fixed her gaze on him. “I’ve been deeply involved with the company operations—both the biotech side and the paranormal-consulting side—since I was fifteen, and I started working as a consulting agent when I turned eighteen. I spent the last five years traveling Europe and the eastern states as Smok Consulting’s premier field agent before my father turned the business over to me prior to his death. And I am telling you—from experience—that shifters who aren’t actively managing their conditions and integrating with normal society are dangerous.”
Oliver opened his mouth, but Wes spoke first. “Ordinarily, I’d agree with Oliver, but this is a different breed. We’ve never encountered any so malevolent. It’s been responsible for at least three vicious attacks in the area—official reports are attributing the deaths to a rabid mountain lion, but we have eyewitnesses who claim to have seen a large, misshapen wolf. That’s why we’ve called you in. This is bigger than we can handle. We took a vote.” He glanced at Oliver a bit apologetically. “It was two to one in favor of bringing in professional help.”
“Well, you’ve made the right decision.” Lucy spared a cool glance at Oliver. “This is my area of expertise.”
Oliver’s strong jaw was tight. “I’m not sure I care for your use of the word normal, but despite my reluctance to bring in an outsider—whose motives are purely mercenary—I concurred with Nora and Wes’s assessment that this isn’t ordinary. If it’s a wolf, it’s like no wolf I’ve ever encountered.”
“You can’t have encountered many, Mr. Connery. Smok Consulting tracks this kind of activity closely, and we have no previous evidence of any werewolves in Jerome, Arizona.”
“You assume every werewolf in existence announces itself to you.”
Now, that was an odd thing to say. Perhaps Oliver Connery had experience after all. Personal experience.
“You assume all the unnatural creatures in our database are aware that they’re in it.”
One dark brow, in stark contrast to the silver in his hair, twitched.
Nora made an effort to regain control of the meeting. “So how do you usually approach these matters? Despite the fact that people are aware of certain odd goings-on in Jerome, we do want to maintain some discretion.”
Lucy nodded. “Absolutely. I’d like to start with a list of all reported sightings, including times and dates and any physical contact. And then I’ll survey each of the sites, interview any eyewitnesses who are willing to come forward and get to work tracking the creature or creatures down.”
“I’m not sure how many eyewitnesses will be willing to talk to you.” Nora and Wes shared a look. “But I’ll give you what I can.” She rose and shook Lucy’s hand again. “We’re very grateful for your help. In the meantime, Oliver will take you to the location of the most recent sighting so you can examine the physical evidence.”
Lucy paused as she rose with the others. “Oh... I wouldn’t want to put you out, Mr. Connery. I’m sure I can find it on my own.”
“Please, call me Oliver. And I’m sure you can’t.”
“You doubt my abilities?”
“I don’t have any idea what your abilities are. It’s not about your abilities. It’s just that it’s not something we can simply write down and give you directions to.”
One of her abilities was being able to kick the asses of men twice her size. She supposed she could put that ability to use if she had to. Again.
Lucy shrugged. “Well, if it won’t inconvenience you.” She nodded to Nora and Wes as they headed out into the hallway before she turned to give Oliver a pointed look as he came around the table. “I suppose you have someone to cover your shift?”
“My shift?” He stopped in front of her, forcing her to look up.
“Aren’t you working at the coffee shop?” She smiled darkly. “You did say it opened at noon.”
Oliver chuckled, hooking his thumbs into the back pockets of his jeans. “I don’t work there.”
Lucy frowned, the usual potency of her practiced icy stare diluted by having to look up. “Then what were you doing there?”
“I live upstairs.” He smiled back at her as if they were having a perfectly friendly conversation. “I own the place.”
“Oh.”
“So that coffee and muffin you stole come directly out of my profits.”
She didn’t normally lose her temper, but there was something about this guy that totally pushed her buttons. “I paid for the food!” Her fists were clenched at her sides as she resisted the urge to punch him in the face. The urge was strong.
His eyes were laughing at her, crinkled at the corners. “A large coffee is two fifty, and the muffin was four seventy-five.”
“Four seventy-five for a muffin?” Lucy yanked her wallet from her inside pocket and pulled out another five and shoved it at him. “That’s two seventy-five you owe me, then. I’m not leaving a tip for such poor service.”
Oliver stared down at the bill as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it or how to respond to her, thumbs still firmly in his pockets. When she continued to hold out the money, he took it at last and tucked it into the pocket of the flannel shirt he’d put on over the T-shirt since she’d seen him in the shop. It gave her the impression she must have caught him getting dressed.
Lucy cleared her throat deliberately. “My change?”
That dark eyebrow twitched again. “I don’t keep a cash register on me. I’ll just consider this an advance on your next muffin.” He rolled up his sleeves and reached to open the door, and Lucy took a broad step past him to get it herself.
As she pushed it open and went through, he chuckled once more behind her. “I see you figured out how doors work.”
Oliver studied Lucy Smok’s profile as she followed his directions and drove toward the Gold King Mine & Ghost Town attraction just outside the town proper. When he’d clashed with her the night before, he was focused on her militant intrusion into his world, her unwarranted attack on poor Crystal Harney, an “undergrounder” who was just trying to get by.
Crystal belonged to a certain class of the not-quite-human who were shunned by those who ran in elite circles like the world of Smok International. Oliver had seen his fill of vulnerable undergrounders being victimized and demonized among the paranormal-aware community, and he’d vowed to watch out for them when he could, since no one else would. Lucy’s arrogant insistence that Crystal was a killer rubbed him the wrong way, the sort of attitude he’d seen from law enforcement types all his life.
Then, today, when Lucy had appeared in his shop after raiding his kitchen, Oliver took her for a spoiled brat. In the dark and the rain the night before, he hadn’t noticed how young and slight she was, and it was hard to reconcile the two versions of her. But discovering she was Lucy Smok, the high-powered twenty-five-year-old CFO of Smok International
