Page 54 of A Wolf After My Own Heart
“She’s got a secret stash in my basement where she keeps a couple of things.”
“Which you know about because…”
Because I used to be ten and on the run.“Because why wouldn’t she? Don’t look at me like I’m a weirdo. Everybody builds blanket nests and keeps secret stashes in the basements of strangers they only met three days ago.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Macropi mused, then turned to look as Sally pounded up the stairs and reappeared with a folded sheet of paper, which she handed to Lila.
“Oh. Thanks. Gosh, I’m so nervous! And the winner is…” She unfolded the thing and took a look, then handed it to Oz.
“Huh. These are instructions on how to get an outside line to make long distance calls on the IPA WATS line.Reallyclear instructions. The kind a child could follow. And they’re in Caro’s handwriting.” He looked up. “And I’m betting that Dev, who treats the IPA offices like his own personal vacation home, tracked you down there once I dropped you off and gave ’em to you. So you were able to return your dad’s call and get your marching orders without anyone noticing because wereallyneed to hire more staff.”
“And install a more complex phone system,” Lila added, trying not to smirk.
Garsea was making an odd noise, and it took Lila a few seconds to realize the woman was grinding her teeth. “Oh, you troublesome cubs…” This was growled at two empty chairs, as Dev and Caro had slipped away a few minutes earlier.
“Annnnnd of course they’re gone,” Lila observed. “On the upside, mystery solved. Well. One mystery. Jesus, Garsea, you’re gonna crack a molar.”
5. REDRUM.
Chapter 21
She’d noticed Caro and Dev leaving, of course, but hadn’t made a point of calling it out. It was, after all, IPA business, and the werewolf and werefox were minors with no official role. In fact, “no official role” should be their official motto. And did she really just thinkwerewolf and werefoxlike it was an ordinary day? Like this was her life now?
Well. It apparentlywasan ordinary day. At least in this neighborhood. As to whether it would be her life, who knew?
“Later for them,” Garsea vowed. “Mighty will be my wrath!”
“Don’t worry,” Lila soothed. “You don’t sound like a cartoon villain at all.”
“Okay, so the wretches are colluding, fine, we should have realized. And it would seem there’s now a good chance Sam and Sue Smalls are alive.”
“Oh my God.” Lila rubbed her head. “Sam and Sue Smalls named their baby Sally? I bet they thought it’d be cute. I bet they thought it would be downright adorable. And I bet they were sorry about a month in.”
“We’ll deal with the cubs later. Right now, we need to reach Sam Smalls—or the person impersonating him. And we must ‘watch out for Maggie’ as well.” Garsea was pacing back and forth from the living room (where Sally had retreated after giving up the older kids) to the kitchen. “And the first step toward any of it would be—oh.” Garsea stopped, went to the front door, let in a firefighter before he could knock. “Hello, we’re all in the kitchen. Mostly.”
“Yep,” Lila said. “Here we all are. In my kitchen. Mostly.”
The firefighter, who had been trudging behind Garsea, straightened up when he saw Lila. He was a bullish man of about six feet who looked even bulkier in his heavy coat and boots. He had bushy, short dark hair and chocolate-brown eyes, with shoulders he could probably use to hold up the Hollywood Sign, and his head was a block. He smelled like smoke and sweat and smoke, and there was a long silence while he looked her up and down, nostrils flaring, forehead furrowing, finally coming out with “…huh.” Then he turned to Macropi. “Definitely on purpose.”
“Well, hell, Benny,” she sighed. “That’s nothing I wanted to hear.”
“Accelerant was avgas.”
“You know that already?” Lila asked. “Your lab must be humming twenty-four-seven. That wassofast.”
She got another long stare, followed by a laconic “Lab’ll hopefully narrow it down.”
The lab, your preternatural senses, toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe. Is it me or does this guy look like a great big chocolate lab?
Oz spoke up. “I’m just gonna ask. What the hell is avgas?”
Benny blinked mournful smoke-reddened eyes. “Aviation fuel.”
“That’s unusual, right?” Oz replied. “It’s not like people keep a can or two of aviation fuel in their garages.”
“Not this time of year,” Lila deadpanned.
“I’ll talk to the chief, get more info. Insurance guys’re gonna be poking around later this morning. Cops’ll be looking, too.”
