by Martha Carr
“Ooh. Ooh. Rex.” Luther spun and sniffed the air. “See that retriever?”
“Yeah, check out the tail on that one.”
“Let’s go!”
Shaking his head, the bounty hunter returned his focus to the menu. “Fifteen bucks for avocado toast?”
“It’s one of their signature recipes,” Lisa muttered.
“They had better be some magical fuckin’ avocadoes at that price.”
She looked at him with a coy smile. “Is that what you’re getting?”
“Hell no.” He stabbed the menu. “Three burgers. Easy choice. Simple. Can’t screw that up and charge too much. Look at that. Burgers are cheaper than the damn toast.”
“And you need three.”
“The hounds gotta eat too.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “And I get extra fries.”
Chapter Nineteen
After they had all enjoyed a lunch of acceptable portions, they left Water Dog with full stomachs and two more human victims to visit.
“Who’s next?” Johnny asked as he tossed the borrowed leashes through the restaurant’s front door.
“Gina McKinney.” Lisa scrolled through her phone. “She lives in Irvington but came to stay with her sister Alexis after she started seeing demons.”
“Sure. She lost her mind and decided she needed help.” He nodded, his expression grim but satisfied with the logic. “It’s a better option than what Folsum had available.”
“Probably, yeah. Poor guy. Her sister lives only a few blocks east.”
“Well then, let’s get on.” He stared at the group of downtown Portland locals that approached. Three people walked their bikes on the outsides of the group, steered with one hand, and held to-go coffee cups in the other. “Now what’s the point of that, huh?”
“Walking?”
“Bikes—if they ain’t gonna get on and ride.”
She shrugged. “I don’t have an answer for that. But can we stick to the actual mystery here and focus on the case?”
“Uh-huh.” He turned to stare after the group as they passed and continued to talk and laugh as they sipped their overpriced coffee. He jerked a thumb toward them and widened his eyes at Lisa. “It’s like some kinda damn fashion accessory.”
“Come on.” She rolled her eyes with a mixture of exasperation and amusement and crossed the street.
It took them ten minutes to reach the house only a few blocks beyond the center of downtown. Johnny studied the tall, narrow duplex for a moment and shrugged. “At least she ain’t out here cryin’ ‘demon’ with no one to hear.”
Lisa ascended the front porch steps and slid her phone into her pocket. “You’d better let me start the conversation.”
“Sure. You’re the psychologist understudy.”
Her quick look was almost a glare when he joined her on the porch.
The hounds padded after them and Luther squeezed between them to sniff the bottom edge of the front door. “I smell more hounds, Johnny.”
“No, that’s only one.” Rex joined him at the door, where he sniffed and snorted.
The dwarf snapped his fingers and pointed at the porch floor. “This ain’t the hound hotel, boys. Wait.”
“Yeah, yeah. But when you go in there to interrogate the two-legs, Johnny, can we interrogate the hound inside?”
“We’ll ask her all the questions, Johnny.”
“Like where she keeps all the snacks.”
“Why she’s holdin’ out on us.”
“Ooh, if she likes playing fetch.”
“If this one’s got any bones buried in the backyard, Johnny, we’ll find ʼem.”
He stared at the front door as Lisa stepped forward to knock briskly. Wrong kinda bones, boys.
A sharp bark came from inside the two-story duplex, followed by the sound of a back door sliding open and shut again. The barking continued, this time from outside.
“Yeah, we’ll be there in a minute!” Luther shouted.
“Just a friendly check-in.” Rex licked his muzzle. “As soon as your two-legs lets us in.”
The front door opened slowly and a woman in her early thirties with thick, curly brown hair peered out. Her brown eyes widened when she saw Johnny, Lisa, and two hounds on the front porch. “Can I help you?”
“Alexis McKinney?” Lisa asked.
Her eyebrows drew together in a pained frown. “Yes. I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Agent Breyer with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The agent flashed her badge. “And this is Johnny Walker. We were hoping to find your sister Gina here.”
