by Geonn Cannon
Despite the appearance of being for-hire, Dale couldn’t find a physical address for him. There was an email address and a phone number, but Zahn apparently didn’t keep an office. Ari considered calling to set up an appointment, but she knew that would only alert him to her interest and blow her cover. At the moment he might not know she was investigating him. She wanted to keep the element of surprise for as long as possible.
Once again, Dale came to the rescue. She ran a background check on Zahn, just a quick scan of his credit card statements. They had the bare-bones results the next morning and discovered, amongst a truly startling amount of gas station receipts, there was a recurring charge at a particular bar on Capitol Hill. The charges at the bar were usually made during mid-afternoon. Ari waited until two-thirty, the earliest he’d ever used the card at the bar, and ended her staring contest with the board.
“Be safe,” Dale said.
“Always.”
The bar was abandoned when she arrived. Booths lined the wall to the left and right, with the bar set up directly ahead of the entrance. The man behind the bar looked up from a textbook and Ari waved a hand to keep him from moving to help her. She told him she would take a Redhook when he was at a stopping place. She took a seat in a two-top facing the door and took out her phone. The bartender brought over her bottle close to five minutes later after the second customer arrived to interrupt his studies. Ari considered asking if he knew Zahn, but the description would be far too vague to be helpful.
People arrived at the bar in groups or alone, some of them meeting others but a few drinking alone as Ari seemed to be. The majority were dressed in suits with loose ties, the jackets instantly draped over the back of a chair before they sat down. The women slipped out of their high heels under the table and settled in to relax. A female political advisor that Ari recognized from interviews on the news touched the hand of her female companion under the table, a brief and furtive moment of intimacy that almost distracted Ari from her task.
Zahn arrived just after four, dressed casually in a V-neck sweater and a leather jacket. He scanned the room from the doorway and went to the bar. Two drinks were delivered to him, and he took them to a man who had been sitting alone on the opposite end of the room. When he took a seat facing his companion, he dropped out of view. Ari finished off the drink she’d been nursing and moved to the bar. The bartender saw her coming and moved to intercept her.
“Another Redhook, when you have a minute.”
He nodded and moved away. Ari rested her elbows on the bar and casually looked toward Zahn. He and the other man were deep in conversation. If she’d been in wolf form, she could have narrowed her focus and picked out their voices from the crowd. As it was, she had to rely on body language. The other man seemed agitated, but Zahn remained still and measured for their entire conversation. He cocked his head to the side, scanned the room, and kept his back straight against his chair. His legs were crossed with both fine-boned hands resting on his lap.
The bartender brought Ari another bottle and she thanked him. Zahn reached into his jacket and withdrew a manila envelope which had been folded lengthwise. He placed it on the table and made the other man lean forward to retrieve it. He opened it and peered inside.
Ari moved to the very end of the bar and looked at the posters framed on the wall. She was now close enough to overhear snippets of their conversation.
“—if you want. Can I tell my client you’ll cooperate?”
The other man put the envelope down and covered it with his hand, as if he was afraid someone might try to snatch it. He kept his eyes averted as he nodded to the question.
“Excellent.” Zahn pushed away from the table and stood up. “I trust my client won’t have to worry about seeing you again. And then you won’t have to worry about seeing me again.” He smiled and turned, walking out of the bar. Ari took some cash from her wallet and settled with the bartender, then moved to take the seat Zahn had just vacated. His companion was startled by her sudden arrival but couldn’t manage to articulate his surprise.
“Hi,” Ari said. “Just wanted to get off my feet for a second. Hopefully you don’t mind sharing your table with me.”
“Uh…” He looked around as if expecting a punchline.
Ari took a deep breath of Zahn’s scent. Lemon and sage over body wash, shampoo, and an underlying layer of body odor. She focused on his natural scent, the one thing he couldn’t change. It only took a few seconds for her to be sure she could pull the same smell out of a crowd.
