“I thought you’d be able to tell me.” Dropping the remote on the bed he rolled it between both hands into a small ball. “See, I found this all over your bed. And all the way down the stairs. I’m not seeing a dog around here and your cat’s very, very white. So I have to ask myself...” His eyes met mine, becoming a deep brown. “What attacked you and why aren’t you even a little bit surprised?”
Placing my fingers on my temples I closed my eyes and rubbed hard. This was not how I envisioned an evening with a handsome, available man in my bedroom was supposed to go. “I have to get dressed. There’s someplace I have to go right now.”
“Good. I think a drive will do us both good.” Standing up, he tucked the fur into the front pocket of his jeans. “I’ll bag it when I get downstairs. I’m sure you have a Ziploc around somewhere.” Before I could respond he had vanished down the stairs into a whole different area of trouble.
I got to my feet and walked over to the window, feeling the cool night air rush in. Looking outside showed no ladder, just the slim drainpipe running from my roof down to the ground. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that’s how he climbed up. In full Change he would have only taken a few seconds to scurry up the thirty feet or so to my bedroom window. I had never prepared for an attack in my own home. After all, I’d been Outcast for years and wouldn’t have considered myself a target. Angry adulterers aside, no one usually dared do more than try to key my car.
My eyes caught a few more stray hairs fluttering in the light wind, sticking out of various nooks and crannies on the pipe itself and the bricks. I could have collected them to prove my point that they matched the single strand that I had plucked from the crime scene but I didn’t bother. His scent was the same and that was good enough for me. Whether it was good enough for the Board was another thing, but now it was definitely personal.
At least now I had a face to put to the murderer, albeit in feline form, but that wouldn’t be difficult to crack. Still, now I had to deal not only with a curious reporter but also with an angry Board member who was going to be thrilled at having a human involved.
A clean t-shirt and jeans replaced the tracksuit, the still-damp clothing tossed onto the freshly made bed. I considered trying to shimmy down the drainpipe to avoid Brandon but vetoed it as too dangerous. The way my luck was running I’d either fall off and break my neck or worse, not break anything and just lie there until he found me unconscious and bleeding internally.
While I tied up my running shoes, I wondered what sort of reception I was going to receive at the Farm. The first time I’d been there it was at the Board’s request. This time I was barging in to look at top-secret records and dragging a tabloid reporter with me. This was not going to go over well but I’d be damned if I would let Bran out of my sight at this point. He already knew much more than he should and I didn’t want the Board deciding to call a Hunt on him just because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it might just temper Jess’s reaction to have a neutral witness along. Either way he’d be in danger. But at least if I took him along it’d be on my terms.
Bran stood at the bottom of the stairs, tapping his foot. He wasn’t going to leave me alone for a second.
Making my way down the steps I winced as a misstep jarred my shoulder, sending shooting pains across my back and down my spine. This was going to be a great drive.
“So, ready to go? And where are we going?” Bran offered me his arm, beaming as if he were the proverbial cat who swallowed the canary. I took it and wondered why I suddenly felt more avian than feline.
Grabbing the house keys off my desk, I made sure the deadbolt was working, for all it was worth. Jazz meowed, weaving her way between our legs, beaming her approval of my company.
“You stay here and keep watch.” I wagged a finger at her, ignoring Bran’s wide grin. “In other words, keep out of trouble and don’t claw the couch.” The white cat hopped onto the chair then onto my desk, sprawling across a stack of folders and splaying them over the edge, onto the floor.
“Oh, she’s a bright one,” Brandon murmured when I sighed.
“She chose me. Keep that in mind.” I held back berating my little sister. She was just doing it for attention. Couldn’t blame her, to be fair. In the last few hours I had brought in so many new scents and dangers that if she had disappeared out the window for a week to go back to the streets I wouldn’t have been surprised. I was pleased the fuzzaloid was still here.
The deadbolt slid home although it wasn’t as reassuring as it had been in the past. I made a mental note to not only get a new lock but also to consider adding a few more, including the windows.
