Page 18

Bailey Blackwood

When I pull up to the motel, I immediately see Nadia with her maid cart bumping into a parking lot pothole on her way to get to the next room on her rounds. Perfect timing.

I park, get out of my car, and give her a perky wave.

“Hey girl,” she greets with a wave before grabbing the handle with both hands and giving the cart a hard shove.

“Nadia, hey. Do you recognize her?” I flash my phone and the snapshot I covertly took of my new sister-in-law the other day.

“Sure, yeah, that’s Lily. Waitress at the diner.”

“Which room is she staying in?” I ask.

Nadia looks off thoughtfully and says, “Four. I was gonna clean it but the do not disturb sign is up. Haven’t seen her in a few days actually.”

“She’s not here,” I say, doing some fancy fast-talking. “I’m here to pick up her things and bring them to her. There’s a… family emergency.”

“Oh? You didn’t know if she was staying here though?” Nadia looks skeptical now.

“I knew it was here or the other motel, but forgot which. Um… to be honest it’s kind of delicate. But believe me, I’m on the up and up. Has anyone been seen going in or out of her room?”

Nadia puts her index finger to her mouth and then nods. “Haven’t seen anyone today. Yesterday? Yeah, late afternoon yesterday a guy was here, banging on the door. But I didn’t talk to him.”

“Yikes. Do you think you could let me in to gather her things for her?”

“Chica, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you I’m not supposed to do that.” She shakes her head looking disappointed in me for asking.

Nadia knows me, but not super well. We’re more than just acquaintances with how often we chat. We’ve never actually done more than chat over the counter at her job at the café. She works here because her mother manages the motel, but she also works the later shift at my favorite local café and since I love sitting in the corner by the fireplace and reading a good book with a cup of their incredible chai latte as often as I can, we’ve gotten well acquainted.

“Okay, can you see when she’s paid up until? And… if she doesn’t turn up in time for that, what happens to her stuff? I wouldn’t want her to lose her things and I really doubt she’ll be able to get here to get her stuff within the next few days but I can for sure get them to her.”

She assesses me shrewdly.

“Like I said, delicate situation. Honest, girlfriend. You know me.”

She gives me another once-over and must decide to trust me because she says, “Wait here.” Then she leaves me with her cart while she rushes to the front office.

When she comes back, she tells me that “Lily” should have checked out yesterday. That because she’s been a good customer, management is giving her today to renew, but Nadia’s mom said that if she doesn’t come in by tomorrow, her things would need to be moved into storage to be held up to thirty days. Nadia’s mom said she was at the diner this morning and the owner said Lily quit due to a family emergency. The owner’s disappointed, said she was a great worker.

After convincing Nadia to let me come in and help her pack up those things and bring them with me, promising to take full responsibility if “Lily” has issues with this, she lets me into the room. And that’s when the mystery of my new sister-in-law deepens.

Everything is ready to go already, like she was planning to come back and get her things quickly. I open the suitcase and there’s just two changes of clothes and a few toiletries, plus a pair of sneakers. Folded on the bed I find two clean diner uniforms. I find a bag behind the ironing board in the small wardrobe that has wrapped gifts with tags on them.

I can scent the faint aromas of three male shifter scents in this room. One alpha, two betas, I suspect. One of those scents matches the faint beta scent I can now smell in the library – the dead shifter they brought to the basement.

Most shifters wouldn’t smell it since he’s in the freezer, but I do. And it’s been making it difficult to be there.

Riley killed that dude for abducting Erica. And now the air is filled with Riley’s claiming scent. And though the whole thing is upsetting and concerning, the scent of Riley’s mating brings relief. While people in the know initially thought she might be the wicked witch of the west for what she did to Rye, I quickly saw it’s not the case. And that’s part of why I haven’t jumped to conclusions about my brother’s mate either.

We’re seeing that this council’s pairings are unique. Last council had six of our seven alphas mate with female shifters, the only anomaly being my dad’s first mating to Greyson’s bio mom, a witch. But this time we’ve so far got two humans, a witch, and finally a she-shifter.

With three left to go I have to wonder how it’ll go. I know how I hope it goes for at least one of them. Well, two. Because I know that though Cicely won’t admit it, she hopes Linc wakes up one day soon and knows it’s her.

Buzz among unmated women in the pack is that at least we’ve finally got one female shifter in the mix, even though she did what she did. Even though she’s not local. We were beginning to wonder if there would be any of our kind at all and this was concerning to some because of what it might do to our bloodlines going forward.

This irked me, of course, because I’m not full-blooded shifter so I can’t give birth to a full-blooded shifter and if I do wind up with the shifter I want I don’t know if my being the dame who sires them will affect that child’s ability to shift or be on a future council, but talk like this is nothing new… I’ve heard biased opinions (and been the butt of jokes) on mixed race pack members my whole life. Nobody teases Grey for being half witch because he’s a council super-alpha so clearly even though he’s only half wolf shifter genetically speaking, he’s more alpha than most of our male population.

The other reason I came to town today was sparked by an idea I got while visiting with Erica Young in her cool van the other day. To pick up my online order at the Drowsy Hollow shipping store. I didn’t want it to come to our village where there could be questions, especially questions from Cicely who might catch the fragrance. I wouldn’t be prepared to lie to her and certainly wouldn’t want to admit the truth – that I placed a rush order for a pheromone perfume on the internet to see if I could catch Jase’s attention with it.

I saw a shadow box apothecary decoration in Erica’s van and though she told me it was a gag gift, on one of the jars it said love potion number ninety-six. I figure it’s a lot safer to use a pheromone perfume than to have a witch cast a spell, particularly since Erica can’t use her magic and would likely refuse anyway.

Of course I want Jason Creed to want me because he really wants me, not because of a fake spell, but I couldn’t resist buying the perfume just as a little experiment to see if it catches his attention at all. To see if he even realizes I’m an adult female. Because he doesn’t act like it.

As I’m pulling into my driveway back at home with Stacy’s battered suitcase and the bag of gifts, I send my brother a text message.

Need me soon or ???

He messages back.

20 minutes?

I send a thumbs up.

I leave Stacy’s suitcase in my car, zip up to my bedroom, flinging my closet doors open to grab extra clothes for her. After I have about a dozen outfits on the bed, I pack them up and hit Mom and Dad’s liquor cabinet on the way out.

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