He hadn’t even moved. I wanted to sink back into the same oblivion, but I couldn’t. Emergencies happened. All the time.
I slipped out of bed. Reggie opened one eye, closed it again. Grenade continued to snore. I gathered my clothes, snatched up my phone, and went into the bathroom. I discovered a text from Joaquin.
There’s something weird about this wolf.
“You think?” I muttered then texted back: Be right there.
I found a piece of stationery imprinted with the words Stone Lake Cottages, and scribbled a note.
Had to check on Pru. Back soon. I’ll bring coffee.
That should smooth over any crankiness Owen might experience upon waking and finding me gone. With his truck.
I stepped into the early morning chill of a northern Wisconsin autumn. As Three Harbors was both a farming community and a tourist hub, there were plenty of cars on the road at just before seven A.M. I parked in my lot, opened the back door, and Pru shot out.
He saw.
She raced across the gravel and disappeared into the trees an instant before Joaquin appeared.
“Where’d she go?”
I pointed at the forest, grabbed his arm before he could run off too. “You aren’t going to catch her.”
“No,” he agreed. “She’s completely healed.”
Ah, hell! How was I going to explain a perfectly fine rump that had not been fine only yesterday?
Now that Pru was gone, I didn’t have to.
“Sure she is.”
“You should have seen her wound. Except there wasn’t one any more.”
“Joaquin, that’s—”
“I swear.” He lifted one hand. “I’d have thought I imagined the whole thing, but the hair was still shaved, there just wasn’t … anything. No stitches, no scar. Poof.”
“Poof,” I repeated.
“Then you opened the door and she took off.” He shook his head. “She shouldn’t have been able to run like that either.”
“You’d be surprised what wild animals can do. Deer heal so quickly that blood trails seem to disappear less than a mile from impact.” Much to the chagrin of deer hunters everywhere. Deer didn’t actually heal that quickly, but within a week, yeah. “They wouldn’t survive out there if they didn’t heal fast.”
“This was freaky fast.”
I spread my hands. “Whatever you say.”
His face flushed, and his fingers curled tight in frustration, but without the evidence, he had nothing.
“Don’t you have school?” I urged him out the door. “I’ll see you later.”
“Later,” he repeated, as if in a daze.
“Office hours.”
“Oh, right. Sure.” He left.
“Phew!” I threw the lock on the back door, ducked the crime scene tape, and ran upstairs. I probably shouldn’t have until I was given the all clear, but tough. I jumped into the shower, rustled up new clothes, and returned to the pickup.
The best coffee in town, after my mother’s, could be found at Bean and Gone. No Starbucks in Three Harbors. Yet.
I parked just as Raye and a gorgeous man who must be her fiancé exited the coffee shop and headed for the Harborside Motel, conveniently located right next door.
“Raye!”
She turned, in her hands a tray with four cups. The man, Bobby she’d called him, had four cups too. At the sight of me, he bobbled them.
“Wow. She really does look like you, cher.” His accent was both Southern and foreign. His skin was the shade of summer sand, his hair as black as Raye’s. Both those things only made his eyes shine more blue.
“This is Bobby Doucet,” Raye said.
I nodded, smiled. He did too.
“You spoke to your parents?”
“Yeah.”
“You were adopted?”
“No.”
Now she bobbled her tray. If this continued, there wouldn’t be any coffee left, though neither of them had spilled a drop from what I could see. Magic or luck?
“That’s impossible,” Raye said.
“Not really.”
I hadn’t been adopted, I’d been … substituted. Quickly I explained all I’d learned.
Raye glanced at her fiancé. “That explains why you didn’t find any record of another abandoned baby in the area.”
“You’re a New Orleans detective?”
“I was. I accepted the job of chief of police in New Bergin when the last chief retired recently.”
“Convenient.”
“The town hadn’t had a murder in eons. Chief Johnson wasn’t equipped to handle several in a week.”
“Who is?”
“Me,” Bobby said. “New Orleans isn’t exactly a murder-free zone.”
“You’d know.” I didn’t. The farthest away I’d ever been—unless I counted Scotland—was Milwaukee. Also not a murder-free zone, though probably not as hopping in that area—or any other—as New Orleans.
“Your parents’ story explains why there was no mention of your being found,” Bobby said. “But where is your other sister?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m still getting used to her.” I pointed at Raye. “You mentioned you found me by magic. How’d that work?”
“I cast a spell to find Henry once, saw you. He filled me in on the rest.”
“Couldn’t you do the same to find her?”