Holiday Mates: Supernatural Enforcers Agency Short Stories (16 page)

Boris let out a soft snarl, quieting her.  He took hold of her hand, kissing her palm and then placing it on his rapidly growing member.

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed as her swan honked.

“Want you,” he grunted.

“Indeed,” she giggled as he covered her body with his.

*

Wolfman stood on the top of a roof, his cape billowing around him. 
Total hero pose
.  It had taken him ages to find a building where the door to the roof was actually open.  Most of them were locked.  But it was worth it.

Wherever there is trouble he will be there.  Wherever there is injustice he will be there.  Wherever… uh, well, something else along those lines.

He listened as his radio picked up on a robbery in progress.  Wolfman grew excited until he realized it was on the other side of town.

“Ooh, that’s quite far away,” he muttered to himself.  His wolf concurred.

He really should have borrowed his mom’s Saab.  He pulled out his man purse –
yes, that was a thing
- and counted out his change.  He grinned; he had just enough for a cab.

Wolfman ran for the exit. 
Yep, Wolfman to the rescue.

Crap
.  Who locked the freaking door?!

The end

Wolfman will return…
probably
.

Egghunters

“Is it me or did Cutter shrink?”

Jessie looked over to see Lucie the hedgehog shifter entering the SEA building, holding hands with what appeared to be a miniature version of her wolf shifter mate, right down to the glare and the way he seemed to be clutching at Lucie’s hand.

She smiled at Rick.  “I believe that’s Cutter’s son, Dean.”

The lion shifter gave a small head shake, flicking out his golden locks with practiced ease –
male lions were very vain
.  “Wow, he’s like a mini me.”

Lucie beamed when she saw them.  “Hey guys, let me introduce you to James’ son, Dean.”

Rick’s perfectly shaped eyebrows knit together.  “James?”

“Cutter’s first name,” said Jessie out the corner of her mouth.

“Ah.”

“Dean, this is Jessie and Rick.  They both work here with me and Daddy.”

The young boy nodded at them.  And it was a curt nod at that.  He then sniffed.  “Squirrel,” he muttered looking at Jessie.  He then grimaced slightly and looked at Rick, “Lion.”

Rick flashed him a toothy, almost blinding smile.  “Wow, kid, that’s impressive, you’re what?  Eight?  Nine?”

“Seven,” grumbled Dean.

Lucie was almost jumping up and down with excitement.  “Dean is staying with us over the Easter weekend.”

“Mom’s gone to Cancun,” he muttered.

“Which means you get to have a super fun vacation with us.”  She squeezed his hand and beamed.

Dean gave her an indulgent smile.
Yep, definitely Cutter’s son.

“Once we pry Daddy away from work, we’re going to have a picnic and go to the beach today and tomorrow we’re planning on attending the Easter egg hunt, right, honey?”

“Yes, Lucie.”

He spoke with a sigh, but it was with affection.  Apparently both father and son adored the hedgehog shifter and were both at the mercy of her bubbly enthusiasm.

“Oh hey, Cecile, Boris!”

Lucie waved as the swan shifter glided out of the security guard’s office, followed by her huge bear shifter mate.  She only blushed a little and the adults in the room guessed at what exactly had been going on in there.

“This is Dean, James’ son.”

Cecile gave him a radiant smile.  “Oh, how lovely, I am very pleased to meet you.”

She held out her hand to him and after a few uncertain moments, he shook it with his spare one.  Dean then sniffed the air.  “Swan and bear.”

“Correct,” laughed Cecile.

“You’re having a baby,” said Dean, guilelessly

Cecile turned bright red and looked at Boris.  “How did he…”

“Is it true?” asked Jessie.

The swan shifter looked uncharacteristically flustered.  “Well, yes, but it is very, very early days.”

“Oh, Cecile, I’m so happy for you!” bubbled Lucie as Jessie and Rick offered their congratulations.

“Thank you,” stammered Cecile.  “At my age, I wasn’t sure… Thank you.”

Boris gave a proud, smug smile and wrapped an arm around his mate.

Rick gave the young boy a critical look.  “Are you sure he’s only seven?”

Dean scowled again.

“Definitely Cutter’s son,” murmured Jessie.

