by Dannika Dark
When my muscles couldn’t take anymore, I grabbed a leftover sausage biscuit from the kitchen and followed the sound of squeals and laughter to the courtyard. It was a beautiful day, nothing but blue skies and sunshine. The kids were playing games, sitting in the green grass, and climbing trees.
I found Wyatt lying on a chaise by the hot tub, his chair reclined horizontal, green sunglasses shading his eyes. I strolled down the shady veranda and sat in the chair beside him.
He rolled to his side to face me, his grey shirt twisting up. “Is that for me?”
I glanced down at my half-eaten biscuit and handed it over. “You feeling okay?”
He didn’t eat with his usual vigor. Crumbs showered the concrete as he chewed like a sloth. “My head hurts. Niko says everything’s healed, and it’s just my synapses misfiring or something.”
“I get that sometimes. It goes away. Need some aspirin?”
Wyatt finished his biscuit and slowly wiped his hand on his jeans. “Shep gave me a strong painkiller.”
“Ah. That explains it.” I drew up one leg and propped my foot on the edge of the chair.
“Believe me, I wanted my own herbs, but some caveman Chitah dug them all up. Now I have to replant everything.” He sighed dramatically. “Do you know how long the tiny tots are staying here?”
I swung my gaze to a little boy playing by a winged statue. “I guess until Viktor finds a place for them.”
“They better not let them out of their sight. I’ve got a lot of sensitive equipment upstairs that I don’t want nosy little fingers touching.”
Hunter suddenly burst through the door, his shoes lighting up with each step. He looked at the gathering of kids with uncertainty, and I watched as he walked the opposite way down the veranda, his gloved hand tracing alongside the wall. Had he ever played with other children? A red-haired girl about his age wandered up to the other side of the wall and faced him. She spoke for a minute, but he didn’t say anything back. Then she reached out to touch his face.
No, not his face. His scar.
After another moment, she turned and pointed somewhere. Next thing I knew, Hunter climbed the wall and followed behind her. When they reached a row of purple flowers, they went chasing after a butterfly.
“They seem okay,” Wyatt said. “A few scrapes and bruises. Shepherd checked them this morning before I woke up. Three of the older girls were malnourished, and one boy had an infected cut on his foot. Too bad they’re not old enough to shift. Then again, I don’t think I could handle fifteen wolves crapping all over the place.”
I twirled a lock of hair around my finger. “You did good, Spooky. You saved that girl’s life.”
“You’re a good catch.”
“Apparently, not that good. You almost died.”
He snorted. “I would have crushed you.”
I waved a pesky gnat away from my face, thinking about how we weren’t so immortal. Some of us bounced back better than others. Wyatt could have easily died had Niko not been there. I wasn’t entirely sure that Christian would have given up his blood. Most Breeds didn’t want it—they feared its power. I was only half Vampire, so I wasn’t sure that drinking my blood would have made a difference to anyone but a Vampire.
Kira floated out the door with an armload of blankets. Without her kerchief, her red hair lit up in the sun. She found a shady spot by some trees and spread out the blankets. A minute later, Switch rolled out a food cart and helped her set up a picnic.
“Viktor wanted to lock them in their rooms,” Wyatt murmured. “But Blue said that kids need fresh air and sunshine. She’s right. You lock up kids, and they start getting into trouble. Especially boys.”
“I don’t think you have much to worry about with this group. They had to grow up fast, and that changes you.” I heaved a sigh and crossed my legs. “Makes me wish I could go back in time and kill those men more slowly.”
Wyatt rolled onto his back and ran his fingers through his messy brown hair. The patchy whiskers on his youthful face made him look like a college kid looking for work in a coffee shop. “I saw some of Christian and Blue’s handiwork. That’s a therapy session I ain’t got time for.”
Something Houdini had said was still on my mind. I shifted toward Wyatt. “You know the last case we worked on—the fighting ring?”
“Yup.”
