The Problem with Promises (33 page)

His Adam’s apple bobbed, then he said in a rush, “When we were in the kitchen, Bridge asked me to smell Knox’s stuff—I wasn’t lying—her scent
has
changed since she started taking sun potion. There’s some weird sickly sweet shit to it now but under that I smelled candy…” His gaze pleaded. “My Becci
liked
working in that Toronto candy shop. She said it was the coolest thing.”

It would be.

Perhaps my gaze marginally softened, because Biggs kept spewing, the car salesman seeing a chink in the armor. “She didn’t have any other skills. She would have found a job—”

“Knox probably gave her money for rent.”

“No! She wouldn’t have let Knox support her. She never accepted a dime from me after she started getting her paychecks. Hedi, she
liked
being around sweet stuff. She liked making chocolates and truffles and…”

Come to think of it, I had caught the brief and welcome scents of sugar, butter, and maple syrup when Knox’s phone was pulled out from the plastic bag.

“Who’s got a cell?” I asked.

A pause, then Rachel said, “I do.”

“Find out if there’s a confectionary shop in Bradford.”

She shot me one of her drearily familiar glares before pulling out her phone. A minute or so later, she said, “There’s a Sandra’s Sweet Fudge on Holland.” She tapped her screen with a curved nail to enlarge the screen. “It’s right downtown.”

It was better than nothing. I started walking to the truck. “Heigh ho, heigh ho. To Bradford we go.”

“Biggs?” inquired Cordelia carefully. “Trunk or backseat?”

“Trunk.”

*   *   *

There’s nothing like the contemplation of a spot of B&B to make a girl unbearably conscious of the speed limit. I drove down Bradford’s main street at a sedate forty kilometers. Cordelia sat beside me, worrying the lifted edge on her thumb’s press-on nail. Rachel and Anu shared the backseat. They’d kept themselves occupied during the drive. Trowbridge’s sister had trained a steady glare on my naked neck, while Anu, confused and sorely in need of a translator, had fidgeted.

Cordelia rolled down her window, and a rush of cold wind howled into the vehicle. She wasn’t dressed for it—none of us were dressed for the weather. But I was the only one who shivered.

She rolled it back halfway up. “Sorry, darling, but Biggs is sweating worry.”

I nodded and kept my eyes peeled.

“There,” I said, jabbing a finger to the left.

Sandra’s Sweet Fudge was the narrow shop tucked tightly between a small hardware store and Mazie’s Consignment. It had a cheerful red awning and a window made for displaying bonbons.

Like the rest of the shops, it was dark.

There was a delivery alley behind the shop, a nice bay for Rachel’s vehicle and absolutely no security. “I’ll keep an eye out,” said Cordelia, sliding into the driver’s seat.

Sweet Fudge’s sole defense against bonbon burglaries was a flimsy door with a lock that could be opened by a half blind dowager with a hatpin.

No time for finesse.

I kicked the door, aiming for just above the handle. Wood splintered, and the door swung wide on a room that functioned as a makeshift office and supply storage. We eased past a curtain and walked into the retail area.

“Careful!” I said to Rachel when she flicked the lights.

She shrugged. “We’ll be in and out before they know it.”

I let my gaze roam. Fudge, fudge, everywhere. Chocolate, vanilla, maple syrup. Saliva flooded the back of my mouth. $9.99 a pound? Geesh.

“I’ve got her,” Rachel said.

“So soon?” I whispered, staring at the slab of the good stuff.
I will not steal. I will not steal.

“Halfling scents are easy. Take a wolf and water it down.” She blew some air through her nose.

Really? I inhaled discreetly, but all I could smell was the answer to my stomach pains. “Can you track her?”

“Of course I can,” she said confidently.

Goodbye, fudge.
I reached past her to flick off the lights. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Wait.” She cast a furtive hard glance toward the truck. Cordelia’s head was turned in our direction, her eyes narrowed. Rachel flexed her shoulders as if to rid them permanently of a cramp, then turned to block Cordelia from lip reading. “I can track the halfling, but I won’t do it for nothing.”

“Fine. I’ll get Bridge to write you a check when he’s free.”

“I don’t want his money.”

Of course she didn’t. She probably wanted our firstborn child. “Cut to the chase, Bestie. What do you want?”