“Okay. It was nice meeting you.”
He stared at her with utter confusion, which she ignored as she stood and walked out. Zahn had turned left out of the bar and was currently walking downhill on Olive. Ariadne gave him a head start before she followed. He turned on Howell, and disappeared after turning north again at the end of the street. He was well out of sight by the time Ari caught up with him, but his scent lingered long enough in the alley for Ari to know exactly where he had gone. She caught up with him at a parking lot, where he was leaning against the trunk of a car. At first she thought he was waiting for her, but he glanced up when she arrived and then went back to whatever he was doing on his phone. Ari continued on past him.
Before being bitten, she wouldn’t even have considered what she was about to do. The pain wouldn’t have been worth the potential reward. She ducked into a wooded alley and jumped a gate, crouched behind a dumpster, and quickly stripped out of her clothes. With any luck, she would be back before anyone happened by, but she still made sure everything was well-hidden. She dropped down and transformed, the brief flash of pain followed by a surge of pleasure as she slipped into her four-legged frame. She opened her jaw and snapped it shut, then darted out of the alley to make her way back to the parking lot.
Zahn was still waiting by the car when she arrived. He paid more attention to the wolf than he had when she was a woman, tracking her as she moved along the edge of the lot. She paused to sniff the grass and followed the faint aroma of food, acting as an ordinary dog would. That behavior included keeping a wary eye on the human in the vicinity.
“Hey there, pup,” Zahn said.
Ari looked at him, then continued her ruse of exploration.
Zahn lost interest in her when another car pulled up. He put his phone in his pocket and straightened his coat, his hands folded in front of him as the new arrival parked. A man in a suit stepped out and approached, but he stopped while he was still a few feet away from Zahn.
“Is it done?”
Zahn said, “I showed him the pictures. I told him what would happen if he kept bothering you. It’s as done as it’s going to be.”
“What if he doesn’t listen?”
Zahn shrugged. “Then we follow through with the ultimatum. Otherwise, what good is it?” He finally looked at the other man. “Threats only work if you mean them. If they’re hollow, then they’re just words. And in that case you might as well just say ‘pretty please.’ Threats are just language. They work if the recipient believes you intend to follow through. And I do.”
“Nasty business, Mr. Zahn.”
“So is what you’re covering up.”
The other man shifted uncomfortably, then reached into his jacket. He handed over an envelope, which Zahn deftly slipped into his own coat.
“Don’t look so sour, Markus. Imagine what it would have cost you in legal fees. You’re coming out miles ahead in the long run.”
“Sure. I just hope I never see your face again.”
Zahn grinned. The other man got into his car and pulled away. Zahn waited until he was gone before he pushed away from the car and walked to the driver’s side. He unlocked the door and got inside, leaving the door open as he took out his phone and made a note. Ari creeped closer, head low to the pavement. Zahn glanced over when her movement caught his attention. They locked eyes and he frowned slightly, tilting his head to one side.
“Hey, pup…”
Ari backed away and left the parking
lot. She watched him from out of sight, choosing a vantage where he couldn’t see her in the mirrors. He kept one foot on the pavement as he used his phone. She thought about the meeting in Wilcox’s report. Maybe the reason he didn’t list an office was because he worked out of his car. It would also explain why he spent so much money on gas. She memorized the license plate number, hoping it wasn’t a memory that would get lost when she shifted back.
“Mr. Lincoln,” Zahn said into his phone. “I hope you’ve had the opportunity to think about what we discussed.” He paused. “I’m sure you could get a fair amount more from the tabloids, but at what cost? You would have made an enemy for life. You will constantly be looking over your shoulder waiting for retribution. The stress alone would devastate you. What good is millions if you aren’t alive to enjoy it? My client is willing to pay you a reasonable amount of money given what he’s paying for is his own property. And, of course, your silence.”
Ari wondered if the client was Irwin, if he had Zahn running all around Seattle quieting anyone who tried to report him as a rapist.