*

Judy Carrot smoothed down her skirt and forced her foot to stop tapping on the floor.  “Hello, Director.  Nice to meet you, Director.” She tried out a few greetings for size.  “C’mon, Judy, he’s just one python shifter, he’s not going to swallow you whole.”  Although neither she nor her inner bunny were quite convinced of that.

She let out a small eep as the door opened and a tall, handsome man glided through it.  Scratch that, a tall, handsome
python shifter.

“Sorry, I’m late, Ms. Carrot,” he said smoothly.  “I’m Director Sanders.  Please call me Gerry.”

He smiled widely, and Judy could almost feel her tail twitching in nervousness.  His mouth was not overly big, she told herself.  It was just her imagination.  He was
not
going to swallow her whole.

“Not at all, thank you for seeing me.”  She held out her mildly sweaty hand and shook his.  His handshake was firm and controlling.  Hers was like a wet noodle.  “Actually, my name is pronounced Ca-rot – to rhyme with garotte.  But you can call me Judy,” she added hurriedly as her bunny twittered.

“My apologies, please take a seat.”  He seated himself at his desk.

“Thank you.”

She slumped into a chair and blushed as a loud fart noise sounded through the office.  The director didn’t seem to notice.

“Now, what can I do for you?”

Judy took a deep breath.  “As you know I work for SI – Supernatural Insurers in Playa Lunar.  Last month one of our most prominent clients was robbed – Jackson St. Jackson.”

The director leaned forward.  He went from mild interest to all out curiosity.  “The billionaire wolf shifter?”

“Yes.”

“The toothpaste tyrant?”

“Yes.”

Gerry leaned back in disapproval.  “The guy who’s been sued for sexual harassment more times than any other person in recorded history?”

“Yes, but really, that’s not my area.”  Although, the memory of him pinching her butt involuntarily jumped to mind. 
He was eighty-five, but that didn’t slow him down.

“How come this wasn’t in the news?  Figured the press would eat up a guy like him being robbed.”

News items on him were popular – mostly because he was pretty universally despised.

“Yes, we went to great lengths to keep it quiet.”

“So why are you telling me?”

Judy pulled out a magazine and showed it to him.  It was an article on Jackson’s collection of Fabergé eggs.  There was a picture of him with the eggs, looking very regal.  Behind him was a pretty young woman, pouting.

“He had seven eggs and a couple of days after this article was published someone stole all of them.”

Gerry scanned the article while Judy forced her feet to remain still.  “This happened a month ago?”

“Yes, well, we actually wasted a lot of time because Mr. St. Jackson believed his wife was behind the robbery.  We couldn’t find evidence of a break-in, so he insisted it must have been an inside job.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “Really?”

“Yes, that’s her in the picture.”

“This young lady here?”  He tapped the pouting young woman.

“Yes, she’s twenty-two and wife number thirteen.”  Judy couldn’t help the moue of distaste.  She wasn’t someone who would advocate marrying for money, but she certainly hoped it was a lot of money.  The brash old pervert had nothing else going for him. 

“Lucky thirteen,” murmured Gerry.  “Not that there’s anything wrong with age differences.”  His eyes flicked to a photo on his desk.  “But maybe sixty-three years is pushing it.”

“Well, whatever their reasons for marrying,” her inner bunny huffed, “clearly things weren’t going well.  And we wasted a lot of time before we found out she could not have done it.”

“She had an alibi?”

“Yes.”

“A boyfriend.”

“Girlfriend.”

“So they’re getting a divorce?”

Judy coughed.  “No.  Mr. St. Jackson is apparently thrilled and enjoying both their company now.”  She blushed and looked away.

“Wolf shifters,” said Gerry, placidly, as if it explained everything.  “She still could have hired someone to steal them.”

“She passed a polygraph.  And he keeps a tight leash over her finances – it seems unlikely she was involved.  And although we wasted two weeks on her, I believe we may actually have a lead.”  She pulled out an arrest photo.  “Recognize him?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“He’s a weasel shifter called Moe Womack and known for petty crimes.  We think he shifted to his weasel form, having doused himself beforehand in spray to cover his scent, and then he hopped in through an open window and took the eggs one by one.”

“Wasn’t there some kind of alarm system around the eggs?”

