* * *
And this was why Max hated cats!
Tricky, evil, fur-licking cats!
Now here she was, in the kitchen, her sisters grilling her like a steak about something she’d already forgotten. Life was too short to get all wound up about who kidnapped whom and who had shot whom and why a woman might willingly dive headfirst into the van of her kidnappers!
Her sisters were so goddamn obsessive! Max didn’t obsess about anything but good honey and liquor flavored with snake venom. Those were the important things in life. Everything else was a waste of her energy. But there was no way out of it now, and all because of that damn cat!
“I don’t understand you!” Charlie raved.
“The Netherlands are nice this time of year,” Stevie rhapsodized.
“You put yourself in danger and for what?”
“You should have told me you were going to the Netherlands. I have a few scientist friends over there. And several conductors who would have let you stay at their homes. Really nice homes, too.”
“It’s like you’re trying to die. Are you? Are you trying to die? Are you depressed and I don’t know? Is life meaningless to you? Do you think you’d be better off dead?”
“Did you at least bring me a bitterballen? They’re delicious. My favorite snack when I visit. Did you bring me any?”
Max raised a finger. “Could you excuse me a minute?”
She pushed the kitchen chair back and walked out of the room. She went through the long hallway, through the dining room, up the stairs to the second floor. She went down that hallway until she reached Berg and Dag, standing outside one of the unused bedrooms. She stopped to untie her right high-top, pulled it off, and threw it through the doorway so that it collided with the back of the cat’s big head!
“Owwww!” The cat, who’d been busy putting on a pair of jeans loaned to him by one of the Dunns, spun around to face her, his hand rubbing the back of his head. “What was that for?”
“Because you deserve it!” she spit out between clenched teeth.
With only one sneaker on, she walked back through the house until she reached the kitchen and sat down at the table again.
“So where were we?” she asked her sisters.
“The beauty of the Netherlands!”
“Your stupidity and/or suicidal tendencies.”
* * *
“Why do you guys have jeans that fit me?” Zé asked the men, who were at least seven inches taller than he and ridiculously wide.
“Those jeans belong to the wolverine,” Berg muttered. “He’s only six feet but he wears his jeans long. We figured they’d fit you.”
“You have The Wolverine living here?”
“Not The Wolverine. A wolverine.”
“He doesn’t know,” the other brother replied. His name was Dag, which was a weird name. “Remember?”
“How does anyone not know?” the first brother asked.
“Charlie’s twin aunts didn’t know. That’s why they’re pissed now and trying to kill the whole family.”
“What are you all talking about?” Zé finally asked.
“Don’t worry your pretty little kitten head about it.”
Zé had no response to such a weird put-down, so he simply picked up Max’s orange Converse high-tops and walked out of the room.
Following the sound of female voices, he ended up in the kitchen. The rest of the house was rather run-down, so he had to stop a minute in the doorway to gaze in wonder at all the stainless steel appliances. Very nice and they appeared brand-new.
“Hey,” Charlie greeted, her smile warm. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. Now that I’m on the ground and wearing pants. Head still hurts, though.”
“That’s because you were hit with a steel light fixture. Crushed the back of your skull.” Max glanced back at him. “It’s still healing.”
“My crushed skull is still . . . healing?” He stared at her. Just stared.
“What’s unclear?” she finally asked.
“That sentence seemed logical to you, considering most crushed skulls don’t heal in . . . what? Two, three days?”
“Yesterday, actually.”
“So, my tragically crushed skull almost healed overnight? Again, what seems logical to you?”
“See what I mean?” she said to her sister, tossing up her hands.
The little blonde pushed away from the table and came to Zé’s side. “Here. You sit down.” She led him back to her chair. “Coffee?”
“That would be great.”
“Since my sister has no apparent breeding and doesn’t know how to properly introduce people to each other—”
“Because suddenly you’re incapable of introducing yourself?” Max snapped.
