Chapter Five

Chapter Five

THE BABY SUCKED on her own fist contentedly and stared up at Marlow with vague blue eyes. It didn’t seem that her late-night adventure last full moon had done any lasting damage. Marlow really didn’t want to break that streak by dropping the kid.

He shifted the baby’s squashy weight into the crook of his arm and cleared his throat. None of the people mid-fight in the torn-up yard paid any attention to him.

“I don’t need to go!” Annette yelled. She folded down onto the ground, long legs in yoga pants bent into sharp angles, and pressed her hands flat against her ears. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t hurt my baby.”

The last time Marlow had seen her, she’d nearly kicked his ass, seven feet of misfired hormones and claws. She was younger than he’d vaguely expected, fresh-faced and freckled, with long red hair and bitten fingernails painted bright yellow.

Her mother grabbed Annette’s wrists and tried to pull her hands down. When that didn’t work, she used her grip to give Annette a frustrated shake.

“It’s court-ordered,” she yelled into Annette’s tearstained face. “If you don’t go, they can take Billie away from you. Is that what you want?”

Off to the side, Annette’s father shooed the family’s pet rooster back indoors. The rust-colored bird churred indignantly and tried to scoot back out round the man’s legs. Marlow kept a wary eye on it out of the corner of his eye. Even with their wings and spurs docked, the spur breeds were aggressive. He didn’t support breed bans, but he didn’t want a beak in his eye either.

“It would be a temporary hold,” Marlow downplayed the threat diplomatically. “And that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

The father finally closed the door in the rooster’s face. His hands were scratched from manhandling the alarmed bird, and drops of blood seeped from the torn skin. He blotted it against his muddy jeans as he jogged back over.

“Mary, calm down,” he said as he patted his wife’s shoulders ineffectually. “It’ll be fine. She’s fine. This is just a formality.”

She turned on him. “They don’t send Night Shift for a formality! You know that. Your father was Night Shift, back in New York. Did they send him out to serve summonses often? Of fucking course not.”

“California does it differently,” Marlow said. “During the full moon, I’m Night Shift, the rest of the month, I’m just another cop. Annette failed to show up today, and I’m here to make sure she does. That’s all.”

For now.

Marlow could soft-soap this as much as he wanted, but if Annette didn’t engage in the process, it would escalate.

“You can’t blame me for what happens during the full moon,” Annette wailed as she curled in on herself, face buried in her crooked knees. “It’s not my fault.”

“It’s not what you did; it’s what you’ll do,” Marlow said. “Next full moon. The state needs to know what measures you’ll take to safeguard Billie.”

The baby picked that moment to hiccup its way into a grouchy, croaky wail. Red flushed up to its scalp, bright under the fuzz of hair, as it squirmed against his grip. It was stronger than he had expected.

Annette jerked her head up and stared at him with swollen, teary eyes. She swiped at her cheeks with both hands and scrambled to her feet.

“Why does he have my baby?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mary said impatiently. She grabbed Annette’s shoulders and tried to pull her around. “You have to—“

Annette hit her. The crack of her palm against her mother’s face was sharp and nearly knocked the older woman down. It was hard to tell who was more surprised. Annette snatched her hand back and clutched it against her chest as if it had gotten into trouble on its own. Mary didn’t move for a moment, her face turned away as she absorbed it.

“Mary!” the husband gasped. He grabbed her elbow and put his arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Annette babbled. She reached out with shaky hands. “I didn’t mean—“

Mary shoved her husband roughly away from her and slapped Annette across the face. She used the back of her hand and put her shoulder into it. It staggered Annette. She stumbled back a step, nearly into the freshly replanted flower bed, and raised a hand to touch her bruised cheek with trembling fingers.

Shit.

Marlow took a quick look around. The baby’s carrier was set under the table, in the thin crescent of shade. He bent down and tucked Billie into it, getting a spit-wet fist in the eye as Billie wriggled while he strapped her in.

“You nearly killed us too, you selfish little brat,” Mary yelled, her voice cracked and flash-paper furious. “We’ve lived in fear since you first shifted, and you won’t even do this for us? For Billie?”

Marlow straightened up just as Mary cocked her hand back for another slap, while Annette cringed. The dad hovered on the sidelines, frozen in place by the outburst of violence. Marlow put himself between them, one hand on Annette’s shoulder and the other raised in warning for Mary to stop.

“That’s enough—”

She hit him. The heel of her hand cracked against his jaw hard enough to make his teeth click together. From the taste of salt on his tongue, he’d caught the edge of his cheek or tongue as well. That would sting later; right now, all he could feel was the heat that scalded the side of his face.

