Titus nodded as the doctor pushed a button and the chair began to automatically come back to the upright position. “Thank you. I just brush and floss like everyone else.”
“Well,” Dr. Smythe mused, “genetics play a large role in these things. I bet if we chatted about your relatives, you would find that they also have a history of having very good teeth.”
Titus thought about his parents. Wolf shifters. Both of them. “Yes. Yes, they did.”
“Any siblings?” Dr. Smythe’s expression was filled with curiosity. “I know you’re a stranger to these parts. I always wonder what brings people to this place if they haven’t got family here. Of course, many of them are retiring here. That certainly keeps them flocking to the area.” He gave a hearty laugh. “Of course, those retirees usually have full dentures. They don’t show up in my office that often anymore.”
“I would guess not,” Titus murmured. He looked at the clock. Surely his appointment was over. Right? He flung his legs over the side of the chair. Maybe if he got up, the doctor would get the hint.
“Well,” Dr. Smythe said heartily. “We’ll see you again in six months!”
It was all Titus could do not to roll his eyes. “Yes, you will.”
Dr. Smythe retreated to the next operatory to perform some horrifying dental procedure and Titus made his way back out to the front office to see the receptionist. She was already handing him a card over the top of the counter.
“Here you go, Mr. Holbrook,” the receptionist said with a merry grin and a bobbing head. She looked like a damn puppet. “I’ve already booked your appointment for six months on the usual time and day. We will see you then! And don’t worry, we’ll invoice you for today’s charges just as soon as the doctor puts them in the computer.”
“Oh great,” Titus said, forcing himself to bare his freshly cleaned teeth in some semblance of a smile. “I’ll look forward to it.”
He was in the process of leaving the office for the hallway outside when he nearly smacked right into Hilary Allenwood. She had presumably been trying to enter the office as Titus exited. He took a hasty step back to avoid being face-to-face with the woman.
Hilary did not look as though she was in a particularly good mood. No doubt some of that was just her naturally sour disposition; the rest of it probably had something to do with the way she was holding her hand up to cover one cheek in a very protective way.
“Oh great,” Hilary groused. “Does the office have any dental supplies left or did they have to use them all to cure your trench mouth?”
Titus felt himself take a mental step back in surprise. “Wow. Not feeling so hot today, Ms. Allenwood? You seem ruder than usual.”
“Just move out of my way. All right?” Hilary exhaled a sigh and Titus’s sharp sense of smell detected the scent of infection. The woman had a toothache all right.
“I just had my teeth cleaned,” Titus could not resist saying. “You should try that. A visit every six months keeps the golf ball-sized swellings at bay.”
For just a moment, Titus could have sworn there was a note of confusion flickering behind Hilary’s eyes. “You had a cleaning? Like just a regular checkup? Why?”
“Because that’s how you keep yourself from getting cavities,” Titus said in a voice that was almost sarcastic. He was having a tough time staying pleasant. What was she driving at? “I don’t want to wind up with a bunch of root canals and caps. So, I brush and floss twice a day and come to the dentist every six months.”
“You?” Hilary still could not seem to grasp that.
“Yes. Me.”
“I’d think with your lifestyle, you would have rotting husks in your mouth,” Hilary muttered.
Titus lost his battle to keep himself from being rude. “And obviously all of the bottom feeding you’ve been doing has resulted in a massive toothache.” Titus reached for the door handle and opened it to usher Hilary through. “So, by all means go inside and get that nastiness taken care of before it makes you any less personable to be around.”
Hilary harrumphed her way into Dr. Smythe’s office and Titus slammed the door closed. He was just shaking his head when he heard someone quietly clearing his throat a few feet away.
“Ahem.”
Titus turned to find Kylie Overton trying very hard to hold in a smile and probably a laugh as well. Her long hair was half falling down from the bun atop her head. There even appeared to be two pencils sticking out of the thick mass as though she had been using them and just forgot where she’d put them.
