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I frowned, sliding my oversized sunglasses onto my nose, and settled back into the seat. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
4
All the Best Friendships Start with Lost-and-Found Underwear
It turned out Caleb’s job was mostly driving around and talking on his cell phone.
I spent the first fifteen minutes of our “business arrangement” gathering the foam coffee cups and jerky packets from the floorboards and stuffing them into an empty grocery bag. Caleb insisted that I keep the gas receipts, as he needed them for expense reports, so I stacked them in the glove compartment.
Cue the wolfy eye roll.>I didn’t think Caleb would have any qualms about handing me over to my ex, “no questions asked.” Even the way he phrased it gave me chills. He sounded so cold, so calculated, so like—
Never mind! Get out! My brain screamed at me. Get away! The ladies’ room was to the immediate left of the door, offset by a small hallway. So feigning a bladder issue and sneaking out the front wouldn’t work. There was probably another exit in the back, through the kitchen, and a fire exit, but both were in Caleb’s line of sight. I willed my face to relax, first my jaw and then my cheeks, so I could speak without looking tense. I took a casual bite of my bacon.
“How do you get your assignments? How do people know how to get ahold of you?” I asked. I leaned forward, resting my chin on my hand as if he had my rapt attention. I glanced behind him. Maybe there was another way out off of the restroom area. These places always had fire exits, but I couldn’t risk setting off some alarm.
“A buddy of mine owns a bar about an hour outside Fairbanks. If people want to get ahold of me, they know to call me there. And I have contacts of my own in Anchorage, Portland, Seattle. Mostly PIs who don’t want to make the trip up here. They get a finder’s fee for hiring me,” he said.
“And you just bounce around on the road?” I asked, swiping the last bite of French toast through the golden puddle of syrup on my plate. I savored the crisp edges of the fried bread, unsure when I’d be able to get another nice, hot meal.
“Sometimes I head home to see my family. But I haven’t been there in a while. They live in the Crescent Valley near Grundy, very tight-knit.”
That explained why I’d never met him. He hadn’t been to the valley for years. I’d heard stories about a Caleb from Maggie, strange “stupid criminal” tales from her cousin the bounty hunter, who hadn’t come back home since his dad, Artie, had died of stroke complications shortly before I was hired on. The funeral service had been held just after I’d arrived, while I was off restocking the clinic’s medications and supplies. I was still so pale and shaky and skittish that Eli, the former pack leader, insisted on sending one of the distant pack cousins with me on the supply run. I only realized later that it was because he was afraid I would take off and not come back. I remembered now that Artie’s son left town before I returned two days later, and that had upset some of the older aunties.
Still, I wondered how Caleb managed to stay away from the valley for so long. Maggie’s brother, Cooper, had exiled himself for a while after a particularly violent interpack confrontation, and the separation nearly drove him insane. How could Caleb stand it?
Not that I could afford to care about that sort of thing, since I was contemplating escaping from this booth and bursting through the front window of the diner like something out of a Die Hard movie. While his being a part of Maggie’s pack was a pleasant surprise, that didn’t necessarily make Caleb a good person. As evidenced by Eli, the interim alpha who hired me just before going on a hiker-killing spree and framing Maggie’s brother, Cooper, for the maulings. Werewolves hit a lot of different points on the spectrum between “awesome guy who is occasionally an apex predator” and “furry Lord Voldemort.”
“So how about you?” he asked, forking up another massive bite of steak. “What’s a nice girl like you doing bouncing around the Great North?”
I gave him a bland smile. “I wanted to see more of the country.”
His being part of Maggie’s pack didn’t make me trust Caleb any more than I had before. I’d made a clean break with them and couldn’t let on that I knew his family. They couldn’t know where I was or where I was heading. It was safer for them and for me. Also, I was pretty sure Maggie would kick my ass for leaving the way I did. She was a stickler about policy and procedure.
“And why are you traveling south?” he asked. “Getting too cold for you?”
“I’m meeting up with a friend,” I lied smoothly.
Caleb tensed. “What sort of friend?”
“An old roommate, Cindy,” I said.
The tension drained out of Caleb’s frame, and he scooped up another bite. “Well, that’s nice. But you never know what could happen.”
I arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, plans change sometimes,” he said vaguely.
What did he mean by that? Was he going to change my plans for me? Under the table, my hand instinctively wrapped around my shoulder bag. I considered the ladies’ room again. I couldn’t remember seeing bathroom windows on the front of the building. Did that mean they opened at the sides?
He laughed. “So do you believe that I’m not, in fact, a serial killer?”
I kept my face neutral. No, he was something much more dangerous. And I had a sneaking suspicion he was probably quite good at his job.
I smiled blandly. “I’m almost convinced.” I stood and hooked my shoulder bag over my arm.
He scowled. “Where are you going?”
“The ladies’ room? I’ve had three glasses of juice.”