Mary blanched as she realized what she’d done. Her mouth opened slightly and stayed that way as she took a step backward. The movement finally jarred her husband from his paralysis, and he stepped in to wrap an arm around her shoulder. His fingers dug into her upper arm as he pulled her back.

“It was an accident,” he said. “That’s all.”

“I’m sorry,” Mary said. She wasn’t looking at Marlow; her pleading expression was directed over his shoulder. “I just… I just…”

Damp fingers touched Marlow’s wrist. “I’ll go,” Annette said, her voice small and tight in her throat. “Okay? That’s what everyone wants. I’ll go.”

Annette ducked out from under Marlow’s arm and headed back to the house. She didn’t look at her parents on the way past. Mary tried to reach her, hand outstretched pleadingly, but the dad pulled her back.

“Not yet,” he said into her hair. He patted at her shoulders in nervous comfort, although it might have been for himself instead of her. “Let everything settle, love.”

Under the table, Billie didn’t seem to have noticed the atmosphere. She’d somehow managed to shed both her socks and waved her chubby-toed feet triumphantly in the air.

“The mediator won’t want to see Billie this time,” Marlow said. It sounded officious, but he couldn’t think of how to soften it. “Next time, they might want to see all of you.”

Annette’s father gestured uncomfortably at Marlow’s face. “And…”

It had been Marlow’s tongue that had taken the worst of the hit. He absently grated the edge of it against his molars to check the sting.

“An accident,” he said. “No harm, no foul.”

He went after Annette. She was waiting for him next to the patrol car, her hands in her pockets and her head tipped forward so her hair hid her face.

“You could press charges,” Marlow said in a neutral tone.

Annette rubbed her cheek. “I hit her first. She didn’t mean it. She’s just… it scared her.”

They didn’t speak as they got into the car; then Marlow tried again before the silence settled.

“Some null parents, if they aren’t Night Shift, they take it hard,” he offered. His experience had been from the other side, the child left behind while the moon stole his family one by one. Maybe that had been better. It hadn’t felt like it at the time. “They spend every full moon focused on keeping their family safe from the wolves, and then suddenly their kid is out there with them. It’s scary.”

Annette swallowed and stared down at her hands. She picked at the dirt under her nails. “They think I’m scary,” she said. “Now. They were okay, but not now.”

Marlow pulled away from the curb. “No one can blame you for what the wolf did,” he reminded her.

She crossed her arms and slouched down in the seat. “I could,” she said. Fear softened her voice for a second, made it tremble, and then denial snapped back in. “If it was true. If I did hurt Billie… if the wolf did it? I’d blame myself. But I didn’t. It was a mistake. Night Shift made a mistake. Because I couldn’t live with hurting her.”

Half the petals on the Bloomin’ Onion had already been plucked. Bennett broke another one off with greasy fingers and dipped it in the ranch dressing.

“Well, that’s sad,” she said as she crunched into the fried batter. “Because she’s just going to have to, isn’t she?”

Marlow slouched in his chair, one arm hooked over the back, and wrapped his fingers loosely around the neck of his beer. He should have known better than to bring this up with Bennett, but he’d not been able to shake Annette’s misery over the last couple of days.

“It’s just something that happened,” he said, “not something she did.”

“You would believe that, Kit-cat.”

Marlow shook his head and looked away from Bennett to the pool table. His gaze landed briefly on the sign for the restrooms, and he felt heat flush his temples. He pretended he’d not noticed and watched Franklin harass the rookie for beer money.

When he didn’t take the bait, Bennett made a disgusted noise.

“Whatever. She doesn’t come to terms with what ‘happened,’ then we’ll be out there at the end of the month, and maybe this time I won’t be there to save the baby.”

“You didn’t save her this time,” he pointed out.

“I would have. Probably quicker once my maternal instincts kicked in.”

Marlow laughed. Bennett kicked him under the table. In the shin, not the knee, so she hadn’t taken it to heart.

“I’ve got maternal instincts,” she said. “My pet rat ate my favorite bra, and I didn’t yeet it out the window.”

“Mother of the year,” Marlow drawled. He took a drink of beer and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “You ever wonder how Piper got started?”

Bennett paused mid-chew and reached for a napkin as she finished off the onion bloom. She wiped her hands on the paper fastidiously.

“Not because he wasn’t sympathetic to doe-eyed mommies who nearly ate their kid alive,” she said. “If that’s what you’re getting at.”