“Hello,” Titus managed to stammer. He hated how he was always so tongue-tied when Kylie was around. “Are you here to see the dentist?”
The word duh was about the only thing that came to mind right now. As in, duh, why else would she be at a dentist’s office?
“No, not at all,” Kylie said quickly. Her face was a perfect mask of politeness. “I just came in to use the restroom. I like the bathrooms here. They’re always clean.”
Titus blinked. She drove fifteen minutes to use the bathroom? Then he saw the smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “You’re joking, right?”
“Of course!” Kylie laughed then. Her eyes crinkling at the corners and her lips curving into a beguiling grin. “I don’t think there are anything but dentists in this building. Have you noticed? It’s like they all flock to the same office building. You have a few general dentists, an endodontist, an oral surgeon, a pediatric dentist, and a gum specialist. They all just sit in here waiting for a patient to walk in. Like we’re more likely to go to their offices if they congregate like vultures waiting for a customer to get a referral.”
“Ah,” Titus said with amusement. “Then once a patient walks into the building it’s too late right? Like you’ll never walk out again without another specialist gobbling you up?”
“Exactly!” Kylie was shifting back and forth on her feet as though she wasn’t sure where to go next, which was odd considering Titus was trying to keep out of the way so she could enter the office. She looked chagrined. “I—uh—I’m not actually ready to go inside just yet.”
“Why is that?” Titus could not see her being the type of person to have one of those dental phobias where they were too afraid to get in the chair. “Afraid?”
“Of Dr. Smythe?” Kylie snorted and shook her head. “Not likely. It’s Hilary Allenwood I don’t want to deal with. She’s a horrible person on a regular day. When she has a toothache? Well, you saw what she was like.”
That he had. But Titus was rather interested to figure out what Kylie had against the crabby reporter. “I’m certain that having a toothache would make anyone bad-tempered.”
“Not like her.” Kylie curled her lip and wrinkled her nose and looked so damned adorable that Titus wanted to give her a squeeze, which was weird because he wasn’t that sort of person. Then Kylie shook her head so hard that a pencil flew out of her hair. “You don’t know what Hilary Allenwood is like.”
“Try me,” Titus told Kylie. “I probably know more than you think. She is a constant bug in my ear thanks to her desire to poke her nose into every case on my desk to see if there’s anything worth reporting.”
Kylie looked ready to go off on a rant. “More like trying to make mountains out of mole hills! I know that you never attended the neighborhood watch meeting,” she stated with a very pointed look of disappointment, “but we did form a group and we have been patrolling the street a few times a week. We’re just trying to make sure that people know we’re all aware of what’s going on. And I’m telling you right now that Hilary Allenwood is the prowler!” Kylie looked as though she had to rethink that for a moment. “Well, okay. I don’t know that she’s got anything to do with that weird dog I saw up the tree the other night, but still.”
Titus did not want to revisit the dog up the tree incident. He had been hoping Kylie’s more sensible sense of logic would slowly choke out that memory and change it in much the same way these things often happened. After all, when something you
thought you saw in the dark was completely wrong and maybe even impossible, that’s when your brain asserted itself and started throwing blame at the imagination and then logic happened and you rationalized the whole thing and told yourself you’d been imagining the incident. End of story.
“So, you have actually seen Hilary Allenwood in our neighborhood at night?” Titus didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Yes!” Kylie burst out. Then she seemed to realize that she’d been a bit on the loud side for a hallway outside a dentist’s office where she could potentially be overheard. She cleared her throat and looked as though she was trying very hard to calm down. “I know I’ve seen her prowling around at least twice. We caught her.”
He almost hated to ask. “Who is we?”
“Mrs. Wankenfurter and me,” Kylie said with another wrinkle of her nose. “Thanks to you not being there, I had no choice but to agree to be Mrs. Wankenfurter’s patrol partner. Nobody else would go with her.”
