He wasn’t peeing on tires or giving anything a good sniff, but in his own way, Kowalski was marking territory. To the terra indigene’s way of thinking, there was nothing odd about that—except he’d never done it before, and this morning seemed a strange time to start.
“Anyone see anything going on at the Stag and Hare after hours?” Kowalski asked.
“Why?”
“Abandoned vehicle in the lot. Could have broken down and someone left it there, or it could have been abandoned by someone causing mischief and being scared off. Since Captain Burke bought the business and the building, I took a good look around, checking for broken windows or other signs that someone might have tried to break in. Stolen bottles of liquor are easy to sell out of the back of a van.”
He hadn’t known that liquor was valued enough to steal. Then again, the closest the terra indigene came to consuming liquor was eating fruit that had started to ferment. Or in the case of the Sanguinati, drinking the blood of someone who had consumed alcohol.
With Burke being the owner, the Stag and Hare would become part of the police pack’s personal territory. Now it made sense that Kowalski was sniffing around.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” Kowalski said.
Simon watched as the police officer walked up to the corner of Main Street. But Kowalski didn’t cross the street to the Stag and Hare. He turned left toward the Courtyard’s Main Street entrance—and the Liaison’s Office.
? ? ?
“Fucking assholes.” Getting voice mail—again—Jimmy ended the call and tried another number. “You think you can cheat me out of my share?”
No ruckus last night. No cop cars wailing to indicate his crew had been caught liberating meat from that shop. Everything had gone as slick as spit.
But no one had called to tell him what time to meet them to pick up his share of the meat. And no one was answering his calls.
Maybe they had lost their nerve and hadn’t done the job at all. Maybe that’s why they didn’t want to talk to him. Easy enough to find out.
“Where are you going?” Sandee demanded when he headed for the door.
“Out. I got business.”
“What kind of business?” She hurried after him, wearing those stupid high-heeled slippers. What kind of woman wore shit like that?
Before he married her, he used to think stuff like that made her look sexy. But that was when just looking at her body made him hot. And what looked sexy for a couple of hours looked pretty damn stupid when you had to live with it.
“Jimmy, the kids are hungry, and there’s nothing to eat,” Sandee whined as she grabbed at his arm.
He shook her off and left, glancing at the apartments as he walked up to Main Street. CJ was already gone. Couldn’t tell about Denby or his bitch wife. One of the cops was on the porch, drinking from one of those mugs everyone was supposed to purchase from the coffee shop instead of paying extra for a disposable cup. Not dressed for work yet.
Jimmy raised a hand in greeting. The bastard just stared.
? ? ?
“Here.” Merri Lee held out one of the travel mugs from A Little Bite. “Nadine was showing Tess how to make an iced mocha, and I volunteered to take a quick break and bring one over for you to try.”
“Who’s minding the bookstore?” Meg asked, taking the mug.
“Vlad is there now.” Merri Lee hesitated. “There’s something odd about them closing the Market Square. Normally Vlad would grumble a bit about me taking a break earlier than usual—although I think he does it because he thinks a human employer would—but when I told him I was popping over to see you, he gave me this strange look, like he was trying to decide if I knew something. Which makes me think there is something to know.”
“Karl is patrolling on foot,” Meg said. She took a sip of iced mocha. “Oh, this is good.”
Merri Lee nodded. “Cold and caffeinated. Definitely a winner in this heat.”
“Karl has never patrolled that way before. And he keeps checking out the Market Square, but human law doesn’t apply in the Courtyard.”
“Michael is on call. We’re supposed to go about our business like we usually do, but I think Lieutenant Montgomery is waiting for something to happen.”
Meg set the mug down and pulled out the prophecy card notebook. “Maybe this?”
Merri Lee studied the page with the newest notes. “What you predicted is disturbing, but I think you’re really tuning into the cards. This looks more like the images you relayed previously to reveal a prophecy.”
“It does?” Meg looked at her notes in surprise.
“Sure. You’ve even grouped them. If I was going to do one of our story cards based on these images, there was a death and police were called, which ended with someone going to jail.”
“Which is good.”
“Yes,” Merri Lee agreed. “But something about the person going to jail is going to create danger. And because of the danger, you—because you would see yourself in a mirror—are going to be in a woods for some reason and find a grave.” She frowned at the notes. “What are you going to tell Simon or Henry?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Merri Lee tapped the word “danger” with her finger.
“That doesn’t apply until the first set of images happens,” Meg argued. But she looked at Merri Lee and knew her friend was also thinking about the closed Market Square and Kowalski patrolling the area around the Courtyard’s business district.
She put the notebook back in the drawer. “If something happens and Vlad or Henry—or anyone else—needs to know, then one of us will tell him.”
Merri Lee looked like she wanted to argue, but she nodded and said, “I’d better get back. If I happen to hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
Meg nodded. “I’ll do the same.”
After Merri Lee went back to work, Meg spent the next hour waiting for deliveries, waiting for mail, waiting for something to do to keep from fretting while she waited for whatever was going to happen.
? ? ?
He was done waiting for those shitheads to call and tell him where to meet them for his share of the haul.
Jimmy sat in A Little Bite, drinking coffee and stewing about the lack of quality help to be found in Lakeside. If he’d still been in Toland and put together a job like this, his crew wouldn’t have tried to jerk him around. After all, he’d put together the deal—and if they believed his cop brother was a little bent and sufficiently under his control that they might have an accident the next time they were in jail, so much the better. But he hadn’t been around Lakeside long enough to have a rep, and CJ wasn’t working much of anything that didn’t involve the freaks, so he wasn’t known to the city’s more enterprising citizens.