Raised by Wolves

by Geonn Cannon

  “Okay.” Ari had to admit she was intrigued, in spite of herself.

  Vivian leaned forward, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. She wheeled herself inside and Ari followed.

  The room was a study. A rolltop desk stood against one wall, flanked on both sides by bookshelves. There were no windows, but the wall to the left of the desk was covered with dozens of paintings in a variety of sizes. Vivian positioned herself with her back to this display and Ari followed her gaze to a tapestry hanging on the opposite side of the room. Ari guessed it was about her height, and four feet from side to side. It was a swirl of blues and greens with a faded gold border.

  “That’s beautiful.”

  “Take a closer look.”

  Ari stepped around the wheelchair and examined the image. The blue on either side was layered like the scales of a dragon, whereas the green strip down the center was more featherlike. Once she realized the green shape wasn’t uniform, she understood what she was looking at.

  “This is Seattle.”

  “Very good, Miss Willow. Although technically it depicts the area where Seattle would eventually blossom. It’s called Crossing-Over Place. It was woven by a Duwamish artist in 1851, which means it is as old as the city itself.”

  Ari took a step back. “Holy shit.”

  “Holy shit indeed,” Vivian said. “Do you have any idea what a collector would pay for this at auction?”

  “Not a clue,” Ari said without even bothering to think about it. She had no idea what something like this would be worth, and at auction? People to whom money was no object, worked up into a frenzy, trying to get something historic and unique? Any attempt to put a price on it made her head spin.

  “Somebody once implied this tapestry is worth more than the house, but I think he was just being a bit ridiculous.”

  “I don’t,” Ari said. “This is art. People go nuts over art.”

  Vivian exhaled once, a sound that Ari took as a laugh. “Very astute, Miss Willow. And that brings us to the purpose of calling you.”

  Ari tore her gaze off the tapestry and saw Vivian was holding up the room key.

  “Take it,” Vivian said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Vivian lowered the key to her lap. “I’m dying, Miss Willow. An inoperable brain tumor. The rest of my life has two distinct paths. Either I slowly become less of a person and more of a burden, or I begin endless medical treatments which will decimate my health and make me unable to enjoy the things which once gave me pleasure. Both those paths end with me dead. So I have decided to take the third choice, the utterly horrible option which no one dares speak out loud but is, in fact, the most reasonable course of action given the situation.”

  Ari didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not! What the hell do I have to be sorry about? I’ve had love, I’ve lived a life with very little hardship...” She glanced down at her chair and seemed to anticipate the question Ari would never have dared to ask out loud. “This is not new. I learned to live with it so long ago that I barely think about it anymore. Compared to many others, my life has been ridiculously blessed. I have no interest in ending it withering away in a bed like some husk. I want to go out on my own terms and that is exactly what I intend to do.”

  “What does that have to do with me? I hope you don’t think--”

  “No, no. I wouldn’t ask that of a stranger.” She held up the key. “I want you to hold onto this. As I said before, I have four children. In a life with very few regrets, those four... they are disappointments, Miss Willow. I’m ashamed to say it, but it’s the truth. When the time comes and the will is read, I know this tapestry will be contested more than any of my other assets. All of my children have asked for it at some point in their greedy lives and I’m certain my death would only redouble their efforts. They might even attempt to steal it before I pass on. That’s why I would like you to have the key, the only key, to ensure that no one else has access to this room in the weeks leading up to my departure. When the time arrives, you will be contacted by the executor of my estate. You’ll bring the key and the person I’ve chosen will be able to take their treasure.”

  She held up the key again. This time, Ari took it.

  “This is a lot of trust to put in someone you don’t even know.” She realized the fallacy as soon as she said it out loud. “You didn’t call the agency at random, did you?”

  Vivian smiled. “One drawback from being wealthy is that one has to spend far too much time with lawyers. I was a client of GG&M. I was important enough that when I showed up to demand answers about why the firm which has handled my family’s finances since my great-grandmother’s day was suddenly collapsing, they couldn’t turn me away. They tried to lie, of course. But finally I found someone who was willing to tell me about a young woman who uncovered evidence that Cecily Parrish and the name partners were involved in unsavory activity.”

  “Oh.” Ari wasn’t sure what else to say, but she was very aware of the fact that Vivian was between her and the only exit of this windowless room.

  “You’re worried that I’m upset,” Vivian said. “On the contrary. I was disgusted when I found out what the firm had been up to. You cracked the egg and everything spilled out. The three partners are facing life in prison if they ever show their faces again, and Cecily Parrish has so many criminal charges against her, I’d be shocked if she ever sees sunlight again. I would have taken my business elsewhere even if you didn’t destroy the firm, and that alone is enough for me to entrust you with this assignment.”

  “But that’s not all you based it on.”

  Vivian shook her head. “I told you my children are, ah... let’s call them ‘spirited.’ My daughter Elizabeth had a particularly wild streak about ten years ago, just after high school. She started running around with a young woman named Laura Gavin.”

  Ari actually gasped when she heard the name. “Oh,” she said again.

