Underdogs The First Stories - By Geonn Cannon Page 0,3

Lisa. You deserve someone who'll be happy with you and no one else."

"Thanks. Sleep well, boss."

Dale shut off the light as she left the office, and Ari dropped onto the couch and crossed her arm over her face. She was asleep before Dale got her computer booted up for the day.

#

"Bitches Investigations," Dale said. "No, I'm sorry, she's not in. Could I take a message?"

Ari was on her side, curled in the fetal position. Her dreams had been disjointed memories, flashes of her rampages as a canidae. Sometimes she worried that she kicked and twitched in her sleep like dogs, but so far no one who shared her bed had complained. She rolled onto her back and stretched. The large clock on the wall behind her desk said that it was nearly eleven in the morning, and she forced herself to sit up and leave the comfort of the couch.

Dale hung up and looked over her shoulder as Ari came out of the office. "Fresh coffee?"

"Godsend."

Dale pointed at the break table. Ari crossed the room and poured a cup for herself, drinking half of it before she attempted speech again. "Anything on Bird?"

"He has four male employees. I think I've heard enough male bonding to confirm I'm only interested in women."

Ari smiled. "Let me know if anything changes. Who was on the phone?"

"Potential client." Dale held up the memo slip. "Feeling up to it?"

"What else am I going to do this morning? Sleep?" She took the memo and went into her office. "Can you run down to the dry-cleaners and pick up my things? I'll schedule a meeting for after lunch."

"Will do. Want me to get some lunch for us while I'm out?"

"Get whatever you like. Use my credit card."

Dale pressed a button on the phones and said, "Calls will go straight to your desk."

"Thank you, D."

She sat down and put her feet up on the desk, massaging the bridge of her nose as she tried to arrange her thoughts. She figured she had spent almost five hours as a canidae the night before. She hated those marathon transformations for many reasons, not the least of which she wasn't entirely sure what she'd spent all that time doing. Her mind wasn't always reliable when it came to remembering her activities in the other form. It was better than her first change when she was thirteen, when she'd returned to human form convinced that she'd lost her mind, but fortunately her mother had been there to help her through it.

After that, her world was split between a normal, real life and training with her mother. They roamed the streets at night, the elder wolf teaching the younger how to avoid detection. She taught Ari how to stash clothes in convenient places, in case the transformation ended before she was ready. All that garbage about full moons was just from the movies. A true canidae could transform at will. Changing back to human took a bit more effort and concentration. Usually it was easier to just let it happen naturally.

She opened her eyes and saw that she'd been dozing for nearly fifteen minutes. She dropped her feet from the desk and picked up the phone to call the potential client Dale had spoken to earlier to set up a meeting.

#

By the time their client arrived, Ari had changed into what she called her respectable businesswoman outfit. A white blouse under a gray vest and a knee-length black skirt. Dale greeted Roberta Sampson, and Ari came out of her office and offered a smile. "Thank you for coming down to see us, Mrs. Sampson. I'm Ariadne Willow, and this is my partner Dale Frye."

Mrs. Sampson smiled and nodded a greeting to Dale. "I'm a bit nervous. I feel ridiculous coming to you like this. I wasn't even going to call anyone, I was just looking in the phone book to see if there was actually a service or if it was just something from the movies. I saw your name, and I thought..." She blinked back tears. "I thought it was something my daughter would get a kick out of."

"Your daughter?" Ari said.

"Rebecca. She turned twenty last month, so I suppose she's entitled to make her own decisions. But I just... I can't help being worried."

Dale gestured for Mrs. Sampson to go into Ari's office and said, "Why don't you just start from the beginning, Mrs. Sampson?"

Mrs. Sampson sat on the couch and withdrew a well-worried handkerchief from her purse. "Rebecca lived at