by Ann Charles
“Clint’s right index finger.” Bruno watched me closely, trying to see through my poker face. “Runash thinks a stray dog or cat found it and ate it for dinner.”
Runash might be the current head of security with all manner of impressive credentials, but Runash was wrong. Clint’s index finger was the trophy needed to collect the bounty on his head.
If Clint’s killer had been a bounty hunter, did that mean I was next on the hit list?
Chapter Four
“We need to talk to Finn,” I told Bruno. I left him standing in my fortune-teller parlor with a frown on his face, closing the curtains to my private quarters behind me.
I glanced around at the clothes strewn all over my bed, the makeup scattered on my travel case that I used as a nightstand, and the romance novel propped like a tent on my pillow. Eugene kept a library of his favorite love stories, and ever since Bruno had left I’d been easing my pining for him with steamy romances.
What had Bruno thought as he stood in here while I was shooing off Ming? Had he gone through my stuff, searching for more evidence that tied me to Clint? Had he scanned through the sex scene I’d bookmarked in the novel?
“Why Finn?” he asked through the closed curtain, making me jump into action.
“Because he was Clint’s best friend.” Pushing aside my angst about Bruno standing in my lair, I changed into a long red skirt and a white peasant blouse. “He might have a few answers.”
Slipping into a pair of strappy sandals, I fluffed my damp curls in the mirror. I paused long enough to pinch some color into my pale cheeks and apply a layer of prickly-pear fruit lip balm, thinking of one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings: You can take the coyote out of the desert, but you can’t take the desert out of the coyote.
Bruno was still going through the contents of Clint’s box when I stepped out from my bedchamber. He looked my way and did a double take, his eyes darkening.
“Let’s go.” I grabbed my bag of rune stones from my chest of drawers. “It’s still early, but Finn should be awake by now.”
Bruno reached for me as I passed by him, but I dodged his hand. “Come back here, woman.” He chased me out into the sunlight.
I knocked his hand away when he tried to snag me again. “Bruno, focus.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face and then shook his head. “Damn it, what is wrong with me?”
Some called it “love-lust” and others called it “the shine.” It was a condition that was known to take over a Shifter when their soul mate was near but out of reach.
I needed an hour alone to regroup and focus my energy into strengthening the buffer between us, but with Bruno next to me every minute, I could barely keep my own emotions under control.
He scowled down at me as we passed the big top tent on our way to Finn’s place over near Clown Alley. “Did you put some kind of spell on me?”
“I’m not a witch and you know it.”
“It would be so much easier if I could go back to being pissed at you 24/7.”
“Have you ever analyzed why that is?”
I caught sight of Eugene between two of the tents. He was in his bear form trying to flick a lighter with his huge bear paw. When his snout lifted, sniffing in our direction, I waved at him. “Everything looks good for this afternoon’s show,” I called, giving him a thumbs-up.
He watched me with round, worried bear eyes until we were out of sight.
“Analyzed what?” Bruno asked. “Why you made me want to snarl and growl whenever you came near?”
“Yes.” We rounded a green and yellow striped tent and found the man of the hour … make that the jackrabbit. “Good morning, Finn,” I said, smiling down at the large Leporid.
Finn preferred to stay in his jackrabbit form most of the time, even off stage. He changed into a human only when decorum required it. He could speak clearly no matter his form, something many Shifters weren’t able to do.
The jackrabbit lowered his tanning mirror. Raising his sunglasses, he squinted up at me from his lawn chair. “Electra, you’re looking quite brilliant,” he said in his fake British accent. His long ears flicked away a fly, his amber gaze moved to the man next to me. “Good day, mate,” he said to Bruno, changing to an Australian accent. “I heard you’d returned to our ranks.”
“Only temporarily,” Bruno told him, reaching out to bump fists with Finn’s rabbit paw. “You’re practicing for tonight’s show, I see.”
“Aye, laddie,” he said with a Scottish turn.
Finn the Jackrabbit sold out every single night with both the old and young. His act was quite simple and yet amazing. He would sit on stage in a high-backed, green leather reading chair. Next to him on a nightstand was a single glass of water. In his hand was a thick book of quotes he’d compiled himself from his idol—Bugs Bunny. In various accents from around the world, he would read the quotes, sometimes standing to act out a line or two of his monologue.
His ability to spellbind a crowd was known throughout many circuses. With words alone, he could bring tears of laughter or heart-wrenching sadness. I’d sat in on his show a couple of times recently to keep my mind off the loss of Clint. I glanced at the man standing beside me. Finn’s show had also distracted me from longing for Bruno.
Finn leaned down and grabbed a hand-rolled cigarette from the ashtray at the foot of his lawn chair and lit up, puffing perfect smoke rings into the air. Correction, I thought, smelling the sweet odor of marijuana, make that a joint.
“You’d better be careful with that,” Bruno said, pointing at the joint. “You know Kenneth is always worried about being raided for drugs by local law enforcement.”
Finn waved him off. “This is Assjacket, dude.” He slipped into surfer mode, his dialect of choice. “It’s a Shifter’s paradise. Weed is only non-copacetic in the human world.”
