Chapter 7

7

The espresso maker hummed as it warmed up and I poured water into the reservoir. Duncan sat politely at my dining table with his hands clasped in front of him while he gazed curiously around my apartment, the half-walls of the living room and kitchen making them visible from his spot. The two bedroom doors were closed. Other than dusting and vacuuming now and then, I hadn’t disturbed the boys’ room since Austin had left. I hoped he would be more prone to visit than Cameron, especially since all his things were still here.

Duncan’s gaze lingered on the framed photos on the wall, pictures of the boys in various places around Seattle. Only a couple showed me over the years since I’d usually been the photographer rather than the subject. I’d long since removed all trace of my ex from the picture collection. After Austin had left, I’d dug out an old photo of the first man I’d ever loved—the first werewolf I’d loved—and hung it near a window that looked out onto trees. Even if I hadn’t brought Raoul up to my human family, I’d never forgotten him .

“That smells delicious.” Duncan nodded to the espresso machine.

“It will be. Now that I only have one mouth to feed, I splurge for the good stuff.” I waved to my preferred brand of coffee beans from Italy.

When I’d been clawing my way out of debt, I’d settled for Folger’s, but it had been a great relief when I’d paid off the last credit card and gone back to buying fresh espresso beans.

“I’m surprised those delectable aromas don’t entice hordes of men to line up at your kitchen window.”

“The hordes go to the drive-thru bikini-barista stand down the street.”

“That doesn’t sound like as refined of an experience.”

“You think my apartment and I are refined, huh?” I glanced at the twenty-year-old furniture and chips of laminate gouged out of the countertops.

“Sitting down is civilized. Swilling coffee in one’s van is not. And bikinis in this climate are impractical. It’s as rainy and dreary here as in England, which I didn’t imagine was possible until I came here.”

“I’m guessing Seattle baristas have to run heaters in their espresso stands most of the year.”

I let the conversation lapse, not practiced at keeping one up. Further, having a man in my apartment felt strange. I hadn’t dated or had anyone besides my kids in here since my ex-husband left.

My handful of female friends kept encouraging me to get out and meet new people, but I’d been focused on keeping the boys fed and cared for until recently. Now that they were gone, I could consider going out more, but I’d shifted from worrying about them to worrying about my future. Since I’d never had a retirement plan, that was a concern. Lately, I’d been taking odd jobs on the side and putting money into a special account. Since property management and fixing things around the apartment complex was what I knew, I was saving to buy a small multifamily building of my own, with the hope of the rents bringing in income after I got too old to work. Assuming a werewolf, or the minions of a werewolf, didn’t kill me before then.

“Do you want milk in yours? A latte?” I waved toward the frothing wand, then summoned a double shot from the machine.

The espresso maker was the most expensive appliance I owned. Other than my car, it was the most expensive thing I owned. One Christmas, it had been a gift from my ex after he’d come into some money and he’d been trying to buy my forgiveness for sleeping around—again. As much as I hated him now—I’d thrown out almost everything in the apartment he’d touched—I hadn’t been willing to get rid of the espresso maker. I loved it and the rich dark coffee it produced.

“Nope. I like it straight and strong. Un café allongé. Uhm.” Duncan regarded the side of the espresso machine. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but is that a, er, phallic symbol on the side of your coffee maker?”

“It was supposed to be a fist holding up a middle finger.” I opened a drawer to show him the permanent marker I’d used to draw it. “My artistic skills are lacking, and my sons said it looked like a penis. The next day, the side fingers had been turned into testicles. I’m not sure which of the boys was responsible, but the drawing conveys my feelings toward the person who gave me the machine equally well, so I didn’t chastise them.”

“Who was the giver?”

“My ex-husband. That drink you said, that’s the same as an Americano, right?” I added hot water to the espresso.

“I believe so.”

A soft beeping came from the table, and I frowned over at Duncan. He was tinkering with a handheld electronic device. Was that the same tool that he’d aimed toward Bolin’s man purse ?

Immediately suspicious of him again, I pointed at it. “What is that?”

Duncan waved toward a case he’d brought in with him and set on the table by the door with his keys. I’d thought it was a camera case. But it was open now, this little device extracted. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a camera.

“My magic detector.” Duncan pointed to a small LED display. “It might be able to help you identify the ingredients in your potion.”

“I already know the ingredients.”

Okay, I only knew some of them, the ones mentioned on the vials. If only from the color of the liquid, I suspected there were more. It wasn’t as if my retired witch-alchemist had created FDA-approved labels with calories, macros, and every ingredient listed.

Maybe the supposed magic detector could help, but I eyed it with as much suspicion as I had for Duncan. I’d never heard of such a device.

I took our two coffees to the table and also grabbed a few squares of a recent chocolate find: Peruvian dark with sea salt and ghost pepper chili. It wasn’t as spicy as it sounded, but the sweetness mixed with the saltiness and a slight kick made it fabulous.

“Do you have any remnants of one of your potions?” Duncan asked mildly, nodding his thanks as he accepted the coffee. He picked up one of the chocolate squares and sniffed it. “I can attempt to analyze them.”