“Who sent you the blueprints to the auction house?”
“Man, did I get those at the eleventh hour.” He turned his head, my warped reflection in his sunglasses staring back at me. “Some anonymous user. Ghosted before I could ask what he or she wanted in return.”
“Is that normal?”
“If it were one of my contacts, maybe. Sometimes we do each other favors. But on that site, you don’t get something for nothing. Everything has a price. Maybe they somehow knew what was going on and had a personal vendetta against the people involved. Why?”
“I was just thinking about it.”
“Well, if you find out who it was, I wanna know. People aren’t helpful out of the goodness of their heart. Creeps me out.”
My thoughts drifted back to the conversation the night before. Why the hell would Houdini have helped us? It didn’t seem in character. Maybe he’d done it to redirect focus away from his business. I found myself keeping so many secrets lately to protect him. If Wyatt or anyone else knew he had provided the blueprints, they might go after him. Worse, they might think that we’re conspiring and I’m feeding him information about Keystone. Maybe his plan was to sabotage me. Or maybe he wanted to test my loyalty to Viktor since telling the truth might get me fired.
Damn his games.
I spotted Blue perched in a tree. Like me, she was comfortable with heights, but I suppose that had to do with her being a falcon. “I guess my case is closed.”
Wyatt draped his arms over the armrests as if he were tanning on a Hawaiian beach. “What’s the trouble?”
“I’m running in circles trying to find a missing piece, and maybe there isn’t one. Now I’ll just have to tell Ren we’ve got nothing.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
The little boy who’d approached Christian last night jogged down the veranda with a girl at his side. They skidded to a stop at the foot of Wyatt’s chair, and the boy asked, “Why do you have Lost Soul written on your hands?”
Wyatt drummed his fingers on the chair. “None of your beeswax.”
“Are you sure you didn’t mean lost sock?” The two giggled.
Wyatt sat up and lazily waved them off. “Scram!”
I watched them race each other down the long walkway, laughing the entire way before scaling the wall and flopping onto the grassy side. It gave me hope that they might be okay. At least they knew how to read.
I turned my attention back to Wyatt. “What were you going to say?”
“About what?”
“The case.”
He scratched his scruffy jaw. “Oh that. About a week ago, someone tracked in a freshy.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. We ran into a few uncooperative Shifters we had to put in their place.”
“See, that’s what I thought. So I ignored him. The minute you start paying attention to the dead, they stick to you like glue. They want favors,” he said, using his fingers to make air quotes. Wyatt sat up and adjusted his chair to an upright position. “If they don’t get what they want, they turn into little demons. That’s why most Gravewalkers look like they’re running on two hours of sleep. Things were peaceful for a while, and now the new guy decides to keep me up all night singing.”
“Wish I could help, but it’s not my problem.”
Wyatt slid his glasses down his nose so I could see his bloodshot eyes. “He keeps asking me to give a message to his father. What am I, the Pony Express?”
“Does he want you to do it for free, or does he have some way of paying you?”
“See, that’s where it gets weird. He says if I do him this favor, he’ll help us. Normally I don�
�t trust freshies, but I’m desperate. Even after my near-death experience last night, he kept me up. All night. I lost him earlier in the east wing and came out here, hoping to avoid him long enough to get a nap. When they attach themselves to a house, they don’t like leaving. I’m sleeping out here if that’s what it takes.”
“How exactly can he help us?” It didn’t seem logical. “Can they see something we can’t?”
“They can go wherever they want and eavesdrop on anyone. But most freshies have short attention spans. They spend more time focusing on their life, trying to hold on to the memories before they get all mixed up. Seriously, if ghosties could be spies, we’d have a real business. But most of the older ones have the memory of a goldfish. And the new ones have a whole catalog of issues I don’t subscribe to.”
“What exactly does he know?”
Wyatt shrugged. “It’s up to you if you want to find out.”
I stood and put my hands on my hips. “Then I think we need to have a séance later on. Have you seen Christian?”
