“Will you tell me how it goes?”
“You know that anything she says to me is confidential,” Martina said.
“I know. Just tell me if it’s salvageable or not. We need her.”
Martina shut off the recorder and put it down between us.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I told her.
Martina looked at me. “What’s the alternative, Andrea? Where do you see this situation going? You slapped her, in public.”
“She backhanded me down the stairs.”
“That was a gentle love tap compared to what she could’ve done. You challenged her. She can’t ignore you. You wouldn’t, in her place.”
No, I wouldn’t. I would’ve gone after me. Quick, too.
“You can leave,” Martina said.
“I’m not leaving. This is my home now. Why should I leave?”
“Then joining the Pack is your only choice. You can’t be unattached, Andrea. It is our law and you are subject to it, because you are a shapeshifter. You are one of us.”
I clenched my teeth. “I could fight her.”
“You would lose. But suppose you won,” Martina said. “Then what? I won’t follow you, Andrea. You didn’t fight beside me; you didn’t prove to me that you deserve to lead. I don’t know you and I don’t trust you. If you succeeded and killed Aunt B, we would all gang up on you. I don’t know where Raphael’s allegiances would lie, but he would have to choose between the woman he loves and his family. It is a lousy choice to make.”
“Raphael and I are at a complicated place.”
“I don’t doubt it. We’re boudas, after all.” Martina shrugged. “If a woman sees her boyfriend in a restaurant with another woman, she may march over and confront him there. She may wait and confront him later. But if a bouda sees another woman with her mate, she would throw her drink in his face, and then the table, and then perhaps an unlucky member of the restaurant staff if one happened to be nearby. We make dramatic statements, in fight and in love.”
“Life would be easier without the drama,” I told her.
“Not for us. We have to vent, Andrea. That’s the way we’re wired. But back to the clan. B’s current second isn’t fit to be in charge of the clan. She is beta, because nobody else wants the job and responsibility. We would be left leaderless and have to fight it out. Would you really be that selfish, Andrea?”
She was right. I wouldn’t be. I didn’t want to be governed by shapeshifter laws, and some long-forgotten teenage part of me wanted to stomp my feet and scream that it wasn’t fair. But it was. A citizen of the country was subject to its laws, and while some people thought it was unfair, they still had to obey them. When they didn’t, people like me arrested them.
I didn’t want to be treated special because I was beastkin. But I was, because I had forced the situation into a corner, and now everyone was making special allowances for me.
What did I really have to lose by joining the clan? B was right, I did have the proper tools. I could join, take a position of responsibility, prove myself, and when the time came, I would take the boudas away from Aunt B.
I puzzled over this thought, turning it this way and that in my mind. “Logically I know you are right. Everything you said makes sense. But it feels like giving up somehow.”
Martina nodded. “You feel like your hand is being forced, and you have to join the Pack not because you want to, but because you must to do it to survive. This is your home and you want to live here on your terms, not the Pack’s.”
“Yes.”
“What is it you want to do in life, Andrea?”
I looked at her. I had no idea how to answer.
“Each of us selects a purpose,” Martina said. “Mine is to help people heal themselves. What’s yours?”
“I’m not sure,” I told her.
Martina smiled. “Something to think about.”
I was a shapeshifter. Nobody could take it away from me. Nobody could force me into early retirement and the boudas needed me. But I had no idea what my goal in life was. I had never thought about it in grand terms.
“Thank you for coming by,” I said. “Will you tell Aunt B I will be visiting her in a day or two?”
Martina nodded. “I’ll let her know.”
I catnapped after Martina and Ascanio left and heard the phone ring through my sleep. By the time I made it downstairs, the answering machine had kicked in.
“Andi, it’s me,” Raphael said.
I stepped away from the phone.
“I went to see Garcia Senior,” he said. “He says that they were approached by Gloria Dahl and asked to bid on Blue Heron. I thought maybe Gloria and Anapa were working together. It would make sense: he would put in a bid and she would put in the second-highest bid, so in case something went wrong with his bid, he’d still get the building. But Garcia said that Gloria’s bid was almost eighty grand below mine, which would make it one hundred and fifteen thousand below Anapa’s. Basically, she had no chance. If they were working together, their bids would be closer together. Anapa bid way too high and she bid way too low.”
Huh. I could’ve sworn Gloria was Anapa’s flunky. Well, showed what I knew.
“I hope you went home,” Raphael said. “I’ll be driving by later. Don’t do anything stupid without me.”
Don’t do anything stupid without him. I wouldn’t be doing anything with him, stupid or otherwise.
I checked the world outside the window. It was a few minutes past nine and the evening sky was vast and dark. Perfect.
I had to go back to Gloria’s crime scene. It was highly likely that Gloria, whoever or whatever she was, and her pals must have murdered Raphael’s people. That explained both the wide fang spawn and the location of the bite wounds. But I had no concrete proof. I didn’t have access to Gloria’s corpse, so I couldn’t measure the exact distance between her fangs and I still didn’t know where her associates were or what she was after.
I had a good suspicion that the knife in the photo that I’d seen in Anapa’s office was involved. In fact, I was sure of it, but again I had to obtain evidence of that. I had to figure out what the knife was and what it was for, and the only way to shed light on this situation would be to break into the crime scene and I would have to do it alone. If I got caught, I’d be detained, but I was just a private citizen. If anyone from the Pack was detained with me, the matter would take on a completely different light.
Everything inside me hurt. I felt like I’d been chewed up by a beast with small sharp teeth. My bones felt so heavy, you’d think they were made of lead.
I didn’t want to go anywhere. I just wanted to lie there and fall asleep so I wouldn’t hurt anymore. But there were people dependent on me for answers and I wouldn’t get those answers by taking time out to rest. Besides, with the magic down, now was the best time to search the room. Who knew how long technology would last?
Come on, Ms. Nash. Get your ass in gear.
I forced myself to sit up. Doolittle had said no physical activity, but time was of the essence. I’d just have to take it easy.
I drove to Pucker Alley two blocks from White Street and hid the car in the shadow of a ruin. A vast, cloudless sky stretched above me, and the night was gauzy with curtains of silvery moonlight. Just my luck. I grabbed my duffel bag out of the backseat and pulled it open. It held my emergency kit: matches in a plastic bag, gauze, antibiotic ointment, Band-Aids, knife, roll of duct tape, flask of alcohol, bottle of water, an MRE—a Meal Ready to Eat courtesy of the United States Army—spare knife, rope, gloves, hat, and a towel. I had once read a book that said a traveler should always have one and it made a lot of sense.
I slipped on the gloves, hid my hair under the hat, zipped the duffel, and set off.
My forehead immediately began to sweat under the cotton hat. Hats and muggy Atlanta spring didn’t exactly play nice. But I’d suffer a little sweat to keep from leaving stray hairs at the scene to be found by PAD crime techs.