Owl or Nothing

by Willow Mason

  “What would I get out of it?” I interrupted. “It appears to me, you’re on some wild goose chase to prove an outlandish theory. That’s nothing to do with what I’m trying to achieve.”

  “You’re trying to get your boss out of the slammer, aren’t you?” Caleb leaned forward with an eager expression. “Well, if my theory holds, that’ll happen.”

  “I’ve been living here for nearly a year,” I pointed out. “You’ve only just blown into town. What contacts do you have?”

  Caleb closed his eyes and leaned back in the booth. “I’m working for an international media conglomerate. They’ve got contacts lined up from here to eternity.” He pushed his phone towards me, tapping on a message. “See there? I’ve already got a hold of the autopsy report.”

  I swallowed in astonishment, expanding the screen to verify the signature.

  Keith Trogart. The forensic pathologist.

  At best, I’d hoped to corner the doctor at the bar later and try to weasel a few facts out of him on the sly. Here was the whole thing laid out for me. “It’s a deal.”

  Caleb spat in his palm then grabbed hold of my hand, sealing the deal before I could flinch away.

  Chapter Five

  While scrubbing my hands raw in the restaurant bathroom, I tried not to gag and failed.

  “Is that some new thing?” Dee asked from my breast pocket. “Marking you with spit? If that’s what the humans arriving here are into, imagine what the new shifters will do.”

  “Nothing as gross as that, I’d hope.”

  “Knock, knock,” Silvana said from the other side of the door, pushing through without waiting for an answer. “You left me alone at the table with the buffoon. Thanks.”

  “Did he spit on you, too?” Dee asked, whiskers twitching.

  “No, love. You know nobody’s doing anything like that to me unless I specifically ask them.” She switched her gaze to me. “How’re you doing?”

  “Regretting every choice in my life that led up to this moment.”

  “Well, shift over from the basin. I need to primp.”

  Silvana’s dark-haired beauty required nothing but basic upkeep, but I still moved over. On my hurried route into the bathroom, I’d grabbed a couple of napkins from the counter and used them to dry my hands. The actual hand dryer machine had an out-of-order sign on it and had since the first day we’d arrived in town.

  Dee shifted around in the pocket, tickling against my skin. “If we stay in here for a while longer, do you think Caleb will get the hint and leave?”

  “He doesn’t appear to be a man used to taking hints,” Silvana said with a slow smile. “Get out there”—she slapped me on the hip—“and take one for the team.”

  “I’m going,” I said, palms up. “But it should only take me a few minutes to scan through the report, so I expect you to call me out of the booth with a fake emergency in five minutes.”

  “Or what?”

  I poked my tongue out at Silvana’s perfect reflection. “Or I’ll put your name forward as a candidate for all the killings in the area.”

  Even Dee appeared shocked and there was no love lost between her and Silvana. My foot-in-mouth disease had struck again.

  But Silvana laughed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sure. Blame the wolf again. At this rate, I might as well change my animal name to scapegoat.”

  “You’d look good as a goat,” I whispered, before kicking the door open. With my hands newly clean, I didn’t want to dirty them up again.

  Caleb was staring fixedly at the rest of my meal as I slid into the booth again. “Did you order anything?”

  “Hm?” His eyes untangled from their reverie and stared straight into mine. Damn. Why did good-looking guys drag around such flawed personalities?

  Dee gave me a poke in the ribs. The poor thing was still tucked away, in my inner pocket this time. Given the startled reaction from Caleb at the station, I wasn’t ready to risk my friend getting screamed and stamped on.

  The position left her unable to access food, however.

  I broke off a piece of hash brown and slipped it to her. Readying a slice of bacon for Dee’s main, I pointed to Caleb’s phone. “Can I look at that?”

  “I’ve forwarded the report to your phone,” he said with a shake of his head. “Let me know what you think.”