“He took off.”
“Did he say where?”
“Maybe for a Brazilian wax.” Wyatt pushed his sunglasses back up. “I’m not his babysitter.”
“Keep your calendar free. Meeting in your office tonight.”
Chapter 21
After parking my blue pickup in Crush’s driveway, I finished listening to the tail end of “Bad Company” before cutting off the engine. My father was on a ladder propped against the metal garage, a hammer in one hand and a spray can in the other.
I got out and squinted up at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
His hellhound sat nearby, head cocked to the side as he watched his master.
Crush sprayed the can, and a flurry of obscenities came pouring out of his mouth as he beat on a brown clump of mud with a hammer.
“Go on, you bastards! Not on my garage!”
As I drew closer, I realized he was pounding his hammer on a giant wasp nest while simultaneously spraying all the pissed-off wasps who were flying out to see who was demolishing their home.
“Crush! Get down from there before you fall!”
The ladder teetered, and I rushed to steady it. Part of the nest fell a few feet in front of me, and I wanted to bolt when the hornets flew out and angrily swirled around us. I waited until Crush hustled down the ladder, but not before one stung me on the arm.
“Fuck!” he growled. “I’m gonna get the gasoline.”
“Don’t you dare.” I gripped his shirt. “You’ll set the whole garage on fire. Just leave it here. They’ll go away. Come inside before they figure out what’s going on,” I said, spotting a red welt on his head. “How the hell did you live past thirty?”
The dog barked at the nest, ready to defend Crush at his own peril.
Crush clapped his hands, and his companion trotted toward the trailer and bounded up the porch steps. Once inside, Crush disappeared into the bathroom and then returned with a Band-Aid box. He ran the faucet in the kitchen, wiping a few stings. “You want a drink?”
“No, I’m good,” I said, sighing while I sat down.
He set a box of baking soda and a bowl of water on the table. “My mama taught me this,” he said, mixing them together into a paste.
“You don’t talk about Grandma much.”
“I guess there’s not much to talk about. They were old, even when I was young. They died before you were born, so I didn’t think you wanted me boring you with all my stories.”
“Bore me sometime. The only thing you ever told me was how your dad showed you how to fix cars, and your mom made you finish everything on your plate.”
“That shit was no joke.” He applied the paste to his hand and put a bandage over it. “She was the worst cook in the history of the world. You haven’t suffered unless you had that woman’s version of stew. She worked in a factory making clothes or something. That was before companies started making everything overseas. I guess she never had time to learn how to cook.”
I stood up to put the paste on his stings. “That explains a lot about your eating habits.”
“I left home, and then the military cooked my meals. Never had time to learn all that, but I’m a microwave champion.”
After applying the white mixture to his forehead, I dried the area around it and applied a Band-Aid.
“Dammit, Cookie. Your arm. Can you heal that?”
I reached for a strip of sunshine beaming through the window, but the painful bump didn’t go away. “I don’t think healing works on venom. It’s fine. It’ll look better than yours by tomorrow.”
When I sat back down, he took my arm and spread paste on the red spot. “I remember when you were about eight, you got stung by a bee at school. Remember that?”
“How could I forget? You showed up and flipped the principal’s desk over.”
He pressed the bandage on. “They didn’t tell me what happened. Just something about you being in the nurse’s office and how I needed to come and take you to the doctor. He was sitting on his ass, finishing a phone call. My baby girl comes first. For all I knew, you could have had a severed leg.”
I chortled. The places a parent’s mind goes when their child is hurt.
Crush gently rubbed his rough hand over my bandage and gave me a tender smile, flashing his silver tooth.
I patted his hand. “Hope you don’t mind me using your house. I got permission this time.”
“It’s fine as long as you ask. I don’t like you snooping around.”
“Afraid I’ll find your cigar stash?”
He sat back. “I don’t smoke those things.”
“Bullshit.”
