by Renee George
“Dang, you really are old. When did you get that dinosaur? You trying to party like it’s nineteen ninety-nine?”
“Ha ha. I got this back in two-thousand and ten, and it’s never given me any trouble. It’s reliable and, unlike your phone, virtually indestructible. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped this thing, and it will still make crystal-clear calls.”
He had a point. People with glass screens should not throw stones. “Oh, just give me old reliable.” I flipped it open.
“She’s speed-dial one,” Buzz said.
“That’s so sweet.” I grinned, pushed the asterisk and then the one. The phone rang after a brief pause.
On the second ring, Nadine picked up. “I can’t talk now, babe. I’m in a world of crap at work right now.”
“I’m sorry, babe,” I said. “I think it might be my fault.”
“I thought you were Buzz. I’m at the Doyle house right now with the crime scene techs.”
“Is the sheriff still there?”
“He stayed long enough to chew me a second a-hole.”
“I feel awful about that,” I said.
“Oh, don’t. It’s not like he can fire me because we’re friends.” She didn’t add, “even if he wanted to,” but she didn’t need to say it. It was evident the sheriff had a major problem with me.
“Did you find anything in the house?”
“Nothing that we didn’t expect. It looks like a straightforward accident. He slipped on some cooking oil, hit his head on the corner of his center island, and that was that.”
The scenario seemed plausible, only… “Where’s the oil bottle? I didn’t see it when I was in there.”
“I… I’m not sure.” She paused, but I could hear the slow inhalation and exhalation of breath. “It’s in the cabinet.”
“Does it make sense to you that he would spill oil on the ground then put the bottle away before he cleaned it up? And what was he using the oil for? It just doesn’t feel…authentic.” I let the thought hang there.
“I’ll keep looking here,” Nadine said. “I don’t expect to find anything, but I’ve learned not to ignore your instincts. But just for clarification, what do you think happened?”
“I’ve got no big theories.”
“I’ll take a small one. Give it up, Lils.”
I sighed. “Doesn’t the house seem a little neat to you? Everything in its place. He lives out on a gravel road, and I didn’t see a speck of dust, and considering he’s been dead for at least a week…”
“You think someone came in and cleaned up?”
“No. Maybe. The way his items were placed around the house, I get the feeling the guy was pretty OCD.”
“Yeah, I can see that being his thing. It is weirdly neat in here.”
“Check his office. It wasn’t nearly as pristine as the areas where a guest might frequent. Except for the cup in the sink.”
I could hear the light tread of her footsteps. “The cup is washed. That doesn’t seem that unusual.”
“If this guy is an ‘everything has its place and everything in its place’ kind of guy, why would he leave a washed cup in the sink? Doesn’t it seem more likely he would have put it away?”
“Hmmm. Maybe.” In the background, I heard a man call for Nadine. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ll call you later.” She hung up before I could tell her that I didn’t have a working phone.
Buzz had been cooking during my conversation with Nadine, but I knew he’d overheard the entire conversation. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into staying out of this, whatever it turns out to be?”
“Sure,” I said. “You can always give it a go.” It wouldn’t take much to keep me out of it. I’d moved to Moonrise to get away from death and mayhem, but it seemed to follow me around like a stalker.
He chuckled and gave me a curious look. “Are you okay?”
“As opposed to…?”
“Not okay?” He shrugged. “You’ve been kind of mopey since all that trouble happened in March.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
His expression softened around his eyes. “I know I was rough on you after it all went down, but I really do understand. If someone was attacking Nadine, I might do the same.”
“I still don’t want to talk about it.” It was nice to know he did care enough about Nadine to risk exposure. Really, I wished he’d tell her the truth about us. More for selfish reasons than anything romantic. I hated lying to my friend. However, telling her would expose Buzz too. I would never do that to him.
The aroma of smoke gave me the perfect diversion. I pointed to the grill. “I think something’s burning.”
Chapter 7
I drove straight home from the diner. I parked in front of the small white trailer next to my house. The trailer was my actual home right now. My two-story farmhouse, a work in progress, sat on ten acres of wooded land. It was going to be early fall before the house would be livable, especially since I was on a budget. The reward for finding the bank’s stolen money had paid off the mortgage, which suited me fine, but there wasn’t anything left over for actual repairs.
The best part of owning my own forest was the thick tree cover that gave Smooshie and me ample privacy to stretch our furry legs. Out here in the middle of nowhere, I could change into my cougar form and explore every inch of the back property with my pretty pittie.
In the morning, I’d head to Walmart for a new cell phone, but tonight, I wanted to run. Smooshie leaped out of the truck when I opened the passenger door. She turned around, her tail stirring the air as she playfully barked a sort of “roo roo roo rooo.” My big girl had a way of sensing when I planned an evening dressed in fur, claws, and sharp teeth.
Smooshie always got excited when I started to undress, even when a nightly run wasn’t in the plan. I’d had to take to changing for work or a night out behind closed doors so she wouldn’t put herself in a happy frenzy. Besides, I couldn’t take the disappointment in her eyes during those times when she would realize we weren’t going for a run. Tonight, however, my girl would get to really stretch her legs.