The front yard was bare except for the dying grass I couldn’t keep alive for love or money. Bran followed me while I made a sharp turn down the small alleyway to what passed for a parking lot for my car.
Parkdale was full of these small alleys, leftover relics of the days of horse and buggy where you could just squeeze through the lane and pop out someplace else, avoiding the main streets. Some were paved, some covered with cobblestones and all were guaranteed to make you claustrophobic. All were usually inhabited by hookers plying their trade with their latest client or crack-heads getting high. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I stepped over used needles or worse, a stack of used condoms.
Bran wrinkled his nose as we approached the Jeep. “Sure it’s safe to leave your car out here?”
I turned the car alarm off, unlocking the doors with the remote. “I pay one of the local homeless fellows to watch it.”
“Seriously? And you trust him?” He slid into the passenger seat.
“Why not?” The red jeep inched its way along the alley. Bran flinched while we skimmed the walls. “I think of it as supporting my local businessmen.”
We stopped at the same rest area I had visited only a day earlier, my mind still spinning with the speed of the events of the past twenty-four hours, not to mention a good hit of painkillers.
Bran jumped out of the car, a wide smile on his face. “Coffee and donuts are on me. Unless you want some sort of healthy breakfast food...”
I shook my head, turning the engine off and undoing my seat belt.
“Good. I really don’t think I’m ready for the fresh fruit and cottage cheese plate.” He didn’t move until I opened my door and got out.
“Think I’d abandon you here?” I couldn’t help smiling. He had that puppy-dog expression on his face begging to be soothed. Not that the idea hadn’t just popped into my mind.
“In a heartbeat,” he replied, shaking the wrinkles out of his leather duster. “I wasn’t born yesterday.” Gesturing toward the door he grinned. “After you, my dear.”
The Tim Horton’s was filled almost to capacity, the morning commuters rushing out of Barrie and Midland down to the GTA and to their daily jobs. I envied their enthusiasm and their stamina. I would have gone postal after doing that commute for more than a week. A trio of businessmen swarmed the counter just ahead of us, multitasking by screaming into their Bluetooth headsets and tapping on their Blackberries while ordering some semblance of a breakfast with the largest coffees the franchise sold. Black, of course. Nothing diluted that coffee strength and quality for them.
Hanover tapped his foot as the three customers began to discuss or rather fight over the actual cost of the coffees and how they would distribute the change fairly with whoever would receive the receipt, probably to put on their business account. Finally they left, allowing us to get to the counter before Bran blew a fuse.
A few minutes later we sat at one of the few empty tables in the rest stop chewing on yet more donut holes and sipping coffee. Bran frowned as he rotated a chocolate-glazed globe between his fingers.
“Ever wonder exactly how many calories are in one of these?”
“I don’t. Too depressing,” I mumbled between a mouthful of coffee and cinnamon. “Don’t tell me you’re watching your figure.”
He preened himself, sliding one of h
is arms out of the jacket to flex his biceps in a mock muscleman pose. “What, you think I got this by eating junk food?”
Taking the bait, I reached across the table to pinch the steel muscle with two fingers. “Ooh. I’m impressed.” Dang it, it felt like iron. I pressed my lips together. “My, you’re just one tough reporter, you are. Too bad you’re wasting time working for that rag.”
His face fell as he pulled away, tucking his bare arm back into the jacket. “The Inquisitor’s not a rag.”
“It’s sure not anything I’d take seriously. How did you end up working for them?”
“You’ve done your research on me. You tell me.” He sipped the coffee, one eye on the businessmen who were now dissecting the bill, item by item.
“I don’t know. You graduated with good marks and did all the right things, worked up a good portfolio of interviews and non-fiction articles. Then suddenly you end up on the staff list at the Inquisitor.”
He dipped a plastic stir stick into his cardboard cup and began to stir the already murky liquid. “Yep. That was me, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and eager to get out there and win the Canadian Pulitzer with some hot exposé.” Bran nodded, his full attention now on the coffee. “I thought I was pretty hot shit, to be honest. I was going to save the world with some great writing.”
