Finn felt bad because they wouldn’t even let her finish her sentence. They started loudly groaning at the mere thought of trying to get any information about anything from the government.
“I am still trying to get a new trash can for the house,” Finn told her.
“That’s local government.”
“You act like federal government is better.”
“No, but if you can talk to the shifter divisions of the CIA—”
“But Dad was in with the full-humans.”
“That doesn’t mean our kind didn’t know what was going on with him. My grandmother always knows where all her people are—shifter and non.”
“You could also talk to your connections,” Shay said, gazing down at Tock.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“You do not want my grandmother involved in this. At all.”
“So you’re afraid of your grandmother?” Shay pushed.
“No. But you should be.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” Nelle offered as she hopped over to Keane and leaned against his back so she could remove one of her high heels and shake it out.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, trying to look over his shoulder to observe.
“I have something in my shoe.”
“You couldn’t lean against the car?”
“You were right here. And stop complaining! There are men who’d kill for me to do to them what I’m currently doing to you.”
“What men? I want names.”
“What’s your suggestion, Nelle?” Mads asked.
“You guys take a break. Not a long one,” she quickly added when they opened their mouths to instantly disagree. “Just a couple of days. To sleep. Play your football. You all seem to like that. Anything that will allow your brains to reset.”
Finn gazed at Keane. “She’s not wrong.”
“Of course I’m not wrong. When am I ever wrong?”
“When you bought me pink Hanes For Her,” Mads tossed in. “I only wear black.”
“And when Mads needs a break,” Nelle continued with a smile, “she enjoys being ungrateful.”
“That’s a nice idea and all,” Keane grumbled, “but I don’t know what you think would actually distract us from the murder of our father.”
“Hey, Mads,” Streep said, pointing out to the street. “Isn’t that your pet coyote?”
“He’s not my pet.”
“Yes, he is,” Finn muttered.
It took a second for the coyote to pass the SUV so they could all see him. But once he did, they noticed that he had something long and cumbersome hanging from both sides of his mouth.
“What is he holding?” Keane asked.
“Huh,” Mads said before replying, “that is a hyena leg. The coyote is holding a hyena leg.”
“From a recently killed hyena,” Tock added.
Shay went out into the street and looked for a blood trail. He found it and began to follow, with the rest of them trooping behind.
They made a left at the corner and kept going until Max said, “This is cat terri—”
Which was all she got out before a lion roar exploded around them, warning them off.
“How do they get away with that?” Tock wanted to know. “There are full-human streets and businesses all around here!”
Male lions seemed to come from every house, every yard. And they were not happy to have honey badgers in their territory. Not happy at all.
“You need to go.”
“What did I do?” Max demanded when it seemed to dawn on her that the lions were speaking to no one but her.
“Where’s my father’s watch?”
“I know you stole my car!”
“I had ten thousand dollars in that bedroom safe!”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Max said, palms out to placate. She waited a moment before she added, “You don’t know any of that was me.”
One of the lions unleashed a mini-roar and big fangs sprang forward, but Finn stepped between them, pushing his fellow cat back.
“That’s not going to happen,” Finn warned.
“Why? What are you three going to do?”
Finn told him honestly. “Tear your throat out.”
“Okay.” Mads quickly pushed herself between the males. “Before this gets out of hand, I have one simple question and then we’re gone: Did you guys happen to see a hyena hanging around here?”
The lions looked her over, and one asked, “Are you a cop?”
“I play basketball.”
Another male snapped his fingers. “Wisconsin Butchers! You guys just won the playoffs!”
“Yeah!”
“Would you sign my ball?”
“Hey!” Finn barked.
“He means his basketball.”
“I know. I still don’t like it.”
“And in answer to your question,” said a lion male with lots of black hair in his mane, “yeah. We saw six hyenas hanging around. We could smell ’em. We tracked them down to the bears’ street, but we don’t like them being that close to our cubs. So we went after them.”
“And?”
He glanced at the others and, after most shrugged, replied, “Five got away, the sixth . . . did not.”
“Do you still have the body?”
“It’s being cremated. There’s really no way to adequately explain how a hyena got its throat ripped out on your property. Not even to New York cops. Although some street coyote did get a bit of the body before we could get it in the back of Clem’s car.”
“Keep anything from it?” When his eyes narrowed with distrust, Mads again said, “I play basketball.”
“Right.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet, handing it to Mads. She immediately yanked out the driver’s license.
“Wisconsin ID.” She looked at Finn. “My mother sent scouts. To my house.”
“You’re not hyena,” the lion noted.
“It’s a long story.”
“Which I think it’s about time you filled us in on,” Tock said.
“Yeah,” a young lion male agreed. “It’s time to tell us what’s going on.”
With his fangs out, Shay snarled, “She’s not talking to you!”
“Well, you don’t have to be rude about it!”
* * *
It was not a long story to tell, since everyone knew bits and pieces anyway. But once Mads was done, she felt better. Although she did have to take the sword away from Max because she nearly took Keane’s head off when she kept swinging it around.
