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Oh, this is fun.
“And why not?” Folding my arms across my chest, I wait as they stare at each other, in some kind of weird silent conversation. Hayley’s eyebrows lift as she blinks up at me and smiles.
“Because… his wife, Leila, is having a baby! She’s Cooper’s sister, in fact. He’s taken some time off, so he’s not even working for the next couple of weeks.” She tries to fake looking disappointed. “Ah that’s a shame.”
Hayley wouldn’t lie about something like that, it’d be pretty easy to disprove. Leah nods along enthusiastically, and I feel like laughing in their faces. They’re both so thrilled to have a decent excuse that they’re not paying attention to how obvious they’re being.
“Okay, I won’t bother the man when he’s got other things on his mind.” Pushing my chair under the table and carrying my plate and mug to the sink, I pretend not to notice how Leah elbows Hayley and lets out a breath of relief. When I spin around, they both snap to attention, neutral expressions plastered back onto their faces, trying to look like the picture of innocence.
“I’ll go and talk to his deputy instead. Can I borrow your car? Just until I can get mine back from Zoe.”
As I head for the door, they both follow me at a jog, trying to keep up with my long strides. I know they’re scrambling to come with a reason that I can’t talk to Deputy Lennox, either.
“But…” Leah stutters, trailing along behind me.
Stopping, I spin and pin Leah with a hard stare “’But’ what?”
Leah blinks, looks to Hayley for help, and then sighs, defeated. There’s no reason I shouldn’t go and talk to the deputy investigating an arson attack that nearly wiped out my family. Holding out my hand, curling up my fingers in the universal sign for “gimme”, Leah steps forward and drops her keys reluctantly into my hand.
With a small shake of her head, her look pleads with me to behave. “Don’t be a dick, Chase.”
Grinning, I snatch the keys away without promising any such thing.
Hayley and Leah’s experience of me being an asshole is nothing compared to what I’m like when I’m at work. Solving this mystery is my new mission, and I’ll employ every tactic I know to find out why the hell my sisters have been in danger since the day they set foot in this town.
That includes being the biggest pain in the ass Grey Ridge has ever seen.
CHAPTER 3
NATALIE
“You’re a control freak. And a workaholic. You do know that, don’t you?” Tucking the phone against my ear, I rifle through the papers on my desk and pull out the file Marcus is talking about. “It’s done. I’m looking at it right now, so relax. Just go and take care of Leila. I’m perfectly capable of managing without you.”
It’s not done, but I’m not telling Marcus that. He sighs down the phone and I know it’s not his job that he’s stressed about: it’s Leila. He can’t do anything to help her right now, and it’s driving him to distraction.
To fill his time and make himself feel useful, Marcus is trying to work surreptitiously, but I’m having none of it. He’s supposed to be minding his wife.
“Go and run Leila a bath, or rub her feet. Shift and head into the woods. Anything but calling me, please.”
Slipping the report back into the stack of paperwork on my desk, I rub my temples. This has been a bad week for all of us, and I don’t blame him for being tense, but he’s making it harder for me to get my own work done, let alone handle his, too.
“Dad’s still in the hospital,” he says quietly. “Bodhi’s gone back into the forest. He won’t shift into his human form. If he stays that way for too long, it’s going to be harder and harder to get him back. What are we going to do?”
Resting my forehead on the pile of yellow paper files, I take a deep breath. Not only do we have day jobs of our own to worry about, we’ve been sucked into Toby and Lucia’s trial by the council. I’ve had a headache ever since Marcus told me what was going on and what Dad did. And it’s only going to get worse.
Bodhi might have the right idea hiding in the woods until it all blows over.
“He’ll shift back when Leila has the baby. There’s no way Uncle Bodhi will be able to stay away. Then we sit him down, again, and tell him it’s not his fault, again. That’s all we can do, Marcus.”
From what we’ve heard, the chances of Leon walking again are slim. Shifting would likely kill him with the damage done to his spine by the force of his impact with the tree. Bodhi feels guilty. For what? I don’t know. The man is pure evil and treated Bodhi like crap his whole life. He was saving someone’s life by intervening. But our little brother is a softie deep down, and he feels bad. He didn’t realise his own strength, or the damage he’d do.
“Hmph,” is all I get in return. Marcus clearly doesn’t agree that we can’t do more but, I’m not encouraging this conversation. Not right now.
“Just focus on the baby, Marcus. And Leila. We’ll worry about it after that.”
With a soft jingle, the door to the station opens and a rush of cool mountain air fills the small space.
Saved by the bell.