  “Laura and Elizabeth were bad influences on each other. Two poisons that only made the other more potent. Thankfully my name doesn’t sell as many papers as Gavin, so we were spared the infamy, but we suffered the fallout just the same. One day, Laura wasn’t coming around as much. And then she was discovered dead. I remember reading the news and being... very cold...” Her eyes drifted toward the floor. “I thought she had it coming. That she had brought it on herself. Then the news broke about her mother, and the whole story came to light. Laura had turned her life around, she was doing good work, making something of herself.” She looked at Ari again. “That was also because of you.”

  Ari cleared her throat. “Laura deserved to be remembered as the person she’d become, not who she had once been.”

  Vivian said, “I imagined if it had been Elizabeth in the paper. If someone read about my girl’s death and clucked their tongue and said ‘well, it’s her fault, she did this to herself.’ I was disgusted with myself and it made me glad to know there was someone like you ensuring the truth was told. That’s the main reason I trust you with the key. I believe you will do the right thing rather than the easy thing.”

  Ari held out her hand. “In that case, it would be my honor to take your case.”

  “Wonderful.” She placed the key in Ari’s hand. “I’ll let you do the honors.”

  “Are you sure?” She looked at the desk, the shelves. “You won’t be able to get anything out of here for... well, until...”

  Vivian gave her a knowing smile. “For the rest of my life? I’ve read the books I care to read, and I’ve cleared the desk of anything I’m likely to need or want.”

  Ari was still hesitant. “If you think of anything, I’ll come back and let you in.”

  “Deal.”

  They left the room. Ari locked the door and gave the knob a good shake just to make sure. It was definitely locked.

  “Excellent.” Vivian sounded legitimately relieved. “Now, if you would go downstairs to the room where we met, you’ll find a check for your
services on the desk. I’ll join you as quickly as the contraption will allow me.”

  Ari felt strange going back downstairs without her host, but it would have been equally awkward to linger while she rode the lift down. She returned to the den and found the check, intending to only glance at the total before she slipped it into her pocket. The job required so little on her part that she was willing to accept pretty much whatever Vivian offered to pay, but she hadn’t expected to see a number anything like this.

  She returned to the foot of the stairs. Vivian was two-thirds of the way down, and Ari held up the check. “I can’t accept this.”

  “Why not?”

  “For babysitting a key? It’s ridiculous.”

  Vivian said, “My research indicates five hundred dollars a day would be a low estimate for your services. I assume it will take me approximately two months to put my affairs in order. That comes out to twenty-eight thousand dollars. I rounded it up to thirty because I like round numbers, and I assume the extra money would mean more to you than it does to me.” She arrived at the foot of the stairs and looked up at Ari. “I want you to take this job seriously, Miss Willow. I don’t want any of my children to track you down and entice you to hand it over before the will has been read. That check is buying security and loyalty.”

  “You could have had both for a lot cheaper.”

  She shrugged. “You get what you pay for in this life, and this will likely be one of my last large expenditures. I feel like you’re worth it.”

  “I’ll do my best to live up to it, ma’am.”

  “Does that mean you’re officially hired?” Ari held out her hand. Vivian shook it. “If all goes according to plan, we probably won’t see each other again. It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Willow.”

  “Ariadne. And the pleasure was all mine. You have my word that this key won’t end up in the wrong hands.”

  She left the house with the key in her pants pocket, but she still reached down to feel the shape of it no less than three times before she got back to her car. She had the only key to a room with a priceless piece of art and thirty thousand dollars to ensure it remained safe for the next two months. She wanted it on her at all times. But no, what if it fell off while she was out? She couldn’t risk losing it somewhere in the wilds of Seattle. She could hide it in the office, but then it could be stolen or the building could burn down or...

  “Stop overthinking it,” she scolded. She didn’t need to find the perfect hiding place immediately. The key would be safe until she and Dale figured out what to do with it.

  Chapter Three

  Ari and Dale spent the next two days trying to find the best hiding place for the key. There was a safe in the office, of course, but Ari felt this particular item required something special. Her nightmare was that she would choose a fantastic hiding place and then forget where it was by the time Vivian Burroughs’ attorney summoned her back to the house. Dale finally told her, “It doesn’t have to be Fort Knox, it just has to be a spot that’s secure. A place you can put your hands on it at a moment’s notice.”

  In the end, Ari took a tip from Edgar Allan Poe and hid it in plain sight, on her keychain. It stuck out next to the more mundane keys for their apartment, office, and cars, but at least she would always know where it was.

  Once that was taken care of, Ari reluctantly settled into the next part of the job: waiting for the call that Vivian had ended her life. It was morbid, and working on other cases helped keep her mind off of it. She was very mindful of the fact she was basically earning five hundred dollars a day just to keep a key in her pocket and tried not to feel like she was running a con.

  A week into what Dale had taken to calling the ‘death watch,’ Ari had the afternoon free and offered to pick up lunch. She chose sandwiches from Michou and had the bad luck of arriving during the lunch rush. She leaned against the wall to wait for her order, focusing on her phone so the wolf wouldn’t get too distracted. In addition to being in a deli, the restaurant was located in Pike Place Market, which meant there were thousands of wonderful smells just hanging on the wind for her over-sensitive nose to lock onto. Fish, fruit, flowers, it was all good, and she could almost feel the hairs standing up on the back of her neck.