I leaned closer to eye the supposed magic detector, a little box with crossed antennae that brought to mind a divining rod out of a museum. Duncan either pushed it closer to me, or it pulled his arm in my direction. Either way, it started beeping, its antennae quivering at my chest.

I scowled at it.

“Why, my lady. The device is drawn to you. Are you magical?”

I leaned back and stated, “No,” though he and his gists had already implied he knew the truth. To distract him, I asked, “Are you?”

Duncan turned the device toward his chest. The antennae also quivered at him, and the detector beeped again, more loudly than it had at me. “Goodness.”

Smiling, he set it down and sipped from his steaming coffee cup.

Shaking my head, I said, “Stay here,” and went into my bedroom.

Glad I’d made my bed that morning, however half-assedly, I padded through to the bathroom to grab the vial. More beeping came from the dining table. No, Duncan had left the table and stood in the doorway to the bedroom, waving that thing around.

“What are you doing? I said stay in the kitchen.”

“My apologies, my lady. I am trying to obey your wishes, but the device is magical, you see, and it’s—” Duncan tugged backward, tendons standing out in his neck as he pulled. Or he did a good job acting like he was pulling. “I didn’t expect your flat to contain so much magic.”

He grunted again as it seemed to pull him a step into the bedroom, the antennae pointing toward one ceiling corner and then another. He tugged at it, drawing back to the doorway. The antennae swung about, this time pointing to the floor under one of the nightstands.

What the hell was going on?

“Perhaps we should have analyzed the ingredients outside,” Duncan said.

I watched the entire event—the entire charade ?—with great suspicion. “Turn it off.”

“But then we can’t?—”

“Turn it off!” I yelled.

Or was it almost a roar? My fingers clenched into fists as the same bestirring of my werewolf blood that I’d felt the night before surged through my veins, even closer to surfacing this time. The urge to change was almost overwhelming. I wanted to spring over and destroy that device, then run out into the woods, racing between the trees until I found appropriate game to slay.

I took a deep breath and forced my fingers to unclench. This wasn’t a fight, and I didn’t need to lose my temper. What I did need was to find someone to make my potion. In a couple more days, when the moon grew full, I might not be able to stop these urges. And I well remembered what could happen when I changed.

“I apologize,” Duncan said, dropping the my lady and sounding more serious. Thankfully, the beeping had stopped. He’d turned off the device. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I wished he hadn’t seen my hands clench, my face contort with barely restrained fury. No, not fury. The call of the wolf.

His face softened with understanding. I looked away. I didn’t want empathy or sympathy or whatever he was offering. I wanted my privacy and my humanity back.

“There’s no magic in my apartment other than this.” I held up the vial, the couple of drops of the potion remaining in the bottom.

“Ah.” Duncan glanced toward the ceiling corners. “Of course.”

He nodded and returned to the dining table, setting the device on it.

I scowled and didn’t move, my gaze shifting to the ceilings. They were painted in unassuming white eggshell, and there was absolutely nothing magical about them. Nothing unusual at all. Nor was there anything odd about the floor under the nightstand.

But…

Was it possible there was something magical that I’d somehow forgotten about? I couldn’t imagine what. Other than my potions, I’d eschewed all things paranormal after rejecting my werewolf heritage. I didn’t hang out with witches, didn’t go ghost hunting, and didn’t even read books about the supernatural. Nor had I ever invited my alchemist, or anyone else I suspected of magical tendencies, into my apartment.

Still…

“Bring your doohickey back in here, Duncan.” I made myself add, “ Please .”

My ex hadn’t appreciated taking orders from a woman. Not many men I’d met did. But sometimes orders slipped out, a vestige of the days when I’d been with my family, a member of the pack and my mother’s daughter. She’d been grooming me to be the female alpha, the mate of a male alpha. Had I stayed, I might have helped run the Snohomish Savagers one day.

“My, ah… doohickey?” In the doorway again, Duncan glanced down at his crotch, before snapping his fingers with enlightenment and turning to grab the supposed magic detector.

I scowled again. This guy was turning it into my regular facial expression.

“Sorry,” he said. “Americans have so many terms for their sex organs that it can be bewildering to newcomers to your land.”

“Uh-huh, I’m sure women you barely know invite you to bring your sex organs into their bedrooms all the time.”

Duncan opened his mouth, a cocky statement probably on his lips, but he considered my scowl and only shrugged. “It’s happened on occasion.”

I snorted but didn’t tell him he was full of himself. He was handsome, silvering pelt not withstanding, and he had that European accent that we American girls fall for. Bedroom invitations probably happened regularly for him.

“There shouldn’t be any magic in the room besides this.” I lifted the potion. “Why is your thing beeping at the ceiling and floor?”

“Let’s find out.” Duncan turned it back on and followed the quivering antennae—the device really did appear to be pulling him — to one of the corners. It vacillated between wanting to draw him to the ceiling and to the floor under the nightstand.

I walked around the bed, put the potion vial on my dresser, and shifted the furniture aside. The floor was easier to investigate than the ceiling.

