Flesh and Blood Read online

  ***

  “Mel, it’s for you.”

  “Hmm?” I hummed through my snout, looking up to find Sarah holding the phone out. As I pushed myself up, Lorelai let out a fierce growl, flung herself at my head, and got a muzzle full of my ear. I slipped, thrown off balance by her weight as she plummeted back down to her rump. I growled lightly, more frustrated I hadn’t seen the attack coming than at her brazen nature.

  “Lor,” Sarah said mildly, but Lorelai ignored her, grinding my ear between her teeth, scrambling to get to her feet to give herself the balance she needed to regain control as I pushed up. Idly, I bumped a paw into her tiny shoulder, yanked my ear free, and got to my feet, bounding over the pile of pups. Sarah stepped back to avoid my clumsy landing, and waited patiently as I slipped out of my wolf form.

  “This is Mel,” I said, pressing the phone to my ear.

  “Hi, it’s—you probably don’t remember me, since it’s been so long, but it’s Roxanne.” The lady on the other end of the phone was right, I didn’t remember her.

  I lied anyway. “No, sure, I remember you. How’ve you been?”

  “I can’t believe it!” She laughed softly and I heard shuffling on her end, like papers or folders being flipped. “It’s been twenty years. I’ve been pretty good, actually. Got married, had a few kids. One’s actually going to high school next year, if you can believe it. Not Madison, though.”

  Ah, there it was. Madison High, the scene of every humiliating teenage memory that played on a loop in my brain. It was probably self-preservation alone that had kept Roxanne’s name buried until that moment.

  “I can’t believe it. I refuse,” I said with a wistful sigh as I stepped into the spare room I was using for my stay. “That means we’re in our mid-thirties and I don’t know if I can cope with that.”

  Roxanne giggled and it jabbed at my heart, swamped me in embarrassment, and brought me back to a moment in eleventh grade when I’d overheard her laughing at someone for suggesting I had a crush on her. She hadn’t meant to be cruel, but it had been another bad time in my life. I cleared my throat, vowing not to let the other repressed feelings I’d been tamping down since my arrival swell up to suffocate me.

  “Okay, we can both live in blissful ignorance and pretend we’re still care-free in our twenties. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I said.

  “So, uh, I’m calling because I’m hoping you can help me. Sarah said you’re a Private Investigator. I didn’t actually think that was a thing, honestly.”

  “You don’t believe in gumshoes?”

  “Well, I didn’t really think you were like a fairy or something, I guess I just always figured it was only something that existed in movies.”

  She wasn’t being derogatory or questioning my sexuality. The world at large really has no idea werewolves and other fae creatures exist. It’s better that way, trust me. No hapless human needs to be worrying about running into a demon or succubus on a daily basis. It would ruin their fragile lives. It had certainly fractured mine.

  “I gotcha. Well, I do exist and I’m incredible. What did you need help with? Husband cheating?”

  “Oh god no,” she said, making it clear she was still as beautiful as she’d been in high school. No insecure woman is that certain her husband isn’t staying out late looking for strange. “It’s not about him, actually it’s about me.”

  “Husband worrying you’re cheating?”

  “No one’s cheating,” she said, her tone scolding. “I did something bad when I was young and someone contacted me recently and threatened to expose me.”

  “You killed a man just to watch him die?”

  “Not a man, and not to watch ‘em die. I um…” I could hear her bite her lip, the action making air wheeze past her teeth as she took a deep breath. “I was seventeen and I got stoned and kind of… did donuts on my mother-in-law’s lawn. Ruined her prize roses.”

  “People still have prize roses these days?” I asked, before shaking my head. “No, scratch that. Better question: You were married at seventeen?”

  “No, no.” She laughed. “She’s my mother-in-law now, but she wasn’t then. Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” I repeated. “So, you’re scared hubby will file for divorce if he finds out you eighty-sixed his mother’s prize poppies?”

  “Roses,” she corrected.

  “Yeah, but prize poppies sounds so much better, am I right?”

  “You got me there,” she agreed with a chuckle. “Nah, Greg wouldn’t divorce me but he’s told me the rose story before—he didn’t know it was me, of course. Just, you know, one of those stories you eventually get to when you’ve been married for a decade. Apparently Corinne—his mother was pretty pissed. You know, she still mentions it any time she’s sick. Something about being on cold medicine brings it up as if the horror of her prized r—poppies,” she corrected with a smile, “kicking the bucket is still fresh.”

  “So why not just come clean? Wouldn’t that be easier than paying me two hundred bucks to dangle a blackmailer off the balcony and make him give up the grainy video he has of you behind the wheel, high as a kite?”

  “Is that really what you do?”

  “Not for two hundred bucks.” I let the statement hang for a moment before laughing quietly. “I was joking. Really, though, wouldn’t your husband value your honesty?”

  “I just… Corinne didn’t like me much at first, but we’ve gotten closer the last few years and I don’t want such a stupid mistake to ruin Christmas.”

  “It’s only July, you’ve plenty of time to save up and buy her a diamond.”

  “Bet that would cost me more than two hundred bucks,” she said, letting me know she knew I was joking again.

  “So would my services, I was being generous.”

  “Mel!” she admonished as if we were much better friends than I remembered us being in high school.

  “I’ll help you, don’t worry. How’d you get the—what was it, a ransom letter cut from magazines?”

  “Such a thing would be murder on an iPad, wouldn’t it?”

  Her joke threw me and it was a moment before I laughed at the mental image of someone trying to cut letters out of the screen of an expensive e-reader.

  “It was just an email I got with a picture of me in the car attached. It was scanned, but it was an actual Kodak photo with a date and time stamp on it. It’s hard to make out much since it was dark but I think it’s enough to convict if I don’t get five hundred into this asshole’s account in the next two days.”

  “Forward the email, I’ll figure out who it was and take care of it.”

  “That’s it? Are you gonna hack the network and figure out who sent it?”

  “I’m gonna track the account. One of those payment sites, right? Paypal or Google Wallet, something like that?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I’m willing to bet half the money you’re gonna owe me that this idiot signed up using his real name and bank account. I’ll call you tomorrow. Sarah have your number?”

  “She should.”

  “Sounds good. Keep your cool, Rox, Corinne won’t know you’re the one who ruined her chances at winning the gold at the Washington State Fair.”

  “Okay, thanks Mel. It was good talking to you.”

  “You too. Catch you later.”