Finding the body, running into Naomi, her intimations that her and Parker had sex, all of it made my skin itch. I yanked my T-shirt over my head as Smooshie followed me to the trailer. I took off my bra next. At the steps, I opened the door, unzipped my ankle boots, and chucked them inside, along with my other discarded clothes. Smoosh trotted around, prancing with energy.
When I shimmied out of my pants and undies, I gave Smooshie a big smile. “Time to run, baby girl.”
My cougar prowled around inside me. She was almost as excited as the pit bull. I willed her to the surface, embracing the warmth of fur as it sprouted along my skin. The bones in my body cracked and reshaped until I transformed into my animal form. It took mere seconds and, as always, felt like unmitigated bliss. I loved the feel of my claws gripping the grass as we ran into the woods. I found my favorite tree, a great oak with thick branches the size of Parker’s thighs that I could climb up on and perch.
From my roost, I saw headlights coming up the road. I recognized the sound of the engine and the crunch of the heavy tires rolling over the gravel. It was Parker’s dually pickup. I jumped down from the tree, landing on the grass with the light ease of my kind. I didn’t want to see Parker right now, not after my run-in with Naomi at The Cat’s Meow. That woman certainly knew how to push my buttons.
The truck pulled up to the trailer. The engine stopped before the headlamps went out. I wanted to run away. It wasn’t exactly a mature way to behave, but it was better than my first impulse, which was to go all crazy cougar on his butt. I didn’t have the right to hold his past intimacies against him, but Naomi Wells?
I tried not to dwell on the fact that I was the one who had encouraged him to go out with her in the first place.
When Parker got out of the truck, I hid behind a tree. I know, really mature. I wasn’t sure if seeing me in my cougar form would freak hi
m out more, especially since we hadn’t really talked about it since the first time. You know, when I went all Rick Grimes and bit a man’s throat out. I shook my head. Damn Uncle Buzz for getting me hooked on The Walking Dead. I’d marathoned all of the early seasons in less than a month.
Changing into human form didn’t seem like a good option either. I mean, I didn’t relish the idea of trotting up to the trailer completely naked to greet him. Smooshie sat down next to me, her tail whacking slowly against my hind quarter as she whined. I guess she couldn’t understand why we weren’t happy to see Parker. I hissed through my fangs and rubbed my shoulder against the dog. She needed to keep quiet. I didn’t want Parker to know I was out here.
The trailer porch light, the one near the front door, illuminated Parker as he knocked. “Lily?” I heard him ask. He knocked again then stepped off the bottom stair.
Goddess, why did that man have to look so good? What could I possibly say to him right now that wouldn’t screw things up between us? He’d finally made the first move, and I worried that if he saw me in werecougar form again, it would freak him out, and he’d never want anything to do with me again.
So, since I wasn’t ready to push my Shifter luck with Parker, I made like a scaredy-cougar and ran to the back of the property with Smooshie hot on my heels. She barked at our spirited run. If I’d been capable of a fully-furred wince, I would have. There was no way Parker hadn’t heard her. So much for a stealthy getaway.
Once we made it to the edge of my woods, I knew Donnie Doyle’s house was only a couple miles up the road. Investigating on my own was such a bad idea, but it gave me a legitimate reason to avoid my personal drama.
I heard my name bellowed in the distance. Parker was searching for me, but I didn’t want to be found. Stretching my strides to increase my speed, Smooshie by my side, we made our way to the Doyle property. I approached cautiously, making sure there wasn’t any police or any other human presence around. The house was dark. I didn’t see a single light on, and there were no cars or other vehicles in the driveway.
Inhaling deeply, I tasted the air. The earlier acrid smell of death had faded. Smooshie, who was easily distracted, shoved her nose into a nearby clump of grass. More than likely she caught the scent of a mole or a raccoon. Doyle’s rental sat on a wide-open plot. He had two trees, a knotty redbud on the side of the house and a large silver maple in the backyard.
I tried to catch the scent of something that wasn’t a small critter but couldn’t detect any human activity other than what the police and crime scene technicians might’ve left behind. It was stupid to think that after all this time, and with as many people who had been traipsing in and out of the house since I’d called 9-1-1, that I might find some important clue. If there was even a clue to be found.
I scouted the perimeter of the house until I reached the office window. I could still hear the whir of Doyle’s computer. I guess no one had turned off the electricity. Did the police arrange for things like that after someone died? Or was it left to the next of kin or whoever ended up with the place?
I raised up on my hindquarters and put my paws on the window ledge to look inside. A red light flashed on the computer tower. I really wanted to break in and look at what could be making that fan work overtime. I pressed my nose to the pane and caught a faint whiff of cleaner. It smelled like something that would be used in an institution, like a hospital or nursing home, not in someone’s home. He kept his house immaculate, which meant a guy like him might get his cleaner from an industrial source. I padded to the next window and stretched myself up to look in.
The moonlight streaming in from behind me twinkled off something shiny just under the end corner of the bed. I pushed against the glass to get a closer look—but the roar of a dually truck engine made me yikes. Well, not exactly a yikes, but as close as I could approximate in my current body. Parker.