“If you agree, the money will be wired to your account within the hour.” Another pause and then, exasperated, “Mr. Lincoln, you do realize we didn’t have to make a monetary offer at all. There are other methods we could have taken to ensure your silence. My client won’t allow your threat to linger indefinitely. When the time comes, this generous offer will be taken off the table and we will be forced to resort to other, less attractive solutions. Am I understood?”
Ari wondered why he’d gone directly to violence with Wilcox. If it was a blackmail attempt, money would have made it go away easy. Maybe Irwin hadn’t been willing to pay. Maybe he thought Wilcox was beneath him, or too untrustworthy to enter into that sort of arrangement. Offering him a bribe to keep silent was just more ammunition of wrongdoing that Wilcox could use against him. Bank transfers would leave a paper trail. Someone running for office wouldn’t want that. So it had to be a threat of physical violence.
“I’m glad we could come to an arrangement, Mr. Lincoln. I’ll confirm when the money has been transferred.”
He hung up and checked something on his phone. He made a note and put the phone down on the passenger seat. He looked around the parking lot again, and Ari got the distinct impression he was trying to spot her. She sank lower, her belly against the pavement, and wished the bush she was hiding behind was a bit fuller. Even as it was, he apparently didn’t see her. He pulled his foot into the car and shut the door. When the engine started, Ari crawled backward into the alley so he wouldn’t see her when he left the parking lot.
She waited five minutes before she left her hiding place and returned to the alley where she’d left her clothes. She transformed, grunting and gasping through the worst of the pain before she got dressed again. It was still thrilling to stand up straight after a transformation, to feel the burn but not suffer from it. She would have said she felt like a teenager again, but she hadn’t been this pain-free even when she was a teenager.
She took out her phone and, her fingers still shaking from the change, saved a note with Zahn’s license plate number. She didn’t know if it was damning evidence in any way, but she knew that personal info was like ammunition for Dale. She wanted to make sure she had as full a clip as possible. She slipped the phone back into her pocket, checked to make sure no one witnessed her transformation, and started back to the office.
Chapter Twenty-One
Diana was already dressed for bed in a police department T-shirt and sweats when Ari showed up at the house. Ari tried to dismiss herself and put the meeting off until morning, but Diana insisted on hearing what she had to say. Lucy said goodnight on her way to bed as Diana escorted Ari into the living room. Diana sighed and looked warily at her guest as she settled on the couch.
“I get the feeling I’m not going to like what I hear. Visits from a private investigator at nine-thirty is never a good thing.”
Ari took the chair across from Diana. “That’s not super-late, though. What kind of person goes to bed before ten o’clock?”
“One with a four am shift.”
“Oh. I really should go. This can wait.”
Diana snapped her fingers and pointed at the seat. “No! Sit! Stay.”
“Wow. How long have you been holding on to that?”
“Pretty much since I accepted the truth of what you told me. What’s going on?”
Ari sighed and rested her elbows on her knees. “I have a hypothetical for you.”
“Fun.”
“Yeah. Let’s say that there’s a video of someone in politics. It’s a very bad video on which a horrible crime is being committed. The person in the video was approached by the person who filmed it in an attempt to blackmail them. Instead, the person in the video hired someone to threaten the blackmailer. Not only that, he threatened everyone the blackmailer cared about. He promised that the person in the video would be able to seek revenge even after being arrested. The blackmailer was scared enough of this threat that he—”
“He killed himself.”
Ari said, “Good detectiving.”
“So the blackmailer was Clark Wilcox. Who was on the video?”
Ari shook her head. “I won’t say. The problem is, the video is now in the hands of another detective.”
“You.”
“A beautiful and brilliant detective who shall remain nameless.”
Diana said, “You’re worried that the same thing will happen to you. If you turn in the video, the criminal it takes down will focus on you and Dale.”