“Bruno’s been living in the human world too long,” I told Finn, grinning. “He’s forgotten how life at the circus is for us lowlifes.”
“His loss, man.” Finn offered me a toke, but I shook my head.
“I need a clear head for this afternoon’s crowd.” I glanced around to make sure we had no eavesdroppers. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
“Did you bring the stones?”
I held up the bag.
Finn was a bit superstitious. He believed that if he had to answer more than three questions in a row, he’d lose his voice. I’d once joked about holding onto his “rabbit” foot when he answered and been ordered out of his tent for my lousy sense of humor.
Clint, being an intuitive Shifter, had figured out a way to appease Finn on this subject. For every question asked of him, I had to read one of my rune stones. It made no sense to me per my teachings about the runes, since the stones are about searching for possible causes and effects and then finding possible outcomes for whoever casts the stones, but I’d gone along with it since it eased Finn’s worries.
Thanks to the stones, Finn had been able to move past his superstition and interact more with others, making him a happy rabbit.
I closed my eyes, trying to find a neutral state, but with Bruno standing beside me, and a circus full of people milling nearby, I was lucky to find a somewhat calm location. I pulled three stones from the bag and set each stone down next to Finn’s ashtray, lining them up.
“Okay.” I turned to Bruno. “I need a question about the past.”
“The night Clint was killed, did you see anyone around that you didn’t recognize? Any strangers?”
I started with the rune at the far left that focused on past actions or situations, asking the question word for word.
“Necessity. Shadow,” I read the stone, looking up at Finn. “Friction.”
He nodded, accustomed to playing this game with me. He paused to take a hit off his joint before blowing out a lungful and speaking. “I was on my way back from the shower and saw someone in a hooded jacket sneaking around behind the big top tent.”
That really didn’t get u
s anywhere.
I looked at Bruno. “Ask a question about our present situation.”
“Why can’t I ask another about the shadow figure?”
“Because that’s not how the stones and Finn work.”
Bruno growled. “Fine. Let’s see. Has anyone else come around asking about Clint’s whereabouts or circumstances involving his death?”
“That’s sort of two questions,” I said.
“Just ask,” he said, pointing at the stones.
I did and focused on the second stone. “Death. Dreaming. Magic.”
Finn thumped his long hind paw on the ground a couple of times while taking another toke. “Ming has come by several times, digging for what I know about Clint’s past.”
Damn Ming and her freaking blog.
“Runash,” he said, looking up at Bruno. “She was supposed to fill your shoes, right, dude?” At Bruno’s nod, Finn continued, “She came by with all sorts of questions after they took Clint’s body away.”
If it was in pieces, I tried not to imagine how horrific that process must have been.
“That’s all I can think of at the moment, besides the usual gossipy shit from everyone around, but that doesn’t count.”
I pointed at the stones. “The final question needs to be about a future situation.”
“This is crazy,” Bruno said.
“You wanted my help, remember?”
“No, I was ordered to ask for your help.”
“Fine, I’ll ask.” I focused on calming my thoughts again, taking a step away from Bruno to help. “Will we find Clint’s killer at the circus?”
I read the third stone. “Fertility. True Love. Harmony.”
Bruno snorted in disgust. “Well, that’s about as far from an answer to that as we can get.”
Finn stared up at me, his long whiskers twitching. His gaze moved to Bruno, and then back. “There’s your answer.”
My heart quickened. How could Finn know that Bruno was my true love? I started to shake my head to deny it.
“Harmony, dudette.” He pointed his joint at Bruno. “You two need to stop bickering and in the harmony you’ll find the answers to Clint’s murder.”
“Finn!” Kenneth the ringmaster called from somewhere nearby.
“Shit!” Finn stubbed out his joint on the lawn chair and tucked it in his pocket. “I need to scram. Kenneth’s on the warpath today, and I don’t need him disrupting my karma flow, man.”
Karma flow? I collected my rune stones.
He hopped away faster than I could run in my human form, zigzagging between tents. I turned to face Kenneth and his wrath, but Bruno tugged me into a nearby tent, putting his finger over my lips.
We waited as Kenneth stomped past, still hollering Finn’s name. When he was safely past, I whispered, “Why are we hiding from Kenneth?”
“Because he’s one of my suspects. I don’t want him finding out who I’ve talked to about Clint.”
“Kenneth is a suspect?” I crossed my arms. The guy was a gentle soul most days, at least when he wasn’t hunting down pot-smoking jackrabbits. “He’s a were-pug, for crissake.” And quite an adorable wrinkly-faced guy when he shape-shifted with one hell of a vertical jump for his size, which he once told me was because his father was a Jack Russell terrier. “Everyone knows were-pugs aren’t killers. They might lick you to death, but unless Clint was having sex with Ming behind Kenneth’s back, I can’t see any reason he’d have for hurting the clown.”
“Kenneth wasn’t in his tent the night Clint died. He and Ming had a fight and he’d walked out.”
“Maybe he went into town to drink away his frustrations. Hell, if I was sleeping with Ming, I’d drink every damned night.”
“Kenneth’s lack of alibi puts him on my list of suspects.” Bruno’s tone made it clear that was the end of that discussion.