Titus did feel bad for her about that. At least for a moment or two. Then he realized what she’d said. “Wait just a second. Thanks to me not being there? What does that have to do with your partner assignment? Are you saying you were going to stick her with me?” Titus was horrified.
But Kylie was laughing. “Yes! That’s exactly what I was going to do. She loves you. Well, when she’s not saying all kinds of nasty things about you being a useless rent-a-cop, of course. But secretly, I think she’s just intimidated by you and that’s her way of dealing with it.”
“For the love of…” Titus grumbled. Then he went back to the whole Hilary in the neighborhood thing. “What time of day or night was this?”
“Daytime,” Kylie told him quickly. “Over a weekend. It’s been almost a month since we put the whole neighborhood watch thing together. You could still join. That way you could see what Hilary Allenwood is up to for yourself.”
Titus was afraid Hilary was actually trying to break into his house during the day to see if he had any case files at home. “I think I’m better off trying to hogtie Hilary some other way.”
Kylie frowned and shook her head. “How do you expect to do that? She’s the one who controls the news flow in and around town. Have you ever noticed? Sometimes I think she’s the one telling the police which crimes to investigate, too. It’s a racket!”
Titus had to admire Kylie’s clarity of mind. She had an amazing brain for someone who ran a hospitality room at a winery. In his opinion, she was wasted on that job. But now was not the time to be saying anything about that. It wasn’t the time to tell Kylie that Titus and the other agents at Rock Wolf Investigations were actually in the middle of putting together an investigation of the Branson Police Department either. Now that they had Detective Lowell on their side and he had already opened a file with Internal Affairs, they were really getting to the bottom of some of the strange things going on at the department.
“Titus?”
He tried to refocus on Kylie. It wasn’t polite to just stand here staring into space. “Sorry. I was just thinking that you’re very right. It does seem very much as though Hilary Allenwood has a bit too much influence around town. I kind of wonder how that happened.”
“If you ask me,” Kylie said irritably, “it’s because she’s got everyone so afraid of her. She’s got a sharp tongue and if you piss her off she’s totally likely to put your name in the news and ruin your reputation in only a few seconds flat. It’s horrible!”
That it was. But now wasn’t the time. “Maybe I’ll pop by to one of these neighborhood watch meetings. You can email me the times. I think you’ve got my information, right? It’s on the company website.”
“Yes. I can email you.” Kylie looked a bit downcast. He could not help but wonder why. Then she shrugged. “I’m already late for my cleaning appointment. Do you think the receptionist will understand if I tell her I was trying to make sure there wasn’t a hostile presence in the waiting room when I went inside?”
“I don’t know,” Titus chuckled. He admired Kylie’s wit, even if her mournful expression was a bit overdone. “But I imagine they would be sympathetic since they just had to deal with her themselves.”
“Right,” Kylie muttered. “Well, see you later, Titus.”
“Yes. See you later.”
Titus watched her walk off and wondered what life was coming to. He was a wolf shifter and yet he’d just subjected himself to dental cleaning and then he’d discussed neighborhood watch and local law enforcement issues with one of his neighbors as though he was trying so hard to be human these days that he had totally forgotten what it was like to be a werewolf at all.
Maybe he was losing his edge. It was a bad thought. Titus wasn’t sure what was happening around town. Maybe it had nothing to do with him. Maybe this was what it meant to get far too involved in the image you were trying to create. Either way, he needed a reality check, and soon.
PART III
Chapter One
The sweltering August evening was just perfect for a walk. The crickets were beginning to sing in the big leafy trees. The slap of the water against the shore fifty yards down the rock strewn hillside was nothing but soft background noise. The sun had just gone down and a nice breeze had kicked up. It would have been a perfect night for a run.
But that’s not why Titus Holbrook was outside.
“I’m telling you,” Ursuline Wankenfurter said with conviction, “my Pugsley is the best darned scent dog that we have in this organization!”
