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seven

Sloane met me at the side door with a basket of laundry. “You’re not a huffer, are you?”

“Uh.” The question cocked my eyebrow. “No?”

“Are you sure?” A teasing light entered her eyes, one I should have noticed before yesterday. “Two days in a row you’ve come in from the shed with a dazed look in your eyes and reeking of bleach.”

“Ugh.” I bent down and sniffed the top of my shirt. “Don’t remind me.”

“See?” She bumped the basket into me on her way to the dryer. “You couldn’t resist taking another hit.”

“Okay.” Laughing, I held up my hands. “You got me. I’m a huffer. I can’t get enough of that bleachy goodness.”

“I thought the cool kids inhaled superglue,” Bowie drawled, stepping around the corner with a bag of old chips he must have scavenged from the break room in his hand. “Are you too hip for that?”

“I am not, nor have I ever been, cool.” I snorted at him. “And who says hip anymore?”

“I hang around with Mercer a lot,” he admitted, crunching away. “I’ve gained five pounds in lollipop.”

“You too?” I clucked my tongue. “And here I thought I was special.”

“Tai says he was a chain-smoker for decades. Candy was his replacement addiction.”

“Huh.” I thought about the oral-fixation angle. “Makes sense.” I waited for him to get to the point. “Can we help you?”

“Just making the rounds.” He flashed me a grin. “I didn’t expect to walk in on such juicy gossip.”

“The great thing about rounds are they’re essentially circles. They begin and end in the same place. And your place—” I shoved him toward the front door, “—is out there somewhere.”

Snacking away, he ambled out of the building, and I breathed a sigh of relief to be rid of him.

“Do you think we should have told him those chips are a year out of date?”

“No.” I didn’t have to think about it. “He stole them, so he gets what he gets.”

“He stole them from the basket where we put chip flavors we don’t eat but also don’t get rid of because it makes it look like we have more options than we really do as long as they’re in there.”

“Fiiine.” I flipped my wrist. “We’ll warn him about the chip basket the next time he passes through.”

“Hey.” She lingered on the threshold. “Did you find what you were looking for last night?”

Warm metal pooled in my hand where I held the chain and the charm. “I’m not sure.”

That she didn’t push for more made me double down on the urge to tell her everything. But not here. As much as I wanted to believe there were lines Dad wouldn’t cross, I couldn’t help wondering what else he had monitoring me.

Screwing up my courage, I tightened my fist, grateful Bowie was out on his rounds. “Do you have plans for lunch?”

“Just the usual. Sandwich from home. Maybe some expired chips…”

“Do you want to grab something out with me?” I kept my expectations low. “My treat.”

A delicate flare of her nostrils betrayed her instinct to check my emotional barometer.

“Yeah.” A genuine smile crinkled her eyes. “I’d like that.”

“Good.” I saluted her, like a dork. “See you at noon.”

Back at the register, Myrtle regarded me with pity, but she had deigned to use the subpar dog bed.

“You don’t have any room to talk,” I grumbled at her. “You’re not great with people either.”

As I was grabbing the tablet where I kept my to-do list for the pups here for makeovers, the phone rang, and I gave myself a cheer injection. “Gwinnett Street Groomers. This is Ana. How can I help you?”

The line click, click, clicked before disconnecting, which wasn’t creepy at all.

“Everything okay?” Sloane set aside the towels she was folding. “You’re all flush.”

I checked the caller ID log, but it was blank and hitting redial didn’t get me anywhere either.

“How serious were you about the friendship thing?”

“I did run interference for you last night and cover for you this morning.”

“What if I said that was only the beginning?”

“Are you asking me to be your friend or your partner in crime?”

Plastic from the phone casing bit into my palm. “Both?”

“In for a penny, in for a pound.” Her smile was infectious. “How do you feel about pizza?”

To lessen the odds of us being overheard, Sloane suggested we eat at The Pie Shop on Pillory. Human owned and always with a line out the door, the bustling pizza parlor was the ideal spot to grab lunch and some privacy. And, since the owner was a client, she made sure I always got a table.

Ms. Putnam’s schnauzer, Bonnie, was fourteen and too old for popping Trazodone before nail trims, but she also wanted to strike the match that let her watch the world burn. Not a great combo.

Honestly, she would probably get along with Myrtle like a house afire.