“—I’m Stevie.”
She placed a mug filled with coffee in front of him.
“Zezé Vargas. Accent over the last E. But everybody calls me Zé.” He glanced around at the three completely different women. “Sisters?” He let his gaze bounce to each one until he settled on Charlie. They were the two brownest people in the room.
She chuckled. “Half-sisters. Same useless, worthless bastard of a father; different mothers.”
That made more sense.
“And where am I exactly?”
“Did you tell him anything, Max?”
“How is this my—”
“You’re in Queens, New York,” Charlie said, not letting her sister finish.
“Great. I’m originally from the South Bronx. So being in Queens is good. That works for me.”
“Would you like a cinnamon bun?” Charlie asked.
Zé shrugged. “Sure.”
“You didn’t offer me a cinnamon bun,” Max complained.
“No buns for liars!” Charlie ended on a bellow before placing a plate with two delicious-looking cinnamon buns in front of him and returning to her seat.
Stevie sat in the only other empty seat and smiled at him. That’s what they all had in common. Their smiles.
“I didn’t lie,” Max insisted. “I just didn’t tell you anything.”
Charlie held her hand up, palm out. She didn’t even look at her sister but at Zé.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened yesterday, Zé?”
“You don’t have to tell her anything,” Max cut in.
She sat catty-corner from him, so he leaned in and whispered to her, “Would it be better for you if I said nothing?”
She grinned at him. “Yes.”
Zé leaned back and looked at Charlie. “I’ll tell ya anything you want to know!”
Max’s grin faded. “You are such a cat.”
“What was my sister doing there?”
“She had been kidnapped. These men are ex-military, now mercenaries. We’ve been tracking them for months now—Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Pakistan, the Sudan. We weren’t even sure they’d take this job since it seemed so small compared to their usual work. But the man who hired them paid a lot.”
“What man?”
“Don’t know him and I only heard one name. Not sure if it’s first or last. Devon.”
Charlie closed her eyes and clenched her jaw before demanding, “You went after Devon?”
Sighing loudly, Max replied, “I figured if I could find him, I could kill him, and we could be done with all that. We’ve got so much else to worry about right now.”
“The homicidal twin aunts?” Zé asked.
Stevie frowned. “How do you know about that?”
“Those genetic anomalies you have roaming around mentioned something about it.”
Charlie tapped the table. “So did you find Devon or not?”
“Unfortunately I did not track him down.”
“Why not?”
Max shrugged. “Things got a little out of hand.”
“She killed everybody,” Zé offered before biting into one of the cinnamon rolls. It was the most delicious thing he’d ever had. He pointed at it. “This is amazing. Did yo
u buy this or bake it yourself?”
“She baked it herself, and I didn’t kill everybody . . .” Max brushed nonexistent lint off her T-shirt.
“But?” Charlie pushed.
“Just most of them.”
“So the rest saw you and got away?”
“I think her friends got the rest,” Zé said, a flash of memory flitting through his still-aching brain.
But as soon as the words left his mouth, Zé knew things were about to turn very ugly between the women.
“Friends?” Charlie demanded. “What fucking friends?” Her dark eyes narrowed dangerously and she exploded. “That idiot!”
Max immediately raised her hands. “It wasn’t Dutch! It wasn’t Dutch!”
“Who’s Dutch?” Zé asked Stevie.
“Max’s best friend since junior high.”
“Then who, Max?” Charlie pushed, hard. “Who are these friends he’s talking about?”
“He got hit in the head. I’m surprised he remembers anything.”
Charlie motioned to Zé. “With that hard head? Cats fall from the top of redwoods and their heads are just fine. Now tell me.”
“So is it LSD all of you are taking?” Zé asked Stevie. “Or something new? I’ve heard bath salts can be a real problem.”
Stevie crinkled her nose at him. “You are so cute!”
“It was my basketball team,” Max finally admitted, causing everyone to stare at her.
