“—all the way to Ursus County. The bears cleaned up the place, and those bears aren’t getting rid of anything from something like that.”
“That makes sense,” the older Van Holtz pointed out to his cousin. “Think Lock—”
“He is not going to help us anymore.” Ric glanced at her. “And he’s not talking to you at all.”
“Did you turn him against me?”
“Me?”
“Would you two cut it. We need a contact.”
Ric shrugged helplessly. “I know Lock and his parents. And forget his uncles. They adore Blayne.”
Niles looked at her.
“The only bears I know besides Lock are in Tennessee.” She scratched her head. “There is one person who might be able to help.” She dug into her leather jacket and retrieved her cell phone. “My cousin Sissy. Her and Ronnie Lee have been fucking bears for years, so they should know somebody.”
Niles chuckled as Ric growled and went back to decimating that poor zebra.
Lou Crushek, also known as Crush to those brave enough to call him that to his face, pulled open his front door and gazed through one eye at the full-human female who simply reeked of cat.
“What?”
“And a good afternoon to you, too. Late night?”
“Pretty much.” They stared at each other as only fellow cops could. “I guess you want to come in?”
“Thanks for the invite!”
Knowing resistance was an absolute waste of time, Crush stepped back and Dez MacDermott, one of the few full-humans on the force he actually respected, walked into his apartment. He’d known Dez for a lot of years. They’d done some good work together, and more than once, he’d thought about trying to hook up with her, but something had always kept him from bothering. He used to think it was the “shittin’ where you eat” aspect of hooking up with a coworker, but he realized later that it was simply because she was, in her heart, a cat lover. Literally.
Closing the door, Crush turned to face her. “So what is it? And make it snappy, twinkles.”
“And to think you’re still alone.” She dropped onto his couch like she owned the place. She must have picked that up from her husband Mace Llewellyn. A more atypical lion male a body wasn’t likely to ever meet.
“Anyway, do you know a”—she pulled out her battered notepad from her backpocket and glanced at the name—“Bo Noveeko? Since I’m positive you don’t know Blayne Thorpe.”
“No-vee-koff,” he pronounced for her. “And he’s the best damn hockey player you’ll never hear about, full-human. What’s it to you?”
“He’s missing along with Blayne Thorpe.”
“What do you mean he’s missing?” And who the hell was Blayne Thorpe?
Dez opened her mouth, he assumed to respond, but her cell phone went off. She tensed her hands tightening into fists. Softly, she said, “You know I’m a dog person, right?”
“I thought you were more a cat person?”
“Only when it comes to marrying them. Actually having them as friends, I’m all about the canines. But let me tell ya…like a goddamn dog with a bone this guy!” Dez’s famous short temper snapped, and she yanked her still-ringing phone from her jacket pocket. “What? I’m talkin’ to him…you know you’re startin’ to piss rne…” She held the phone out to him. “Talk to him because I’m about to go Bronx on his ass.”
Chuckling, assuming it was that husband of hers, Crush took the phone. “Yeah?”
“Mr. Crushek?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Niles Van Holtz.”
Placing the phone against his thigh, Crush said to Dez, “You put me on the phone with a Van Holtz?”
“Well, you know what would happen if I kept talking to him.”
“Good point.” Crush put the phone back to his ear. “What do you want?”
“More bears… lovely.”
“Do you want something?”
“We need your assistance.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“The Group.”
“Oh. That we.”
“Yes. One of your Brooklyn associations handled something last night, and we need access to what was located. As soon as possible.”
“Hold.” He put the phone against his thigh again and focused on Dez. “What does he want?” Because he couldn’t handle the Van Holtz vague speak right now. It was too early for him.
“Last night some scumbags tried to kidnap Blayne Thorpe. She’s a wolfdog. Novikov was with her, and a beacon was set off that called in some kind of bear clan out of the Brooklyn woods to finish that tea party that these scumbags started.”
See? That was clear…at least to him. “You friends with Novikov?”
“I couldn’t even pronounce his name.”
“But the girl…”
“She’s a friend. She’s a friend of a lot of people. If it was just these rich canines, you know I wouldn’t be here. But for Blayne…”
“Got it.” He lifted the phone. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Yes, but—”
Crush disconnected the call, not even wanting to hear the canine’s voice for another second. “Wanna go for a ride, MacDermott?”
“You just want me to drive, don’t you?”
“I haven’t had my coffee. Don’t mess with me, woman, when I haven’t had my coffee.”
Dez stood. “We’ll get some on the way.”
Grigori walked into his house and immediately wanted to walk out again. The boy! The goddamn boy! He hadn’t changed! After ten years he hadn’t changed!
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
The boy looked up from wrestling the couch out of the living room.His giant, L-shaped couch.
“Can’t clean under the couch properly if it’s in my way.”
Okay. So he’d have to kill the boy. He could. Grigori had killed before. Never family, but that didn’t mean much when the boy was messing with his house.
“I thought you said you were on vacation.”
“I am.” He started pulling the couch again. It wasn’t that Grigori worried the boy would damage the couch or his walls because he knew Bold was too uptight and persnickety to do that. No, for Grigori it was about the principle!
