by Geonn Cannon
Ari narrowed her eyes. “Just how much research have you done on us?”
“Plenty.”
Ari chewed her lip and looked past Cecily to the window. If she took the offer, how long would it be before someone questioned her methods? Before someone realized she was doing impossible things in her investigations. This whole job offer could be a way to get Ari under a microscope to find out how she had gotten into the shed. Ari moved closer to the desk.
“If you think I’m the sort of person to manufacture evidence, why would you want me working here?”
“I don’t think you manufactured anything.”
“It’s what you accused me of doing in court.”
Cecily lifted one shoulder. “I was trying to win the case. I had unanswered questions. I didn’t actually believe you were committing fraud or involved in a conspiracy with Mr. Nguyen. I just couldn’t explain it. If I can’t explain it, then the judge might question it as well. I only created reasonable doubt. That’s all I have to do to win the case. Plant a seed of doubt and let the judge or jury do everything else. I really believe you’re skilled at what you do. I looked into you after we found the security tape, just to confirm you weren’t one of those shysters we so often run across. I don’t mind taking down those jokers on the stand. I can tell you’re something different. You actually care about your cases.”
“I try to,” Ari said.
Cecily gestured. “And that is why I offered you the job. We have to hire someone to fill Robert’s absence, and I would like it to be someone like you. I think I would really enjoy getting to know you.”
Ari felt an uncomfortable prickle on the back of her neck. She stopped herself from reaching up to brush it away, but only just. The awkward silence hung in the air of the dark office and dragged out the seconds until Ari wanted to flee. Finally the tension was broken when Cecily broke eye contact.
“Feel free to take a few days to think about the offer. Talk it over with Miss Frye. I’ll be here waiting for your response. But please be mindful of our situation. We do need someone as soon as possible and an expedient response would be appreciated.”
“Right.” Ari felt the meeting was over, but felt it would be anticlimactic to leave on that note. “What’s up with the red picture?”
Cecily didn’t look at it, instead resting her elbows on the desk and remaining locked on Ari. “How did you respond to it?”
“Confusion. Is it art?”
“No. It’s not art.” Her lips moved slightly, but not enough to call it a smile. “We’ll be in touch, Miss Willow.”
That was a better note to leave on. She turned, leaving the dark office for the fluorescent lighting of the main room. She felt like she had just crawled out of a deep cave and was once again standing on the surface. She took a deep breath, let it out, and started walking without looking back.
Chapter Eight
Ari spent the weekend watching a doting father spending time with his daughter. He picked her up after school on Friday and dropped her off Monday morning. Ari could tell he was trying to squeeze as much quality time into those two and a half days as possible. He took her to the aquarium and the library, they went on walks and stopped to watch an impromptu game of touch football. On Saturday, he skipped a Seahawks game to take her for ice cream. Considering the lanyards hanging from his rearview mirror and the cap he wore during the week, it was no small sacrifice. The girl was fed at a regular dinnertime, she had to turn off the TV at eight no matter how much she protested, and he always kissed her goodnight.
By Sunday night, Ari wanted to be adopted by him. She finished filling out her report for the wife and left to spend some quality time of her own with Dale. It was after business hours, so she knew Dale would already have headed home for the night. She still hadn’t yet revealed Cecily Parrish’s job offer. When Dale asked what the meeting was about, Ari had been honest. She said she wasn’t ready to talk about it until she had some time to process, and Dale said she would be there when Ari needed a sounding board.
Taking the offer would be smart, in terms of business. It was a guaranteed paycheck and steady employment. But with all the work they’d done building the agency, and then everything Dale did to keep it alive while Ari was away, it seemed like giving up would be a slap in the face to her. Then again, Dale might appreciate the freedom to just be her girlfriend, not her employee and assistant. Sometimes she felt that Dale’s entire life was built around making Ari’s life easier, and she felt guilty about that. Taking the offer wouldn’t be dumping Dale. It would be giving Dale the opportunity to do something different.