“Your basketball team?” Charlie asked. “What basketball team?”
“My team. The one I played with in junior high and high school. We made it to the championships?”
Stevie nodded, apparently knowing exactly who her sister was talking about, but Charlie just continued to stare, her face completely blank.
“Remember?” Max gently pushed. “Tock? Mads? Nelle? Streep?”
“Meryl Streep?”
“Meryl Streep?” Max repeated. “You really think Meryl Streep is helping me to take down a bunch of mercenaries and helped the team get to the championships?”
“I don’t know what secret life you have!”
“Well, it’s not one that involves Meryl Streep!”
“All right!” Stevie yelled before she let out a breath. “I know her basketball team, Charlie. I know them.”
“You do? They exist?”
“Yes, they exist. And, honestly, I must say if it wasn’t us with Max, watching her back, I know that those four can do the job without a problem.”
“Does any of that make this situation better?”
Stevie shook her head. “No.”
And again Max threw up her hands. “What are you doing to me, woman?”
“Helping?”
* * *
“You know what?” Max said, deciding to end this. “We’ve got bigger issues than whether I—”
“Slaughtered a bunch of people?”
Max glowered at the cat before finishing with “—found Devon.”
“Like what?” Charlie asked, appearing extremely angry. Max knew that expression on her sister’s face. Knew what it meant. Her sister hated when Max went off to “do something stupid.” And “stupid” to Charlie was anything that involved violence but didn’t involve her as Max’s backup.
Fair enough. Charlie was awesome backup. Max would enter any dangerous situation if her sister was with her, but Charlie had enough shit to worry about on a daily basis. Why would Max add to that when Devon wasn’t her sisters’ problem? He was Max’s problem and only because her mother was still in prison and unable to deal with him on her own. Because Devon refused to believe that Max’s mother didn’t have the money from their last heist together. The heist that Freddy MacKilligan had managed to fuck up as only Freddy could.
If anyone had that money, it had probably been her father, but Max was sure he’d spent it or lost it a long time ago. Probably months or days even after the heist had ended with Devon and her mother in prison.
Devon didn’t want to hear any of that, though. He was convinced Renny Yang had his money and believed that Max was his way of getting it back.
Luckily, Max didn’t mind proving him wrong. But until she’d dealt with Devon properly, she’d have to find a way to distract Charlie from getting involved. And there was only one way to do that—with lunacy.
“Like our guest here,” Max replied, gesturing to the cat with a sweep of her hand. “Poor kitty doesn’t know he’s a kitty. He thinks he’s a boring full-human with no skills. We can’t let him continue to go through his life in such a sad, pathetic way.”
Her sisters focused on Vargas, but the cat was busy downing the last of those cinnamon buns. He was mid-chew when he realized they were all watching him, crumbs covering his mouth, green eyes bouncing from one woman to the other.
“Wha?” he asked around his food.
“We’re here to teach you about our ways,” Max informed him.
“No thank you.” He swallowed, took a sip of coffee. “I’m fine in my reality.”
“But your reality is wrong.”
“Is it? Or is my reality simply drug free?”
Max heard Stevie snort but she fought the urge to slap her sister on the back of the head.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but you need to accept the fact that you are a—”
“Cat. I’m a cat, according to you. In other words”—he pointed at the kitchen window near the stove—“I’m like him.”
Max looked and immediately picked up a spoon and hurled it at the window. The feral cat that she hated didn’t run, though, but simply hissed at her. Bastard!
“Is that any way to treat my kind?” Vargas asked, smirking.
“That is not your kind, idiot,” Max snarled. She was fed up with this. “You’re like us. A shifter. Your DNA is a combination of human and . . .” She gestured with her hand around his face. “. . . some kind of big cat.”
“Wait. I can tell.” Stevie ran around the table to Vargas’s side. She lifted strands of his hair and leaned in close, studying them. Vargas motioned to his empty plate. “Any more of these?”