Maybe if he choked the boy out? At least then he’d sleep.
Before he could put his plan into action, he heard a grunt behind him. He turned and saw Norm Blackmon standing there. Even stranger, Irina Zubachev stood behind Norm. A meaner grizzly sow he didn’t know. Of course, she was one of the Kamchatka bears. Descended from tough, brutal Russian bears that were known to not only eat humans when they were starving, but even when they merely had the munchies. And although they’d grown up in Ursus County together, Grigori could not think of one time the woman had ever been to his house. Ever.
“What?” he asked both of them.
“This is for Speck,” Norm said, walking in with a big box.
“Don’t call me that,” the boy muttered, finally putting down the couch.
“And this is for Blayne,” Irina said, making both Grigori and Bold gape at her. If there was one thing everyone in town knew, it was that the Zubachevs hated, loathed, despised canines and, at their mildest, had merely torn the legs off a few rather than their heads. Grigori wouldn’t think about what Zubachevs had done to canines at their worst. “Tell her I’ll have that deep conditioner for her tomorrow.”
Bold stood next to Grigori now. “Is that all for her hair?”
“And yours. She’s right,” Irina told the boy flatly. “You got frizz issues. A little conditioner will do you good.”
With that Irina walked out and Norm dropped the box at their feet. “Take this. It’s from Blayne.”
Bold pulled the envelope off the top of the box, opened it, and read out loud, “For my sanity and everyone else’s, please use these.”
Norm was already grinning, and Grigori joined him when Bold opened the box and pulled out a primo set of skates.
“I’m on vacation,” the
boy complained, and Grigori looked desperately at the sloth bear standing next to him.
Bo flew head first out of his uncle’s house, over the porch, and into the snow. The hockey equipment followed, painfully colliding into his back and skull.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” he yelled at the two older bears before the door slammed shut in his face. “That’s just rude!” he quoted Blayne.
Bo sat up. “Fine. They don’t want me here. I won’t stay here.” He stripped to his boxer briefs, put on all the gear except the skates and socks, and walked to the pond on his uncle’s property, which was his favorite pond anywhere in the entire world.
And for the eight years he’d lived in Ursus County, this was the pond he’d come to every day in the winter, like clockwork, by six a.m.
Summers were tougher, of course, and he was forced to use the indoor rink to practice, but he’d made friends with the maintenance guys, and they’d let him in to practice. Day after day, summer after summer, until Bo had earned a set of his own keys.
He dropped his equipment and sat on the ground to get on his socks and skates. He felt real excitement as he did, already looking forward to some time with just himself, his stick, and the ice.
Bo stepped onto the ice and took in a deep breath. Blayne had been right. He did need this, whether he was on vacation or not.
Grinning, he put his helmet on and started off with a few drills.
Blayne ran up the hill and stopped at the very top. She panted hard, hands on her hips as she looked over the beautiful countryside. This hill was the highest and she could see the ocean on her right. If she looked straight down, she could see one of the huge man-made saltwater lakes, three polars sitting by it, stretched out and quietly contemplating…what? The true meaning of life? Mathematical theorems? Some great science experiment?
Bears were so smart, they could be thinking up the next great thing. She bet it was great to have a brain like that, to be able to think like that. Blayne always wanted to be a genius. To be able to spout theorems and equations the same way she could quote bad horror films and every episode of Seinfeld. Unfortunately, her brain didn’t hold on to things for very long. At least not important things.
Not like bears anyway. Smart, thoughtful, caring bears.
And that’s when she saw a seal pop up through a hole in the ice, and one of the bears grabbed it by the head and dragged it out. The seal squealed, but the polar bit into its head, holding it and running because the other two polars came after him. Even more horrifying, she had the feeling they were playing, as opposed to a more typical life-and-death struggle that she might catch on the National Geographic Channel. When they started to play tug with the still breathing but soon-to-be-dead seal, Blayne turned away and started back down the hill. When she got to the bottom, she froze, surprised and concerned.
“Hi, ya,” she said, crouching down. It wouldn’t approach at first, watching her closely. “Where did you come from, little guy?” She smiled and opened her arms. “Come on.”
That seemed to be all he needed, the mixed dog ran forward and into her arms. She immediately noticed three things. This mixed canine had been through hell and back, his leg had been broken and no one had bothered to fix it, and some brain trust had mixed a pit bull and wolf together. To create what? The ultimate fighting breed?
Having nearly ended up on the wrong side of a similar situation, Blayne immediately felt a kinship to the eighty-pound dog. She hugged him close, careful not to rub against any fresh wounds. But she quickly realized he had no fresh wounds. His scars were all old, his leg long healed to a useless mess. Yet he couldn’t be more than a year or two old.
“What’s your name, little guy? Did they even give you a name?”
After having been so cautious around her, he now slathered her with wet dog kisses and jumped from side to side, eager to have a friend.
“Oh, my God. You are so cute! Wanna come with me? Wanna go running with me?”
