"It's Courtney all right ...
I don't remember her last name," I told Tony.
"I don't recognize the man at all.
If it were Bright Future, there'd have been more people." "It's personal," Tony agreed grimly.
"You are going to want to give me those disks and file charges so we can give her some time to cool off.
She's not going to stop harassing you anytime soon unless someone heads her off at the pass.
It's safer for everyone if it's the police and not the werewolves or the fae." Zee ejected the disk and handed it to Tony.
Tony frowned at it a moment.
"I'm not worried about the kids, Mercy.
But there's something about those bones and that guy that is sending my old radar into fits.
If that's not a death threat, I'll be a monkey's uncle.
You stick close to that werewolf boyfriend of yours for a while." I gave him a martyred sigh.
"Why do you think Zee is still here? I suspect I'm not going to get a moment to myself for the next year, at least." "Yeah," he said, a smile lighting his eyes.
"It's tough when people care about you." Zee made a sound that might have been a laugh.
He covered it by saying sourly, "Not that she makes it easy on them to watch over her.
You just wait.
All she's going to do for the next few weeks is complain, complain, complain."
3
WORD HAD GOTTEN OUT THAT I WAS BACK IN THE SHOP and my regular customers started stopping in to express their sympathy and support.
The graffiti only made things worse.
By nine I was hiding in the garage, with the big overhead doors shut, even though that meant that the garage was hot and stuffy, and my electric bill was going to suffer.
I left Zee to handle the customers, poor customers.
Zee is not a people person.
Years ago, when I first came to work here, his nine-year-old son was in charge of the front desk and everyone was properly grateful.
I spent most of the morning trying to figure out the troubles of a twenty-year-old Jetta.
Nothing more fun than sorting through intermittent electrical problems, as long as you have a year or two to waste.
The owner got off her job at three in the morning and twice had gone to start her car and found the battery drained though the lights were off.
There was nothing wrong with the battery.
Or the alternator.
I was upside-down in the driver's seat, with my head up the Jetta's dash, when a sudden thought came to me.