No one was talking, though, and I figured I’d better say something before I fell asleep at the table. “What’s the run, Glenn?” I asked, taking a sip and wishing the caffeine would kick in.
Glenn stood, his thick hands adjusting his ID badge on his belt. Square jaw tightening, he gave Ivy a wary glance. “I left a message last night. Didn’t you get it?”
The depth of his voice was as soothing as the coffee he’d brought, but coming back in through the pixy hole in the screen, Jenks did an about-face. “I think I hear Matalina,” he said, vanishing to leave behind a sifting ribbon of gold sparkles. My eyes went from the haze of pixy dust to Ivy, and she shrugged. “No,” I prompted.
Ivy’s eyes switched to black. “Jenks!” she called, but the pixy didn’t show. I shrugged and gave Glenn an apologetic look.
“Jenks!” Ivy yelled. “If you’re going to hit the message button, you’d damn well better write it down!”
I took a slow breath, but Ivy interrupted me. “Glenn, Rachel hasn’t been to bed yet. Can you come back about four?”
“The morgue will have changed shifts by then,” he protested. “I’m sorry you didn’t get my message, but will you look anyway? I thought that’s why you were up.”
Annoyance tightened my shoulders. I was tired and cranky, and I didn’t like Ivy trying to field my business. In a sudden wash of bitchiness, I stood.
Framed by her new haircut, Ivy’s oval face looked questioning. “Where are you going?”
I grabbed my bag, already packed with a variety of spells and charms, then snapped the top back onto my coffee. “To the morgue, apparently. I’ve been up this late before.”
“But not after a night like you just had.”
Silent, I pulled my bracelet from around Mr. Fish and wrangled the clasp. Glenn slowly stood, his posture holding a wary slant. He had once asked me why I lived with Ivy and the threat she posed to my life and free will, and though I knew why now, telling him would make him worry more, not less. “Jeez, Ivy,” I said, aware he was analyzing us professionally, “I’d rather do it now. Consider it my bedtime story.”
I headed into the hall, trying to remember where I’d left my sandals. The foyer. From the kitchen Ivy said, “You don’t have to go running whenever the F.I.B. crooks their finger.”
“No!” I shouted back, fatigue making me stupid. “But I do have to come up with some money to resanctify the church.”
Glenn’s steps behind me faltered on the hardwood floor. “It isn’t holy anymore?” he asked as we emerged into the brighter sanctuary. “What happened?”
“We had an incident.” The darkness of the foyer was soothing when I found it, and I sighed when I scuffed into my sandals and pushed open the heavy door to the sanctuary. Good Lord, I thought, squinting at the bright glare of a late-July morning. No wonder I slept through this. It was noisy with shrieking birds, and already hot. If I had known I was going out, I would have put on shorts.
Glenn took my elbow when I stumbled on the step, and I would have spilled my coffee if I hadn’t replaced the top. “Not a morning person, eh?” he teased, and I jerked away.
“Jenks!” I shouted when my sandals reached the cracked sidewalk. The least he could do was come with me. Seeing Glenn’s cruiser parked at the curb, I hesitated. “Let’s take two cars,” I offered, not wanting to be seen riding in a F. I. B. cruiser when I could be driving my red convertible. It was hot; I could put the top down.
Glenn chuckled. “With your suspended license? Not a chance.”
The scuffing of my sandals slowed, and I looked askance at him, bothered at the amusement in his dark eyes. “Crap, how did you find out about that?”
He opened the passenger-side door for me. “Duh, I work for the F.I.B.? Our street force has been running interference for you every time you go out for groceries. If you get caught driving with a suspended license, the I.S. is going to jail your ass, and we like your ass on the street where it can do some good, Ms. Morgan.”
I got into the front seat and set my bag on my lap. I hadn’t known the F.I.B. had even heard about that, much less had been distracting the I.S. “Thanks,” I said softly, and he shut the door with a grunt of acknowledgment.
Glenn crossed in front while I buckled myself in. It was stuffy, and I fiddled with the window control to put it down. The car wasn’t on yet, but I was irritated. I jammed my coffee in the cup holder and kept messing with the window until Glenn folded his height into the front seat and gave me a look. My brow furrowed in frustration. “It’s not fair, Glenn,” I complained. “They had no right to take my license. They’re picking on me.”
“Just take the driver’s-ed class and get it over with.”
“But it’s not fair! They’re intentionally making my life difficult.”
“Golly, imagine that?” The key slid into the ignition, and Glenn paused to tug a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on to up his cool factor by about ten. Face easing in relief, he looked down the quiet street shaded with trees almost eighty years old. “What do you expect?” he said. “You gave them an excuse. They took it.”
I drew a frustrated breath, holding it. So I ran a red light. It was yellow most of the way. And I went a little fast on the interstate once. But I suppose letting my ex-boyfriend run into me with a Mack truck to help a vampire start his undead existence might be cause for a few points. No one had died but the vampire, though—and he wanted to.
I fiddled with the button again, and Glenn took the hint. Warm air sifted in as the window whined down, replacing the scent of my perfume with the aroma of cut grass. “Jenks!” I called as he started the car. “Let’s go!”
The rumble of the big car hid the clatter of Jenks’s wings as he zipped in. “Sorry about the message, Rache,” he muttered as he landed on the rearview mirror.
“Don’t sweat it.” I stretched my arm along the length of the open window, not wanting to ream him out over it. I’d taken enough flak from my brother for doing the same thing, and I knew it hadn’t been intentional.
I settled into the leather seats as Glenn pulled onto the empty street. It would stay empty until about noon, when most of the Hollows started to wake up. My pulse was slow from the early hour, and the heat of the day made me sleepy. Glenn kept his car as tidy as himself; not an old coffee-stained cup or clutter of paperwork marred the floor or backseat. “So-o-o-o,” I drawled around a yawn, “what’s at the morgue besides the obvious?”
Glenn glanced at me as he yielded to a stop sign. “Suicide, but it’s murder.”
Of course it is. Nodding, I waved at the I.S. cruiser behind an overgrown bush, then made a bunny-eared “kisskiss” to the small Were in fatigues dozing on a bench in the sun watching them. It was Brett. The militant Were had been kicked out of his pack for having failed at kidnapping me a few months ago, so of course I was the one he wanted to pack up with next. It made sense in a warped sort of way. I had bested his alpha; therefore I was stronger.
David, my alpha, wasn’t having anything to do with it, seeing as he hadn’t wanted a pack in the first place. It was why he’d bucked the system and started one with a witch in order to keep his job. And so Brett was reduced to lurking on the outskirts of my life, looking for a way in. It was flattering as all hell, but depressing. I was going to have to talk to David. Having a militant Were attached to my chaotic life wasn’t a bad idea, and Brett truly wanted someone to look to. It was how most Weres