Her mind froze.You’re single, right? Because I’ve never scented any other women on you. And I was checking. Well, my fox was checking, the shameless bitch. So, single? Favorite sexual position? Do you like cubs?
“Um, okay. What specifically do you do for Shifters, Inc.?
He rolled his shoulders back, relaxing a little. “Security, protection details, that kind of thing.”
“And you’re going down there to investigate the disappearance of a little boy? Is that something a security firm normally does?”
He tipped his head to the side and sighed. “If we’re hired to, yes. And in this case, given how high-profile his father is, it’s even more urgent. If Ethan comes to harm, his father’s liable to start an all-out war with whoever he thinks is responsible. Humans could get caught in the crossfire, and that’s bad for all of us.”
She drew his scent in through her nostrils like an intoxicating drug. Being this close to Blake was going to be a lot harder than she’d ever imagined. “Who were the last people to see Ethan before he disappeared?”
“Michael Coffman’s bodyguards. Stef—that’s my boss—has a meeting set up with the father and his bodyguards this evening to see if we can’t get some more information about exactly what happened. Between you and me, I think the only thing keeping their furry hides intact at the moment is the father’s hope that they might be able to give us something valuable.”
She heard the skepticism in his voice. “But you don’t think they will?” Then she pointed off to the right. “You’ll want to turn off there.”
He nodded and headed up the road. There were no streetlights here, but the full moon bathed the road in ghostly light. Crickets and peepers creaked their mating calls, and in the distance, an owl hooted.
Blake shook his head. “I don’t. Look at it this way. Either they’re so incompetent they managed to lose track of a nine-year-old cub. If that’s the case, they don’tknowwhat happened.”
“Or…?”
“Or they knowexactlywhat happened. And if they do, it’s most likely because someone got to them and they were in on the snatch.”
“Wouldn’t they have hightailed it out of town if that were the case?”
“They tried. Ethan’s father found them frantically searching for the cub, and he immediately had all of his men start helping. And the two bodyguards tried to cut out a little while later. A couple of his men caught them trying to drive off.”
She flashed him a startled glance. “Doesn’t that indicate guilt?”
“Not necessarily. The fact that they stuck around at all to search is a decent indicator that they just screwed up. Then they ran because they knew that best case scenario was Michael would scar them for life. When we question them, we’ll know. Ethan’s father is too close to the situation, too distraught and worked up to be able to rely on his instincts right now, but if the guards are hiding anything, my team and I will be able to read it all over their faces.”
Krista nodded.“Okay. Got it. Um. Sooo…. so, here we are. Driving.” Wow, that was some witty repartee.Maybe I should write it down and save it for later, in case I ever want to feel really awkward.
“Yes, here we are.”
Desperate to fill the silence, she said, “I guess you must have some kind of file on me?”
“Of course. I do my homework. There wasn’t much, other than your use of… unconventional medicines at the clinic.”
Ha!“No, there wouldn’t be. I tend to keep my nose clean.”
“Can’t exactly say the same for a lot of folks from Flowering Dogwood.”
At that, she couldn’t suppress a bitter laugh. That was an understatement.
Dawnie ran the moonshine pipeline out of Flowering Dogwood with the help of her two idiot sons and her daughter, Eva-Jo, who’d inherited all of her mother’s hardness and none of her charisma and warmth, though if anything, that made herlessdangerous—Dawnie’s was a treacherous warmth, an embrace as subtle and deadly as quicksand. And the moonshine they produced wasn’t the usual rotgut and bathtub gin, either—the worst that shit could do was make you stupid or belligerent or maybe send you blind. The things Dawnie added to her concoctions—herbs from the mountains and minerals from the old mines—could make blindness seem like a blessing. The law never touched her—Dawniewasthe law in these parts, and there was no court of appeal.
“Turn again,” she said, pointing.
They turned onto the dirt road that led to the Reed cabin, which—because of the time of year—was where they would be. Harvesting.
“So, you know my history,” Krista said. “What about you?” Blake knew far too much about her, and Krista knew absolutely nothing about him.
“Where’s your pack from?” Back home, they’d have said, “Who are your people?”
“Foster home,” he said in a voice that made it clear that he didn’t want to talk about it any further. There was a mixture of anger and hurt that cut her to the core. She winced at the joke she’d made earlier about his mother. Never again.
Blake didn’t have people. And Krista had mostly rotten people, at least those who were directly related to her. A drunk woman who could barely be called mother, and a father who’d scampered out of town with a truck stop waitress the year before she started high school. One uncle doing life for murder, one uncle shot to death during a failed robbery. Hattie and her people were decent enough, but they’d had nothing to do with raising Krista.