A rug covered vinyl planks designed to look like hardwood boards, an upgrade I’d helped put into a lot of the units over the years, after the owners had gotten tired of replacing carpets whenever there was a turn. I knelt and swept my hand across the planks but didn’t feel anything strange. I also peeled back the bottom of the rug and probed under the nightstand.

Duncan stood close, though he stayed far enough to the side so that he wasn’t touching me.

I arched my eyebrows up at him. “There’s nothing here.”

He’d been gazing up at the ceiling, a finger pointing toward what also appeared to be nothing, but he looked down. The metal detector drew his arm until the antennae tapped the vinyl planks in a spot I’d already checked.

“Could there be something under the floor?” Duncan asked.

“I helped install this stuff,” I said skeptically. “There’s definitely nothing between the plywood underfloor and the vinyl planks except adhesive. Under the plywood, there’s a crawlspace for the building. There could be something there, I suppose, but maintenance people go down there regularly. Shoot, I’ve been down there as recently as this spring. We put some rat traps down there. I would have noticed something magical sitting on the vapor barrier.”

Probably. Did I really know what something magical would look like? Unless a golden chalice had been glowing at me from the dark, maybe not.

“There are ducts?” Duncan waved toward a heat vent under the bed’s headboard .

“Oh.” Duh. I hadn’t considered that. But… “Who would have put something in the ducts ?”

“Who would have put something in your ceiling?” He waved upward.

“Unless you produce a magical artifact of vast and interesting powers, I’m not going to believe anyone did.” I eyed his device, still skeptical. Yes, it had beeped at me and at Duncan, but that only proved it knew a werewolf when it saw one.

“I do hate being disbelieved.” Duncan handed the device to me. “Let me see what I can find.”

As soon as I grasped it, I could feel its pull, its magic . It was indeed drawing me toward that spot in the floor, attracted by who knew what.

Duncan moved the lamp off the nightstand and climbed on top of it.

“I have a ladder in the maintenance room. You could have asked.” I curled my lip at dried mud on his boots, small flakes now adorning the nightstand.

“I didn’t want to delay what could be a monumental discovery of vast importance.” He planted his hands on the walls and peered intently at the corner of the ceiling.

“Yeah, such things are found in my bedroom all the time.” As I watched, I vacillated between irritation and curiosity. Meanwhile, the magic detector kept its pull on me, not wanting me to lift its antennae from the floor.

“There’s a tiny hole here in the corner.” Duncan pointed. “And it looks like someone patched a larger one around it. There are paintbrush strokes around it whereas the rest of the wall was done with a roller brush, I believe.”

“What? Let me see.”

Duncan hopped down from the nightstand, and I surged up on top of it, no longer worried about mud or taking the time to find a ladder. I rose on tiptoes to peer at the spot, wishing the light were better, but trees outside the window kept sun from flowing in, even on days when it was out. Damn, there was a little hole.

It was so small I’d never noticed it—how many people looked closely around their bedrooms on a regular basis, anyway? And, yes, he was right about the brush strokes. From the floor, they weren’t noticeable, but this close…

“I’ve never done any repairs here,” I said.

“Have your children? Or, did you say you were married?”

“Yeah, but my family has never done any repairs anywhere . If anything, they’re the reason I’ve needed to do repairs.” I remembered Cameron putting a fist through his wall two years earlier when I’d told him the college fund was gone. He’d also been angry then because I’d forbidden Chad from returning. That hadn’t been a good time.

“Do you want to get a knife so you can cut into the ceiling?” Duncan offered.

“I’m not going to stab a knife into the drywall like a savage.” I climbed down, retrieved my toolbox from under the kitchen sink, and pulled out a small flashlight and a cordless reciprocating saw. After checking the battery, I returned to the nightstand.

“You keep a jab saw in your apartment?” Duncan asked with amusement, picking up the magic detector and thankfully turning it off to stop the beeping.

“It’s not weird.” I climbed back onto the nightstand. “I’m the handywoman as well as the property manager, remember? You should see all the tools I have in the maintenance shed.”

“I didn’t say it was weird. I’m tempted to proclaim that a woman with power tools is sexy, but you’re in a good position to kick me in the face.” He smirked up at me.

“I wouldn’t do that.” I thumbed the saw on to enlarge the hole in the ceiling.

“Because you’ve seen me fight and respect my ability to defend myself? ”

I had seen him fight, and he absolutely kicked ass. What I said was, “If I give you a concussion, there might be brain damage, and you’d never be able to move your van out of my parking lot.”

“That would be an inconvenience.”

“A tremendous one, yes.”

Duncan knelt and peered behind the headboard, eyeing the heat vent.

Once I’d cut a hole in the ceiling, I probed the opening with the flashlight. Something glinted, and a twinge of anxiety swept through my gut. There was something in there. A small device?

Using the blade, I attempted to wedge it out, but it was attached to something. A cord? A power supply ? And was that a glass lens?

I managed to maneuver the device out enough to grab it between thumb and forefinger, then yanked. It snapped free of the cord, and I found myself staring at a tiny camera.

Someone had been spying on me in my bedroom?

It had grown quiet, and I could feel my heart hammering, reverberating against my eardrums.

Duncan regarded my find. “That’s creepy.”

“No shit.”