Anyway, I earned Bonnie’s tolerance if not trust, and it won me a client for life in Ms. Putnam.

The restaurateur and her spicy pup formed yet another brick in the wall I was building between the business my last name raked in and the treasured clients I acquired for myself.

Seated at my favorite booth, prime real estate for people-watching, Sloane and I put in our orders.

Two of the large three cheese caprese calzones for her and a small pesto prosciutto pizza for me.

“Remember when the dogs went nuts?” I twisted my straw wrapper into a ring. “And I blamed an owl?”

“Yes.” Her lips quirked to one side. “Are you going to tell me what really spooked them?”

“I found a vampire.” I crumpled the paper. “In the potting shed.”

“What was he doing?” She tilted her head. “There’s nothing in there worth stealing.” Her eyes shot wide as they landed on me. “Do you think he was there for the dog? Or for you?”

“If he was, someone got to him first.” I thought back to how I found him. “There was blood everywhere .”

“Are you sure it was his?” She chewed on the end of her straw. “He is a vampire.”

“I saw the wound.” I had no doubt if I had looked closer, I would have determined wolf teeth were to blame. “I told him I would call for help, but he didn’t want that. Then I heard you, panicked, and covered my tracks.”

“That’s why you went back.” She nodded along. “You were going to check on him.”

“I couldn’t just leave him.” I puffed out my cheeks. “But when I got there, he was gone.”

“No one who lost that much blood would be that spry.” She rapped the table with her knuckle. “The bleach?”

“That wasn’t me.” I held up my hands. “I went to see the shed in daylight and found it spotless.”

“None of this makes sense.” She rested her chin on her fist. “And that’s before you mix in the dog.”

“There’s one more thing.” I winced as I fished the card from my purse. “He left this under the register.”

“You hid this?” The color drained from her cheeks. “From your father ?”

“Yep.” I felt a tad woozy admitting it. “I did.”

“Why?” She dropped the paper like it had burned her. “Why would you cover for some random guy?”

“I don’t know.” I tipped my head back like the answers were etched into the wood beams on the ceiling.

“I felt violated when Myrtle appeared at GSG, but then Dad showed up with his sentinels, and I felt even more violated. Then I got mad because he always makes such a big deal out of everything, and I wanted, I don’t know, to do one thing for myself.

” I thumped my head on the back of the booth.

“And then I found the vampire, and I thought he was dying—or whatever—and needed my help.”

“This is…a lot.” Sloane raised an arm, and our waitress popped in. “We need a pitcher of beer.”

Alcohol didn’t do much for shifters unless we drank copious amounts of it, but it could take the edge off our mutual anxiety.

“I understand if you don’t want any part of this mess.” I shoved my water glass back and forth, unable to look at her. “ My mess. I am a hot mess, and I made a mess, and I’m sorry I dragged you into it.”

“Ana.” She gripped my hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You could get in so much trouble for this, and it was such a stupid thing for me to do.”

“A wolf with its paw in a trap will chew off its own leg to get free,” she said softly.

“That’s grim.”

“Look, the way I see it, your dad knows the important parts. The break-in. Myrtle. The footage of the guy who may or may not be the vampire from the potting shed. With his resources, he’ll figure out the rest.”

“You’re really not going to tell him,” I realized, barely trusting my instincts that I had read her right.

“Clearly, we have work to do on the trust front, but I get it.” She smiled when the waitress returned with the pitcher of beer and two full glasses. “How about I give you leverage on me?”

“No.” I took a long drink. “I’m not going to hold you hostage.”

Even I knew that a friendship built on tit for tat didn’t have much hope for success.

“Okay.” A faint smile twitched in her cheek as she lifted her glass. “Here’s to not taking hostages.”

“No hostages,” I repeated, clinking my glass against hers.

Soon after we refilled our drinks, the waitress arrived with our lunch, and we dug into our meals.

I had a healthy appetite, but I didn’t require nearly the calories as a shifter who could, you know, shift.

A small pizza hit the spot most days, but nerves had me shoving my plate away at the halfway mark.

There was one more detail I ought to share with her, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to own up to the charm.

That bit of magic had been my escape hatch every time I reached a point where I couldn’t breathe, and I wasn’t sure I was quite ready to fully cut off my emergency oxygen supply.