by Holley Trent
“What?”
Lanie could hear Diana scrambling, then. The creak of the bed as she rushed to her feet. The soft patter of her soles against the floor as she found her clothes and put them on.
Lanie picked up the remnants of her sandwich and took a bite. “You ever wonder how it is that I always know where you are, sweetheart?”
“I’m going to kill him,” Diana spat.
“That says a lot.”
“That says absolutely nothing at all. He should have minded his own business!”
“Why, because your time with me was the most horrible period of your life?”
“No, you antagonizing harpy, you know it wasn’t.” Diana stormed over in her unfastened pants and shirt, clutching tubes of deep black eyeliner and mascara. “It was… It was the best period of my life, but I tried to move on because I knew it couldn’t last. We couldn’t have each other. I told you that, and I still think that.”
“You are utterly ridiculous.”
“So leave.”
“You want me to leave?” Lanie pressed her hands to the table’s edge and leaned toward the angry Coyote. Diana was practically vibrating with agitation.
Good.
That was better than her being passive—better than her not fighting. She fought for everything else. Why not Lanie?
“You want me to leave, Diana? Or do you want me to take off my shoes and get comfortable enough to spend the night? Hmm?”
“I—”
“You what?”
Diana did another one of those labored swallows and fastened her shirt buttons. Her eyes were angry blue slits.
Lanie held her ground, having no idea what words would come out of the flustered woman’s mouth next.
But then there was a knock on the door downstairs, and it didn’t matter.
Diana slapped her cosmetics onto the table, flicked her braid over her shoulder, and marched to the door like she’d been the one doling out the hard questions and like she’d made some a-ha point.
Gritting her teeth, Lanie slinked into the chair she’d formerly abandoned and watched Diana disappear down the stairs.
She’d once thought she understood that woman, but she was coming to believe that Diana Shapely would do anything in her power to prevent anyone from knowing her next moves.
CHAPTER SIX
Spend the night? Diana thought as she jogged back up the stairs with the locksmith in tow.
Diana couldn’t imagine anything she wanted more than to have Lanie available and accessible, idling in Diana’s space. She could be the sure and focused rock Diana had counted on her to be for so long.
And that body…
She let out a soft groan as she nudged the top door open. Lanie said she’d put on a little weight. Maybe she had. Maybe she didn’t have time for the grueling, military-inspired workouts anymore, but the softness made the canine part of Diana want to bite. It was always more fulfilling for her to sink her teeth into smooth, pliant flesh than into unyielding muscle.
“The chests are over there, by the window,” she told the locksmith.
“Got it.” The lady waved to Lanie and made a beeline for the job at hand. She probably had another gig lined up immediately afterward. As much as she wanted the stranger to hang around and stall until she could figure out what to do with Lanie, she knew that’d be unreasonable.
Lanie ambled over and looked on curiously as the locksmith studied the first of the locks. Given her occupation, she probably witnessed the destruction of locks and the rediscovery of old junk every single day, but of course she was curious. She was always curious. Always learning about things, just like Blue.
Sometimes, Diana felt like her brain was a sponge that was already too full and that it couldn’t possibly accept one more drop of knowledge, and those two…those two were soaking up everything that seeped their way, and they seemed to understand it all.
Diana couldn’t understand that. She couldn’t fathom the way they processed all of that trivia and then knew what to do with it. Her father had insisted she wasn’t cut out for that sort of thing. “You’re a born follower, Diana,” he’d always said just before patting her on the head.
Maybe I am.
Diana sighed and set her attention back on the new visitor. She could allow herself some moments of self-pity later.
“So, are you trying to keep these locks?” the locksmith queried.
“Why do you ask?” Lanie responded before Diana could get a word out.
Diana was chagrined, but she kept her lips pressed closed, assuming Lanie had a reason for the question beyond the desire to make polite conversation. She wasn’t generally all that chatty.
“They’re collectible,” the locksmith said with a shrug. “More so with the keys, but some folks are so desperate to get them that they’ll buy them without. No chance of you finding the keys, huh?”
“Those chests came from an estate sale. I’m sure if the coordinators had the keys to the trunks, they would have had them itemized on the inventory list. At least, that’s been the case in every sale I’ve been to.”
“Pity.” The woman looked to Diana. “Do you want me to snip them or attempt to pick them?”
“What’s the difference in price?” Diana asked.
At the same time, Lanie said, “Pick them.”
Diana glowered at her.
Lanie didn’t seem to notice. She leaned against the windowsill and folded her arms over her chest. “How long will picking take you?”
“Between thirty seconds and an hour.”
“Go for it.”
The lady shrugged and unrolled a leather case of tools onto the floor. From her bag, she extracted a headlamp and turned it on while sliding on her glasses.
“I’ll give you some space.” Lanie moved to the kitchen.
Annoyed, Diana followed. She snatched her makeup off the table and canted her head toward the bathroom.
Lanie made a face of confusion.
Diana tilted her head toward the apartment rear again.
“Oh.” Lanie made an after you gesture, so Diana went.
Lanie followed.
