Undead and Unemployed (17 page)

Pretty much without exception, the events in this book are entirely made up. Vampires don't stay at the Marquette Hotel; nor do they work the cash registers at Macy's.

However, as of the time of this writing, if you go to a WorkForce Center in Minnesota, they aren't allowed to answer questions about unemployment insurance. And at some centers, you really aren't allowed to use their phones to call someone who can. Honest.

Also, visitors to Summit Avenue will note that the house across from the governor's mansion A) isn't Betsy's, and B) isn't at the end of the block. Artistic license, which is a fancy way of saying I was lazy.

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The present

Michael Wyndham stepped out of his bedroom, walked down the hall, and saw his best friend, Derik Gardner, on the main floor headed for the front door. He grabbed the banister and vaulted, dropped fifteen feet, and landed with a solid thud he felt all the way through his knees. "Hey, Derik!" he called cheerfully. "Wait a sec!"

From his bedroom he heard his wife mutter, "I
hate
when he does that… gives me a flippin' heart attack every time," and he couldn't help grinning. Wyndham Manor had been his home all his life, and the only time he walked up or down those stairs was when he was carrying his daughter, Lara. He didn't know how ordinary humans could stand walking around in their fragile little shells. He'd tried to talk to his wife about this on a few occasions, but her eyes always went flinty and her gun hand flexed, then the phrase "hairy fascist bastard" came up and things got awkward. Werewolves were tough, incredibly tough, but compared to Homo sapiens, who wasn't?

It was a ridiculously perfect day outside, and he couldn't blame Derik for wanting to head out as quickly as possible. Still, there was something troubling his old friend, and Michael was determined to get to the bottom of it.

"Hold up," Michael said, reaching for Derik's shoulder. "I want to—"

"I don't care what you want," Derik replied without turning. He grabbed Michael's hand and flung it away so sharply Michael lost his balance for a second. "I'm going out."

Michael tried to laugh it off, ignoring the way the hairs on the back of his neck tried to stand up. "Touchy! Hey, I just want to—"

"I'm going
out
!" Derik moved, cat quick, then Michael was flying through the air with the greatest of ease, only to slam into the door to the coat closet hard enough to splinter it down the middle.

Michael lay on his back a moment like a stunned beetle. Then he flipped to his feet, ignoring the slashing pain down his back. "My friend," he said, "you are so right. Except you're going out on the tip of my boot. Pardon me while I kick your ass." This in a tone of mild banter, but Michael was crossing the room in swift strides, barely noticing as his friend Moira, who had just come in from the kitchen, squeaked and jumped out of the way.

Best friend or no, nobody—
nobody
—knocked the alpha male around in his own. Damned. House. The other Pack members lived there by his grace and favor, thanks very much, and while the forty-room house had more than enough space for them all, certain things were simply. Not. Done.

"Don't start with me," Derik warned. The morning sunlight was slanting through the skylight, shining so brightly it looked like Derik's hair was about to burst into flames. His friend's mouth—usually relaxed in a wiseass grin—was a tight slash. His grass-green eyes were narrow. He looked—Michael had trouble believing it—ugly and dangerous. Rogue. "Just stay off."

"You started it, at the risk of sounding junior high, and you're going to show throat and apologize, or you'll be counting your broken ribs all the way to the emergency room."

"Come near me again and we'll see who's counting ribs."

"Derik. Last chance."

"Cut it out!" It was Moira, shrieking from a safe distance. "Don't do this in his own house, you idiot! He won't stand down and you two morons—schmucks—losers will hurt each other!"

"Shut up," Derik said to the woman he (usually) lovingly regarded as a sister. "And get lost… this isn't for you."

"I'm getting the hose," she warned, "and then
you
can pay to have the floors re-sealed."

"Moira, out," Michael said without looking around. She was a fiercely intelligent female werewolf who could knock over an elm if she needed to, but no match for two males squaring off. The day was headed down the shit hole already; he wouldn't see Moira hurt on top of it. "And Derik, she's right, let's take this outside—
ooooof
!"

He didn't duck, though he could see the blow coming. He should have ducked, but… he still couldn't believe what was happening. His best friend—Mr. Nice Guy himself!—was challenging his authority. Derik, always the one to jolly people out of a fight. Derik, who had Michael's back in every fight, who had saved his wife's life, who loved Lara like she was his own.

