Dead Heat (Alpha and Omega) - Patricia Briggs Page 0,81

one is quite insistent that there is a problem…”

“Well, yes,” said Dr. Vaughn’s mother mildly. “Sid’s great-grandfather or some such. His human wife had just died and the whole family was concerned about him; he wasn’t eating or drinking. We thought that his Alpha might just put him out of his misery. So Sid drove over to his house in his squad car, told him he was coming home with him. And when Archie turned into a wolf to discourage him, Sid said, ‘Fine. Be a wolf. But you are coming home with me.’”

She looked at Anna. “He just loved our kids, Archie did. Let Alex’s older sister dress him in whatever pink and frilly thing she wanted. Pulled a wagon for the kids and saved my Alex’s life, I think. He was cantankerous as a human, but he was the best dog this family ever had.”

“I can’t believe no one ever told me he was a werewolf.” Alex let out a laugh. “Do you remember the Christmas turkey? No wonder you were so mad.” He paused, then looked at his mother with horror. “The flea bath. You gave a werewolf a flea bath. He was not happy about it. No wonder Dad was so upset when he got home.”

“He had fleas,” she said primly. “I wasn’t letting him sleep in your room with fleas.”

“So what did happen to him?” Dr. Vaughn asked.

“His Alpha came and got him, finally. Told your dad that it wasn’t healthy for a werewolf to stay in wolf form for that long. He went back to his house. Apparently the pack had kept it clean and the bills paid while he lived with us. He visited a couple of times, but he eventually had to move for work. I think that living in his house just wasn’t good for him.” She pursed her lips. “We never heard from him after that. I know your dad was unhappy, but there wasn’t much we could do. Werewolves don’t let humans interfere with their pack. Matters are less tense now, of course, because everyone knows about werewolves. But then? I think we had a wolf watching us for a while, just to make sure no one was talking.”

She looked at Anna. “Are you a werewolf, dear?”

“Yes,” said Anna. She didn’t mind, but the unexpectedness of the question caught her off guard.

“Mom,” said Dr. Vaughn. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what, dear?” she asked.

Darin chuckled. “I love you, Mary Lu. And I need to recruit you for the PD. Our confession rates would go way the hell up.”

“Do you know this werewolf’s full name?” Anna asked. “He saw the fae and he wasn’t a five-year-old kid. Maybe he can help us if we can find him.”

“Archibald Vaughn, dear.”

“I’m thinking you’ll have an easier time finding Archibald Vaughn than I will,” said Leslie.

“Probably,” Anna agreed. “Do you want me to start making calls?”

“Let’s check out the rest of these first,” she said after a moment’s thought. “We scored big on the first one, maybe there will be a second.”

“Okay.” Anna picked out another file and read off the address. She called the phone number of the witness before she waded through the four-page report. No answer. She checked the paperwork and found no other phone number. She skimmed the report. This one was a clean printout on white paper.

“You’ve got to hear this,” Anna said. She tried to keep her voice businesslike as she quoted the witness report for Leslie. “It was a unicorn and two small dragons, no bigger than a poodle. Not the little ones. Well, not really the medium-sized ones, either. But you, know, a big poodle. Standard. The unicorn was bigger. More like a black lab, maybe. Or a big German shepherd.”

“Why did we pick this one out?” Leslie asked.

Anna kept reading—this time to herself. “Oh. Here it is. She has been looking for fairies ever since she saw the green man living in her garden a couple of years ago. He never leaves and no one else can see him. Except for the dog who jogs past every day with his owner. The dog barks at him every time he passes our witness’s garden.”

“All right,” said Leslie. “You try that number again and if he’s not home—”

“She,” said Anna. “Kathryn Jamison, age sixty-four.” There was another report behind the first—it had another witness’s name on it. She reported that her dog barked every day as they passed Jamison’s garden. She didn’t say anything about the unicorn and