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The booths were minimalist—hard plastic, or at least I thought it was plastic. While they didn’t encourage lingering, they weren’t uncomfortable either, and the food made any lack of atmosphere worth it. Every bite was incredible. I ordered fish and chips and a strawberry milkshake. Bree ordered a burger, fries, and a chocolate shake, and we settled into one of the booths.
“So, how are you doing today? You seemed tense last night.”
“I’m all right. I finally told May what happened to me.” I sighed. “It had to happen some time. She thinks the Butcher still has hooks in me, so she’s going to help me get rid of those cords on Saturday.” I paused, looking around the diner. The walls and trim were pale blue, and there were hints of yellow and pink in the curtains and décor. The owners meant to mimic the morning sky, I thought. And on a subconscious level, it worked.
“Do you think I was a coward to leave Port Townsend?” I asked.
Bree shook her head. “You ran for a good reason. Sometimes you can be so immersed in something that you need to get out of it before you can see it clearly.” She paused. “I wish you didn’t have to deal with all that.”
“Wrong place at the wrong time,” I said. “Sometimes luck is against us.”
The waitress brought over our meals and we dug in.
“So, tell me about these friends of yours. Anything I should stick clear of discussing? They aren’t skeptics or wannabes, are they?” I hated reading for clients who were out to either prove me wrong, or who wanted to go home and squeal to their friends about how they met areal witchso they could be in with the cool kids.
“Neither. And I thought they might want readings, but by Darla’s text, I think they want to talk to you about something else. Mother and daughter pair. Darla and Georgie—short for Georgina. Darla’s family recently moved to town and their house is haunted. I’m not sure what they want from you, but can you at least hear them out?”
“What are you getting me into?” I asked. “Ghosts? I don’t like dealing with ghosts!” But at her pleading look, I relented. “All right, I’ll meet them.” I bit into my fish and sighed happily. “Deep-fried fish. Is there anything better?”
“Fried chicken,” Bree said, laughing.
“Well, maybe…okay, they’re both right up there.” I poured more ketchup on my fries. “Oh, I met the sheriff last night.”
“How? What happened?”
I told her about the sheriff, and Olivia. “Apparently something tore her to pieces.”
“That’s scary. Poor May—I know they were good friends. Hold on,” she said. “I think I heard about Olivia on the news.” She pulled out her phone and flipped through the apps, finally bringing one up. A few more taps and she blanched as she stared at the screen.
“What is it? You’ve turned white as a sheet.”
“There was another murder this morning.” Bree looked up from her phone. “A man this time, torn to bits. He was found right outside of the town limits, on an access road leading into Olympic National Park across Highway 101.”
“Did he live in Starlight Hollow?”
“Yes. His name was Lucius Jackaberry. He was thirty-two, and found in the same state that Olivia was.” She paused, then added, “It says here that the attacks looked like they were made by an animal.”
I said, taking a long sip of my milkshake.
“The coroner said that while Olivia’s wounds were reminiscent of an attack by a pack of dogs, they were made by something else.” She glanced up, frowning. “Apparently he now thinks a shifter did it. He says that if it had been a dog pack, they would have eaten parts of her, but nothing was…devoured…as far as they can tell.”
“Shifter?” I stared at her. “A wolf shifter, maybe?” I didn’t care for shifters, either—at least, not for wolf shifters. Unlike most of the other types of shifters, wolf shifters were staunchly averse to magic and they didn’t trust witches. And because of that prejudice, we didn’t trust wolf shifters either.
“I don’t know. But given that he first thought it might be a pack of dogs, that would make sense. Shifters can do far more damage than the animals they’re connected to. Hell, I’m a puma shifter and I’m a lot more dangerous than a regular mountain lion.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice. “You know that the Olympic Wolf Pack is headquartered here. They live on the southwest side of town, near the highway. There’s one big commune, and then a few individual residents.”
“Do shifters always live in a communal situation?”
Bree shrugged. “I can’t speak for other shifter groups, but I can tell you that the Kalaloch Puma Shifters don’t. We prefer our privacy and we only gather for quarterly meetings at the headquarters of our Pride. If there are community emergencies, we may call a special assembly, but that only happens in the event of an emergency.”
“Cripes, everything goes south so quickly. What happened to the carefree days of childhood?” I grumbled.
Laughing, Bree said, “They only existed in our minds. The adults knew what was going on, but they protected us from it.” She finished her burger. “So, you ready to meet Darla and her daughter Georgie?”
“I guess so,” I said, finishing the last French fry. “Where are we meeting?”
“Jitters ‘n Bows.” She paid the check and we headed toward the door. “Follow me?”
“See you there.” I held up my keys and headed for my Chevy.