I took off running into the back field, but my traitorous pit bull ran in the opposite direction. Her happy barking alerted me to the fact that she wasn’t following me. Grr.
The engine shut off, and a truck door slammed shut.
“Lily!” Parker shouted. “If you want your dog back, you’ll show yourself.”
Great. No way in Samhain was I shifting back to human. Even so, I wouldn’t run—I mean, I wouldn’t run again—like a coward. I loped back to Doyle’s house with my tail literally between my legs.
By the time I got around to the front, Smooshie, the turncoat, was already in the front seat of his truck next to Elvis, her head out the window, ears perked and tongue hanging three inches past her chin. The giant gray behemoth next to her had a stoic expression of tolerance. Poor Elvis.
I growled.
Smoosh’s ears flattened guiltily, but her tongue remained visible. I shook my head. It was a good thing my pittie was adorable.
“Lily?”
I turned my head. Parker was standing about ten feet away, his eyes wide and his shoulders tightly bunched. I hissed. Why did he have to come looking for me?
“Is that really you?”
Yeah, it’s really me. I hissed again.
Parker raised his hands. A move to show the animal he wasn’t a threat. Gah!
He took a step toward me. My hackles rose reflexively as I took a step back.
“How much of what I’m saying can you understand? Do you know who I am? I won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice soft and soothing. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Too late. I worked on breathing through my irritation. I gave Parker a pointed look then walked to the back of his truck and jumped in the bed.
“What are you doing?” Parker asked.
Isn’t it obvious? I flopped down, regretting my choice when the metal riffles bit into my legs. I snarled at the smell of lawn mower gasoline coming off the push mower he had strapped down near the front of the bed and waited for him to take me home.
Chapter 8
When we arrived at the trailer, Parker opened my front door for me, and I growled when he tried to come inside. A few minutes later, I opened the door for him in my human form, wearing a pink fuzzy robe instead of tawny fur. Parker went back to the truck and opened the door for our companions.
“You okay?” he asked. The moonlight made his blue eyes look almost black. The steps squeaked under both dogs’ weight as they preceded Parker inside.
“Why are you here, Parker?” I shoved my shaking hands into the robe pockets.
“You’re so beautiful, Lils.”
“That’s not an answer.” I crossed my arms. I didn’t want to be mad at him, especially over something that wasn’t his fault, but I couldn’t get Naomi’s smug face out of my head. My dad always said, “Werecougars have a long memory.” He wasn’t kidding. Mine is practically photogenic, and once an image has solidified, it’s pretty much there to stay. “Is that why you drove all the way out here? To tell me how beautiful I am?”
He shook his head and gave me a small smile. “I heard you found another body.”
I raised a brow. “It’s not like I’m a magnet.”
“I think there’s a certain sheriff who might disagree.”
I chuckled because I couldn’t help myself. I was acting like a brat, and I knew it. I didn’t usually wallow in self-pity, so I tightened my proverbial bootstraps and decided to be mature about Parker having a past social life. I dropped my hands to my sides. “Well, since you’re here. You might as well come in. I might have a soda in the fridge. I have a new pack of bully sticks to keep Elvis and Smoosh busy for a bit, as well.”
“Are these bully sticks made from elephant penises because I can’t see anything less keeping those two busy for any amount of time.”
I laughed. “I said a bit. How long are you planning on staying?”
“As long as you’ll let me.”
My skin shivered with pleasure. “That sounds nice.”
Parker said, “Did you understand me when I found you at Doyle’s?”
I’d anticipated this
question. “Yes, I understood every word you were saying to me.”
“Then why didn’t you…” he made a wavy gesture with his hand, “…you know.”
“Uhm, my clothing doesn’t change with me.” Duh.
“Oh.” Parker’s ears reddened. “I’m… I’m not.” He shook his head and sat down on the couch. “I’d almost convinced myself you being what you are was all in my head.”
“Seriously?” I mean, I’d let him touch my fur. It didn’t get more real than in-your- face skin-shifting.
He gave me a sheepish look. “Not really. I don’t know. It’s a lot to take in.” He paused, but I didn’t leap in to fill the space. Whatever Parker wanted to say, I was going to let him. After a few seconds, he said, “Does it hurt when you become the cat?”
“Cougar,” I corrected. “Or mountain lion. I guess that’s the more common name in these parts.”
“Okay. Cougar,” he repeated. “So, does it hurt you?”
“No,” I replied honestly. “Just the opposite. It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.” Oh, my God. This was happening. We were finally having the conversation. My stomach grew jittery as my nerves threatened to overtake my courage, but I was determined to tell him the absolute truth, no matter what he asked.
“Where you come from, are there more of you?” He shook his head. “I mean more like you?”
I smiled. “A whole town of more like me. Not all werecougars, of course.” I thought of my BFF Hazel Kinsey. “And not all Shifters either.”
“What do you mean?”
Shoot. I didn’t have a right to out witches as well as Shifters, but I didn’t want to lie to Parker, not even by omission. “The town is half witches and half Shifters. My best friend from back home is a witch.”
“A witch?” He rubbed his hand over his face. “You mean like a dance-naked-in-the-moonlight-around-a-campfire witch?”