“Oh.” Alexis glanced over her shoulder but didn’t open the door any wider for them to have a good look inside. “Well, she’s here but I don’t know if now’s a good time—”
“Is she still talkin’ ʼbout the demon?” Johnny asked.
Both women looked at him in surprise.
“That’s what this is about?”
Lisa nodded. “We have a few questions that weren’t covered by the Portland PD when they wrote their report of Gina’s…situation.”
“Situation.” Alexis wrinkled her nose. “That euphemism still rubs me the wrong way.”
“I ain’t a fan of tryin’ to sugarcoat somethin’ with a different name either.” The bounty hunter gestured beyond the woman with his head. “You might be able to help us answer some of these questions too. Do you mind if we come in?”
“Um…” Alexis glanced at Rex and Luther who sat obediently at the dwarf’s sides and stared at her. A small smile bloomed on her lips. “Your dogs have that ‘pleading eyes’ look to perfection.”
“Johnny, I like her,” Luther said.
“Yeah, and I bet her hound’s even cooler.”
He ignored them. “I can’t say they don’t know exactly what they’re doin’.”
“I’m sorry. Of course you can come in.” Alexis stepped back and opened the door fully.
“Thank you.” Lisa stepped inside first.
The hounds waited until Johnny followed her before they practically leapt over the threshold. “Oh, yeah. Definitely another hound here.”
“A hairy one too.” Luther sniffed at a forgotten wad of fluffy white hair in the corner. “How does anyone handle the heat with that much fur on ʼem?”
Alexis shut the door and smiled wearily at the hounds. “I have a Great Pyrenees, Lakshmi. She’s in the back yard right now, but these guys are more than welcome to go out there with her.”
“Yeah, Johnny, can we?” Luther panted at his master.
“Can’t interrogate a Great Pyrenees if there’s a door between us, Johnny.”
The dwarf cleared his throat. “That’d be fine.”
“And they’re good with other dogs?” The woman headed across her living room toward the sliding glass door in the back.
“Yep.”
“We’re good with everyone, lady.” Rex trotted after her. “It’s the squirrels that have to worry.”
“And the hamsters.” Luther stopped short when the Great Pyrenees stopped on the other side of the glass door, panted through a doggy grin, and wagged her tail to swish the long white fur. “Oh, man. Look at her, Rex.”
“I know. I’d interrogate that bitch all damn day!”
“Look at you two.” Alexis chuckled. “You’re so excited. This’ll be great. Lakshmi needs new friends.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Luther almost bounced in excitement. “We’re real friendly.”
The glass door slid open and they barreled into the yard to circle the other dog.
“Hey, there. How ya doin’?” Luther moved closer to sniff beneath her tail. “Well, yeah, we’re here for a reason.”
“Don’t listen to him until we’ve started this off right,” Rex added as he joined the round of mutual canine butt-sniffing. “I’m Rex.”
“And I’m the good-looking one,” Luther added before Alexis slid the glass door shut again.
Johnny stared at his hounds through the back door
and folded his arms. It’s gonna be a hell of a job to tune them out when they’re still in range.
“It looks like everyone’s getting along.” The woman turned to her visitors who waited in her living room and she gestured toward the couches. “Please. Have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“We just came from lunch,” Johnny muttered. “I’m fine for now, darlin’.”
She regarded him a little warily and frowned like she couldn’t decide how to feel about a dwarf in all black with the odd disks on his belt beside the utility knife. “Okay. What about you, Agent Breyer?”
“Lisa, please.” She sat on the couch opposite their hostess and shook her head. “And no thank you. I’m fine.”
Alexis shifted on the couch and looked from one to the other. “So. You’re here to look into what happened to my sister, then. Right?”
“That’s right.” The agent nodded. “What did the Portland PD have to say about what Gina’s been going through?”
