Page 85 of Caution to the Wind

Mei didn’t answer, but I could feel her like the heat of a fire at my back.

In the kitchen, two bakers and a front-of-house clerk were huddled around the entrance to an office on the right.

“Everyone good?” I called, careful to aim the gun at the ground.

No one flinched at the sight of me, but they were all fuckin’ green like they’d seen somethin’ to twist their stomachs.

“Yeah,” Lauren’s voice drifted out from inside the office, weak and warbled. “But you’d better see this, Axe-Man.”

The little crowd parted for me so I could move into the office, where Lauren stood in front of her desk. I followed her line of sight to the bloody carcass of a headless raccoon that was pinned to a picture frame by a cleaver-like blade.

“Note?” I guessed, steppin’ forward.

I could feel Mei behind me, hoverin’ in the door and takin’ stock.

“I-I didn’t have time to open the office earlier this morning because Judy couldn’t make it in. I hopped on the line to help Kerry and got caught up in the lunch rush… I don’t know how long thisthinghas been here for.” Lauren’s hand trembled like a newborn bird as she handed me the blood-soaked paper.

The Chinese characters were familiar to me.

Follow and obey.

I looked up at Mei, whose face had lost all colour.

“You know anythin’ about this?” I demanded.

Her glare was sudden and ferocious. “The fuck? You assume because the threat is written in Chinese that I’m involved?”

“Well?”

“Fuck you,Axe-Man.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to think when you show up and suddenly I got triad threats comin’ out the fuckin’ wazoo, huh?” I demanded, steppin’ forward to shake the paper at her.

A fleck of raccoon blood landed on her cheek and when she angrily dashed at it with her thumb, the red streaked beneath her eye like the mark of a warrior.

“I’m here to help, not cause you any problems,” she snapped, steppin’ toe to toe with me so she could poke her sharp taloned finger into my chest as if I wasn’t a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier than her.

“I seem to remember you sayin’ that once before, and it ended up with me behind bars for three years.”

Her hand flexed hard on the handle of the tactical knife she held like an extension of herself. “I see old age has made youstupid, because anyone with half a brain would know I arrived this fucking week, and I’ve never stepped inside these doors before today.”

“You’ve always been good at lyin’.”

Her flinch that time was only the twitch of an eyelid before she recovered. “Lauren, we met for the first time this morning, right?”

“Yeah,” she replied shakily, no doubt wonderin’ why we were fightin’ in her office like two cats in a hen house.

“Check the security footage if you don’t believe me,” Mei seethed. “Or, instead of wasting both our time, you can let me help.”

“Oh, so you do know somethin’ about this.” I gestured to the fresh kill on Lauren’s desk.

“I know if the body is here, the head is somewhere else.”

As if on cue, my phone started vibratin’. I pulled it out of my pocket and re-holstered my gun in the same move without takin’ my eyes off Mei.

“Yeah?” I answered.

“Axe-Man,” Bat replied, soundin’ even more grim than his usual grimness. “Stella just called. Seems she found the head of a fuckin’ raccoon nailed to her bathroom mirror at the diner this mornin’.”