“What do you want to do?” Tock asked, while sitting on Mads’s floor and attempting to wrestle the hyena leg from the coyote.
“I want to forget my mother and grandmother exist, but that’s not possible because they won’t leave me alone. And just give him that leg so he can bury it under the house, Tock!”
“You could send the sword back,” Streep reasoned. “But, honestly, I still think they’d come after you.”
“I know,” Mads said, watching the coyote run away with his prize. “I just don’t understand why.”
“You represent what they will never be,” Nelle explained. “They are hyena. Down to their core. Although they do lack the intelligence I’ve seen in most hyenas. Your great-grandmother, however, was Viking. You are Viking. And the Galendotter Clan in Norway is Viking. Being able to shift into hyena is simply another weapon for you. Like having a sword or an axe. As long as you live and breathe, you are a threat to your mother and grandmother because you are more fit to rule the American Clan than they are.”
“I don’t want to rule the Clan. I don’t want to rule the family. I don’t need them. I got you guys. They don’t have my back.”
“Because to Tova you’re not hyena. But to Solveig, you didn’t need to be. You were badger, but more important, you were Viking. That’s all those Norwegians care about.”
“You already have a plan,” Finn prompted. “Don’t you?”
>
Mads shook her head. “It’s too . . . it’s crazy. It’s like a Max plan.”
Max frowned. “What’s that mean?”
“That’s what you need right now,” Tock said. “Something so ridiculous and insane that no one in their right mind would ever think of it or do it. A Max plan.”
“Hey!” Max complained. “I’m getting insulted.”
“No, you’re not,” Tock told her.
Max grinned. “Nah. I’m not.”
Mads looked at the Malone brothers. “I’ll need your help. All of you.”
“Who do you want us to kill?” Keane asked. “I’d prefer not to kill the old lady, though.”
“No, no, no.” Mads shook her head. “Not exactly that. I need your connections.”
“Oh, God,” Shay groaned. “You need the rest of the Malones, don’t you?”
“Actually, the last thing I want or need for this . . . are tigers.”
chapter TWENTY-TWO
“Kyle!” Charlie called out, putting his warm oatmeal and bacon on the kitchen table. “Breakfast!”
Stevie looked up from her computer. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Kyle to breakfast. I know he’s eighteen now, but I still like to make him breakfast sometimes.”
“Kyle isn’t here. Kyle hasn’t been here for the last five days. He’s been with his family in Seattle.”
“Are you sure?” Kyle was another onetime child prodigy like Stevie who’d been staying in their basement and paying rent. He was a brilliant artist and jackal who’d taken over their garage with his artwork. He was also arrogant and annoying and rude, but that just made Charlie like him more. How could she not when he managed to tick off everyone who came within ten feet of him? That was a skill even Max didn’t possess. And the extra rent didn’t hurt either.
“I’m positive. He’s been texting me regularly to complain about his family, the Seattle weather, and the state of world politics. He also wants to make sure you won’t rent his room out to someone else.”
“Huh. I never noticed he was gone.”
“Okay. So not only do I need to wait to be a mom, but you need to wait to be an aunt.”
“Oh, come on. The kid’s eighteen. I’m sure I’d be much better with a baby.”
Charlie heard the front door slam open and a familiar voice cry out, “Help! I need help!” She waited while big feet ran down the hall toward the kitchen.
“See?” Stevie pointed out. “Neither of us moved, even though we heard someone screaming for help.”
“We were supposed to move?”
The Malone brothers’ youngest male sibling, Dale, ran into their kitchen. “I need your help!”
Charlie held up her phone. “You couldn’t call?”
“Charlie!” Stevie snapped.
“Nat’s been kidnapped!” the kid said.
Charlie and Stevie exchanged glances before Charlie asked, “Sure she just didn’t run away because Stevie shoved her nose into her face?”
“Valid question,” the kid replied. “And I would have thought the same thing. Just one problem.”
“Which is?”
“My brothers aren’t home. They went off with your sister Max and the other badgers. They’re not even in the state!”
“Okay . . .”
“Look, my sister is not going to dramatically run away without an audience. My mother’s not even home right now. She’s with my aunts at the Jewish rec center playing Texas Hold ’em. I’m telling you, my sister would not do the big stomp-away without someone there to give a shit. And I am not that one.”
“Maybe she just went out with friends,” Stevie reasoned.
“I’ve texted her all morning—she hasn’t texted me back. She always texts me back.”
“When did you last see her?” Charlie asked.
“She walked with me to school, where I take my advanced college courses.”
“Why?”
He cleared his throat and began looking really shifty.
“Just tell me, kid, we don’t have time for this.”
“She was drinking last night and didn’t want Mom to smell it on her.”
“Drinking what?” Charlie asked.
The kid cleared his throat again. “Liquor.”
“Liquor with what?”
He threw his hands up. “She has some badger friends, okay? And yes, she likes her vodka mixed with some snake poison. What were you doing at seventeen?”
“Not drinking poison-infused vodka.”
