Born to Be Badger (Honey Badger Chronicles #5)

“—we should check on Streep.”

Nelle nodded. “Good idea . . . Max? What’s wrong?”

“I feel like we’ve forgotten something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But something.”

*

“Think we should be worried?” Kyle Jean-Louis Parker asked the male sitting across from him at the kitchen table.

“Worried?” Dutch Alexander was a wolverine who called himself Max MacKilligan’s “best friend.” It seemed, though, to Kyle, that he was more of “just a friend” to the honey badger as she spent more time with the She-badgers on her basketball team than she ever did with Dutch. “Worried about what?”

“No one is here. And those three bears from across the street hustled Nat out of the house about an hour ago. Without saying a word to us.” Kyle looked down at the sleeping dog in his lap that Charlie had recently rescued. As a jackal, he had a soft spot for some canines. And after spending most of the night in the vet ER with this guy while he got his ear repaired, Kyle had grown a little attached. Not that it would last. He was an artist with no time for true connections beyond the connection to his work. But since he was just sitting here and the dog had crawled right into his lap, looking for affection, he didn’t have the heart to toss him off. Seemed unnecessarily cruel. Even for him. “It just seems like something is going on and we’ve been . . . I don’t know . . . forgotten.”

“No way. If something was up, Max would definitely let me know.”

*

Max racked her brain for a good minute or so, but nope! She couldn’t think of anything she might be forgetting.

With a shrug, she started walking up the big staircase to the second floor, her teammates right behind her. “Let’s go check on Streep.”

*

Charlie looked around and sighed, “This kitchen is . . . amazing.”

Rutowski smirked. “My husband likes to cook.”

“I could get so much baking done in this kitchen.” The big room had giant glass doors that let in bright sunshine and looking out over a perfect lawn. It spoke to her on so many levels. How could it not? With four stainless steel double ovens, six gas stoves, four refrigerators, and two freezers that could easily hold several zebra carcasses in each, marble floors and counters, Italian tile, and all the equipment she could ever need or use, she’d never been so envious in her life. “I’d have bears lined up around the block. That could be bad, though. They start going through your trash. Looking for the honey buns you burned.”

“Bears,” Rutowski chuckled. “They’ll eat anything.” She gestured to a plate covered in a glass dome. “Arizona bark scorpion?”

Charlie couldn’t help but curl her lip a little, unable to hide her disgust. “No, thanks. Max and her friends will like that, though. Although you may want to keep anything that squirms or scuttles or slithers out of sight once Stevie gets here. Or the screaming will start, and it will never stop.”

“Good to know.” She gave a vague gesture. “Your head feeling any better?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need anything else? You seem a little anxious.”

“Me? No. I’m fine. I’m fine!”

Rutowski placed her hands over Charlie’s, and Charlie realized that all ten of her fingers were tapping incessantly against the marble counter.

“Sorry. Sorry.” She pulled her hands away and began rubbing them against her bloodstained jeans. She just needed to think. To figure out what to do next. To manage the situation.

Sitting here, though, in these high chairs at a marble counter that might cost more than the SUV she’d left behind in Jersey, with these old She-badgers watching her . . . that was just not working for her right now. Nope. Not at all.

*

Tracey watched, fascinated, as the eldest MacKilligan sister jumped off the chair and began moving around the family kitchen. She thought the kid just needed to pace. Badgers could be pacers when they were thinking, planning, plotting. But things only got weirder from there when, while talking nonstop, the kid began going through the kitchen cabinets.

“Does anyone know what’s going on?” MacKilligan asked. “Who targeted us? The ones who came after me were Italian. I know that. But what does that mean? Does it mean anything? Or was it just a cheap hire? And did they lure us all to the docks? How? And why? Should I get my sisters out? And are you sure my father has nothing to do with this? He usually does.” She briefly paused, a five-pound bag of flour clutched in her hands. “You have geese,” she noted, gazing out the big windows. Slowly, Tracey and her friends turned in their chairs and stared at the geese walking by the big double doors.

“I don’t understand,” the kid said, suddenly speaking again. “For once we didn’t do anything. We weren’t there to start shit. We were just . . . investigating. And they tried to kill all of us. Do you have more flour than this?”

Tracey blinked. Surprised by the second sudden change of topic. “Um . . .” She pointed at a door that led to the pantry.

The kid disappeared inside, gasping at the sight of everything that Trace knew was in that room. Just wait until the kid got a look at their walk-in freezer.

Tracey could hear that the kid was still talking. She couldn’t make out the words but she had a feeling the girl was still analyzing what had happened that day. She was beginning to feel sorry for the poor thing. She was half wolf. Maybe that’s where all that self-analyzing came from. Honey badgers didn’t really do that. They might analyze why a heist went wrong or why they’d ended up in jail, but only so that sort of thing wouldn’t happen again. What they didn’t do was tear themselves apart over emotional bullshit.

The kid walked out of the pantry with two unopened sacks of flour, each fifty pounds. She carried them with ease but that wasn’t Tracey’s concern. Instead, it was knowing how crazy her husband would get when he saw his pantry had been invaded.

“Oh, honey,” Tracey said, slipping off the stool and moving toward the kid, “maybe you should not—”

“Uh . . . Aunt Tracey?”

Tracey stopped and looked at the doorway that led into the hallway. Her niece stood there. So strong and fierce. She’d survived a really shitty childhood as only a true honey badger could. She doubted her niece spent any time overanalyzing emotional bullshit like MacKilligan.

“Could I speak to all of you?” Mads motioned with her hand. “Please?”

Gesturing to her friends, Tracey headed out of the kitchen and into the hallway. Mads kept walking, so Trace kept following until they reached the foyer.

“Is Charlie . . . baking?” Mads asked when they’d stopped.

“I think so. She started going through the cabinets and then the pantry—”

“She turned the oven on,” CeCe noted.

“Okay . . . yeah.” Mads nodded her head while her face cringed. “You need to stay away from her right now.”

“Uh . . . my husband isn’t going to be okay with her baking in the family kitchen.”

“I say this with love, but he’s going to have to suck it up.”

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