“Yes, the wires were chewed apart, completely short-circuiting everything.  Which on the face of it looked like a random… ah… chewing by a rat or something.  But now I think Moe did it.”

Jackson had been particularly unpleasant about how easily the alarm was overcome.  Going so far as to chase the alarm expert around his house.  He was certainly energetic for his age.  It was no wonder he had managed to catch her when she ran from him.  Her bunny shuddered, and Judy tried to tamp down memories of the buttocks incident.

“And what led you to this weasel shifter?”

“By the time forensics really had a good look at the crime scene it was pretty messed up, so we can’t use anything, but they found a partial print.”

“His partial print?”

Judy winced.  “No, a partial print of an animal that looked like it could be a weasel.  Not definitive, so I started looking for small shifters with records and took it from there.”

Gerry gave her a quizzical look.  “That sounds like a long list.”

“It was, but I managed to eliminate a lot of them.  And when I got to the weasel he had skipped town.”

“Might be a coincidence.”

“Maybe, but I went through all of his known associates until I got to a man called Mullins – a human.  They apparently pulled a job together about ten years ago,” she said, getting excited, warming to her subject.  Pleased that all the extra hours of work she’d put in were paying off.

“And what did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” she said brightly, “he was dead.  He’d been stabbed.”  She smiled, and he frowned.

“And you think the weasel did it?”

Judy inched towards him, sitting on the edge of her seat, ignoring the fart noises completely in her exuberance.  “Mullins was an alarm expert, and I don’t believe that the weasel would know how to sort out Jackson’s alarm without help.  So I think they committed the robbery together, then the weasel killed Mullins, and now I think he’s trying to get rid of the eggs.  Which is not exactly easy given how rare they are.”

Gerry drummed his fingers on his desk.  “And what does this have to do with me?”

“Well, after Mullins skipped town no one had any idea where he went, but his mother lives here in Los Lobos, and although she told me point blank he isn’t here, I think she’s lying.  She lives alone and I saw men’s ah… undergarments on her washing line.”

“Maybe she has a boyfriend.”

Her bunny tried not to choke at the thought of the miserable old weasel getting down and dirty with a male.  “I don’t think so, I watched the house for three days, and no one but her came in and out of there.”  Evil female even terrified door-to-door sales people into steering clear of her.

“So you haven’t actually seen him going in and out either?”

“No, but he could have a secret entrance.”

He looked amused.  “Really?”

“Or he could just be going in and out as his weasel - I can’t watch all the entrances at once.”  She’d tried running around the house, but that got old
fast
.

“So what exactly do you want?”

“If he did it, technically it is the SEA’s responsibility.  And my company would like the eggs retrieved rather than have to pay out the insurance claim.  I’d like some help getting them back and getting him.”

He shrugged.  “Why not have other investigators help you?”

Her bunny pricked up her ears in worry.  “Well, umm, we’re stretched really thin right now.”

“So you were sent to ask for help?”

Her bunny started chittering at the lie.  “Yep.”

Gerry smiled, and it wasn’t at all comforting.  He stood up and walked slowly around the desk like he was stalking her.  She covered her nose so he couldn’t see it twitch.

“See here’s the thing.  You work in Playa Lunar, which means you work for Sy Thompson.”

Her bunny started hyperventilating.  “Yep.”

“And I used to work with Sy Thompson, and he doesn’t ask for help.  And he doesn’t ask me for help.  See we had a bit of a rivalry back in the day, and he hates me - with a passion.  He would rather quietly pay out the insurance claim than ask me for help.”

“Ah…”  Her palms started sweating, and she moved in the chair, making it fart again.  Her bunny was all for hopping out of there.

“Are you actually an investigator?”  His eyes narrowed to slits and her bunny yelped at her to tell him everything she knew.

She sighed.  “Technically yes, but after Sy took over the department, I became his assistant.  I bring him his coffee and answer his phone.”  And pick up his dry cleaning and run home in the middle of the day to make sure his poofy dog does his business. 
The degrading list of jobs was endless
.

“I see.  And where does he think you are right now?”

“On vacation, which is technically true.”  She spread out her hands.  “Lots of people come here for a holiday.”

“Most don’t spend it staking out weasels.”