  After a second of us staring at each other, I realised he meant right now and fumbled my phone out. With the bacon delivered and a piece of toast dipped in egg yolk set aside for Dee’s third course, I frowned at the screen. “How’d you get my number?”

  He winked. “Ways and means. I can hardly divvy out all my information in one big dump. At least try to look like you’re working for it.”

  I could feel the vibrations as Dee sniggered in my pocket. It seemed doubtful Caleb realised his double entendres were tripping over each other, but I ducked my head to hide a smile. “Noted.”

  The report was shorter than I was used to from Keith. When he first told me what he did for a living, I’d sought some of his publicly available reports online. They’d been crammed full of detail but this…

  I scrolled down to the bottom and frowned as I reversed the action and worked up to the top again. “Where’s the rest?”

  Caleb scowled. “There is no rest. That’s the official findings.” He grabbed the phone out of my hand like a man who didn’t care if he died today, then pointed to a number. “That’s the file reference for the report, see?”

  I jerked my phone back, not caring that I scratched his hand in the process. What low-life scum would help themselves to a lady’s phone? Okay, I’m not much of a lady but the question still applied.

  “There’s nothing in here,” I complained. “What does half of this even mean? Claw wounds on her abdomen. Where’re the photos? Where’s the painstaking description of the skin markings, depth of wound, and concurrent bruising?”

  Caleb sat back in the booth, a frown distorting his handsome features. “You sound like someone familiar with animal attack reports.”

  “I live in a mountain town next to an unrestricted National Park that stretches out over four thousand square miles, crisscrossed with some of the most beautiful hiking trails in the world. I’ve seen an occasional animal attack report. Not to mention, accident reports of tourists falling up, down, and over every trail in the woods. During the height of the season, they’re three deep in the paper.”

  The man snorted. “Sure. Accidents. Coincidental that these occur in a town that openly offered sanctuary to—”

  “Hey. Sorry to interrupt,” Silvana said, a grin on her face at the privilege. “But we’ve got to get to the bar.”

  Caleb pulled his jacket on, sliding out. “What’s happened?”

  The astonishment on Silvana’s face would have made me laugh if I wasn’t as desperate to avoid him tagging along as she was. “Nothing to concern you,” I hurriedly said, giving a last piece of toast to Dee and leaving cash enough to cover the meal under the plate. “We just need to get the place open. With Barry in jail…” I trailed off into a shrug.

  We got out of there before Caleb could invite himself along again and sped around the corner.

  “What’d you find out?” Silvana asked, fanning her face prettily while my cheeks turned sunburn red.

  “There’s a report, but it sounds nothing like Keith Trogart wrote it. I thought I might peek at the crime scene in case there’s something more to see up there.”

  Kissing Point was a flat ledge that looked out over the main drag of Beechdale. Not much of a view. The hike was steep but relatively short, so had become a favourite of teenage kids in the area.

  “They’ll have roped the whole place off,” Dee pointed out. “If there’s still anything worth seeing, you won’t be able to reach it.”

  I bit my lip, nearly reconsidering. On the other hand, I’d shifted twice the day before and survived. Deep breath. “I meant I’ll take a flyover. You can come if you feel up to grabbing hold of my back.
”

  “Owlivia! Look at you. Using your shifter powers for good.”

  The sarcasm dripping from Silvana’s tongue was hard to ignore, but I did it for the sake of our friendship. “Do you want to meet us there, or go home for a nap?”

  “Naptime.” Silvana stretched her spine out, giving a satisfied smile when several of the vertebrae cracked. “There’s no way you’re catching me near a crime scene when they’re insisting an animal was involved.”

  “You should be careful about transforming near Caleb, too,” I warned. “He’s really got a bee in his bonnet about this nonsense.”

  The expression drained from Silvana’s face. “I know. He explained at length at the police station.”

  We parted ways, and I walked to the edge of the woods. My flat work shoes weren’t the most sensible footwear for the task and a blister throbbed on my heel by the time I made it to the first line of trees.