“I wasn’t.” Or maybe he was. Marlow didn’t know anymore. It was just too strange to be here eating bar food and drinking beer with someone who maybe tried to kill him. “Just—”

He shrugged. Bennett studied him a moment longer and then grabbed a limp, tepid fry from the dregs left in the basket. She swabbed it through a puddle of ketchup.

“I heard about the case with that actress,” she said. “It sounded like something out of his playbook, but no one’s bandied his name about since then. I thought it was just some rich bitch who thought her son should never be blamed for anything, full moon or not.”

There was nearly as much contempt in her voice for Farnham as there had been for Annette. No one got much slack in Bennett’s world.

“Sort of,” Marlow said. He took another drink of beer and tried to work out how much he could share without just… trusting her again. “She was one of Piper’s clients. Or was the go-between for him and a client, anyhow.”

“Fuck,” Bennett said. “So when the shit hit the fan, she just figured if it had worked once…”

“I guess. Just made me think.”

“You’re Night Shift,” Bennett said. “They don’t pay you to think, they pay you to hit stuff… and in your case chauffeur them places when they bat their baby browns. Didn’t think that was your type.”

Franklin dragged a chair over and straddled it, arms folded over the low carved back of it.

“What are we talking about?” he asked as he grabbed the beer he’d left behind. “Marlow befouling the restroom of our sacred brotherhood with paid help?”

Bennett grabbed the neck of the beer and yanked it out of Franklin’s grip. “I look like your brother?”

He rolled his eyes. “Turn of phrase.”

“And we’re talking about Marlow getting all soft-hearted over that wolf-bitch that tried to kill her kid,” Bennett said. She drained his beer while Franklin mugged indignantly at her. “Like he won’t have to put a bullet in her next full moon if she doesn’t learn.”

Franklin shrugged. “Whatever,” he said and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Unless we’re roasting Marlow for his bad taste in boys, we got a rookie to initiate.”

They looked over. Half of Bennett’s team were clustered around the kid. They’d kept his glass full and his blood high all night. Dawson had him in a headlock, and he laughed along with the others even as his face went red.

“That we do.” Bennett handed the empty bottle back to Franklin and slid out along the bench. “I need to piss first; then we can go.”

“Fuck sake, there are ladies present,” Franklin mock-protested as he waved a hand at Marlow. “Mind your language!”

Bennett gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder and sauntered away from the table. The expression on Franklin’s face as he watched her was soft, his mouth creased with something rueful. Marlow looked away. There were some sore spots you just didn’t poke at, because people would never forget it.

“So am I a ‘lady’ now because I like guys?”

In the time it took Franklin to look around, he’d rearranged his face into cockiness.

“No,” he said. “I’m not a dick. It’s because you’re all soft and sentimental inside and get all, you know, up in your feelings about some girl that’s sad she nearly ate her kid.”

That was good. Marlow had been worried that Franklin had upgraded his jerkiness to the point it couldn’t be ignored as banter.

“That’s a surprise,” he drawled. “You and Bennett agreeing that she doesn’t deserve sympathy.”

His phone buzzed in his hip pocket. Marlow reached down to grab it while Franklin snorted at him.

“I think she doesn’t need sympathy,” Franklin said. “Nothing happened to her. She doesn’t even remember it, so it might as well never have happened. That’s one thing that Piper got right. The wolves have it made. It doesn’t matter what they do or why they do it. Nothing sticks. She could have eaten that kid, and as long as no asshole told her, would she even know?”

It was Cade’s number.

“I think she’d notice the kid was missing,” Marlow pointed out as he got up. He fished his wallet from his pocket and pulled out about thirty bucks. He dropped the bills on the table in front of Franklin. “That should cover my share of the pot. It looks like I’ll have to duck out.”

Hopefully. Cade could have called to tell him that all their leads had fallen flat. That wouldn’t take the rest of the night to deal with, but it wasn’t like Marlow had really wanted to be here in the first place. Bennett had dragged him along, so he’d take the opportunity to get out of it painlessly while he still could.

Franklin picked the notes up and folded them over and over again into a thick wad. “What? The wolf whistles and you go running?” He laughed at his own joke as he tucked the money into the inside pocket of his jacket, then sobered. “Don’t go soft on the wolves just because you’re fucking one, Marlow. You start thinking about who they are in daylight, you’re going to flinch. Then you’re going to be dead.”

“I don’t flinch,” Marlow said. He plucked his coat from the back of the chair and slung it over his arm. “And I didn’t know you cared.”

Franklin shrugged and glanced around at the bar. “I don’t trust the rookie to watch my back,” he said. “Not yet.”

