Page 48 of Hoofin’ It

While tempted to request a lawyer to rain on his parade and give the centaur a taste of his own medicine, I reined in the urge and filled in him on everything that had happened from the instant I’d witnessed a corpse smashing through a car’s windshield to my trip to Des Moines, omitting two important facts.

He didn’t need to know my alpaca’s real name was Marian, nor did he need to know the details of the show featuring an incubus and a succubus. Three modifications. He didn’t need to know Marian had bit me, either.

If he needed to know, the FBI would tell him. Or Marian. Or anyone other than me.

True to her word, Michelle drove me home, and she even walked me to my door, leaving her partner to sulk in their cruiser. “Stripes is sorry he’s an asshole, Shane.”

Great. Michelle had slipped into guilty mode. Maybe a bit of honesty would cure her, and if she flattened me, I hoped she scored a one hit knock out. I didn’t even care if I made my concussion worse if it meant I could get some rest. “Stripes can kiss my ass.”

“Since when did you grow a pair?”

“Since I got confirmation I’m being bullshitted out of my job.” While I could have taken the elevator to the seventh floor of my apartment building, I took the stairs. If the hike didn’t cure my agitation, nothing would.

Michelle kept stride with me the entire way. “Ah.”

I wasn’t surprised she was aware of the situation. Most people on the force liked Michelle. I did, too, although I suspected she pretended to like me because she had a reputation for being nice to everyone unless she was smacking them to the asphalt for pissing her off.

Considering how often she flattened people, I wondered how she had managed to trick us into believing she was nice. I needed to reevaluate my fascination with violent women capable of smacking me around. At least I knew who to blame for liking it.

Dad needed to stop influencing me.

“It’s not so bad not being a cop anymore, you know.”

“Then quit, if it’s not so bad.”

“What?”

“Put your money where your mouth is. If it’s not so bad, you quit and see how you like it.”

“But—”

“Get your head out of your ass, Michelle. You’d hate being forced out. You know it, I know it. You live and breathe being a cop. Maybe I did, too. Mom’s a cop. Dad’s a cop. Both of my grandfathers are cops. One of my grandmothers is a cop. My other grandmother’s a firefighter. Their parents were cops.”

“Okay, that’s impressive. I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, Dad’s a lycanthrope. Mom’s infected. Do the math.”

“Point taken.”

I snorted and kept on marching. “Always knew you were smart.”

“I’m not disagreeing with your assessment, but why do you think you’re being bullshitted out of your job?”

“I’ve spent more than a day being treated like a guinea pig by the CDC. When one of the doctors overseeing the evaluation calls bullshit, he’s probably right. He examined my artificial eye and was very vocal about how its inferior craftsmanship, probably a deliberate attempt between the station and the insurance company to remove me from active duty. He’s pursuing violations of the Species Anti-Discrimination Act. I got lucky; a new artificial eye can be made. He knows someone who lost their leg because of bullshit like that.”

The first of Michelle’s curses startled me. She ramped up to a shit storm of profanities so intense I gave her space to work out the worst of her fury so I didn’t end up taking a trip down the stairwell. “You’re fucking serious.”

“When have I ever lied to you?”

“You haven’t.”

“Lying about something easily verified with a few phone calls is pretty stupid. So, why bother? That’s the nice thing about honesty. They can check my facts themselves to learn I’ve spoken the truth.”

“And the one time you do lie, we’ll all believe it because you always tell the truth.”

“There is that,” I conceded. “But I have no reason to lie over something like my fake eye.”

“You’re right. You don’t.”