The blow—hard enough to shatter an ordinary man's jaw—knocked him back a full three steps. And that was that. Allowances had been made, but now the gloves were off. Moira was still shrieking, and he could sense other people filling the room, but it faded to an unimportant drone.

Derik gave up trying for the door and slowly turned. It was like watching an evil moon come over the horizon. He glared, full in the face: a dead-on challenge for dominance. Michael grabbed for his throat, Derik blocked, they grappled. A red cloud of rage swam across Michael's vision; he didn't see his boyhood friend, he saw a rival. A challenger.

Derik wasn't giving an inch, was shoving back just as hard, warning growls ripping from his throat, growls which only fed Michael's rage
(rival! rival for your mate, your cub! show throat or die!)
made him yearn to twist Derik's head off, made him want to pound, tear, hurt—

Suddenly, startlingly, a small form was between them. Was shoving, hard. Sheer surprise broke them apart.

"Daddy! Quit it!" Lara stood between them, arms akimbo. "Just… don't do that!"

His daughter was standing protectively in front of Derik. Not that Derik cared, or even noticed; his gaze was locked on Michael's: hot and uncompromising.

Jeannie, frozen at the foot of the stairs, let out a yelp and lunged toward her daughter, but Moira moved with the speed of an adder and flung her arms around the taller woman. This earned her a bellow of rage. "Moira, what the hell? Let go!"

"You can't interfere" was the small blonde's quiet reply. "None of us can." Although Jeannie was quite a bit taller and heavier, the smaller woman had no trouble holding Jeannie back. Jeannie was the alpha female, but human—the first human alpha the Pack had known in three hundred years. Moira would follow almost any command Jeannie might make… but wouldn't let the woman endanger herself or interfere with Pack law that was as old as the family of Man.

Oblivious to the drama on the stairs, Derik started forward again but Lara planted her feet. "Quit it, Derik!" She swung her small foot into Derik's shin, which he barely noticed. "And Daddy, you quit, too. Leave him alone. He's just sad and feeling stuck. He doesn't want to hurt you."

Michael ignored her. He was glaring at his rival and reaching for Derik again, when his daughter's voice cut through the tension like a laser scalpel. "I said
leave him alone
!"

That
got his attention; he looked down at her in a hurry. He expected tears, red-faced anger, but Lara's face was, if anything, too pale. Her eyes were huge, so light brown they were nearly gold. Her dark hair was pulled back in two curly pigtails.

He realized anew how tall she was for her age, and how she was her mother's daughter. And her father's. Her gaze was direct, adult. And not a little disconcerting.

"What?" Shock nearly made him stammer. Behind him, nobody moved. It seemed nobody even breathed. And Derik was standing down, backing off, heading for the door. Michael, in light of these highly interesting new events, let him go. He employed his best Annoyed Daddy tone. "
What
did you say, Lara?"

She didn't flinch. "You heard me. But you won't hear me say it again."

He was furious, appalled. This wasn't—He had to—She couldn't—But pride was rising, blotting out the fury. Oh, his Lara! Intelligent, gorgeous—and utterly without fear! Would he have ever
dared
face down his father?

It occurred to him that the future Pack leader was giving him an order. Now what to do about it?

A long silence passed, much longer in retrospect. This would be a moment his daughter would remember if she lived to be a thousand. He could break her… or he could start training a born leader.

He bowed stiffly. He didn't show the back of his neck; it was the polite bow to an equal. "A wiser head has prevailed. Thank you, Lara." He turned on his heel and walked toward the stairs, catching Jeannie's hand on the way up, leaving the others behind. Moira had released her grip on his wife and was staring, open-mouthed, at Lara. They were all staring. He didn't think it had ever been so quiet in the main hall.

Michael was intent on reaching his bedroom where he could think about all that had just happened and gain his wife's counsel. He didn't quite dare go after Derik just yet—best to take time for their blood to cool. Christ! It wasn't even eight o'clock in the morning!