He did that thing where he stroked his mustache and goatee in a sad attempt to conceal his smile.
I glanced into the kitchen and noticed an empty bowl on the floor next to a water dish. “So how are things working out with you two? He seems to listen.”
As if sensing we were talking about him, the bullmastiff sat next to Crush and gave me a happy smile as Crush scratched his floppy ears.
“I hate to say it, but I think he’s working out just fine,” Crush admitted with a look of pride on his face. “Keeps me company, and I take him to work. Looks out for the property when we’re busy. Don’t ya, boy?”
“Hope he’s not scaring off the customers.”
“Nah. He seems to know who the bad guys are. Dogs know. Maybe that’s why he keeps running after your man.”
“Then maybe you should keep him away from me.”
“You’re sugar and spice.”
I crossed my legs and thought about the cold-blooded murders we’d committed the night before. “I’m the bad guy.”
“Maybe so, but you’re bad for the right reasons. That cancels shit out. Isn’t that right, boy?” Crush gave the dog another good rub on the head before resting his arms on the table.
“Please don’t tell me you named him Pickles.”
His lips twitched. “He didn’t respond to that name anyhow.” Crush laced his fingers together. “Meet Harley.”
“As in Davidson?” I reached out and rubbed his jowls—Harley’s, not my father’s. “That’s a good name for a good dog.”
“I guess he heard me using it a lot around the garage and thought I was talking to him. Makes sense that a dog should choose his own name.”
A bike rumbled in the driveway.
Crush stood. “I guess that’s my cue to get lost. Come on, Harley. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Don’t you need a leash?”
Crush opened the door and winked. “Where’s the fun in that?”
The only traffic that went by was the neighbors, so he basically had the road to himself. I had a feeling he was enjoying showing off his big bad dog.
I walked onto the porch as Ren dismounted his bike. Ren had a leather vest over his white tee. He reached the steps and rested his arm on the wooden rail. “That is one big-ass dog.”
Harley clumsily trotted down the s
teps, and when he reached the bottom, he sniffed Ren. His tail wagged like crazy.
Ren gave him a short grin and looked back up at Crush. “I still don’t like it.”
“I don’t give two shits what you like or don’t like. It’s none of your damn business what I do. He keeps me company, and he’s a good guard dog.” Crush lumbered down the steps until he was at the bottom. “I’m thinkin’ about getting a sidecar.”
Ren tucked his aviators into his shirt collar. “Don’t be one of those assholes who puts goggles on his dog. I’ll ban you from my property.”
“Fine.” Crush swaggered off, change jingling in his pockets. “See who’ll keep your bikes running as good as I do. And you can forget about that custom paint job.”
Ren ascended the steps. “Your old man’s an asshole.”
“Didn’t he once save your life?”
Ren struck his chest with a closed fist. “Respect.”
“Thanks for coming. Do you want a drink?” I asked, heading inside.
“Whatever’s cold.”
I reached in the fridge for a can of ginger ale and set it on the table. Then I seated myself across from him so I could face the door. Ren cracked open the can, took a long gulp, and I listened to the sound of fizzy bubbles filling the sunny kitchen.
“How’s the case?” He rested the cold can against his tan neck.
“A wild-goose chase. If there’s a connection, we haven’t found it. We crossed a few off because they didn’t fit the criteria of suspicious death. We questioned everyone, and tonight we’re going to go over the details again and see if we missed anything. But I got a strange offer, and I want to get your thoughts on it before I go down that rabbit hole.”
He let out a small burp and set the can down. “What kind of offer? I thought we weren’t involving any outsiders?”
“Well, this one involved himself. Apparently a freshy followed us home during one of our outings.”
“A what?”
I scooted my chair in. “That’s just another name for the recently departed. I work with a Gravewalker who has a lot of nicknames for them. Anyhow, he wants to help us in exchange for helping him. I’m not going to lie: I’m entertaining the idea. Might as well hear what he has to say.”