When Ari rounded the corner of the house, she saw Neka sitting on the back stoop with a joint. She waved off the smoke when she saw Ari and smiled apologetically.
“Sorry. You said you don’t like the smell…”
“It’s fine.”
Neka said, “Do you and Dale have plans for Thanksgiving?”
Ari paused at the top of the stairs. “I don’t think so. When is it?”
“This Thursday.”
“Really? Wow.” Ari pushed her hair back and shrugged. “I don’t know. We usually just stay in and watch movies on Netflix or something.”
Neka said, “Same here. I don’t really celebrate. It’s not a big Native American holiday, as you might imagine. But Simon’s family is in Florida and he can’t afford to fly out. So I thought I’d cook a nice dinner for him. I would really like it if you and Dale could be there, too.”
“That’s really nice of you. I’ll mention it to Dale, see if she has anything planned. I’ll let you know before Thursday.”
“Okay. No rush. Either you’ll show up or I’ll leave some leftovers at the bottom of the stairs.”
Ari laughed. “That’s win-win.”
She said goodnight and continued downstairs. The living room was dark, but the bedroom light was on. “Dale? You here, sweetie?”
“I just got out of the shower.”
Ari put down her things, plugging in the devices that needed to be charged. “You’ll be happy to know that the case had a happy ending. The guy was actually earning his World’s Greatest Dad mug. If he had one, which I assume he does.” She laced her fingers together and stretched her arms over her head as she went into the bedroom. “Neka invited us to Thanksgiving dinner, if you want to go to… that.”
Dale was wearing a knee-length skirt and a tennis shirt, her hair pulled back in an uncharacteristic ponytail. She sat on the edge of the bed and propped herself up in a way that thrust her chest out.
“Hey. You must be my roommate. This is a pretty cool dorm, huh?”
Ari was grinning through her confusion. “Uh. What?”
Dale held out one arm. “I’m Dale.”
“Ariadne.” She took Dale’s hand and shook it.
“That’s a cool name. So what is there to do around here for fun? I just came in from Pennsylvania. It’s so strange being in the big city.”
Ari laughed and sat on the bed next to her. “There’s… there’s some stuff to do.” She reached up and brushed a stray hair from Dale’s face. “But we could just stay in and get to know each other.”
Dale’s eyes widened. “Wow. I heard about this sort of thing happening in college, but I didn’t think it would be this quick.”
“What’s going on?” Ari whispered.
Dale leaned in to whisper in Ari’s ear. “I got Facebook friended by someone I slept with in college. It made me think about how fun those nights were.” She nipped at Ari’s ear. “Just two young people figuring things out together. I lost my virginity in a dorm room bed. And I was thinking it sucked that I never got to do that with you. And then I realized you never got to do that at all. So…” She kissed Ari’s neck and leaned back. “So anyway,” she said at her regular speaking volume. “I’ve never done this sort of thing before.”
“That’s okay.” Ari moved her hand to Dale’s leg and stroked her inner thigh. “If we’re going to be roomies, we should get to know each
other. Really… really well.”
Dale smiled and pulled Ari to her as she fell back onto the mattress.
#
“You said something about Neka.”
Ari opened her eyes. “While we were…?”
“No. Before that. When you came in.”
They were lying in the middle of the mattress. Ari was naked, but Dale had taken the time to put her shirt back on. She had one leg hooked over Ari’s hip and her cheek was against Ari’s breast.
“Oh. She invited us to Thanksgiving dinner with her and Simon.”
Dale said, “That’s sweet of her. We’re not going to your mother’s?”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“After all the bonding you did with her up in the mountains?”
Ari said, “Yeah. I think we’re all bonded out. Our relationship is better than it’s ever been, but that’s no reason to force a holiday on each other.”
“She might not feel the same way.”
“I’ll call her and see what she’s thinking before I give Neka an answer.”