“Biggs said your word is good. Is it?”

“It never used to be.”

“But it is now, isn’t it?” Her smile exposed her white teeth. “This is what I want—for you to stay in Merenwyn. Once you go across the portal, you don’t come back.”

Life as a wolf among the Fae was not a good life. “No deal,” I said through numb lips. “We’ll find her without you. Cordelia can hunt her down.”

“But as the Drag Queen likes to point out—you’ve got no time.” Rachel lifted both brows in a taunt. “So? Do we have an agreement?”

I studied her, then said, “Yeah, we do.”

“Good.” She sauntered out the door. Hands on hips, she slowly spun to face west, head lifted, nostrils flared. Then she looked at me and mouthed, “That way.”

There went one promise I wasn’t keeping.

*   *   *

If I thought it was cold before, it was downright frigid driving along those country back roads, with Rachel hanging out of the open window. It took us fifteen minutes, and a few backtracks, plus one stop for a tramp up to a hill for a better sniff of the surrounding area, before we found the right driveway.

Rachel pointed. “That’s it.”

I drove past the driveway and kept going for another hundred feet or so, until we got to a place where trees grew along the side of the road. I pulled over. Biggs’s stink was almost unbearable, and it was a relief to get out of the car.

We all trooped to where we could get a good view.

Brenda Pritty’s white clapboard bungalow sat on a long rectangle of land, bordered by two farmers’ fields. The small house looked out of place, a Monopoly piece left forgotten on an empty board. Someone had taken a chain saw to the trees that used to grow along the driveway and the grass around the home and separate garage had been sheared down to a yellowing stubble.

I studied the place for a moment. “You sure this is it?”

Mouth grim, Trowbridge’s sister said, “Yes. I can smell her. She’s in the house.”

“Do you smell anyone else?”

Her nose crinkled. “Knox was here at one point, but I don’t smell anything else except her fabric softener.” She wiped her palms along her yoga pants, then said, “I’m leaving now.”

“What?”

“I said I’d find her and I have,” she said with a wintry smile. “The rest is up to you. You said you were worthy of your position. Well … prove it. I’m going.”

“If you do, you’re going on foot,” I said.

“I’m a wolf,” she said, walking away. “I could jog all the way home and not even get winded.”

“There’s a bald-faced lie,” drawled Cordelia. “The coldhearted witch will hitch her way home.”

Rachel’s running shoes had candy-pink soles. “I’ll be waiting to hear how it goes,” she threw over her shoulder.

“You’re not going to wish me good luck and Godspeed?” I called after her.

“I don’t believe in either.” She took off at a brisk sprint, heading back down the road toward the town.

“Bitch,” said Cordelia.

“Yup. In every sense.” I gazed at the house, and the road, and those open fields.

My first combat mission, and I didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do. Cordelia busied herself checking a weapon that was already in perfect shape. Biggs came up beside me, his hands dug deep into his pockets. Anu sat in the car with her ferret.

Evidently, Moody, Broody, and Duty were tactfully giving me time to think it out.

Though Cordelia couldn’t resist putting something into that silence. “We’ll have to watch the wind,” Cordelia said, casually. “Otherwise we might as well just send a calling card out in advance. Biggs smells like hopeful hound.”

“Shut up,” Biggs said.

Cordelia slanted a look at him, her eyes narrowing.

“Don’t fight now,” I said.

From what I could see, there was only one door. It was on the side of the modest bungalow. Someone had cut down all the trees, so no one could sneak up on the place. And then—
who says watching TV rots your mind?
—I got a visual of one of those old war movies, where the British commander stood in front of a very large Allied map. The kind that always had big black arrows indicating a pronged attack.

“Biggs and you come in from the right flank,” I said. “I’ll drive up to her door in the truck. Hopefully, her attention will be focused on me, not you two.”
I hope she doesn’t have a gun.
“Anu will wait here until I give the all clear.”

My mother hen gave me a good long look, and I read deep approval. “Right,” she said briskly. “The brat and I’ll come in from the right.” Then she set off, moving quickly across the open ground, heading for the thin cover offered by the trees that edged the property line. “Hurry along, Chihuahua. Unless you want me to bring out the rhinestone leash.”

