“I know. That’s why I called in those who have no sanity.”
Van didn’t like the sound of that at all. Nope. Not at all.
“Who?”
Now Mira shrugged. “I called in Tracey Rutowski and her—”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Oh, Mira. No!”
“I went to a show at Rutowski’s gallery in Manhattan a couple of months ago. It was amazing.” Ric blinked, looked at all of them before adding, “But I guess that’s not the point of this conversation.”
“Didn’t she start Chernobyl?” Imani asked.
“No! That was propaganda from Russian cats. She was nothing but a child then.”
“She did extend the Cold War,” Van reminded her.
“She did not extend it. She simply made it a little more difficult to end. And you forget she was a teen then, dabbling in things she didn’t understand.”
“A teen starting shit with her honey badger friends. In foreign countries. Involving Gorbachev. And now you bring her into this?”
“What do you want me to do? The cats won’t help,” she said. “Neither will bears. And if there’s anyone who can find out what’s going on and maybe unearth the information that will get Katzenhaus off their collective asses, it is Tracey Rutowski and her honey badger friends.”
“Is this because of your granddaughter?” Van asked. “Are you putting us all at risk to protect her?”
“My granddaughter can take care of herself. But I will not put my species at risk. If that means pulling the craziest of our kind out of retirement to help, then that is what will happen.”
Mira stood. She put the straps of what had to be a fourteen-thousand-dollar designer purse over her forearm and paused to brush long lion hair off her black suit.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, “I have other things to get to. I just thought you should know where we all stood at the moment. And I will ask both of you to let Rutowski do her work.”
“And if she blows up half of Manhattan . . . so be it?”
“Oh, puhleese, little dog. Such lies you all tell. Besides,” she added, pushing past Ric, “the Berlin wall had to come down sometime, and she was smart enough to make it look like everyone was involved!”
Chapter 8
“Tock?”
Tock froze. She’d been trying to sneak through the kitchen, hoping Charlie wouldn’t notice her. Charlie was at the sink with her back to Tock, washing the last of the utensils she’d used to create her amazing baked goods. Tock had assumed she’d just be ignored now that the bears had been fed and had finally lumbered off.
She was wrong.
So she stood there, frozen.
Charlie shut off the water, shook her hands over the sink, and grabbed a paper towel to dry them. As she turned toward Tock, she asked, “Did you eat something?”
“Uh . . .”
“You need to eat. After what your body went through, food is the most important thing right now.”
“I, uh, had a muffin.”
“One muffin?”
“I only wanted one muffin.”
“Sit,” Charlie ordered and Tock immediately sat down. “You need something a little more substantial than a muffin. You don’t want to suddenly pass out, do you?”
“No?”
Charlie frowned at her weak answer, then went to the freezer. “Let’s see what we have . . .” She let out a sigh. “I can see Dutch has been in my freezer again. This is what happens when you have a breed that can eat frozen meat without thawing it first. He’s eaten most of the bison I had in here. I have regular beef, though.” She leaned out and looked at Tock. “Do you want regular beef?”
Tock didn’t know what “regular beef” meant, but she was too afraid to ask. “Sure.”
Charlie again looked in the freezer. “There are pork chops. Thick-cut ones. Oooh. There’s a leg of lamb. Do you want lamb?”
“Uh . . .”
“You know, you probably need carbs, too. I can make you my spaghetti and meat sauce. You want that?”
“Okay.”
“Great.” She pulled big packages of ground meat out of the freezer. From the cabinets, she took out big cans of tomatoes, and several pounds of pasta followed.
Charlie quickly got to work, putting big pots on the stove to make her sauce in.
Not given permission to leave, Tock just sat there.
“So how do you feel?” Charlie asked.
“Fine.”
“No aftereffects from that poison?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good.” She moved a tray of chocolate muffins from the counter closest to the stove and set it before Tock. “Eat this for now. I don’t want to rush my sauce, but I don’t want you passing out on me either.”
“I don’t think I’ll—”
“You’re lucky to have no aftereffects,” she continued, moving back to the stove. “I got hit with strychnine once and it was unpleasant. Took me three hours to recover, and by then I was facedown in a dumpster. I even vomited a little, which was weird. I rarely vomit.”
Why was Charlie MacKilligan talking to her? The only time the hybrid had ever spoken to Tock for any length of time was when she’d been trying to find out what Max had been up to . . . because Max was always up to something. But Charlie had never given Tock food before she ordered her into a chair and started grilling her for information. This, though . . . this was making Tock paranoid. And she liked to leave paranoia to Mads.
“Do you braid hair?” Charlie suddenly asked.
Tock stared at MacKilligan’s back. “A little. Do you mean like, braid-braids? Or two ponytails?”
“Braid-braids. It’s so hot these days, I’ve been thinking about getting micro-braids. But I don’t feel like spending all day at a salon.”
“Mads can do it. And she’s fast. And you won’t feel like she’s ripped your scalp off when it’s done.”
Charlie looked over her shoulder. “Mads? Really?”
“Don’t let her Thor’s Hammer necklace fool you. Before her mother brought her to Wisconsin, she grew up in Detroit. Girlfriend knows how to braid hair. She does mine.”
Charlie shrugged. “Think she’ll do mine?”
“She’d be afraid not to.”
Charlie stopped what she was doing and faced her. Meanwhile, Tock cringed.
“Afraid not to?” Charlie repeated. “Why is that?”
Tock cleared her throat. “Uh . . . no, no real reason. I mean . . . you know . . .”
“Are you guys still afraid of me?”
“Sh-should we not be?”
Charlie opened her mouth, glanced off, closed her mouth, opened it again, and finally said, “Fair enough. And I’ll admit, I wanted you guys to be terrified of me when we were all in high school because, you know . . . Max. But that was a long time ago. You don’t have to be afraid of me now.”
“Okay . . . ?” But even Tock knew the way she’d said that sounded weak as hell.
“Let me put it to you this way: Have you guys tried to get my baby sister to make meth?”
“No.”
“Did you sell Max into slavery?”
“No.”
“Then you have no reason to be frightened of me.”