The businessmen were now engrossed in their PDAs, each in their own little world tapping out text messages and changing the course of history while sipping good coffee.
“My parents tweaked some noses, got me a freelance assignment with one of the big Toronto papers.” He took a mouthful of cooling coffee, swishing it before swallowing. “I decided to go native. I ended up hanging out down in Toronto with a group of homeless kids, getting their stories and tracking their progress for an entire year.”
I didn’t say anything. Beside us the trio began to pack up their Blackberries and Bluetooth gear, finishing their coffees and leaving a mess on the table despite being only a few feet from a garbage disposal can.
“It was horrible.” He let out a sigh. “Every few weeks I would scamper back to my nice clean condo and get showered and eat a decent meal and then go back to the kids who had probably just washed their hair in the washrooms at the Eaton Centre. They knew I was a reporter but they didn’t care. I was the only one listening to them.”
I nodded, picking up another chocolate donut hole and popping it into my mouth. The three men sauntered out into the parking lot and piled into a huge SUV that probably cost more than I made in a year. They bustled out of the rest stop at high speed, headed toward Barrie and probably their next great acquisition.
“Two of the kids overdosed one night while I was at home, dining on steak. The cops found them in an alleyway, the needles still stuck in their arms. Bad dope. There was a lot of that crap on the streets for a few months back then. Lots of deaths.” He put one end of the stir stick in his mouth. The black plastic stick bobbed up and down between his lips. “A girl and a boy. They thought they loved each other. She was going to be an artist, used to draw on the sidewalks with that cheap chalk you can buy at the toy stores. They used to pass up on meals to get her chalk.”
I nodded again. I knew better than to speak.
“He played guitar. Not great, but he had some talent. Used to busk on the streets every night to get money for the love of his life to get chalk. And heroin, of course.”
“That stuff can be nasty,” I said quietly.
“The rest of the group broke up after that. Did I mention she was six months pregnant?” Bran bit down on the stir stick. “They disappeared and I went to write my story. Turned it in.”
“And they didn’t print it.”
Bran looked at me sideways, a sad smile on his face. “They printed it. Oh, Lord, they printed it. And suddenly every television station, every movie producer was banging on my door to get my side of the story.”
I almost coughed up one of the chocolate bites. This hadn’t come up on his resume. Some things you just can’t Google.
“But it wasn’t about the kids, it was all about me and my experiences. They didn’t really want the story about the kids and what put them there, the social and family problems that pushed them onto the streets and finally to the comfort of a dirty needle. About the agencies that were under funded and understaffed and how the kids fell through the cracks.” Bran shook his head. “It was all about the glamour, all about the reporter and not the story. It became all about me, the rich kid who slept on the streets with the poor kids.” He looked at me. “I walked away from it all. I already had enough money, I didn’t need more. I went back to the streets and tried to find the rest of the group, give them what I could to get them out.”
“And?”
“I couldn’t find anyone.” He turned and looked out in the parking lot. The cars were growing sparse, the morning rush just beginning to abate. “They were all gone. I don’t know if they went back to their homes to got some help at a rehab clinic or to another city or just died somewhere in a back alley. I don’t know.”
“I’m sure they’re fine.” The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush. “I know there’s programmes that’ll give them bus travel back home and hostels with special areas for kids.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” The well-marked stir stick flipped into the empty cup. “But I knew I wasn’t going to be able to work like that anymore, not with everyone wanting a part of me. So I decided to do the silly stories, the fun stories, the ones that wouldn’t hurt anyone and who wouldn’t do anything other than supply cotton candy for the mind.”
“Except now there’s a dead woman.” I picked up the second-to-last cinnamon nugget and stared at it. “And suddenly you’re not dealing with fun silly cases.” My voice took on a more serious tone. “What the hell did you think that picture was?”