“Who else is on your list beside Kenneth and me?”
His jaw tightened. “That’s for me to know.”
I poked him in the chest. “If we’re going to work together, you need to start sharing information.”
His eyes dipped to my mouth. “I’ll tell you what. For every kiss you give me, I’ll give you a name.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you for real?”
He shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
“Forget it.” I walked out, heading toward my own tent.
Bruno caught up with me. “You’re no fun.”
“Ha! Since when have you ever been fun?”
“I’ve always been fun, ask around.”
“No, you’ve always been bossy, brooding, and snappy.”
“Only around you.”
“Lucky me.”
“I can’t help it. You drive me nuts.”
“Because I’m a purebred, I know,” I finished for him. I slipped inside my tent, striding through the curtain into my parlor.
He followed. “No, because you’re too good for me.”
“Says who?”
“All of the other purebred dickheads.”
I sighed. “You really need to get over this issue you have with breeding. I can’t help who my parents are, just like you can’t.”
He paced in front of my parlor table a couple of times, and then turned. “What were your parents’ names?”
“What? Why?” Where had that question come from?
His eyes searched my face. “Who’s N.M.?”
“What?”
“N.M.” He pointed toward my inner chamber. “It’s on that little wooden heart on your nightstand.”
I folded my arms. “You were snooping.”
“You kept yapping with Ming. I got bored while I sat on your bed and waited.”
There was no way I could answer him honestly. If I told him my real name, I wouldn’t be able to shield myself emotionally or on paper. He could look me up and find out about my crime-laden past. Then he’d be doubly disgusted, both with my secret and with his attraction to a woman who’d once worked for one of the biggest crime bosses in the desert Southwest.
“It stands for New Mexico.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. Take a look at any dictionary and it will tell you that N.M. is the two-letter abbreviation for ‘New Mexico.’ “
His jaw tightened. “I know the fucking abbreviation for New Mexico, Electra.” He closed the distance between us, tipping my chin up, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “What I really want to know is, who’s Nora Mai?”
Shit! I gulped.
Where had he found my real name?
Chapter Five
“I don’t know who that is,” I straight out lied. I had to, because telling him the truth would fuck up our lives both in and out of the bedroom.
Bruno wasn’t buying my song and dance. I could see disbelief in his eyes. “You know how I can tell you’re lying right now?”
I kept still, fighting to keep my face blank and breathing regular. Rather than answer, I raised one eyebrow.
“I can hear your heart racing,” he answered.
“What can I say? You make me nervous, especially when we’re alone.”
He leaned closer, his cheek grazing mine as he inhaled next to my ear. “I can smell your fear.”
“I’m afraid Clint’s killer might return.” That was the full-on truth.
His fingers trailed down my arms, locking onto my wrists. “I can feel you tremble.”
I decided to sidetrack him. “Fine. You figured me out, Mr. Security Head Honcho. I am hiding something. I’m hiding that I want you again. Happy now?”
If I could just keep him from finding out my real identity a little longer, I could finish tonight’s show, pack up, and leave when everyone was sleeping. I didn’t want to say good-bye to my circus family, but this place was too dangerous now that I knew Clint had been in the Gone Were program and a bounty hunter most likely killed him.
Bruno growled and stepped back. “Don’t play your wicked games with me, woman.”
“I tol
d you before, I’m not a damned witch. I don’t play ‘wicked’ anything.”
“Right. You’re a cunning trickster who lies for a living.”
He was goading me, I could tell, but I’d grown up being poked by bullies about coyote folklore. “None of that seemed to bother you the night you took me to your bed.”
He sat on the edge of my parlor table, his arms crossed. “You probably drugged me.”
His words made me want to whop him upside the head. “I did not drug you, you big bonehead.” I pointed at the curtains. “Get out of my tent, Bruno, or I’m going to hit you with something.”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me who Nora Mai is.”
“Then it looks like you’re going to become a permanent fixture in my tent.” I smirked. “I hope you don’t mind if I drape you in beads so you match the rest of the furniture.”
“Let me help you with your memory,” he said. “Nora Mai died a little over a year ago of exposure and dehydration while hiking in a remote canyon in southeastern Utah. Her body was found a month later by a group of photographers out on a day trip. Her remains were well-picked over by that time, with her dental records being the only way to positively identify her.” He shook his head. “That southwestern sunshine, not to mention the vultures, does a real number on an exposed body.”
I walked over to my chest of drawers, pulling out a few tricks of the trade for this afternoon’s early opening. “Sounds like a tragic way to go out,” I said when my back was to him. Not to mention lonely and sad.
I’d had such high hopes as a young girl, planning to use my grandmother’s teachings to help lost and lonely souls. Instead, here I sat in my tent every night, spinning tales of happiness and mystery for one stranger after another, barely using the gifts with which I was born.
“According to one of the articles I read, Nora’s parents were devastated at the news, their grief driving them to leave the country entirely to escape her memory.”
My eyes pricked, tears threatening at the mention of my parents. The only way to keep them safe was to let them think I was dead. I wasn’t allowed to learn where they’d gone after a fake counselor from Gone Were had urged them to relocate in order to better deal with the loss of their only child.