"Mikey—what—cripes—"

And Lara. His daughter, who jumped between two werewolves with their blood up. Who faced him down and demanded he leave off. His daughter, defending her dearest friend. His daughter, who had just turned four. They had known she was ferociously intelligent, but to have such a strong sense of what was right and what was—

Jeannie cut through his thoughts with a typically wry understatement. "This
can't
be good. But I'm sure you can explain it to me. Use hand puppets. And me without my So You Married A Werewolf guide…"

Then he was closing their bedroom door and thinking about his place in the Pack, and his daughter's, and how he hoped he wouldn't have to kill his best friend before the sun set.

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Revenge is a dish best served cold
.

—Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1782),

Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons)

When Pietra Lang's granddaddy had an affair, it was infidelity. But when her grandmother found out, it became murder…

Or so Eugenia's chicken bones said.

Pietra, better known as Pete to her friends, might have grown up accepting the Cajun housekeeper's mysticism, but a message about an old murder was a doozy to pull out from the great beyond, even for Eugenie Thibodeaux. Pete squinted at the mangled chicken carcass scattered on the kitchen's wooden cutting board, trying to divine more than good soup stock. She failed.

"Bones don't lie," Eugenie said.

Maybe they do.

The uncertainty niggled at Pete.

Eugenie's foresight was usually half a bubble out of plumb but seldom entirely off beam, like the summer the bones told her Pete would meet up with someone tall, dark, and good-looking. She did. He turned out to be a horse.

At any other time, Pete would've jogged upstairs and pried the straight scoop from her grandmother. That wasn't possible now though, since the old gal had died yesterday. She had been a woman steeped in potent Southern roots, emotional, unpredictable, touched with charisma, and given to histrionic flourishes. Not much about her antics could surprise Pete anymore.

Still…

"And this murder'll be revealed when?" Pete asked the housekeeper.

Eugenie shrugged and scraped the chicken pieces into a steaming pot, the multicolored glass bracelets on her wrists tinkling an exotic rhythm. Her funeral-white turban and caftan made her dark eyes intense and fathomless within her smooth brown face.

She might have been fifty or eighty, Pete couldn't say. She'd worked for the family for thirty years and never seemed to age.

"Bones don't tell when, missy, just what."

That could mean five minutes or fifteen years from now, so Pete quashed her curiosity and planted her feet squarely on the temporal plane.

"My schedule's packed," she said around a mouthful of warm buttermilk biscuit. "What with the family coming in, the Fourth of July committee giving me fits, and burying Grandmother, there's no way I can squeeze in a scandal or anything else right now. No time."

"Everything has a time," Eugenie said, nodding. "You'll see." Then she made a shooing motion with her hand. "Now, scat! I got me plenty of hungry people to feed… and haul them catfish outta my kitchen."

Pete shoved away from the granite countertop, telling herself not to be ridiculous. She neither put stock in the housekeeper's predictions nor ignored them.

But murder?

Then again, given all the wrinkles in the Lang family, she had good reason to feel a nagging sense of unease.

Homicide in a prominent Southern family was definitely juicy news, the stuff of prime-time sud-sers. And watershed scandals were nothing new to the Langs.

They had made their money the old-fashioned way—they inherited it—and that was a strike against them in the media, for no matter how justified an act might be, wealth equaled power and, to some people, guilt.

Temperatures neared ninety-five degrees and climbing in Langstown, a small town nestled in the panhandle. Live oaks. Southern Baptists. Quiet money.

Outside, the air was thick and stifling. Barely any breeze moved through the red, white, and blue bunting that festooned the upper balcony railings of Grandmother's home in celebration of the upcoming holiday.

The one-hundred-twenty-year-old antebellum house was Pete's pride, her first project in Langstown to be restored to the grandeur and romance of the Old South. At that moment, seventy-five of the town's most influential were enjoying her handiwork as they milled about deep in the shade of the wide verandas or beat the summer heat in the air-conditioning that billowed starched organdy curtains through the opened French doors.

They had dropped in to pay their respects as much as to rhapsodize over Eugenie's homemade beignets served with café au lait. Later, there would be barbecue ribs, ham, Cajun slaw, macaroni salad, and enough cakes, cookies, and pies to induce insulin shock served on banquet tables spread with red-checkered tablecloths under the shade of the towering oaks. So it was a sure bet no one was leaving short of an earthquake.