“I thought it was a joke.” Bran’s elbows hit the table as he held his head in his hands. “I mean, it’s a dead woman, sure, but we changed it around enough to get away with it and we sure didn’t think it was real.” His head shot up, one hand landing on my wrist, pinning it to the ground. “It’s real, isn’t it? That wasn’t any faked photograph. She was a real catwoman.”
At first I tried to pull away then decided to leave my hand there. “Now you’re a reporter again. A real one.”
“Maybe I’ve always been.” He gave a mournful smile. “Either way I’m going to get the whole story.”
“This time it’s not going to be about you.” I glanced toward the highway. “Time to hit the road.”
The traffic had let up a little, allowing us to find a sweet spot in the right-hand lane and putter along at just above the speed limit for most of the way up.
Bran rested his elbow on the passenger door. “You’re not going to tell me anything, right?”
“Client confidentiality,” I mumbled.
“How about I tell you?”
The tires caught the edge of the shoulder, bumping us along for a few seconds until I yanked the steering wheel to centre us in our lane.
“Ah. Hit home, eh?” Bran leant back, tucking his hands behind his head. “See, I don’t think that was a fake catwoman shot. And I don’t think that you were attacked a few hours ago by some psycho wearing a cat outfit.” Digging in one pocket of his leather coat, he pulled out the small plastic bag filled with fur. “I’m willing to bet that if I had this analysed and matched up with the single hair you found at the crime scene they’d not only be the same but of some weird half-human, half-cat hybrid.” He rubbed his hands over the plastic. “I’m just not sure where you fit into all this.”
I smiled back, hoping my bluff skill was at full force. “Sorry, not even close. And I’ve got a bad arm, so that’s why we just got a bumpy ride.” My eyes drilled into the concrete ahead of us. “I think you’ve been working way too long for that tabloid rag. Next you’ll be telling me that there’s alien hybrids looking to take over the world and talking via those tin foil hats.” The ache behind my eyes started again.
“Hey, I’m just connecting the dots.” Bran looked out at the countryside while we spun around the exit ramp.
“Right. Let me know when you get around to doing your own colouring book.” I ignored the scowl and concentrated on the drive. The throbbing began to lessen behind one eye as I willed my blood pressure to drop and began to mentally compose my pitch to the Board. I glanced beside me a few minutes later to see Bran stretched out as much as he could in the passenger seat, his long legs awkwardly curled up in the small space while he snored fitfully, or at least pretended he did. I didn’t trust him one whit, which is why when we pulled onto the dirt road I made sure to hit every pothole and bump to make sure he was awake.
There weren’t many cars in the parking lot at the Farm. Bran dusted off his jeans as he got out of the car, shading his eyes from the bright sun.
“Nice place.” He beamed at Ruth, who was standing on the porch waiting to receive us, a shocked look on her face. “Hello!”
“Hi there!” Recovering quickly, she trotted down the steps, extending her hand. “I’m Ruth. Always glad to meet a friend of Rebecca’s.”
“Really.” He wasn’t overly sarcastic, but I already wanted to thump him in the ribs. “Well, she hasn’t said a word about you or this place. So what relationship are you to her?”
“Why, one of her aunts, of course! I’ve just cut up a wonderful apple pie. Let me get you a piece with a good cup of coffee.” The elderly woman slipped away from his questions as easily as if she were trying to dodge the old mangy mutt two farms over while raiding the cornfields. Probably did so quite a few times, when she was in her prime. Taking hold of Bran’s arm, she led him into the kitchen, babbling something about putting some meat on his bones and how handsome he could be if he just put on a few pounds, ignoring his slight protestations of not wanting to leave me alone.
I took the stairs to the top floor two at a time, wincing as my legs’ protestations. The table was there but only Jess and Dennis sat in the Board chairs.
“Where’s Davis?” The wheezing noise from my lungs was embarrassing. Sitting in the empty chair helped alleviate the pain but not by much. “I thought I was to present my findings to the entire Board.”
What God and Cats Know Page 10