“Oh. Um…” She frowned at her lap. “They tested her for drugs, which I already knew wasn’t the issue. So did she. She was evaluated by two different psychiatrists too, and all they gave us was some unconvincing diagnosis of PTSD. And the police simply went with that, I guess.”
“But you don’t think that’s what happened.” Johnny leaned forward on the cushion beside Lisa. “Right?”
“No, I don’t.” Alexis glanced across the living room at the staircase leading to the second story. “My sister hasn’t gone through anything that would trigger PTSD—at least not that I know of. And she’s…she’s not herself, you know? She’s such a happy, outgoing person, always moving and very extroverted. Seeing her now, though, it’s like someone else in there who I don’t recognize. I don’t understand what’s going on with her.”
“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Lisa said calmly. “We think something else is going on here—something the district police department simply isn’t…equipped to handle.”
“So they sent the FBI.” The woman frowned.
The dwarf sniffed. “And me.”
“You’re not with—”
“I’m a bounty hunter, darlin’.”
“Oh.” The woman stiffened. “But you’re not here for Gina, right? Because she hasn’t done anything to anyone. I promise. I’ve been with her almost the whole time—”
“It’s nothing like that,” Lisa reassured her. “We’re merely trying to determine what happened to her.”
“So we can apprehend the asshole who did this to her and seven other folks in the area,” Johnny added. “Most of ʼem ain’t fortunate enough to have someone like you carin’ for ʼem through the whole ordeal. As far as I can see, you’re doin’ a hell of a job.”
“It doesn’t much feel like it, but thanks.” The woman tucked her thick curly hair behind one ear but it instantly bounced free again. “Do you think this was some kind of attack?”
The agent turned to him and raised her eyebrows.
’Course she wants to hear me say it out loud. He grunted. “Yep. Agent Breyer’s with the Department of Magicals and Monsters, Bounty Hunter Division.”
“Wait—you’re saying this is some kind of magical attack?” Alexis shook her head. “I don’t understand. We’re normal.”
Lisa chuckled. “You’re humans, yes. But that doesn’t mean you’re immune to magic—if it turns out that’s what this is. Which we do think is the case.” She darted her partner a sidelong glance and tried to hold a smirk in check.
He scratched the side of his face through his thick beard and gazed around the living room. Yeah, okay. I took the bait but we still gotta prove this is what we’re workin’ with.
“So to start, Alexis,” the agent continued, “can you tell us more about the day Gina started acting…unlike herself?”
“Sure. Um… It was about four weeks ago. We went out that Friday night, only the two of us. I’d cleared my weekend schedule and wanted to do something fun.”
“What d’ya do for a livin’?” Johnny asked.
“I’m a web designer so I work from home for my clients and set my own hours, for the most part.”
“And your sister?”
She laughed wryly. “Don’t ask me for specifics because it all goes right over my head. She works in insurance. Or…at least she did. She called in sick that Monday morning after she spent the rest of the weekend holed up here with me. The sick leave extended indefinitely so I’m fairly sure she lost that job.”
“And you were with her the entire weekend?”
“Yeah. She was a mess. Saturday morning was weird and she looked constantly out the front windows and was totally paranoid. It got even worse the next day. She started talking about someone harassing her—this…demon, I guess. Even worse, she hardly slept and I was up most of the night trying to calm her. Night terrors, I think. But she screamed and yelled throughout and had a hard time recognizing me when she finally woke up.”
Lisa frowned. “Well, looking at it from only that perspective, the PTSD diagnosis makes sense.”
“But that suddenly?” Alexis shook her head. “If she’d gone through some horrible ordeal, I would have at least heard something about it. Maybe not all the details, but she never mentioned having a bad experience with anything. Okay, she wasn’t exactly in love with her job and I heard her complain about that fairly often.”
“I’d say it’s fairly standard with that kinda job,” Johnny muttered.
“But I honestly don’t think that had anything to do with it. If something had happened to her at work, she wouldn’t have tried to keep the job by calling in sick, right?”