It would not have been polite to argue with the old woman. Ursuline Wankenfurter was easily sixty years old, if not closer to seventy. She was a portly woman who favorited huge tent-like dresses and Birkenstock sandals. Today’s ensemble included a purple muumuu with pink and aqua accents that went well with Ursuline’s aqua-colored sandals. At least Titus was pretty sure the woman had done her best to put together a smashing outfit. Even her toenail polish matched. But the purpose of that ensemble was totally lost on Titus. He was too busy trying not to step on the woman’s pug since she was too busy singing the critter’s praises to actually keep him under control.
Titus did an awkward little shuffle step to one side to avoid slamming his boot down right in the center of Pugsley’s fat, roll-covered back. Ursuline Wankenfurter might not be able to see it, but the damned dog was laughing at Titus and he knew it. After all, Pugsley was fully aware that Titus Holbrook was not actually a straight up human. Titus was something else and no doubt to Pugsley, that something else smelled quite a lot like dog.
“I’m sure you agree,” Mrs. Wankenfurter continued as she marched down the street toward the curve that led to a path that would then meander down toward the shore of Tablerock Lake. “Pugs are tremendous scent dogs. They were favorites of the Chinese emperor and his court because they are intelligent dogs and fantastic hunters!”
Titus almost choked, nearly managing to step on Pugsley’s toes as he did yet another hasty side step to avoid the little beastie. Hunter indeed. Titus was pretty sure the Chinese had bred pugs to be companion animals and had been guarded by soldiers because they were so useless at defending themselves or their owners. You did not breed an animal with a squashed face and ask it to use its nose for a living.
“Don’t you just love pugs?” Mrs. Wankenfurter looked at Titus as though she actually expected an answer.
He puffed out his cheeks and sighed. “They’re adorable little dogs and they do grow very attached to their owners,” Titus finally said with no small amount of grudging. “I’m sure Pugsley knows all about the prowler you’ve been seeing around the neighborhood and just lacks the vocabulary to tell you.”
That at least was true. As Mrs. Wankenfurter cooed at her dog, Titus chafed at the necessity of pretending to be part of this neighborhood watch thing. He was starting to think this whole shapeshifter blending in with humans thing was just nonsense. Total. Nonsense. How was he supposed to blend in with anything? Even Pugsley knew Titus wasn’t really a human. And
last month Titus had been spotted outside a neighbor’s fence in his wolf form. If this kept up he might as well just take out an ad in the paper.
Speaking of the paper, Titus lifted his nose to the breeze and sniffed again. He smelled something that didn’t belong. Turning toward the hillside that sloped steeply down toward the lake, Titus forced himself to keep pace with Mrs. Wankenfurter as she turned from Hawthorne Street onto Pine Road. Hawthorne Street was a dead end. When Titus had moved to the area, he had specifically picked the house on Hawthorne Street because the little spur road had very little traffic and easy access to woods. When you spent a good deal of time every night in the body of a wolf, you really wanted the woods.
But as Titus followed Mrs. Wankenfurter’s lead up the slight incline to the next dog leg of Pine Road between Hawthorne Street and White Rock Avenue, he could not help but feel as though the woods were harboring something that didn’t belong.
“Titus, would you at least try to keep up?” Mrs. Wankenfurter turned around and gave him a stern look. “Young man, if you are tuckered out after walking half a block I would suggest getting out from in front of that computer more often! You youngsters nowadays! I’m telling you. Lazy bums, the lot of you! But you! You’re supposed to be a security expert. You should be in shape.”
Titus didn’t correct her. He didn’t tell her that he could have run up and down this hill, back to the house, and then run circles around her all the way down the next block without breaking a sweat. There was just no point in arguing.
“Ms. Wankenfurter,” Titus called out. “Could you wait for just a moment. Here? Just here on the corner please?”
The old lady stopped walking so quickly that Pugsley hit the end of his extendable leash and the zipline sound of it running out and then snapping back almost obscured the noise of a twig snapping in the distance. Almost, but not quite.
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 48
