Authors: Sheryl Nantus
I’d discovered that when they’d showed up on my doorstep after leaving me alone for decades. The Board always kept track of you no matter where or who you were.
Middleston’s sidestepping the Pride’s resources sent up red flags and I wasn’t about to step in a minefield if I couldn’t map it out first.
Jess picked the phone up on the fifth ring.
“Rebecca.” She sounded shocked, something I’d rarely seen or heard. “I was about to call you.”
I could hear a woman weeping in the background and raised my voice over the wailing. “Is this about the missing girl? Don’t get on my case. Her father just left and I haven’t had a chance to hit the streets yet so tell her aunt or whoever to give me a few hours—”
“What?” I visualized the tall woman shaking her head. Part of me relished the idea of stumping Jess. The other part was terrified that I had, in fact, stumped Jess, one of the toughest Felis I knew. “No, wait...what? What missing girl?”
“Lisa Middleston,” I offered. “She’s the missing girl I’ve been hired to find.”
“I’m talking about a missing boy. Evan Chandler.” The crying in the background rose and fell like a hockey fan’s playoff hopes. “His mother’s with me right now.”
The pulsing behind my left eye signaled a headache about to start. “Let me guess. This isn’t a coincidence.”
Jess chuckled. “You think? Let me take care of Mary and I’ll call you back within the hour. Don’t do anything until we have a chance to talk.” The line went dead before I could disconnect.
I put the phone down and pressed my palms against my eyes. This situation had the potential of going bad really fast.
Two country kids running away to find their fortune in the big city might go over well in the movies but the reality was that they’d find themselves out of their depth within minutes of stepping off the bus. Those stories about slavery, prostitution and drug abuse weren’t just fluff for the news programs.
I headed for the stairs, determined to get some painkillers into me before Jess called back. This was turning out to be one hell of a morning and I hadn’t even done anything yet.
Jazz pattered by me, hopping up the steps and turning toward the bedroom with her tail held high, a spring in her step. I followed her in, scowling at the half-naked man sprawled across the bed.
Tortilla chip crumbs everywhere. A minefield of pointed fried caltrops.
A fat dollop of salsa sat on the quilted bedspread neatly folded at the bottom of the king-sized bed.
Brandon Hanover grinned at me, offering a salsa-loaded chip in one hand. The other nudged the waistband of the boxer shorts down a fraction of an inch, showing more bare flesh.
“Want a snack?”
I sighed. As a lover, the redhead was fantastic. As a roommate, he left a lot to be desired.
“We’re going to have to wash that.” I pointed at the salsa stain even as I snagged the chip out of his hand and popped it in my mouth.
“No problem.” He chomped another chip as Jazz hopped on the bed and began to nibble at the crumbs spread out over the sheets.
“Yes problem. The Laundromat is up on Queen Street and I don’t have time to haul the bedspread up there right now.”
His eyebrows rose. “Damn. I’d forgotten you don’t have a washer and dryer here.”
“Remember more often.” I swept a handful of crumbs off the bed, annoying the cat, who had already started munching. “Good news is I’ve got some work. Bring in some cash.”
A pained look flashed across his face and I regretted the phrasing. It’d been a month since he’d moved in, forsaking his rich family, and he’d insisted on paying half of everything. He’d begged an advance off his editor for a future article but it’d been barely enough to pay the utilities and phone bills, never mind getting groceries.
Meanwhile I’d been dipping into my own savings to cover my recent unemployed status. We weren’t on the verge of losing the house but the private investigation business was either feast or famine.
I really didn’t want to go toward the famine side.
I tried to fix the damage. “Got paid in advance. Five hundred dollars.”
Bran let out a low whistle. “That’ll keep us in cat kibble for a few days.” His forehead furrowed. “What’s the job?”
“Finding a runaway girl.” I took another chip and dipped it in the jar before maneuvering the overloaded chip to my mouth. “And Jess has the other half of the equation. Boy and girl running off together to the big city. Romeo and Juliet with fur and fangs.”
A pained look came over his face. I winced, remembering the story that had temporarily propelled him to journalistic stardom.