Once they were closed into the tiny room, Diana propped her fists onto her hips and snapped in a tart tone, “Do you mind?”
“I was only trying to help you get the most out of your purchase, Diana. Sometimes, you might be looking at gold and not know it. Don’t miss the opportunity.”
“It’s my transaction.” Diana unscrewed the cap from her eyeliner pen and leaned in close to the mirror.
“You’re looking for things to argue about. Why?”
Somehow, Diana managed to draw a perfect wing on the first try, in spite of the fact that her hand was shaking with fury. “I’m not arguing with you. I asked a question.” She switched the pen to her left hand and held her breath. The left side was always a trial.
She closed her right eye, swiveled her head slightly toward the door and lowered her left lid halfway. Poising the tip of the pen near the corner of her eye, she very nearly wet her pants when the locksmith called out, “Got the first one!”
Shit.
There was now a streak of black liner on Diana’s cheekbone.
Lanie chuckled and swiped at the makeup with the pad of her thumb. She took the pen from Diana and called out, “Be there in a sec,” all the while perfectly matching the precise angle of the right wing’s lid.
She capped the pen, handed it back to Diana, and then opened the door.
“I hate you for being so perfect,” Diana muttered under her breath as she gripped her mascara tightly.
She knew the words were ridiculous before she’d even finished spewing them. People would have killed to be with a woman like Lanie, and Diana had had nothing but complaints since she’d arrived.
Obviously, there’s something wrong with me.
The worst problem, in her estimation, was that Lanie didn’t see that.
She gave her lashes a few quick swipes of mascara before rejoining the wom
en in the living room. The locksmith had moved on to the second lock. Lanie was holding the first one. The shackle hung open, and she was peering at the underside of the body.
Evidently sensing Diana on approach, she lifted it and tilted her chin toward her. “Carlotta says there are websites for lock devotees where they swap locks and keys. You might get lucky and find matches for yours. Each lock is numbered on the shackle. For every number, there are three different tumbler configurations, so if you find a correctly numbered key, you still only have a one-in-three chance of it working.”
Diana blinked at her, already overwhelmed.
Lanie’s lips quirked. “I can poke around and see if I can find some keys, if you want me to. Just out of curiosity. Need something to do during long flights.”
Diana nodded. Even she knew there was no good reason to say no. It made sense that if she were going to keep the locks intact—which it seemed she would be—that she have them be completely functional.
“Didn’t you say these were used by the housekeeper?” Carlotta asked in a strained voice. She was squinting at the second lock, working thin tools into the keyhole while clamping another between her teeth.
“That’s right,” Diana said.
“Did anyone try to track her down?”
“She’d been dead for years and the homeowners didn’t replace her,” Lanie said.
Diana leered at her. “How did you know that?”
Lanie held up her phone and tapped it against her forehead. “Usually, when you’re talking about an estate that size, you’re almost always going to find some published family history if you know where to look. Just out of curiosity, I looked them up before I found you earlier. Only now did I remember the part about the housekeeper. It was one paragraph out of pages and pages of information.”
“Oh,” Diana said weakly.
Of course. Lanie had done the extra-curricular studying. She was usually the most informed person in a room, assuming Blue wasn’t there.
There was a click.
“Boom!” Carlotta held up the second lock and did a little seated shimmy. “Just call me the Lock Whisperer.”
Lanie grinned and took the lock. “Longer number,” she said, examining the U. “Later production date, maybe.”
“Probably so. Color’s a little darker than the first, too. The manufacturer probably changed the metal composition in the years between, likely to make them stronger.”
Carlotta started putting away her tools.
Diana tapped her chin and tried to remember what she’d done with her wallet.
“I might even get home in time for dinner tonight.” Carlotta got to her feet and gathered her tools.
“How much do I owe you?” Diana asked.
Lanie thrust a credit card at the woman and guided her to the door, chatting all the while. “Do you have a business card? I work in artifacts and anthropology. I always like having people in my contacts app who I can call to ask very specific questions.”
“Hey, sure, I like being useful.” Carlotta’s voice faded as they descended the stairs.
Are you kidding me, woman?
Diana stood by the door, arms folded over her chest, tapping her foot with impatience.
Lanie ignored her when she returned, except to look down at that Diana’s foot. At the kitchen table, she photographed both locks from all angles with her phone and then handed them to Diana.
“Did you look inside?” Lanie asked.
Diana kept tapping her foot.
“Are we having an argument?” Lanie leaned her rear end against the table, smile waning. “I’m pretty sure you want to have an argument, sweetheart, and I’m not going to indulge you.”
“You think you know me so well, hmm?”
“I know you better than anyone.” Her assessing gaze raked down Diana’s already-rumpled form. “Inside and out. You want to quibble about me charging sixty bucks to my credit card, do it in your head. If you insist on paying me back, you can, but you shouldn’t. It wouldn’t take a genius to guess what kind of pace you’re blowing through money at right now, and unlike when you and your father were still on speaking terms, you don’t have that safety net.”
Diana scoffed with indignation. “How dare you?”
