A Wolf After My Own Heart MaryJanice Davidson (children's ebooks online .txt) 📖

up with us hiding for a bit, but ultimately, bedtime is bedtime.”

“Bedtime is bedtime,” Lila replied. “Can’t argue that.”

“I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me.”

“You should always assume I am,” she admitted.

“Besides, Sally’s just a kid. She needs, y’know, stability and a warm bed and a house n’stuff. A shed’s not so great for that.”

“No, it is not,” she agreed. “I’ve got some hand warmers in a box somewhere. I’ll squirrel them out to you later.”

There was a thwap as Daniels finished scribbling and whacked Lila in the shin with her sketch pad.

“Ow! Jesus.”

Squirrel’s not a verb. Don’t make it one.

“What I do and do not turn into verbs is no concern of yours, sunshine. And have you guys thought this through? You’ll be chilly,” she warned. “Temp’s supposed to drop to forty tonight annnnnnd you’re both giving me ‘are you stupid’ looks because I just remembered you can grow your own fur coats at will, fine, forget I said anything. Also, isn’t this a school night?”

“You don’t have to go to school the day after someone tries to burn you up,” Devoss said, and the hell of it was he sounded genuinely serious. “It’s a rule. And tomorrow’s Saturday, so.”

“Fair enough. Now that we’re done with the post-awkward conversation chitchat, I have to go polish some eyeballs.”

Before she could get away, Caro’s hand shot out quicker than thought and snagged the cuff on Lila’s jeans. “Gah! I mean, can I help you?”

Daniels was looking up at her; Lila couldn’t imagine what she’d seen in her brief life with those big brown peepers and didn’t want to. “Thank you,” she said in a soft, low voice. “For everything you’re doing for us.”

“It’s just a shed,” she said, and left.

6. Is it me, or does Macropi, Garsea, and Oz sound like a personal injury law firm?

Chapter 25

“A life well-lived and at the end, you’re pieces of meat on a slab.” Magnus shook his head. “Poor lass, you always did tell me you’d go first. But I never thought it would be so soon.”

“You’re certain this is Susan Smalls?” the ME asked. He was short and muscular, about five foot five with a shaved head and deep-set brown eyes behind rimless glasses. In his scrubs, he looked like a green fire hydrant.

“Aye, and no mistake. Look here.” Magnus stepped closer to the table and pointed to a mangled wrist. But not, on closer inspection, mangled in the crash. “She almost lost her hand at Shakopee. I got a tourniquet on it and we ran…oh, five kilometers at the least. To the nearest Shift-safe hospital.”

“I had wondered at that.” The ME, Dr. Gulo, was eyeballing Magnus with no small amount of interest. Oz figured he knew why. Like Annette explained when they were kids, werebears are rare bears. And she’d know. “You were both Shakopee survivors?”

“Barely.”

“I only ask because it’s on my mind—the tenth anniversary of that glorious mess,” Gulo added.

“Glorious?” Nadia asked. “What an altogether ridiculous word. It could have been a bloodbath. That’s not hyperbole, so many would have died, we would have been bathing in their blood. Would have been, if some of those idiots hadn’t come to their senses in time.”

“I meant ‘glorious’ in the literal sense: worthy of fame. Or infamy, in this case.” Dr. Gulo shrugged. “Ancient history. If you count a decade as ancient.”

“Ridiculous bullshit! I can’t even think of Shakopee without embarrassment. So that’s quite enough o’that.” Magnus stopped staring down at all that was left of Sue Smalls. “This was all you found?”

Dr. Gulo inclined his head. “We were lucky to get what we did, given that the crash site is on land owned by a Stable.”

“Lucky,” he replied, and shook his head.

“I have to say, Dr. Gulo, this is the most immaculate morgue I have ever seen. Not that I’ve seen any particularly dirty morgues, mind you.” Nadia looked the way she did when she got advance notice of a Macy’s sale: delighted and a little surprised. “It’s quite, quite something.”

Gulo smiled. “I find it easier to concentrate when surrounded by order as opposed to chaos.”

“Really? Sounds dreadfully dull.” Nadia was doing the wide-eyed simper thing, which was all to the good. Oz had long gotten over his surprise at how easily a sharp-dressed woman with a cut-glass British accent could get people to open up to her. “Speaking only for myself, I thrive on chaos.”

Gulo nearly shuddered. “That would be difficult for me.”

There were autopsy kits (for lack of a better word; this wasn’t Oz’s field), and all the scalpels were perfectly lined up. So were all the scissors, the chisels

(what the hell are those for?)

and the retractors. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. All the chrome and steel gleamed; so did the floors. The light bulbs weren’t even dirty, and the lights themselves were almost blinding. There weren’t any smudge marks on the light switches, despite all the fingers that flipped them back and forth every day. The biohazard bins looked like a biohazard had never been allowed near them. The bottles in the recycling bin looked like someone had sterilized them first. The carts looked like you could operate on them. For all he knew, that’s exactly what Gulo did with them.

Gulo had apparently recovered from the revulsion at the thought of working with a dusty scalpel. “But we were discussing the crash site and the remains. For now, it’s sealed off. But it seems an obvious accident to me.”

“Really? Because it doesn’t t’me.”

Dr. Gulo bristled; you could almost hear his hackles going up. No surprise. Bears and wolverines, what could you do? “Please elaborate.”

Berne obligingly started ticking off his points: “Sue was an excellent pilot, I take meticulous care of my property, and her little girl is in the center of something increasingly sinister. I wouldn’t be so quick to rule out foul play, lad.”

“Lad?” Gulo replied. “You’re not much older than me.”

“It’s slang,” Annette broke in. “Like man or dude. He doesn’t