Page 50 of Handcuffed to the Bear

They began the arduous climb down in shifted form, but had to shift out of their animal forms frequently, so they could use their human hands and dexterous toes to clamber across the scarier places.

Fog still draped the mountainside, and they often had no more than a few feet of visibility as they passed through bands of it. In a way it was merciful: it kept them from being able to see how far they had to fall if they lost their grip on the slippery rocks.

It was cold down here on the shadowy side of the hills. There were patches of blue sky overhead, but the sun was lost to them again, the rainbow having gently shimmered away to nothing after placing its tacit blessing on their plans.

The sun is setting,Casey thought.That must be the west over there.

They’d been out here for almost a whole day. Soon it would be night again. Lions were day hunters, Jack had said, but after they’d fought and bested two of them, Casey was pretty sure the Fallons wouldn’t be observing any such niceties.

In evening’s lengthening shadows, they paused to rest once they’d entered the trees. Jack was currently in bear form, and didn’t bother shifting back; he just slumped into a bulky heap of fur, eyes closed.

He’d been limping badly, but there was nothing Casey could do. Besides, she was a mess herself. Shifting back to human shape, she stretched her sore limbs and studied the pink, healing lines of the cuts and scrapes on the lower part of her legs. Her feet were bruised and swollen. The small amount that she’d managed to eat in the cave was gone as if it had never been, leaving her stomach hollow as a beach ball.

On top of everything, having to shift repeatedly to navigate the slope had worn down what little energy the two of them had left.

At least they weren’t thirsty. There were innumerable little streamlets coursing down the steep side of the mountain, as well as hundreds of puddles trapped on the tops of rocks. They’d been able to drink their fill, and Jack had encouraged it. The water helped fill their empty stomachs.

Maybe I should hunt,Casey thought. But taking the time, with pursuers on their trail, seemed like the height of folly.

Besides, that would involve getting up.

Instead she flopped on her back and gazed up at the sky. It was a crazyquilt of clouds and deep blue patches, stained now with traces of sunset’s colors. Throughout their descent, small rain squalls had continued to sweep across them from time to time. They would have been sodden anyway, though. All the foliage was dripping and bent under a load of water it was happy to shed on fur, hair, or skin.

The last Saturday she’d ever spent with Wendy was a day like this, fresh and brisk and wet, with clouds and patches of impossibly vivid blue chasing each other across the sky. They’d gone to Pike’s Market, carrying umbrellas to ward off the inevitable showers, then tempted fate and had a picnic in a park on the waterfront.

Casey hadn’t enjoyed any of it much. She was stressed and overwhelmed by her job, and frustrated that her life had started to feel like she was spinning her wheels in neutral. Wendy encouraged her to try a class or two at the University of Washington—U-Dub to locals.

“But I don’t know what to study,” she’d wailed to her friend. “I don’t have any talents. There’s nothing special about me. I’m twenty-five and I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.”

“That just means you have all the options in the world,” Wendy had said. She leaned back on the park bench, the breeze tugging at her short hair. There was a green stripe dyed down the side, the same rich jewel green as the trees. “See, I’ve always been good at computers, and now I have a job writing software for them. I always figured I’d do something like that as a career, and I was right. So I never really tried anything else. But you haven’t found what you’re good at yet. So you get to tryeverything.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Casey said, unwilling to be cajoled out of her misery. “For one thing, I’ve got to make money somehow while I’m off finding myself or whatever. Which means I can look forward to more shit jobs like this one. Besides, what if I’m not good atanything?”

“Now that’s a defeatist attitude if I ever heard one.”

“Come on, Wen. I can’t Pollyanna my way out of this. You must have known computers were the thing for you, right? Like, it clicked or something. I don’t have anything like that. I’veneverhad anything like that.”

Wendy wrinkled her nose in the way she had of laughing without actually laughing. “Have you heard the expression ‘the perfect is the enemy of the good’? Ilikewriting software, and I’m pretty good at it, but I don’t think I’d call it a passion. Not everybody has a calling, and that’s okay. You might never have a job that feels like you were born to do it, but you can sure as hell find something more satisfying and fulfilling than feeding overpriced burgers to stingy-tipping yuppies. Take a class. You might like it.”

“I don’t know. I’m so tired at the end of the day. The last thing I need ismorework. And work I’m doing for free, on top of everything.”

Wendy leaned forward, suddenly serious. “Look, Casey, I want you to promise me you’ll at least go online and look through the U-Dub’s catalog and find some classes that look fun. You don’t even have to sign up. Just write them down. The more frivolous the better, honestly. Find something that looks fun or cool or exciting. There are careers in literallyeverything. Didn’t you say one time that you wanted to learn Spanish? There’s jobs everywhere for translators and ESL teachers. You could learn to paint, or take a first-aid class, or try women’s studies.”

“Oh yeah, I bet there’sloadsof jobs for that.”

“See? This is what I’m saying. You decide something won’t work out before you even try it, and then you never try.”

“I don’t do that,” Casey protested, and then hesitated. “Do I?”

Wendy slung an arm around Casey’s shoulders. She smelled like peach shampoo. “Just do it as a favor for me, okay? Go online and find some fun-looking classes. You can show them to me and we can talk about it. Maybe we’ll take one together. I think that sounds like a blast.”

But, of course, it had never happened. Wendy had disappeared, and Casey had taken classes, all right: classes in Microsoft Word, classes in accounting, a self-guided crash course in skip tracing. She’d finally found a passion, and as it turned out, the passion was pursuing Wendy’s killer.

I think I found out what I’m good at, Wendy. I’m a pretty good spy.

Except, no. She wasn’t a good spy, because she’d ended up getting caught. Or maybe she was just stupidly unlucky. But of all the things she’d ever thought about doing, the one she’d eventually thrown herself into, body and soul, was spying on her boss.

Wendy would probably have found that hilarious.

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