He turned and charged off, stopping to spin around to look at her. Blayne stood and followed. For a basically three-legged dog, he moved fast, but Blayne kept up with him, moderating her gait so that they ran together. She let him take the lead and she followed him up another high hill. They stopped at the top and Blayne looked down, fascinated by what she saw. She held her hand out and her gloved fingers went through a wall of what she could only call a winter storm. Snow and ice laced the other side. When she pulled her hand out, the tips of her glove were frozen together, and the only thing that kept her fingers attached to her hand was the fact that she wasn’t completely human.
Shaking her head, she said to the dog standing by her side, “That’s amazing, huh? And weird.”
Blayne started to turn away, but she stopped and leaned in. Not wanting her nose to freeze off, she didn’t get too close, but she wondered about the farmhouse she could see on the other side. A farmhouse with several buildings that looked deserted and was right by the ocean. A nice piece of property except that it was completely cut off from anything and everything, stuck between an American bear town and a Canadian one from what Bo had told her.
Reminding herself to ask about it later, she rubbed the dog’s head and then headed off down the hill. They kept going, running through a forest, Blayne stopping when she caught sight of a pond in the distance. She moved a little closer, smiling as she watched Bo Novikov do what he did best—conquer the ice.
“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” The dog pressed against her leg, tongue hanging out, looking very happy. “If I moved like that, little guy, I’d own the world, too.”
The dog ran a circle around her and charged off. Laughing, Blayne followed.
CHAPTER 20
Bo walked up the porch stairs and into his uncle’s house. Grigori was coming down the hallway, his big coat on.
“Where you off to?” Bo asked, dropping his equipment by the door just like he used to.
“Storm comin’.”
“And?”
“Don’t be smart.”
Too tired and happily satisfied to argue, Bo walked past his uncle and headed toward the bathroom. But he stopped, looking into the dining room. “What’s all this?”
“Neighbors brought food.”
“That was nice.”
“Yeah.” Grigori opened the front door. “Not for you, though. For Blayne Thorpe.”
“For Blayne?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Is she here?”
“No. But I’ll look for her while I’m—”
Blayne ran in before Grigori could finish, and she wasn’t alone.
“What is that?” Grigori demanded.
“My new friend. He doesn’t have a name yet. Let me know if you think of one.”
“He can’t stay here.”
Blayne took off her goofy earmuffs. He hated those things. They were creepy little bunny heads. “Why not?” she asked.
“What do you mean why not? Because I don’t want him here.” Blayne didn’t say anything, simply gazed at the much taller and bigger polar. “You heard me,” he pushed. “He can’t stay here.” She kept gazing, and Bo could imagine the big dog eyes his uncle was getting… and not from the dog. “You’re only a visitor, ya know, Blayne Thorpe. Here because of my goodwill. So don’t push your luck.” The gazing continued until Grigori snarled, and snapping before he stormed out, “He better be gone when I get home in the morning!”
The door closed and Blayne faced Bo, looking kind of smug for a canine trapped among bears. He motioned to the dining room. “What have you been up to today?”
She walked over and gawked at the dining table. “Wow. Is that all for us?”
“No. That’s all for you. Apparently everyone seems to think Grigori and I were planning to starve ya to death.”
She gave the tiniest snort. “Dude, your accent’s coming back.”
“I ain’t got no accent. And stop callin’ me dude.” Bo scratched his scalp, ready for his shower. “Speaking of w
hich…”
“That’s from Irina Zubachev.”
Bo gritted his teeth when Blayne squealed and dashed over to the bags. “I’m so excited to try this stuff!”
“Well, you can try it after my shower. Grigori’s shower is out and the other one only has a tub so—”
Bo watched Blayne grab both bags and make a wild run for the only working shower in the house.
“Blayne Thorpe, don’t even think about—”
“Ha-ha!” she crowed, slamming the door before he could even finish. Seething, he looked down and watched the mangled dog who’d come in with Blayne back up and into the living room until he found a couch to hide under.
“Good idea,” Bo muttered, and glanced at his watch. Okay, okay. How long could she take in the shower anyway? Ten minutes? Maybe fifteen? He could wait.
He walked to the bathroom and stood outside it, his arms folded over his chest and he did just that. He waited.
Blayne couldn’t wait until she got Gwen and Mitch to try some of this stuff. The shampoo cleaned her hair without stripping it, and the conditioner currently sitting on her head was absolute perfection! Allowing her to detangle her hair without ripping it completely from her head. She couldn’t be happier. While she let the conditioner do its work, she got around to actually showering the rest of her body, humming while she did. To be honest, she had no idea how long she was in but, as usual when it came to her “hair washing time,” Blayne didn’t notice little things like time.
Too bad some other people currently in her life weren’t as comfortable.
“Are you done yet?”
Blayne squeaked. “Are…are you in the bathroom with me?”
“What are you doing in there? You’re taking too long!”
Gasping in outrage, Blayne snarled, “Fuck off! I’ll be done when I’m done!”
“When is that? Another five minutes? Another ten?”
“Can’t you take a bath or something?”
“No.”
It amazed her how certain he always was. No doubt ever.
“Then I guess you’ll have to wait until I’m done.”
“Which will be when?”