“Isn’t that because you liked your poison mixed with tequila?”
“You are not helping, Stevie.”
“Can I get on with this?” the kid yelped.
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“Anyway, I was walking up the stairs and when I looked back, she was talking to this Asian guy. Totally her type. I didn’t think much about it until I texted her from class and she didn’t text me back.”
“What do you mean ‘her type’?”
“Tall. Good looking. Breathing.”
Stevie snorted, but quickly lowered her head.
“And to keep our mother off her back, tiger,” he added.
Wide-eyed, Stevie looked at Charlie, and Charlie knew that her baby sister was thinking the same thing.
“Tiger? Was this Asian guy Chinese?” Charlie asked.
“How the hell should I know? I can tell you he’s probably not Mongolian.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because that would make our mother too happy. And she will never make our mother too happy.”
“Okay, okay. Fine. So the kid’s Asian.”
“Wait. What does it matter if he’s Chinese or not?”
“It probably doesn’t.”
“Probably? Why probably?”
Charlie pulled out her phone and turned away from the kid. She quickly went through her contacts until she found the name she was looking for. The phone rang twice on the other end and when it connected, she only got a “What?”
“When Van Holtz spoke to the Yuns, what did they say?”
“They said they’d leave you alone.”
“What specifically, Smith? For most people, words have meaning. What were their words?”
“Lord, let me think. He said . . . ‘We’ll stay away from the MacKilligan sisters.’”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure. Why? What’s going—”
Charlie disconnected the call and again faced the kid. “What’s your sister’s legal name?”
The kid blinked. “What?”
“On her birth certificate? What’s her legal name? Is it MacKilligan? Is our father down as her father?”
“It’s complicated.”
“We’re smart.” Charlie pointed at Stevie. “She’s a genius. We can figure it out.”
“Dad was already dead when she was born. So Mom didn’t put anyone down as the father.”
“But she didn’t give her the name MacKilligan either.”
“No. She was a Malone. Raised a Malone. Even though no one on the Malone side but us was happy about it.”
Charlie closed her eyes and asked, “Did the rest of your family tell anyone that Nat was not a Malone? That she was, in fact, a MacKilligan?”
“Uh . . . well . . . I think so. I think I remember my mom complaining that the Malones told everyone they did business with that she wasn’t blood related. It’s a big deal for them.”
“Who do the Malones do business with?” Stevie asked.
“Criminals,” the kid easily replied. “A lot of leg breakers in my family. You want someone’s legs broken because they owe you money and you don’t want them accidentally killed . . . you bring in a Malone.”
“The Yuns promised they wouldn’t strike against the MacKilligan sisters,” Charlie explained to Stevie. “So they went after Nat . . . because she’s not a MacKilligan. Legally, she’s a Malone.”
“Oh, my God,” Stevie said, beginning to pant. “Oh, my God!�
�� she said again, this time a little louder.
She slammed her hands onto the table, giant claws bursting out of them and her voice exploding with rage as she roared out, “Oh, my God!”
Charlie waited until the windows stopped shaking, the glasses, plates, and pans stopped dropping onto the floor, and the chairs stopped skittering across the room. Then she looked up at the terrified young tiger who was hanging from a now partially broken cabinet door like a panicked house cat and said, “You should go home now, kid. Keep your phone on—we may have to call. But we’ll handle it from here.”
* * *
Tova pushed open the door of her home and stepped barefoot onto the grass. She held a cup of coffee as she started walking toward her daughter’s trailer, shoving out of her way a male who’d gotten too close. He apologized and kept moving, which was what Tova expected. If he’d done anything else, she’d have torn off his face.
As Tova was about to knock on Freja’s door, she heard one of her grandnieces behind her.
“Tova! You need to come out to the south field.”
“Why?”
The girl smiled. “You won’t believe who’s here.”
Tova headed back to her trailer to put on her clothes and steel-toed boots. She motioned to the other trailers. “Get ’em up. Get ’em all up. Now!”
* * *
They dragged Nat out of the trunk and Kang Yun pointed toward a doorway that led into a long hallway. It was an empty warehouse made of concrete. Some place that Nat did not want to be, but so far all they’d done to her was shove her around and try to scare the shit out of her.
Not that she wasn’t concerned. She was definitely concerned. These tigers were pissed about something and she knew her kind well enough. True, she was mostly honey badger, but she knew her brothers and mother. She knew tigers. They were vengeful, angry fucks and for some reason these particular vengeful, angry fucks were pissed at her. She knew she hadn’t done anything to them herself, but for whatever reason, she was their means to an end.
The problem was, she hadn’t reached her full shifter potential yet in order to properly fight back. She could unleash her claws and begin digging but she wasn’t at the point yet where she could dig herself completely out of the building in less than a minute. That took some training and practice and she had neither. Same thing with her shifting.
The tigers did seem to know she was deaf but were unaware that she could read lips. Something she might be able to use. People tended to underestimate those they considered to have a weakness, not realizing that her body had compensated for her loss of hearing in other ways.
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