Biggs exhaled, then pushed himself away from the car. He walked to the culvert ditch, stared at it as if he wished it was deep enough to drown himself in, then leaped across it. He loped along the tree line, half hunched over, his dark clothing melting into the shadows.

I got in the car. Made a careful
U
-turn, then headed up the driveway.

Hedi, the Promise Maker.

Hedi, the Almost Brave.

Chapter Nineteen

Talk about anticlimactic. No one twitched the blinds. No one even came to the door for that matter. It was painted white, with a diamond-shaped glass window, set like most of those sixties-era bungalows into the side of the house. I stood on the miniscule porch considering my options.

“Now what?” I whispered to Merry.

My amulet unfurled a strand of twisted ivy, extended it till the tip of the leaf touched the door, then mimed knock-knock.

“It’s easy for you to say,” I muttered, staring at the door. One kick, that’s all it takes the brawny actor’s stunt guy. But the wood looked fairly solid. I leaned to the right, cupped my hand and pressed my nose to the window. The television was on but the living room was empty. I laid my ear to the door, straining to hear anyone moving around inside the house. Nothing.

Then, with an inward shrug, I pressed the doorbell.

The ringer was circa 1970s or maybe even earlier. But before it had even got to the dong part of its familiar peal, I heard the sound of a window being pushed open. I lunged for the wooden railing and twisted over it, just in time to see a girl slide leg-first out of a window on the side of the house. She dropped almost soundlessly, then leaned back in to pull out a backpack.

“Hey,” I said.

Her expression, on seeing me, could best be described as stricken, like the deer who’d lifted her head and spotted Elmer Fudd. That’s all it took and then she darted for the garage faster than I could have said, “Be vewy vewy still.”

Maybe it was the long streamer of fright she left in the air. And possibly if I hadn’t been thinking about deer and hunters, it wouldn’t have happened. But it did. Her dash for freedom sparked my very first “squirrel” moment.

My inner-bitch kicked in. Full force.

Prey
—that’s what I heard inside my head.
Hunt
—that’s what instinct told me to do.

I vaulted over the railing, landing on one knee and one palm. I was in pursuit before my body had time to send a pain message. Hunt! What a glorious thought. No weighing of choices. No stopping to consider the why and why-nots. Things were reduced to simple verbs. Run. Catch. Chew.

I tore after her, in a loping run, cutting her off before she’d reached the garage’s back door. I slammed into the door with my body. She spun on her heel with a sharp cry and took off in the other direction.

Never do that.

Instantly, my vision telescoped. Everything in the peripheral view disappeared, and my sightline was reduced to one small focal point—her waist, where I knew the vital organs lay ready for my teeth.

Mine.

Brenda made the fatal error of shooting a panicked glance over her shoulder. That small miscalculation was all I needed to narrow the gap. I didn’t just tackle her—I sprang—fingers curled like talons, teeth bared.

Touchdown. She let out a shrill scream as we collapsed in a heap.

My game was desperate with fear, and several inches taller than me. In theory she should have rolled on top of me and gone for my throat. Instead she tried to crab-crawl her way out from under me. It was an epic fail. She might have been leggier, but I was heavier. Plus I was in feral heat. Wolf driven, with a bloodlust urging me to rip things.

My arm curled around her neck, and my teeth went right to her throat.

And bam—the second my eyeteeth touched the raised hairs by her hairline she collapsed. With one cry she turned herself into a shivering, whimpering appetizer. Goddess, the sour-sweet taste of her sweat against my tongue filled me with the intense need to bite down. To break skin. To know victory in a way we’d never known before.

“No!” someone cried. “No, Hedi!”

She is my kill.
I felt her pulse, right there, pounding against my lips. I could smell her fear, more tasty to me than even the best grade of maple syrup. Every squirm she made, every little ragged pant—it all inflamed me. I growled low in my throat then turned her head sideways so that the long column of her throat was bared.

“Get off her!” Biggs screamed. Hard hands tore at me. I twisted to slash at the interloper. He raised a fist to strike me.

Hit
me
will you?

Anger, so hot, so raw.

I lifted my jaws, felt the anticipation of another lunge, another takedown.

Hunt.

Cordelia came up in a blur of perfume, and swinging foot. Her kick caught him right in the kidneys. He fell to one knee. She grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him out of my reach. “Stay down!” she hissed to him.