Sheryl Nantus: Battle Scars

I’d discovered that when they’d showed up on my doorstep after leaving me alone for decades. The Board always kept track of you no matter where or who you were.

Middleston’s sidestepping the Pride’s resources sent up red flags and I wasn’t about to step in a minefield if I couldn’t map it out first.

Jess picked the phone up on the fifth ring.

“Rebecca.” She sounded shocked, something I’d rarely seen or heard. “I was about to call you.”

I could hear a woman weeping in the background and raised my voice over the wailing. “Is this about the missing girl? Don’t get on my case. Her father just left and I haven’t had a chance to hit the streets yet so tell her aunt or whoever to give me a few hours—”

“What?” I visualized the tall woman shaking her head. Part of me relished the idea of stumping Jess. The other part was terrified that I had, in fact, stumped Jess, one of the toughest Felis I knew. “No, wait...what? What missing girl?”

“Lisa Middleston,” I offered. “She’s the missing girl I’ve been hired to find.”

“I’m talking about a missing boy. Evan Chandler.” The crying in the background rose and fell like a hockey fan’s playoff hopes. “His mother’s with me right now.”

The pulsing behind my left eye signaled a headache about to start. “Let me guess. This isn’t a coincidence.”

Jess chuckled. “You think? Let me take care of Mary and I’ll call you back within the hour. Don’t do anything until we have a chance to talk.” The line went dead before I could disconnect.

I put the phone down and pressed my palms against my eyes. This situation had the potential of going bad really fast.

Two country kids running away to find their fortune in the big city might go over well in the movies but the reality was that they’d find themselves out of their depth within minutes of stepping off the bus. Those stories about slavery, prostitution and drug abuse weren’t just fluff for the news programs.

I headed for the stairs, determined to get some painkillers into me before Jess called back. This was turning out to be one hell of a morning and I hadn’t even done anything yet.

Jazz pattered by me, hopping up the steps and turning toward the bedroom with her tail held high, a spring in her step. I followed her in, scowling at the half-naked man sprawled across the bed.

Tortilla chip crumbs everywhere. A minefield of pointed fried caltrops.

A fat dollop of salsa sat on the quilted bedspread neatly folded at the bottom of the king-sized bed.

Brandon Hanover grinned at me, offering a salsa-loaded chip in one hand. The other nudged the waistband of the boxer shorts down a fraction of an inch, showing more bare flesh.

“Want a snack?”

I sighed. As a lover, the redhead was fantastic. As a roommate, he left a lot to be desired.

“We’re going to have to wash that.” I pointed at the salsa stain even as I snagged the chip out of his hand and popped it in my mouth.

“No problem.” He chomped another chip as Jazz hopped on the bed and began to nibble at the crumbs spread out over the sheets.

“Yes problem. The Laundromat is up on Queen Street and I don’t have time to haul the bedspread up there right now.”

His eyebrows rose. “Damn. I’d forgotten you don’t have a washer and dryer here.”

“Remember more often.” I swept a handful of crumbs off the bed, annoying the cat, who had already started munching. “Good news is I’ve got some work. Bring in some cash.”

A pained look flashed across his face and I regretted the phrasing. It’d been a month since he’d moved in, forsaking his rich family, and he’d insisted on paying half of everything. He’d begged an advance off his editor for a future article but it’d been barely enough to pay the utilities and phone bills, never mind getting groceries.

Meanwhile I’d been dipping into my own savings to cover my recent unemployed status. We weren’t on the verge of losing the house but the private investigation business was either feast or famine.

I really didn’t want to go toward the famine side.

I tried to fix the damage. “Got paid in advance. Five hundred dollars.”

Bran let out a low whistle. “That’ll keep us in cat kibble for a few days.” His forehead furrowed. “What’s the job?”

“Finding a runaway girl.” I took another chip and dipped it in the jar before maneuvering the overloaded chip to my mouth. “And Jess has the other half of the equation. Boy and girl running off together to the big city. Romeo and Juliet with fur and fangs.”

A pained look came over his face. I winced, remembering the story that had temporarily propelled him to journalistic stardom.

Brandon had gone native, living the street life with a group of kids who took him in and showed him the seedy underside of Toronto. The article had detailed their struggles as they formed their own family with all the politics and emotions therein. Love, hate, life and death stories happening in a shadow world where being twenty was considered “old.”

It’d been a hit, the story rocking the news feeds. So much so that Bran found himself becoming the focus of the attention, the brave rich author gone underground to get the story and so forth. Despite his best efforts to bring attention to the problems street kids suffered the news became all about him and not about the group and their trials and tribulations; the direct opposite of why he’d undertaken the task in the first place.

Upset, Bran had returned to the streets to find his old family to try and explain what had happened, how his intentions had been twisted and warped into being all about him instead of presenting their stories.

He’d found only two of the group—at the morgue, a pair of lovers who’d overdosed on heroin not long after Bran’s leaving. Even though he’d had nothing to do with the deaths it’d cut him deep, deep enough to push him away from legitimate journalism for a few years and sending him into self-imposed exile, bashing out crap for the tabloid Toronto Inquisitor .

Until he’d been handed a story about a dead catwoman.

As they say, the rest is history.

I grabbed the half-empty bag and salsa jar off the bed and headed for the bathroom. “I’m hoping to find them near the bus station, curled up in a donut shop and scared shitless. Country kids don’t usually take to the streets that easily, so I’ve heard. Big difference between small town living and jumping into the big city, Felis or not.”

“Might be right there. One can hope they run back home once they hit the streets. Usually the romantic ideal dies a fast death once you’re digging in a Dumpster for stale donuts and trying to figure out if the slimy green meat is edible.” The response came as I put the chips and dip in the sink and busied myself digging out the bottle of painkillers. The headache wasn’t bad, not yet.

A phone call from Jess would make it worse.

The pills went down with a swig of water and a lasting taste of spicy salsa. I stuck my head out of the bedroom, feeling the latest wave of pain begin to wither and die on the drug shore.

Bran lay on his back, his hands tucked behind his head. He stared at the ceiling and let out a low sigh.

I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking about.

Time to try and change the mood.

“And could you not wander through the house in your underwear when I’m dealing with a client?” I crossed my arms and tried to sound authoritative. Hard to do with the manflesh on display. “How would you like it if I wore that fuzzed red scrap of cloth you bought me to a meeting with your editor?”

The item in question had been acquired after a late-night crawl through lingerie stores in the Eaton Center, a nightie with wee bits of faux red fur in all the right places.