Without a word of complaint, Charlie picked up his plate and went to where she had a large platter filled with cinnamon rolls. She brought back five for the cat.
“You’re just giving him food now?” Max asked.
“He’s a guest.”
“But I don’t get any?”
“You’re a liar.”
When Max focused on Vargas, he smiled around the big bite of roll he now had in his mouth.
“Jaguar!” Stevie announced, triumphant. “He’s a jaguar.” She returned to her seat. “It took a second because leopards have similar markings but if you really look, you can tell the difference. And he’s definitely jaguar. A black jaguar.” She winked at him. “Kind of rare.”
“What is happening?” Max demanded. Why were her sisters being so nice to someone who was being so . . . cat? He couldn’t be more cat if he was lounging in a tree with a gazelle carcass.
“Look,” Vargas said, wiping his mouth with a paper towel, “I appreciate you guys living in this fantasy universe. And I get it. The world is terrifying right now; it’s easier to pretend that you have special mutant powers. But I live in reality and no one has special mutant powers. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be normal. Be proud of your normalness. Be proud of who you are.”
Deciding this wasn’t worth the effort, Max was about to get up from the table and show Vargas out. She’d call him a car. She had the app on her phone. She’d send him back to the full-humans he seemed most comfortable with, and she’d go back to her life as a MacKilligan. It was for the best.
That was the plan. Until Shen Li, Stevie’s boyfriend, came in through the back door. He’d been outside, hanging upside down from a tree, eating bamboo. This was after he’d had a morning swim . . . in his panda form. That was also the way he’d entered the kitchen. In his panda form. He easily opened the screen door, came up the stairs into the kitchen. In his panda form, he was a
healthy size, easy to see from where Vargas was sitting.
And Vargas did see him. His expression didn’t change; it stayed artfully blank, but his bright green-eyed gaze was locked on the panda as Shen went up on his hind legs, used his nose to open one of the cabinets, and used his paw to knock down a few bamboo roots. He picked one up in his mouth, lumbered over to Stevie’s chair, and with nothing more than a thought, shifted from panda to human. He took the bamboo from his mouth so he could lean down and kiss the top of Stevie’s head.
“I’m going up to take a shower. I’ll be down in a few.”
“Shen,” Max said, gesturing to their “guest,” “this is Zé. Zé, this is Shen.”
Shen nodded. “Hi, dude.”
“Hi . . .” Vargas cleared his throat. “Hi.”
Then, bless him, Shen put the bamboo back in his mouth, shifted back to panda, and lumbered his way out of their kitchen on all fours.
Silently, the three sisters watched Vargas. Watched . . . and waited.
After a minute, he glanced at his nearly empty mug and announced, “So you drugged the coffee, then.”
Max threw up her hands and pushed away from the table. “I’m out.”
chapter THREE
Mairi MacKilligan got off the helicopter and walked away from it, keeping her body low so her head didn’t get chopped off. One of the few, true ways that one could kill a honey badger.
She made her way to the upper deck where the Guerra twins were sunning themselves. She cringed when she saw their oiled skin, wondering how they could believe for a moment they wouldn’t get skin cancer one day. It was like looking at roasting sausages.
Before she reached them, however, one of their many bodyguards stopped her. Without a word, he demanded her weapons. She removed her guns and knives and piled them on the table provided for just that purpose. One of the men then came toward her to search her thoroughly but as soon as she looked at him, the man—a foot taller and two hundred pounds heavier than she—stumbled to a stop and looked at the one in charge. None of these men wanted to touch her. They were all full-human and probably didn’t understand their intense fear and distrust of a woman they didn’t know, but instinct in mammals was a valuable thing.
With a wave of his hand, the one in charge motioned her through and she walked across the deck. Several bodyguards stood behind the chair where Aunt Celestina was stretched out. Aunt Caterina was already coming toward her, so Mairi stopped and spread her arms wide.
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