sometimes things just get off-kilter, but they usually self-correct. This hasn’t.”
I glanced over at Yutani. “What do you think?”
“We could check it out this afternoon—at least have a cursory look.”
Henny looked so relieved that I decided we needed to at least try to help her.
“All right. Give us your address. We’ll need a retainer if we take the case, but I think we’ll just start by charging you our usual service fee. We’ll come out to look over the situation and see if there’s anything we can actually do. If we take the case, then we’ll talk about a retainer.” I glanced at the clock. “Are you amenable to us coming over to your house now?”
She nodded, looking so grateful that it gave me hope. We might not be able to solve every case, but we could at least solve some of the world’s problems.
“All right.” I buzzed the intercom and asked Angel to come in. She did and I handed her the intake form. “Can you please take a service fee from Ms. Jessaphy? Yutani and I will be heading out to her place to look over her problem, and if we think we might be able to solve it, we’ll talk about a retainer.”
Angel took the form from me. “Herne called. He wants you to take care of anything that comes up. He’s still bringing lunch but it will be a little later.”
“Sounds good to me. Ms. Jessaphy, please follow Angel to the front desk. We’ll meet you in the waiting room in a few minutes. Angel, text us her address, if you would.” As Angel led Henny out of the room, I turned to Yutani.
“You have any clue of what it might be?”
He shrugged. “It could be anything from a goblin to a ghost. You should remember from your freelance days that goblins are notoriously tricky and clever. They’re talented at avoiding security cameras.”
“Yeah, I do remember that.”
Goblins were members of the sub-Fae, and they were supposedly banned from entering Seattle city limits, but that was a hard law to enforce, given how tricky they were. They, along with most other forms of sub-Fae, weren’t welcome in either TirNaNog or Navane. They were trouble all the way around, nasty creatures who had the decency to melt when you killed them. I never figured out what it was about them, but every time I took down a goblin, their bodies began to decompose at such a rapid rate that within less than fifteen minutes, you wouldn’t have known they had been there, except for a pile of goo.
I slid into my leather coat—it might be August, but if we ended up in a fight, I didn’t want more skin exposed than necessary. Wearing a light shift dress wasn’t ideal for the work, but the wound was healing enough that I could probably get away with pants by tonight.
“You want me and Viktor to check this out?” Yutani asked as he watched me. “I don’t want you getting hurt. Herne would flatten me if you got injured again before you’ve even healed up from the last go-round.”
I frowned, considering his offer, but my ego wasn’t having any of it. “Nope. I’m going. If anything, I should leave you here to research with Talia, and take Viktor with me.”
“Come on, knucklehead, let’s get a move on,” he said, laughing. He shook his head. “But if you end up in the hospital, I’m dropping the blame entirely on you.”
Sticking my tongue out at him—Yutani was starting to remind me of the brother I never had—I followed him out the door.
Henny Jessaphy had an urban farm on the northside of Spring Beach, near the Sound. It was a beautiful spread—five acres that reminded me of a park. As we drove past her house down the graveled drive, I saw that it was a sprawling ranch. A moment later she parked by what was obviously the chicken coop. It was fenced in, with a large yard for the chickens to roam around in. But even in the sunshine, the chickens seemed skittish and as we watched them, they kept stopping their feed to look around, as though some noise had startled them.
Henny sat on a nearby bench made out of a half-log. She pointed to the gate. “You can go in there. I’ll stay back. I don’t want to make them nervous with too many people in the coop at one time.”
We started by circumnavigating the coop from the outside, looking for any