“Feud,” Occam said. “It feels like a feud. A paranormal-versus-paranormal mini-war, either familial or a clan-versus-clan confrontation, like between vamp clans or between were-creature species. The scents might mean nothing. Or everything.” Occam sipped, thinking, and I could see everyone nodding, putting pieces of the case puzzle together. “Like werelions against wereleopards or wolves against hyena. Vaguely similar paranormal species fighting over territory,” he finished.
“Inside the family? Family on family?” I asked. “Miriam went missing. Maybe she’s back?” That sort of thing didn’t happen in the church. The patriarch’s word was law and no one fought against it. And then I realized, it had happened. And it had started with me, which made me uncomfortable in ways I couldn’t explain to myself, so I shoved it into the back of my mind for later consideration. But family against family, that was very common in the church. I just hadn’t thought about things like that happening in the townie world.
“You’ve done well narrowing it down,” Soul said. “Has anyone had sleep in the last sixteen hours? No? Then Unit Eighteen is now officially off duty. I want everyone to bed. I’ve kept the feds updated and will update them again in an hour or so. They can carry the ball for the next twelve. I’ll monitor everything from here and see you all back here at six p.m., well rested and feeling lively. Dismissed.”
It wasn’t a request. I checked the time and found it was after six in the morning. I had no idea where all the hours had gone, but I was expected at Pete’s Coffee Shop. To have breakfast with Benjamin Aden.
I stood, ignoring Occam, who stared at me as I slipped past him in the doorway. I got my bags and took the stairs to the outside. To discover that I didn’t have my truck. “Well, dang,” I said.
“Need a ride?”
My boots crunched on the sleet as I turned to see T. Laine. All I could think was, Thank God it isn’t Occam. “Is Pete’s Coffee Shop, downtown on Union, out of your way?” I asked.
“Totally, but I’m driving. I want to see this paragon of manliness and restraint that has Occam’s panties in a twist.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Get in.” Lainie popped the locks and we climbed in. She glanced at me and away as she started her car. “Occam told me about your truck not being here. Sent me to drive you. Boy’s got it bad.” I didn’t know how to reply to that. We drove off into the dawn, with the storm clouds blowing away and a golden sun climbing into the sky.
TWELVE
Amazingly, T. Laine found a parking spot on the street and pulled in. I looked at her from the corner of my eye. “You are not joining us for breakfast.”
“Of course I’m not. I’ll be at the bar. Getting food. Minding my own business.” She slipped into the morning light and shut the car door. I realized that there was no way to stop her. That I had no car to get home. That I had no cash for an Uber. And that my option was for Ben to drive me to my house. I hadn’t thought this through. I blew out a breath and followed T. Laine into the building, which looked a lot like an old-fashioned diner.
Muttering as I passed by her seat at the long stainless bar, I said, “You turn him into a toad and I’ll be really mad.”
Lainie snorted and accepted a cup of coffee from the bar waiter.
Ben was seated at the last booth in the back of the building. I moved through the morning crowd, removed my coat, and sat across from him. He was freshly shaved and dressed in an Old Navy pea coat and leather boots, Levi’s, and a waffle Henley in a blue that made his eyes glow brilliantly. Not churchman clothing. Store-bought. Not new. Things he had owned for a while. I figured that his clothes might be an attempt to communicate something about his separation from the old ways of the church.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning, Nell. You look mighty pretty to have worked all night. Most people would be dragging, but you look wonderful. Your eyes are . . . really green,” he added. “And your hair is . . . was it always so red? Did you . . . color it?” Coloring one’s hair was a sign of vanity, a damning sin to the church.
“It’s the light,” I said shortly. “I haven’t been to Pete’s. I didn’t know it was also a restaurant. What’s good?”
Ben dropped his eyes to the menu and said, “Most everything. I eat here whenever I’m in town. It’s a decent, inexpensive breakfast.” Which was something my daddy would have said and was high praise for a churchman. And . . . that was what Ben was, no matter how townie he dressed. A churchman. Through and through.
I didn’t know why that made my eyes fill with tears. I blinked them hard and smiled at the waitress when she brought coffee I hadn’t ordered. “Extra cream and sugar,” I said to her. “Thanks.”
“You folks ready to order?” she asked.
I opened my mouth to reply but never got the chance.
“Yes,” Ben said. “The lady will have the cinnamon French toast with sausage. I’ll have a Greek omelet, sausage, bacon, and biscuits.”
It was exactly what I would have ordered, but . . . but Ben ordered without asking me. Just like the weird nanny stuck her fingers into my plants. Without permission.
“With two eggs,” I said. “And actually, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll have hot tea instead of coffee. And bacon instead of sausage.”
Ben looked nonplussed and I said, “And that will be separate checks.”
“Got it,” she said. She walked away.
I studied Ben. A faint blush had spread over his cheeks and down his neck as I spoke to the waitress. I figured he was embarrassed at my behavior in changing my breakfast order instead of being a docile woman. Churchmen might think that ordering a woman’s food was a compliment instead of an intrusion. Carefully not using any church-speak, I said, “We were interrupted yesterday before we got to the meat of the discussion about you and me. I’m not a churchwoman, Ben, not anymore, if I ever was. You say you know it, but you don’t.”
I leaned in and stared him down, dropped my voice like I’d heard the cats do, and said, “I’m not a child to be married off by my parents. I’m not a hillbilly backcountry hick, or too stupid to know beans from bunny droppings. I’m a law enforcement officer and a paranormal investigator. I don’t want to spend my life spittin’ out babies like an assembly line. I don’t want to make my own clothes or cook for a huge family and live and die in the house and the church. Maybe . . . maybe if we’d met right after John died and before the churchmen decided to try and kill me, things mighta been different, but they aren’t.”
“I heard you fought back. I like that in a woman. I don’t want a woman who—” He stopped.
“A woman who lets a man order her food for her? A submissive little doormat?”