Ari said, “Or if I turn it in to the police, he might take it out on the detective who makes the arrest and any loved ones she might have.” She glanced toward the back of the house where Lucy had disappeared. “It’s poison, Diana. Yes, it will take down a very bad man who deserves to go to prison, but it also puts whoever uses it in danger.”
“Give me the video, Ari.”
“No.”
“Ariadne, this isn’t a game. If a crime was committed…”
Ari said, “I have to make sure the damage is restricted to the person who deserves it. I need you to help me do that.”
Diana said, “Okay. Absolutely. Give me the video.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t. It’s evidence in a crime. You have a duty to hand it over to the proper authorities. You didn’t come here for advice. You came here because you knew it was the right thing to do. Give me the video and let me handle it. Then go home with Dale. Your name will stay out of it. Whoever you’re scared of won’t even know you were involved.”
“I wish that was true, Diana, I really do. And if that’s your advice, then I’m sorry I kept you away from bed for nothing.” She stood up.
Diana stood as well. “I could take you into custody.”
“For what? A hypothetical situation?”
“We both know damn well—”
Ari stopped her and put her hands on Diana’s shoulders. “Do you trust me?”
Diana sighed. “I do.”
“Then trust me when I say that the man we’re talking about is powerful. He’s dangerous. I’m protecting everyone by keeping the video right now. When I know how I can use it without hurting anyone I love, then I absolutely will.”
“Protect and serve,” Diana said. “It’s right there in my job description.”
“I know. And I’m helping you protect the one citizen of Seattle that counts. Go take care of her.”
Diana said, “The second you need help—”
“You’ll be the second call I make. After Dale.”
“I guess that’s fair. Be careful, Ariadne.”
Ari nodded and let herself be escorted to the door.
On the porch, Diana said, “Can I at least ask who this big and powerful boogieman is?”
“Probably better if you don’t know.” She looked out over the neighborhood. “This is a great place you found for yourselves, Di. It’s hard to believe you’re
that same beat cop who used to pick me up for trespassing and public nudity.”
Diana grinned. “You could’ve just told me the truth.”
“That I was half-naked because I’d just transformed back from being a wolf? How long would it have taken you to commit me for a psych evaluation?”
Diana laughed and rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand. “You have a point. I’m glad you told me, though. You’ve come a long way, too. Dale Frye is an excellent influence on you.”
“Yeah. I think I’ll keep her around.”
“That’s not how it works. You have to convince her to keep you around.”
“Oh, is that the secret?”
“That’s it.” She bumped Ari’s arm. “If you and Dale don’t have plans for Christmas, we’d love to have you again.”
Ari said, “Christmas. Right. That’s coming up. Well, I’m Wiccan and Dale is Jewish—”
“Lucy is agnostic,” Diana said. “It doesn’t have to be about the birth of anyone. It can just be friends getting together and appreciating one another.”
Ari chuckled. “I was going to say, we still do something every year. And I’m sure Dale would say we’d be happy to come, so… we’d be happy to come.”
“It’s good that she keeps you on a short leash.”
“Oh, geez. How many more dog jokes will I have to deal with?”
Diana shrugged. “I don’t know. Seven for every normal joke?”
Ari laughed. “Go get in bed with your wife, detective.”
She left the townhouse, resisting the urge to look back at the domestic bliss as she returned to her car. She drove home and found Dale sitting at the dinner table with Wilcox’s iPad. She had the cover folded so it was standing up in front of her, and she was frowning down at the screen.
“What are you doing?”
Dale said, “Just looking at this drug dealer guy. Didn’t Murphy say that the drug dealer was the one who told them where to find Wilcox’s secretary? So where does he fit in?”
Ari shook her head. “He doesn’t. He’s just an extra piece, someone who I guess gets a free pass from all of this.” She moved behind Dale’s seat and put an arm around her shoulder. “Come on. I want to take a shower and you’re good at getting my hard-to-reach places.”