Brandon had gone native, living the street life with a group of kids who took him in and showed him the seedy underside of Toronto. The article had detailed their struggles as they formed their own family with all the politics and emotions therein. Love, hate, life and death stories happening in a shadow world where being twenty was considered “old.”
It’d been a hit, the story rocking the news feeds. So much so that Bran found himself becoming the focus of the attention, the brave rich author gone underground to get the story and so forth. Despite his best efforts to bring attention to the problems street kids suffered the news became all about him and not about the group and their trials and tribulations; the direct opposite of why he’d undertaken the task in the first place.
Upset, Bran had returned to the streets to find his old family to try and explain what had happened, how his intentions had been twisted and warped into being all about him instead of presenting their stories.
He’d found only two of the group—at the morgue, a pair of lovers who’d overdosed on heroin not long after Bran’s leaving. Even though he’d had nothing to do with the deaths it’d cut him deep, deep enough to push him away from legitimate journalism for a few years and sending him into self-imposed exile, bashing out crap for the tabloid
Toronto Inquisitor
.
Until he’d been handed a story about a dead catwoman.
As they say, the rest is history.
I grabbed the half-empty bag and salsa jar off the bed and headed for the bathroom. “I’m hoping to find them near the bus station, curled up in a donut shop and scared shitless. Country kids don’t usually take to the streets that easily, so I’ve heard. Big difference between small town living and jumping into the big city, Felis or not.”
“Might be right there. One can hope they run back home once they hit the streets. Usually the romantic ideal dies a fast death once you’re digging in a Dumpster for stale donuts and trying to figure out if the slimy green meat is edible.” The response came as I put the chips and dip in the sink and busied myself digging out the bottle of painkillers. The headache wasn’t bad, not yet.
A phone call from Jess would make it worse.
The pills went down with a swig of water and a lasting taste of spicy salsa. I stuck my head out of the bedroom, feeling the latest wave of pain begin to wither and die on the drug shore.
Bran lay on his back, his hands tucked behind his head. He stared at the ceiling and let out a low sigh.
I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking about.
Time to try and change the mood.
“And could you not wander through the house in your underwear when I’m dealing with a client?” I crossed my arms and tried to sound authoritative. Hard to do with the manflesh on display. “How would you like it if I wore that fuzzed red scrap of cloth you bought me to a meeting with your editor?”
The item in question had been acquired after a late-night crawl through lingerie stores in the Eaton Center, a nightie with wee bits of faux red fur in all the right places.
He grinned.
My reverse psychology was not reversing.
“Ooh.” His tongue flicked out, wetting his lips. “Maybe I’d get a better chance at the hot stories if I did take you along.” His brown eyes sparkled with glee and more than a little wanton lust. He patted the mattress beside him. “Wanna audition for the job?”
“Jess is going to call back. Within the hour.” I let out an exaggerated sigh. Over the last few weeks this had become a welcome work interruption but I never gave in easily. “Not enough time.”
Bran put his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling, making a smacking noise with his lips. “Two, three—”
He leaped off the bed and grabbed me around the waist. “I love a challenge.”
I let out an unladylike squeak as his fingers began to pull up my shirt. “Jess—”
“Within the hour. I got it.” He nipped my earlobe, the spike of pain disappearing under the burning need, rekindled with his touch. “Just lie back and think of England. Or whatever else you’d like.”
“Whatever?” I gasped, the familiar haze clouding my thoughts.
“Well, as long as it’s about me.” His expert fingers popped the buttons on my blouse with unerring accuracy before moving to the front of my jeans.
I ran my hands along his waistband, tugging at the boxers.
“I think I’m ready for my audition.”
* * *
Exactly thirty-five minutes later I rolled onto my back, wheezing for air. The cool sheets felt good on my bare skin even with a few wayward crumbs poking at me.
“Dang.” My pulse pounded in my ears. “That’s never getting old, is it?”
“You’re welcome.” Bran rolled onto his side with a smug smile. “Never say I don’t keep to my schedule.” He looked at the digital clock on the night table. “Still some time left. Want to try for a quickie?” He waggled his eyebrows.