The call rang out. Marlow swiped to call back and lifted the phone to his ear as he stepped away from the table.

“You probably could if you weren’t an asshole.”

Franklin’s snort of laughter followed Marlow as he headed out of the bar and onto the street. He dodged through a group of Day Shift cops who’d retreated outside to smoke, their liquor decanted into plastic glasses. A few of them tried to stop him for… something… but he pointed at the phone to put them off.

Just before the call disconnected again, Cade answered.

“I can’t remember the last time someone let me go to voicemail,” he said down the line. “Next time, pick up.”

Marlow laughed. “Sure,” he said. “That sounds like something I’ll do. Why did you call, Cade?”

There was a dry pause on the other end of the line. Marlow could feel it as Cade decided whether or not it was worth it to follow through on his attitude. He must have decided not.

“I tracked down Lance. It turns out he’s not an easy man to find,” he said. The cold edge was gone from his voice and what was left was practical. Businesslike. “My plan will work better if I have someone tied to Piper with me when I talk to Lance.”

He didn’t actually ask. It was easy to assume that he had, but he never did. If Cade couldn’t order you to do something, he expected you to volunteer off your own bat. Marlow stopped next to a half-empty newspaper rack and looked through the greasy glass at the headlines. The tally of full moon damage had been pushed off the front page days ago; now it was sports, scandals, and politics.

“What if you had to ask nicely?”

“I won’t.”

Cade didn’t bother to try and sound ashamed. It was probably strange that Marlow found that blunt embrace of his flaws attractive. The abstract guilt of knowing he’d done something, even if he wasn’t sure exactly what, didn’t help.

“When and where?” he asked.

He heard a car door open and slam shut. Tinny music and loud voices filtered into the background of the call.

“Now,” Cade said. “I’ll text you the address.”

The insurance company had cut Marlow a check for the full amount when they wrote the Impala off. He wasn’t ready to let go yet, so the money sat in his bank account while the charred carcass of the Impala sat in his mechanic’s lot. Until it was either fixed or he got around to checking the gear-head message boards for a project car, Marlow was behind the wheel of a primer-red and matte-black junker.

His mechanic wasn’t going to forgive him for a while.

Still, the junker fit in around Cortez Hill. The only cars around here were wrecks and the drug dealers’ shiny Ford Flex minivans. Marlow parked two blocks away from the address that Cade had given him and walked. The last of the heat had seeped away, and it was cold enough he could feel it settle into his knee.

The address was for a shop called Silver Bullet Solutions. Home security. None of the security companies could—legally—sell the actual metal, but all of them liked to imply they would. Instead, they sold heavy-duty shutters and motion-sensor alarms, hollow-point bullets packed with delphinium extract. It was the same family as wolfsbane, but less potent.

Marlow tried the door. It was locked.

In the glass, he saw the reflection of the dusty sedan as the door swung open. He turned around and went over to look inside. The inside was nicer than the dinged-up off-white exterior, with leather seats and top-of-the-line electronics.

“My gran always told me not to get in cars with strange men,” he noted as he climbed in and slammed the door.

“You just did,” Cade pointed out.

“She told me not to join Night Shift too,” Marlow said. He took the drink that Cade offered, the sides of the cup warm against his cold fingers. “I don’t listen.”

He took a sip. The bitter tang of burnt beans and sugar surprised him. He was used to cups of Bovril from TAC colleagues when he pulled a day shift.

“Thanks,” he said. “Where’s Lance?”

Cade pointed over the road at the squat white stucco building on the corner of the street. The sign over the door read SKINNED in hot pink letters that flickered unsteadily, and a naked wolf, all pink and red lines, did a stuttered dance in the window.

“That’s—”

“Yes,” Cade agreed as he pulled a dubious expression. “Not the classiest establishment, but it’s the cheapest place in town for slap and tickle that’s heavy on the slap.”

“And Lance frequents…”

Cade shook his head. “Apparently, he’s a performer,” he said. “Some people like scars.”

“And your plan?” Marlow asked. It was maybe a good thing he’d changed out of his gear before he left work. His second-best Converse—less worn-in but sole still fully attached—didn’t exactly make him look like a high roller, but they’d fit in better than a stab vest. “Ask for a private dance and doorstep him when he’s off-balance?”

Cade snorted and drained his cup. “I don’t pay for it,” he said, that edge of brittle dignity sharp in his voice. “And if I did, they better keep their balance. No. We just have an opportunity for him to help out his old friend and, ah, frequent benefactor.”

“Oh?” Marlow asked.