  A few metres into the woods and the town was lost from sight. Along with my new body, the shifter disease had gifted me with an incredibly keen sense of direction. For someone who’d once had to make an L shape with her hand to tell left from right, it was like magic.

  I pulled Dee out of my pocket and set her down next to some lush ferns. “Are you ready?”

  As the cicadas’ song drilled into my ear, I willed my body to transform. A prickling on my skin, a deep ache threading through my muscles, then a wind swept through my body, blowing my humanity away.

  “Hop aboard,” I told Dee, jumping around to give her access to my back. She gripped tightly to several feathers with each paw and once she was settled, I took two steps and launched into the air.

  “Wahoo!” Dee called out, her voice ecstatic. “Take us higher. Higher I say!”

  I complied, leaving the trees behind in a rush as I soared into the air. The streams of wind caught at me, tugging and pushing and rushing on all sides. I caught a downdraught, swooping toward the ground at a rate of knots, then gave a flurry of wing beats and hitched a lift on an updraught, being flung into the sky.

  From there, it was easy to seek out the clearing of Kissing Point. My landing was rough, and Dee scrambled clear as I staggered and coughed, reeling from the change back.

  “You need more practice,” she said, dusting imaginary specks off her fur. “I could’ve got hurt.”

  When I turned towards the woods, the blue and white striped crime scene tape caught my attention, strung between two large pines. A rush of guilt arrived out of nowhere with a rush of pleasure at doing something naughty following hard on its heels.

  “This must be where her body was,” Dee said from a point between two large, flat rocks. “See the stains?”

  I did, even though I could happily have lived my life without the image. At least time and being absorbed into the hardpacked dirt had turned them brown but, rather than move closer, I paced around the edge.

  “This doesn’t look like an attack at all,” I said after a few minutes. When I stood back, hands on hips, the scene didn’t appear trampled or disturbed. I couldn't believe someone fought for their life here yet left no marks. The ground wasn’t even scuffed.

  “It’s a weird place for a body to be dumped,” Dee said, still sniffing around the rocky area with a curiosity I couldn’t match. “Animals would usually drag it deeper into the forest, not bring it out in the open for other scavengers to latch on.”

  “Do you think she died here and then the beasties got at her?” I stopped at the edge of the forest, peering into the undergrowth. Still no disturbances visible, except where the boots of a cop had crushed ferns down around the warning tape.

  “Maybe.” Dee licked at the fur along her haunches, then wiped down her ears. “There aren’t any rodent tracks around here, though, and I’d expect them to be amongst the first in.”

  Movement deeper in the forest snagged my attention. I fell in behind the shelter of a tree, keeping my eyes peeled. “There’s someone here,” I whispered to Dee, and she ran over to join me.

  “Don’t tell the police I let you through here,” a man’s voice boomed out as he walked towards us along the well-worn trail. “It’s more than my reputation’s worth but I figured we need this story told. The police pretend to care but sometimes, I think they’re actively trying not to listen.”

  The foliage hid both people but when the second voice replied, “You can count on my discretion,” I instantly recognised Caleb. “My paper is always on the lookout for these stories. It’s amazing how often they get buried.”

  I transformed again, shaking my tail feathers to alert Dee to climb aboard. “Who’s the other man?” she whispered.

  He strode into the clearing, bold as brass, looking like he owned the world.

  Mayor Nigel Tomkins.

  The man had actively blocked reformation policies regarding equal rights for shifters during the past year. If not for strong opposition within the council, Beechdale might have had its designation as a sanctuary town completely revoked.

  Caleb joined him in the clearing, notebook out and a voice recorder dangling around his neck. He appeared overjoyed at the scene, storing up details for his confirmation bias.

  I jumped off the cliff, Dee clinging on for dear life. After one swooping circle to confirm the identity of the men, I headed back to town, more confused than when I’d left.

  Chapter Six

  As we arrived home a half hour later, Dee announced, “Gabby’s back.”