As if on cue my cell phone rang.
“Put it on hold, Romeo.” I tugged on my blouse, struggling to get my hands through the sleeves. “Unless you want to tell Jess to call back.”
It took a concentrated effort to get the buttons lined up. There was no way I was going to talk to Jess naked, even if Bran didn’t seem to mind.
He scowled and reached for a half-full bottle of water perched on the side table. The man was daring but not suicidal.
I plucked the cell phone out of my jeans on the floor and propped myself up against the headboard, enjoying his pouty look.
“You’ve caught this one by the tail, kit.” The disapproving tone killed any post-coital mellowness.
Being in my mid-thirties and still being called a kit by someone with twenty-plus years on me wasn’t a good way to start the conversation.
“Hi, Jess.”
I waited.
The Board member would tell me what I needed to know in her own good time and not a second sooner. I’d learned over the past few months staying quiet often got more answers than opening my yap.
“I’m assuming your newest client is Jake Middleston. Lisa’s father,” she continued talking without pausing for my input. “I’ve just had a weepy session with Mary Chandler, Evan Chandler’s mother. Seems the two kids were dating and have decided to do that running-away-together thing.” She let out a snort. “This is not good.”
“Kids run off all the time.” Bran pushed himself up beside me. He’d wrestled his shorts back on, giving me a less distracting view. He tilted his head toward the phone, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Trust me, I’ve seen it. A few weeks digging in Dumpsters for food and they’ll come back home.”
“Or be eighteen and out from under their parents’ tails.” I added. “Let me make this clear—I’m going to look for Lisa no matter what you tell me. I took the job from Middleston and told him I’d find her and at least tell her that her father wants to talk to her. What happens after that is their business, not mine. Or it would have been until now.”
I paused, picking my words carefully. Jess was notorious for leaving out details. “But what’s the real story here?” I pushed on. “What’s so important about these two that one father’s calling me in for a private hunt and the mother of the other one’s asking you for help? I’m getting some weird vibes on this and it’s more than Middleston being pissed off at some young man for chasing his daughter.”
“Blood feud,” she replied.
I blinked. “What?”
“I should have known there was a problem when Middleston asked about you.” Jess said more to herself than to us. “Damned blind fool could have seen that. Should have seen that and told him to stand aside, let the Board deal with this.”
I interrupted her pity party without remorse. “The feud. We have those?”
“Yes we have ‘those,’” Jess snapped. “Why wouldn’t we? Every family has brawls and people who don’t like each other. Why should we be any different?”
“I guess I missed the memo,” I shot back. “Being outcast and all.”
Jess sucked in her breath through clenched teeth. The topic of my exile from the Pride for most of my adult life was still a painful topic between us despite six months of working for the family on various jobs.
Bran’s hand snaked under my shirt and stroked the scar tissue crisscrossing my back. Most conversations with Jess ended with high blood pressure and a headache.
“We’re assuming the kids ran off together. The Middlestons are treating it like just the girl left on her own and the same with the Chandlers, neither one telling me there was more about this. Middleston figured you wouldn’t contact me and I’d never figure it out.” I could hear the annoyance in her voice. “As if I was born yesterday and couldn’t put two and two together. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl. More likely when you’re told it’s forbidden fruit.”
“How could they be dating with their families fighting?” I asked.
“Internet,” Jess replied. “Sexting, I believe it’s called. Either way they think they’re in love and run off to seek their fortune, blah blah blah.”
“This feud,” Bran said, “how bad is it? We talking a push and shove at the local bar or are we going to start pulling bodies out of Lake Ontario with their throats slashed open?”
We waited for almost a minute in silence. I wasn’t sure if Jess was gauging how much to tell Bran, a human, versus what I needed to know if I had a hope in hell of finding the kids.
“Feuds start over anything in the family, just like in human society. It’s usually business-related. Stealing each other clients, undercutting costs on competing bids, that sort of thing. But it’s come to brawling a few times when challenges are issued. Broken noses, hurt feelings, lots of cursing and shaking of fists.”