Maybe if I hadn't kept it to read this past month, he'd still be safe in his store.
I smiled back at her, a polite smile.
"Don't worry about it.
I'll stop in another time." She snapped her fingers.
"Wait just a minute.
My grandson told me that he'd loaned a nice young woman a rather valuable book that she should be returning soon." I raised my eyebrows.
"Right now I'm interested in a first British edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ." Not really a lie.
It would be interesting, and I didn't tell her I was trying to buy one.
I don't know if the fae can figure out if someone is lying as well as the werewolves can, but any group that has a prohibition against lying that is as stringent as the fae's probably has a method to detect when it happens.
"He didn't tell me about anything like that," she said suspiciously, as if he would have normally.
But she had lost the chance to convince me that she was Phin's assistant when she allowed my comment that she was a stranger to his store to stand.
"I suspect it'll take him a while," I told her.
"I just stopped by to check in with him.
I'll come back another time." I stopped the "thanks" that was on the tip of my tongue and substituted "Bye, now" and a casual wave.
I felt her eyes on my back until I was hidden behind rows of cars, and I was glad I'd parked the car a long way from the mall.
Sam moved his head off my seat without raising any part of his body enough that he might be seen through the windows.
He was hiding.
I looked at him and glanced at the bookstore as I cruised past it on the way out of the parking lot.
The woman was back behind the counter going over something that looked like an account book.
Coincidences happen a lot less often in real life than they do in the movies.
"Sam," I said, "are you staying out of sight of a fae? One that smells like all the elements at once?" He raised his chin and dropped it.
"Is she one of the good guys?" I asked.
He made a gesture that was neither yes nor no.
"Trouble?" He snorted affirmative.
"Damn it." I pulled over at a gas station, parked the car, and called Warren, Adam's third in the pack and my friend.
"Hey, Warren," I said when he answered.
"Does Kyle have a safe in that monstrosity he lives in?" I could put the book in Adam's safe--and if it weren't fae who were looking for it, I'd feel relatively confident with it hidden and surrounded by werewolves.
But Warren's human boyfriend's house would be a much less likely spot to leave it and nearly as safe.
"Several." Warren's voice was dry.
"I'm sure he'd be delighted to loan you one.