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“What if he didn’t?”
“I’m an excellent judge of character, Marcy. He’s the classic ‘Work Hard, Play Harder’ type. Absolutely he would, bet he’d even reciprocate your kindness. Don’t stand there with a straight face and tell me you wouldn’t appreciate a sneak peek.”
“He’ll be here any minute,” I said, thoroughly regretting my last ‘peek.’ It’d be a while before the sound and feel of flesh squishing between my toes faded into distant memory.
“Next time,” Lisa replied.
“If there is a next time,” I muttered, confident but increasingly anxious in my ability to remain on both Calico’s and Caelan’s good sides. Figuring out what the hell to do when I didn’t know who to trust or what was happening made my overwhelmed heart race as though I’d been shoved back beneath the bed as Grandpa’s nails dug into Rhetta’s thigh.
Shuddering, I flipped the scar on my palm against the clawed railing. I wasn’t going to panic. Finger by finger I would relax my death grip on the railing to the count of ten and—
Headlights turned up our road. I felt overprepared, underprepared, and frazzled, so much so that when I jumped and swore Lisa was ready to call, well, the sheriff. I almost darted inside before realizing he’d have seen me hanging off the porch so I may as well linger and pretend to be a cool, relaxed young lady taking in spring’s twilight.
“Gotta go. Give Samson and Igor all the snuggles. Love you, thank you, talk to you later.”
The sheriff’s truck pulled behind my car. As the man retrieved pizza from the passenger seat, for some reason all I could think was I wished I was tanner. I'd been wintering in long sleeves.
I should've ironed a goddamn sweater.
“'Evening, sheriff,” I said, masking my pasty goosebumps against the rail.
“Miss Davins." Caelan stopped at the base of the stairs and gave me a brief once-over. “You make that dress real pretty.”
“Thank you.”
I’d checked the mirror a hundred times. I knew I looked a fox tonight like I knew to play coy, innocent and flattered to drop his hackles. But when Caelan complimented my dress, my smile was genuine and my veins were flooded with a rush of stupid, giddy adrenaline.
He joined me on the porch. Whereas I’d overdone my wardrobe, his was relaxed. Jeans, dress shirt untucked, sleeves rolled past the serpentine tattoo. Overall comfortable attire; though after my current run of luck, I’d bet good money this was a concealed carry outing.
When he was close, he tapped the cardboard box and asked, “You're fixin’ to eat pizza wearing that?”
I snapped apart the magnets and held a flimsy panel open. “I’m certainly not eating it naked.”
He ducked through. I caught a whiff of cologne, woodsy and sharp. “Should you change your mind, I might could be convinced to sit still a while instead of rushing off to tend to an unexpected basement flood.”
“Oh, yeah? What time was the pipe bursting?”
“Depends on what you do, Marcy.” He elbowed me and grinned. “Reckon my imaginary housemate will call about eight. I bumped an interview to nine this evening.”
The magnets crinkled together behind us. With some teasing about a certain bad date, he helped set the plywood in place for the night, then it was off to the kitchen.
My kitchen table had a strategic mess sprawled across it. I’d pulled every folder Gram had left in her filing cabinet, all the paperwork and documents she hadn’t destroyed or couldn’t. It’d been years since I’d rifled through them in search of death certificates. I hadn’t paid attention to the records since. School and work were taxing, Gram was dying, and the majority were forgeries related to our Connecticut lives.
Left in the kitchen were documents of no particular danger to prying eyes. However, in a manila envelope she must’ve inserted prior to our final journey to the hospital, there were a few additional, as yet unstudied documents. Until I could examine them, I stashed those in the dining room hutch underneath table cloths which hadn’t experienced a holiday party in years.
Catching sight of the tabletop disaster, the sheriff slowed and set the pizza on the counter. “Mining for silver?”
“My grandmother kept a revolver loaded for werewolves. What other secrets has she buried?” Like a Nazi ring and perhaps the reason I wasn't exhibiting werewolf tendencies. “Feel free to grab a shovel—not from my shed, please.”
He picked up car insurance papers as I rummaged through a bottom cabinet for paper plates. “You sure you want me digging?”
“This is a working dinner,” I reminded him. “Besides, haven’t you already started?”
He smiled. “Indeed, Miss Davins. What’ve you learned?”
“So far I’ve found an incorrect spelling of her maiden name on immigration paperwork, but nothing supernatural. Excluding her doll collection, of course, but if they’re related to this mess, I’m lacking the ability to—”
“I’ve read the reports. There were no Otherworld sellers involved. The only confiscated doll in the collection had human remains. Whatever stories came with the dolls were just that. I’ve wondered if you might be targeted based on your grandmother’s apparent pack connection rather than as a random witness. Cast a few lines, but no bites yet.” He paused as if allowing me a chance to nibble. “Mrs. Finn told me your grandmother maintained an ongoing relationship with Talon in some capacity. Evidently your involvement was to be kept to an absolute minimum, which they honored.”