Dale nodded and kissed Ari’s chest. “I’m tired. I think I’m going to fall asleep in a second. Do you need to get out from under me first? Are you going for a run?”
“Yeah, I think I will.”
“Don’t go until I’m asleep.”
Ari nodded. They rearranged themselves, and Ari draped the blankets over Dale before stretching out next to her. Dale made a valiant effort to keep her eyes open, but soon she was drifting off.
“Will you call me?” Dale asked. “When you’re ready to come home?”
Ari said, “If you want me to. But I hate waking you up.”
“Otherwise I wake up alone,” she said. “I mean. I still wake up alone. But then I get to come rescue you. And that makes it better.”
“Oh. Okay.” Ari kissed her between the eyebrows. “Go to sleep.”
“If you insist, puppy…”
She stayed until she was sure Dale was unconscious, lightly dragging her fingers over the curve of her cheek and down across her bottom lip. Only when her eyes began moving behind the lashes did Ari finally ease out of bed and tiptoe out of the room. She stopped long enough to retrieve her robe, slipping it on as she went back out to the living room. Her phone had charged during their roleplay and she checked it for messages from Tiffany or any of her other clients. Nothing new, so she left the device on the table and went to the door.
The backyard looked empty. She opened the door a crack and listened; nothing but crickets chirping. She shed the robe and transformed, twisting her neck and shaking her arms like an athlete about to walk onto the field. She dropped to all fours and stretched her elongated spine, bared her teeth, and shouldered open the door. She sniffed the air and could tell that Neka had taken her pot inside at least half an hour ago. Confident she wouldn’t be seen, Ari ascended the stairs and loped across the lawn with her head low.
She kept close to the lawns while she was still in the neighborhood. Most were shaded by trees or closed in by fences or decorate rock walls, so it would be easy for her to duck out of sight if she spotted any pedestrians or slow-moving cars. She normally waited until later to go out so she wouldn’t have to deal with traffic, but the neighborhood was pretty slow. She had a sixth sense about what animal control’s headlights looked like, so she took extra care to avoid those.
Ari ran without a destination in mind, turning west when she reached Yesler because that was where the wolf wanted to go. Her human mind slipped a little, losing details like street names and distances. The wolf had different landmarks to keep track of where she was. The apartment building that had been designed to look like a castle; the streetcar tracks; the barbeque place and the little coffee shack, both of which still smelled of their respective specialties even at this late hour.
When she reached the overpass she stopped on the pedestrian sidewalk to watch the cars streaming by underneath. Downtown sprung up to the north in all shining lights and gleaming towers. Ari listened to the hum of cars and remembered the last time she’d heard that sound. She turned around and backtracked until she found a street that took her north. She followed the curve of Eighth Avenue to Ninth, then went down James Street to Seventh Avenue. It didn’t dawn on her that she was using the actual street names instead of landmarks until she was already running along the off-ramp. The wolf had retreated and given back control to her analytical mind.
Sorry, babe, she said to the wolf. I’ll give you a solid run another night, I promise.
Her mother had taught her how to treat the wolf as a true partner. More than just equals, but another soul sharing her body. Letting the wolf run free was vital to the well-being of them both. Ari had been selfish considering herself a human woman who sometimes ran on four legs. She was a woman, yes, but she was also a wolf. That wolf had needs of its own, and it was up to Ari to see they were met.
She wended her way through the maze of streets next to the interstate until she finally found herself back outside Clark Wilcox’s condo. The wolf had fewer problems with the angle of the street than she’d had on two legs, even though she had just run close to two miles. She tilted her head back and looked up at the windows. Over half of them were lit. After a few minutes of searching, she spotted the one that would look into Wilcox’s apartment.
The light was on.
There were several possibilities. Wilcox could have been the type to have his lights on timers to dissuade criminals. In this neighborhood, that would be a smart security measure. Or, and this was the theory she found more likely, Tom and his anonymous friend from the other day had come back. If not them, someone else. Had they not heard about Wilcox’s death? Maybe they knew and were taking the opportunity to tear apart his place looking for the iPad. Leaving the light on was a good indication they weren’t worried about being caught.