Lanie shrugged. “Too personal? Too honest? Well, you should expect that from me. That’s what I gave you for five years. You shouldn’t expect that I’ll turn over a new leaf now that you have your head up your ass.”
Diana’s jaw dropped.
Being what she was and related to who she was, she’d never been particularly easy to scandalize, but that burn had hurt.
She closed her mouth and growled at the woman. “Leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“I will if you want.”
“I do.” Diana’s foot began to tap faster. “I do want that.”
Lanie stared at her for an age—an entire minute, maybe—before she grabbed her bag from the console table and opened the door.
“Fine. Consider me gone.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Well?”
Lanie brought her cup of hot chocolate to her lips and took a cautious sip. She’d meandered over to the town square to kill some time and plan her next moves, and Blue had quickly spotted her. He’d cut a path across the square with a very pregnant woman in tow.
The woman nudged him with her elbow and whispered, “You should say hello first.”
Blue sighed and let go of the woman’s hand long enough to rub his eyes. “Sorry. Right, right. Manners. Willa, this is the notorious Elaine, AKA Lanie, AKA She Whom Someone We Know Pretends Doesn’t Exist.”
Willa’s hand flew to cover her mouth and she giggled.
“Pleased to finally meet you,” Lanie told her. Willa was the first demigoddess Lanie had ever met. Lanie had a ton of questions she wanted to ask, but knew she’d have to indulge her curiosity at some other time and in a less public place.
Lanie pressed down the sip cover on her cocoa cup lid and gave Blue a speculative look. “She’s…uncooperative.”
“What’s her excuse this time?”
“Same as before, though with a less strenuous delivery and more embellishments. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get her to tell me the truth.”
“How do you know she’s not being honest?” Willa asked. “I know Blue can usually tell when Diana’s lying, but that’s due more to Coyote magic than observational skills.”
“I don’t need magic,” Lanie said. “I’ve got logic. Usually, when things don’t make good sense, there’s a practical reason.”
“Oh, good. Blue, you’re here,” came a husky feminine voice from several yards away. A woman in wire-rimmed glasses and a lilac tracksuit waved at him.
“Don’t make eye contact,” Blue warned in a whispered rush. “She’ll put you to work.”
“Yoo-hoo!” the lady called.
“Blue,” Willa murmured through unmoving lips. “You’re not invisible.”
Obviously not, because the lady bounded over and fixed her narrowed gaze on the Coyote. “Stop ignoring me. I need you to climb a ladder. None of the other committee members will do it. Delia shattered her hip last year, Christine’s depth perception is shot all to hell, and I’ve got vertigo.” She thrust a wreath at him. “Go on and hang that. You won’t break.”
Blue snorted. “No, but maybe I just don’t want to.”
“Afraid being a little bit jolly will sully your bad boy reputation?”
Blue’s silence was telling.
Lanie pressed her lips together tightly to keep her laughter from tumbling out.
Willa seemed to be having a similar dysfunction. She’d turned her back to the confrontation and her shoulders were trembling with the telltale sign of repressed giggles.
“You won’t be any less of an alpha if you’re caught holding some garland,” the lady said.
“You think you’re slick,” he said. “You handed me a wreath. I’ll
hang your damn wreath, but the garland can hang itself.”
The lady pushed her glasses up her nose and blinked at him.
“Come on, I don’t have time.” Blue’s tone was practically a whine—an odd sound coming from a man who was over forty. The fact that he’d so quickly reverted to that state told Lanie everything she needed to know.
She held out a hand to the woman. “You must be Blue’s mother.”
“Whether he likes it or not.” She shook Lanie’s hand and cut Blue a sideways look.
He rolled his eyes, pressed the wreath beneath his arm, and made ground-eating strides to the light post a couple of older women in Festival Committee T-shirts were staring up at.
“Deb, this is Elaine,” Willa told her.
Deb put a hand over her heart and did one of those long intakes of air like she was about to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” without taking another breath. “The Elaine?”
“Apparently, my reputation precedes me,” Lanie said.
Diana had never talked much about her mother during their relationship. It seemed to have been a sore spot for her. What Lanie knew about the ex-Mrs. Randall Shapely, she’d learned from Blue. Being older and more aware of the circumstances surrounding his parents’ divorce when it happened, his perception of his mother had been far softer than Diana’s for a long time. She’d been young and had needed a mother, and all she’d known as a girl was that Deb had left.
Technically, Randall had Deb expelled from the territory and cut her off from their kids. They didn’t have much of a relationship again until after Blue turned eighteen. Diana had needed more time to figure out who deserved the blame for the estrangement. According to Blue, Deb and Diana had in recent years developed a perfectly functional relationship, and Randall was the one in the gutter.
Deb waved a dismissive hand in Lanie’s direction. “Oh, Diana was very tightlipped about you. I didn’t know you existed until after I moved to Maria, and you’d been broken up for…”
“Six months at least, probably,” Lanie said.
Deb nodded gravely. “She’d never been the sort to be so quiet about who she’s dating. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s never been explicit, but— Blue, you need to hang that wreath higher!” Deb pointed to the nearest pole. “See? Like that one?”