  My feet ached from the earlier walk and I pulled down an old foot bath, wiping out a few months’ worth of dust before I plugged it in and filled it with water.

  “I hope she’s got something useful to say,” I said, easing my toes in to test the temperature. “If it’s another round of ‘I can’t believe I’m dead,’ I’m not in the mood.”

  “You’re not even the one who has to listen to her,” Dee grumbled, sitting herself on the front edge of the contraption and dangling her hind legs in the water. “Oh, that’s better. You should leave this out for me to play in when you’re finished.”

  The bedroom door creaked open and Silvana sloped into the room, rubbing her eyes. “Could you two be any louder?”

  “Sure. What volume would you like?”

  She closed her forefinger and thumb together. “About there.”

  “Gabby is insisting we go to her house,” Dee said with a show of reluctance. “Something about her dad and Marshall getting into an altercation.”

  “Couldn’t they wait until tomorrow?” Silvana ran a hand through her hair, somehow turning her tousled mane into a smooth beehive. “I’ve had quite enough upsetting news for one day.”

  Dee and I exchanged a roll of our eyes and I sighed with regret while pulling my feet from the water. “Better get this over with.” One glance at the clock brought even worse news. “Then I’ll have to head straight to the bar to open.”

  “You’ve got a decent coffee machine there, right?” Silvana asked, covering a yawn with the back of her hand.

  “We’ve got a machine,” I hedged. It produced something dark and caffeinated but that was the best that could be said.

  “Fine. I’ll come with you then.”

  “Could you hurry?” Dee scampered to the door and sat back on her hind legs, peering from Silvana to me. “Gabby’s getting strident.”

  Having been subjected to that tone while she was living, I empathised, only stopping long enough to slip a pair of dusty sneakers onto my wounded feet before running out the door.

  “You need to invest in a car,” Silvana said when we were a block away from Gabby’s house. “All this walking and running about is very tiring.”

  “I thought you enjoyed being a wolf because of the boundless energy.” I took greater enjoyment than I should have from parroting one of her favourite phrases back to her. “Besides, I have a car.”

  “Which stays permanently in the garage.” Silvana wrinkled her nose at me. “And I’m not in my wolf form, am I? Not with that nutter journalist skulking
around town.”

  “Our nutter journalist now.”

  “Could you two stop bickering and concentrate?” Dee grumbled. “I’m trying to channel a lazy ghost, if you don’t mind.”

  “We don’t mind,” I chorused with Silvana, then giggled.

  “She says they’re out on the street and her father is accusing Marshall of horrible things.”

  “We’ll find that out for ourselves soon enough,” Silvana pointed out. “Since we’re just around the corner.”

  “Okay.” Dee sounded frustrated, and I scratched the back of her neck, a trick she always responded to.

  Except for today. For a second, I thought she would bite off my finger.

  “Keep it down as we get closer,” she ordered. “I want to hear what they say before they see us.”

  “Here.” I pulled her out of my pocket and set Dee on the ground. “You sneak as close as you can. We’ll concentrate on staying out of sight.”

  She’d scampered off before I finished my sentence.

  Silvana tilted her head to one side, sniffing the air. “I can sense them.”

  “With your nose?”

  “They’re releasing a ton of pheromones into the air,” she said simply. “Can’t you smell them?”

  “No. My only party trick is turning my head one hundred and eighty degrees.”

  She snorted with laughter. “I bet that’ll get you all the boys.”

  We snuck up a driveway just short of Gabby’s house. A large concrete pillar guarded us from the house while an evergreen hedge granted us cover from the fight.

  And boy was there a fight.

  Although I’d seen Gabby’s dad on occasion, usually when dropping his daughter off with a stony face, he’d never appeared like this. Harold Mulligan looked so angry, I expected to see steam bursting from his ears.

  “You told me you’d take care of it and now see what’s happened!”

  Marshall was calmer but fear and grief twisted his face into unusual patterns. “I sorted everything out. This is nothing to do with me.”