“We can’t answer that.” Lisa clasped her hands in her lap. “But if you think there’s any way her job had something to do with it—”
“I don’t. Gina has so many friends. Like I said, she wasn’t in love with her job but that’s normal, right? And she has hobbies and a healthy social life. She plays racquetball at the rec center every Wednesday night. None of that changed at all since we went out on Friday—although she doesn’t go out, the interest and desire to live her life is still there.”
Johnny stroked his beard, his eyes narrowed in thought. “What did y’all do?”
“The usual Friday-night stuff. We went out to eat at a Chinese place we’ve gone to for years. After that, we did a little bar hopping, but the police already asked if we’d had anything we don’t usually have. We didn’t. Yeah, we were a little drunk, but it was a normal Friday. I dropped her at her apartment at around one am and came home. The next morning, she called me, freaking out about how she didn’t feel safe at her apartment and needed to get out. She asked if she could stay with me and of course, I told her she could. I went to pick her up, brought her here, and she’s been in the guestroom for the last month.”
“Does she get out at all?” Johnny asked.
“No.” The woman’s pained frown deepened. “I can’t get her to leave the house for anything. She won’t even go into the back yard with Lakshmi, and she loves that dog.”
“Huh.” He sniffed and pointed at the staircase. “Is she upstairs?”
“Yeah. Both our bedrooms are up there.”
“I wanna talk to her.”
“Um…” Alexis sighed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. The psychiatrists put her on medication to calm her. At least that’s what they said it’s supposed to do but it doesn’t always work.”
Lisa leaned forward and gave her a reassuring smile. “Would it help if you went upstairs and told her who we are and why we’re here? Ask her if she’d be willing to talk to us.”
“It might.” She gazed at the staircase. “I can’t make any promises, though.”
“That’s okay. If there’s a chance she’s willing to talk to us so we can ask her a few questions ourselves, that would be very helpful. We want to help you both and any little detail might be exactly what we need to find the truth. We’re not ruling anything out yet.”
Johnny snorted. Except for P
TSD, poison, and mental illness.
She ignored him. “It’s worth a try, right?”
“Yeah… Yeah, you’re right.” Alexis stood and tugged the hem of her t-shirt down. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink?”
“We’re fine. Thank you.”
“Okay.” The woman moved quickly toward the stairs, paused as if she had something else to say, then continued across the living room to ascend the slightly creaking staircase.
Outside, all three dogs barked and raced across the lawn in huge circles.
“Oh, you think you’re fast, huh?” Luther shouted after the Great Pyrenees. “Well, I got news for ya, beautiful. I’m faster than—”
“A snail!” Rex howled and darted past his brother. “And I win! Hey, Lakshmi, hold still. We haven’t finished interrogating you yet—whoa! No, I’m not blaming you for anything. Come on!”
“Rex, get that squirrel!”
Johnny startled and shook his head.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m thinkin’.” He rubbed his mouth. I gotta find a way to tune those hounds out so I can do the thinkin’ that needs to be done.
Chapter Twenty
Ten minutes later, Alexis’ footsteps creaked down the stairs. She stopped a little over halfway down and cleared her throat. “She seems okay with it so I guess you guys can come up.”
“Good.” Lisa stood. “Thanks for checking with her.”
“Well, it’s more like she didn’t freak out when I said you wanted to talk to her.” The woman watched Johnny cross the room toward the stairs with a hesitant frown. “But if she gets too worried or overly excited about something, we’ll have to give her space. Just so you know beforehand.”
“That’s fine.” He reached the bottom step and nodded. “All I want is a few words and we’ll go from there.”
She led them up the stairs a glanced over her shoulder at least three times to make sure they were following her. At the top, she turned to the right and pointed down the hall. “It’s the first door on the left. Let me go in first, okay?”
“That’s a good idea.” Lisa nodded and followed them tentatively toward the guestroom.