Pete had slipped into an unadorned black cotton sheath dress to play hostess, a role she'd relinquish to her mother, Racine, once her private plane landed from Los Angeles. A devotee of Our Lady of Accessories, Racine lived to hobnob.

She also believed in marrying well and often, a philosophy subscribed to by her older daughter, Phoebe, but one not shared by her younger daughter. Her greatest regret was that Pete had yet to land herself a captain of industry.

The year Pete turned thirty, Racine finally accepted that her younger daughter loved working in historical restoration and would likely never leave the sleepy rural community. That same year Racine revised her matrimonial hopes for Pete down to simply a man with a pulse.

Once Pete had greeted the mourning visitors, she roped her long-time friend Albert into helping her lug the cooler full of heavily iced catfish filets down to the old boathouse where Grandmother's fish freezer sat. The July Fourth committee, which Pete chaired, planned a catfish fry as part of the town's annual Independence Day activities, but Eugenié needed the fridge space in the house for the extra guests.

Albert was both a curiosity and a fixture in Langstown. He lived in Tallahassee but often made the ninety-minute drive to play escort whenever Pete represented the family at a county fund-raiser or a historical society function.

The two of them got along so well because they were kindred spirits. Down through the years, they'd both subjected themselves to blind dates, even when they knew the inevitable outcome would still be two people looking for something other than what they'd found.

Today, he wore his usual Hawaiian print shirt and Sperry Top-Siders with no socks but had opted for dark cargo shorts and a black armband as con-cessions to her grandmother's recent passing. They crossed the manicured carpet grass and down the winding crushed oyster-shell pathway, Albert struggling with his end of the heavy cooler, thanks to a two-pack-a-day habit, while Pete led the way.

Three of her grandmother's dogs tagged alongside, on the lookout in case one of the pond mallards ever decided to launch a frontal attack. She'd named the mutts after her favorite all-female group, the Andrews Sisters.

A walker/yellow Lab mix was the alpha, while the ancestry of the other two was in doubt beyond a bit of terrier, a lot of dark fur, and a shared fondness for shredding lacy underwear. Pete had learned to like Jockey thigh-highs in self-defense.

Behind them, the whir of car tires crunching over the gravel driveway mixed in with muffled voices, the metallic slam of car doors, and the constant whine of crickets. A pair of squawking mockingbirds strafed a blackbird that was too close to their nest, and a hound dog bayed somewhere off in the woods, probably scenting a deer. The mouthwatering aroma of smoked ribs saturated the air.

"Good God," Albert wheezed, sweating freely. "Whose idea was this? I'm in no shape for manual labor."

"C'mon, couch potato, just a little farther."

"I prefer divan diva, if you don't mind." And on that note, Albert stubbed his toe on a protruding shell but quickly recovered. "Jeez, I think I dropped my 'nads back there."

"Don't worry about it," Pete said, trudging on through a swarm of no-see-ums. "You don't use them anyway."

"Like you can talk. I know nuns who see more action."

"Don't go there, you sound like my mother."

"At least I'm looking. You? You're doing nothing but biding time with that beanpole mortician."

The sun beat on Pete's face and melted her makeup. She could feel it sliding down her cheeks. Gauging by the sticky feeling under her arms, her deodorant wasn't putting up much of a fight either.

"Vonnie Miller's a nice man," she said. "Safe."

"Safe is the last thing a man wants to be called, unless it's being said at his parole hearing. Trust me, toots. Keep looking. You can do better. The right man is out there just waiting for you to find him."

How often had Pete heard that? Too many to count. Racine quoted the trite saying like scripture, especially around the holidays.

"So how come I have to do all the looking?" Pete said. "Why can't he look for me for a change?"

"Fat chance of him finding you here in the boondocks."

About then, the plastic handle slipped out of Albert's sweaty grasp. He swore and jumped to save his toes as his end of the cooler slapped the ground with a grating screech, forcing Pete to either drag the cooler or stop. She stopped.

One of the blue-haired guests yoo-hooed to Pete from the upper veranda and waved. She shaded her eyes, recognized Mrs. Conroy, one of her grandmother's friends from the Eastern Star, and returned the wave.

"What's the old bag barking about?" Albert asked.