Ari moved to the sidewalk and walked along the row of parked cars, looking for the blue truck she had seen earlier. She hoped it would be the same guys as before, but it seemed her luck wasn’t holding out. None of the cars seemed familiar, and she hadn’t gotten a good enough sniff of Tom and the other guy to identify him. So she sat and waited, she watched the apartment light, she paced, and finally her patience paid off.
The light switched off, and close to five minutes later a trio of men came out of the building. One of them was Tom, but Ari didn’t recognize the other two. One of the new men was carrying a plastic garbage bag that looked heavy judging by how he was listing to that side. The man in the lead was carrying a shock stick. He tossed the weapon into the back of a white truck.
“Waste of time. Know what I had to go through to get that thing?”
“I told you, last time there was a fucking dog,” Tom said. “Huge thing. It looked like a wolf. Mikey saw it, too. Ask him when we get back, and he’ll tell you there was a dog.”
The men got into the truck with their bag of loot. A nearby streetlight illuminated the driver’s side door as it swung open, and Ari saw a logo she didn’t recognize over a name written in a font too small for her to read. The shock stick was vaguely terrifying. She was glad she hadn’t decided to stake out the apartment. They may have brought it just as insurance, but she knew what happened when men like that had the chance to hurt an animal.
”Hey, mutt! Come over here! C’mere, mutt!”
It brought on the memory of one of the most terrifying moments of her life, surrounded by a group of teenagers who had a seemingly endless supply of rocks. She’d been distracted and hadn’t heard them coming up behind her. Then she was cornered. Every time she tried to fight back, one of the other kids threw a rock and hit her in the shoulder or it glanced off her head. She was sure she was going to die there. And then…
”Get back, you goddamn creeps!”
She had come running down an incline, her coat flapping behind her as she swung a PVC pipe. She had dropped the bag of fast food she’d been carrying so she could wield the weapon with both hands. The kids saw her
coming, saw the lack of fear in her expression, and chose to flee. She continued screaming insults at them, cursing them out as they retreated. She stood between them and Ari, shoulders heaving with her breath as she watched to make sure they weren’t going to circle around and come after her. When they were finally gone, she dropped the pipe and turned to face Ari.
”You poor thing. Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She sacrificed the patty of her cheeseburger to gain Ari’s trust, then tenderly examined the wounds on her head. Then she cupped Ari’s face in her hands and they locked eyes.
That was the day Ariadne met Dale. The most terrifying moment of her life had morphed into the moment her entire life changed for the better.
When the memory faded she realized she was running down a street she couldn’t identify. The wolf had taken advantage of her distraction to get underway again.
Okay, wolfie, she thought, you’re in control. Just get me to a park with a stash when you’re ready to go home.
The wolf put on an extra burst of speed and Ari left the animal side of her brain take over for a while.
Chapter Nine
Like a sleepwalker suddenly waking up, or a commuter who pulled into her driveway without remembering the drive home, Ariadne stumbled on the grassy incline and grabbed a tree to catch her fall. The wolf had started the transformation while still in motion. It forced her off all fours and onto two human legs, which affected her balance and made her look like she was falling horizontally. She balanced herself against the tree and swayed briefly to catch her breath and regain her bearings. She could see and smell Puget Sound, and judging by her position along its edge, she guessed she was on the south side of the Queen Anne greenbelt.
“Boy, when I let you off the leash, you really go crazy.”
She pushed through the underbrush, aware that her legs and arms had already been scraped up getting this far into the wilderness. She had to go back up toward the road to get her bearings before she could plot a course for the stash Dale had left her. When had they left the bag in the greenbelt? It had to have been over eight months ago. When she knew what road she was on, she turned around and went back through the underbrush. The wolf was good at making sure it transformed somewhere close by the burial site, saving her the trouble of wandering around Seattle’s parks in the nude.