  The wolf had been behaving lately and things were slowly reverting back to how they’d been before she took the restricting drug. No more long jaunts to unknown parks, no rough sex with Dale, no barely-contained urges to transform and run. It seemed as if Dale’s pep talk had gotten through to it. And that pep talk... having Dale roll her over in the middle of sex, pinning her down, holding her arms over her head, and telling her exactly how things were going to be? That was definitely something she could get used to.

  “Order for A-Rodney?”

  Ari smile-grimaced and put her phone away. “It’s Ariadne.”

  She took the bag from the clerk and headed out. She was vaguely aware of someone saying, “Wait, hold on a minute,” as she left, but she kept walking as it didn’t seem to be directed at her. She was almost underneath the Public Market Center sign when she heard the man calling again. “Excuse me! Wait a minute, please. Ariadne? Ariadne Willow?”

  She turned and saw a man she vaguely recognized from the deli hurrying to catch up with her. He looked to be in his late fifties, with short-cropped hair that retained enough color for her to know it had once been brown. He was a few inches taller than her and reed-thin. When he smiled, his eyes almost disappeared, which wasn’t difficult since they were already overwhelmed by large black eyebrows. He chuckled and slowed to a trot when he saw she was waiting for her.

  “Hi. Hello. Sorry.” He held up a hand as he caught his breath. He spoke with a slight midwestern twang, more ranch hand than hick, and his smile was genuinely charming. “Sorry about that. I’m-I’m not usually the sort to chase after a woman on the street, but I overheard your name in the deli. It’s such an unusual name I couldn’t help but make the connection. Are you Ariadne Willow?”

  “Do I know you?”

  His smile widened and he laughed once, softly. “No, no, we’ve never met.” He pointed a finger at her. “But I’ve heard of you.”

  Between him and Vivian Burroughs, it seemed as if she was gaining quite a reputation. “Are you interested in hiring me? Mister...”

  “Hayden. Isaac Hayden.” He offered his hand, realized Ari was holding a bag of food, and withdrew it. “I’m not looking for a private investigator, but I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

  Ari glanced at the throng of tourists moving past them on either side, like they were stones in a stream. She reached into her pocket. “Maybe this isn’t the best place for this conversation. Let me give you my card.” She didn’t particularly like the idea of this man being in her office, but it was better than standing here exposed.

  “Please, I just need a minute of your time.”

  “Free consultation,” Ari said, holding out the card. “Just call and we’ll find a time.”

  Hayden looked at the card. “Bitches Investigations.” He laughed again, a quiet chuckle. “That’s good, I like that.” He looked at her again and held her gaze. “Canidae.”

  Ari was good at not reacting to that word. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “Are you claiming it doesn’t?”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t ring a bell. Is it the name of a town?”

  Hayden maintained his smile and wiped a hand over his face, scanning the crowd. “Okay. Okay, you can pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. But do you also claim you don’t recognize the name Jacob Keighley?”

  She wasn’t practiced at hearing that name, the name of the man who assaulted her mother and caused Ari to be born nine months later. She nodded and hoped her expression was neutral. “He’s the, uh, sports equipment guy who went to prison a couple of years ago.”

  “You’re not a good liar, Ariadne Willow. I know you’re his daughter.”

  Ari tucked her card back into her poc
ket. “I changed my mind, Mr. Hayden. I don’t think my agency will be accepting your business. Have a good day.”

  She turned her back on him and started to walk. He quickly caught up to her. “He didn’t just go to jail. You and your mother were instrumental in his arrest and bringing his crimes to light. I also know that he was involved in an attempt to poison Seattle’s food supply in an attempt to expose canidae.”

  Ari was moving faster now, but he was keeping pace. She didn’t want to actually run, because that would only make him believe he was right.

  “Miss Willow, please, will you stop walking? Please.”

  She sighed and stopped at the curb. Hayden was out of breath and looked desperate when he caught up to her.

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Karl Magnusson?”

  “No.”

  “He was a cryptozoologist, like me...”

  Ari said, “So he hunted ghosts and Bigfoots?”

  Hayden grimaced. “No. No, no. I mean, that... there are cryptozoologists who study those. It’s a pseudoscience and I would be lying if I denied that. But Magnusson had a very specific area of study, one that I share. For years, I’ve been looking for proof, actual hard proof that canidae exist. I think I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. I believe Jacob Keighley was a member of a group who hunts canidae. I came to Seattle to investigate them and I started hearing your name in association with his arrest. I can’t believe you just walked into the deli where I was having lunch.”

  “Look, you seem like a nice guy. And yes, my mother and I helped with Keighley’s arrest. He’s a very sick man. These canidae delusions fed into that. He was a bad man who did awful things to people because of those delusions. I’ve learned to avoid anyone who shares them. Have a nice day, Mr. Hayden.”

  She stepped around him.

  “Ask your mother where her money comes from.”