"I have no idea," Pete said, nodding and smiling as if she understood the woman's every word. "Probably another pitch for her grandson, the air-traffic controller from Memphis."

"Good-looking guy?"

"A salad bar of neuroses."

"Never mind then," Albert said. "But while we're on my favorite topic… spill your guts about Danny Benedict. Have you seen him yet? Is he as gorgeous as his pictures? I want all the details."

"Yes, yes, and he's not your type."

Albert deflated.

While he consoled himself with a smoke, Pete slid the black scrunchie off her wrist and bunched her brown hair at the back of her head to lift it off her damp neck. The humidity had turned her new 'do into a mass of frizz.

She debated how much to share with Albert.

He knew Benedict was a high-powered divorce lawyer. They'd seen pictures of him in
People
magazine, usually with some celeb's ex-wife stuck to his side like a hair on a biscuit. But Albert didn't know Benedict had come to meet with Pete's older brother, Jackson.

Jackson intended to ditch his wife of ten years so he could marry his podiatrist. Since he was up for reelection to the state legislature in November, he understandably decided it was more politic to keep this business low profile.

The problem was that Albert and Jackson disliked each other, had done so from day one. Whenever they were in the same room, it was like watching two dogs square off in the middle of a junkyard. So, as much as Pete adored Albert, low profile meant not sharing that tidbit with him.

Thinking back on meeting Benedict at the hospital, she recalled casually elegant clothes, an expensive shirt and creased slacks, smoky brown eyes, and a sensuous mouth; the kind of man her grandmother would say could walk into a room and tame women like snakes.

"Benedict's okay," Pete said, "if you like the tall, blond, and devastating sort."

Albert snorted. "It would be tough, but I could force myself to get used to it."

"I'm sure his dog loves him, too."

Another puff and Albert flipped his cigarette into the boxwood bushes, so Pete hefted her cooler handle and continued toward the boathouse.

"The man didn't have to come to the hospital," she added, more to herself than to Albert, "but he did. He's okay."

Out of her league was more like it. She was a plain, ordinary woman with plain, ordinary tastes. From what Pete had read about Benedict in the gossip sheets, she was no match for a man who kept a string of glamorous women and waltzed through them faster than kudzu through the backyard.

Up ahead of her, the boathouse overlooked a spring-fed lake that had been stocked years ago with large-mouthed bass, bream, shellcracker, and bluegill. Pete never cared for fishing, but as a kid, she used to come down to watch the wood ducks fly in at dusk to nest in the reedy wetlands on the far edge.

Now as she approached, a hungry bass exploded on an unsuspecting frog that snoozed close to the seawall. The surface of the murky water churned foamy white for a second then quieted into gentle ripples.

The building itself was a rustic, gloomy catchall outbuilding, seldom used since Grand-daddy Lang had passed away the decade before, except by mud daubers and doves that home-steaded the opened rafters. In his day, it was rumored, the boathouse was often the scene of stolen kisses and illicit rendezvous with women of abandoned character who seemed intent on picking the gold out of his teeth.

The design was utilitarian—Pete's favorite euphemism for functional and butt ugly. Apparently, Grandmother had liked it that way, since she had refused to include the outbuilding during the restoration of the big house.

Pete never understood why. Too many memories, perhaps. Now that the old gal was beyond fussing, Pete made a mental note to spruce up the facade to give it more character, more integrity with its surroundings.

She unlocked the metal door and stepped gingerly past spiders and grinch-green tree frogs waging a turf war over the clutter of sprinkler parts and rusty fishing lures that littered the warped wooden shelves. The place smelled old and musty, like the inside of an unwashed running shoe.

"Ye gods and little fishes," she said, "when do you suppose was the last time this place was cleaned out?"

"We'll herd the livestock later," Albert wheezed with an impatient hand wave. "Open the freezer, toots. Chop, chop. I'm dying here."

"You sound like an old fud."

"Knowing you has made me an old fud."

"Yeah, yeah, the wailing wall is around back."

Then Pete turned and yanked open the ancient upright freezer and stopped short.

"Oh, my aching…"

Her mouth worked, but no more words came out.

She slammed the door shut as quickly as she'd opened it, then swallowed hard.

"What now?" Albert griped.

"Did you have a good breakfast?" Pete said after a moment.