
“You sure you don’t wanna come? Bennett Pombell does a mean Cher,” she explained as she twisted her hair up and shoved three chopsticks into it.
Bennett Pombell was an upstanding panther Shifter with seven kids and a shrew of a wife…accept and continue. “I’m good. Got work to do.”
“Does anyone do Gaga?” Dwayne asked as they walked out the front door.
“No, maybe you should,” she suggested.
“Do you think I’d be good?” he gushed.
“You’d be wonderful. I have some wigs from my stripping days in the garage. You wanna see?” Granny asked a deliriously excited Dwayne.
“Lead on, my Queen. Lead on.”
***
The files were meticulous. I had assumed Hank was good. He was an alpha of a large and very happy pack, but I had no clue what an amazing detective he was…not that I’d tell him. Ever.
I’d spent the better part of four hours poring over the files before Granny and Lady Gaga, aka Dwayne in full on drag, got home. Apparently Dwayne was the new star of the Hung drag circuit and Granny was now his manager. They were booked solid for the week.
After seeing a replay of Dwayne’s performance on Granny’s phone and then watching him perform the highlights in the kitchen, we went to bed. Dwayne was a truly amazing Gaga. They both made me swear on a stack of Bibles I would catch a performance this week. I promised I’d try.
Chapter 6
“You know, if you would dress up like Beyonce we could do a killer version of Telephone,” Dwayne said as he handed me a glass of fresh squeezed OJ and a blueberry muffin he had baked for breakfast.
“Why do you bake if you don’t eat?” I asked.
“It relaxes me. Are you ignoring my suggestion?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
I bit into the muffin and my eyes rolled back in ecstasy. My Vampyre could bake.
“I’d like you to consider my brilliant idea.”
“Dwayne, the point of drag is that men dress up as women. I am a woman with real boobs.”
“True, and your boobs are fabu. You’re hotter than hell and I’d love to see you in some gold lamé booty shorts and a sequined bra. I think it would be therapeutic for you.”
“I have about fourteen sequined bras,” Granny chimed in as she sauntered into the kitchen and grabbed a muffin. “Some of them are nipple-less, but I’m sure I have a few that would work.”
“On that note, I’m outta here,” I said. I grabbed the files and an extra muffin. “Can you two stay out of trouble?” The innocent looks on their faces set my allergy-to-bullshit radar off, but I didn’t have time to babysit them. “Just don’t get arrested,” I muttered and hurried out the door before Granny insisted I try on her sparkly brassieres.
“Lunch?” Dwayne yelled as I ran to my car.
“Yep. I’ll call you.”
***
The office was a disaster—like someone had ransacked it, but I realized as Junior paced the room it was him. He was knocking everything off the tables and walls. He was alarmingly animated and unconsciously destructive. For my own safety, I pressed myself against the door and waited.
“Listen to me, Essie,” Junior pleaded. “You have got to bang my brother. Just bang the living hell out of him.”
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?” The sheriff’s office, which wasn’t large to start with, had just gotten smaller. It felt as if the walls were closing in and I was going to get squished like a bug. Was he for real? Was there anyone in Hung who didn’t want me to bang Hank? Well, I knew of three people who certainly didn’t want me to bang him…
“It’s been a year since he got laaaahhhhhhh, I mean, um…Hang Man is my baby brother’s favorite—you know, ahhh game and I’m going to suggest making it a professional Olympic sport and, ah…” Junior paled considerably and inched his huge body toward the exit, making it very obvious that the potential bangee had entered the room.
“Junior, I can handle my own affairs,” Hank ground out. “If you’d like to live to see tomorrow, I’d suggest you take the rest of the day off.”
“Outstanding suggestion, bro,” Junior agreed shakily as he slunk out of the office. “Should I straighten up in here?”
“No. I’ll take care of it.” Hank groaned as he took in the mess Junior had made.
I closed my eyes for a brief moment before I really looked at Hank. If Junior was telling the truth, Hank hadn’t gotten laid in a year. That made no sense whatsoever and Junior was famous for stretching the truth, so I decided to wrestle with that another time—as in never. However, my lady bits and my inner wolf danced with joy. Stop. Not here to bang the sheriff. Here to work. Period. I was a big girl and I could work with him. I was beyond impressed with his attention to detail in the reports and he had some theories I hadn’t considered. He was a colleague and I was a professional. Nothing more. Nothing less. Plastering a pleasant smile on my face I opened my eyes and… Mother humpin’ cowballs… I quickly grabbed the back of a chair so I would continue to appear as if I could stand on my own feet.
He wore a shirt I had given him. A lightweight green Henley that matched his eyes perfectly. Not only was he color-coordinated, he was mouthwatering. His muscles strained against the fabric and begged to be licked. Wait. What? I mentally smacked the tar out of my inner wolf and prayed to all the angels and saints for strength. There would be no licking today.
“The files were very thorough,” I choked out as I breezed past him into his office. Blindly sitting on the first thing my butt could find, I realized I was perched on a pile of old newspapers. Nice.
“You comfortable?” he asked with a smirk.
“Extremely, thank you.” I’d be damned if I was going to let on that I hadn’t meant to slap my rear end down on a large stack of paper. “Newspapers are good for posture and lower back,” I mumbled and then bit down on my tongue before I spewed out more inane crap. Why did I let him affect me this way? I was over him. Done. Over and done.
Liar, liar pants on fire.
“So, thoughts?” He settled in behind his desk and waited.
“The case?” He grinned and raised an eyebrow.
His words were like an ice cold shower. Thank God. The case. I could handle talking business. I was good at that. It was everything else I had problems with.
“The files are good, but why is there very little on the humans running the agency?”
He paused and gave me a smile that resembled a grimace. “They’re not local. Three human males came in from New York and we’re having a hell of a time tracing them.”
“Have you put them in the WTF database?”
“Yep. They’re drawing blanks too.”
“Interesting and not good,” I said as I pulled out the thinnest file and scanned it. “The bodies haven’t been found and the scent trails disappeared. I find that very difficult to believe. How much of a time lapse was there before the searches started?”
“The first victim was three days,” he said tightly and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “After that it was immediate once we learned they were missing.”
“And you found nothing?”
“Isn’t that obvious, Miss Hotshot?” he snapped. “This is driving me crazier than you sitting across the desk from me. These are my people and I’m supposed to protect them. I can’t even find them,” he bellowed. His concern for our missing pack members and his fury at being unable to locate them filled the room.
I was simply being professional, but felt like a jerk. Again, I was reminded that I was on a case with huge conflicts of interest. Maintaining distance and objectivity was going to be difficult—knowing the missing women was hard enough. Working with the person who my inner wolf was convinced was her true mate was pure hell.
Wolves could mate with whomever they wanted. Some lasted and some didn’t. We had long lives and overactive sex drives. If you didn’t find your true mate, a fairy tale I tended to not believe, you often had several relationships during a lifetime.
Three Southern Beaches: A Summer Beach Read Box Set Page 24