Page 176 of Blue Moon

“Or maybe you just bring out the worst in me?”

“Smoke the damn cigarette, okay? Anything to cover up the smell of decomp.”

We’d finally managed to wrestle the last bit of deer away from Rocky, and I’d tossed it out the window over Dixie National Forest. But the smell… That lingered. As soon as we got inside, my clothes were going in the bin.

“You smoke?” Knox asked from behind me, Rocky’s claws skittering over the tiled vulva as he strained at the piece of paracord we were using as a leash. Their next stop would be the veterinarian for a check-up. Shani had offered to pick them up.

“You didn’t hear that part.” I shook my head when Storm offered me a nicotine patch, then nodded towards the helicopter. “And you still haven’t told me what’s so special about that thing.”

She took a small widget from her pocket—it looked like an oversized key fob—and pressed a button. The helicopter disappeared. Not disappeared, disappeared. It was still there, but it just appeared to be a distortion of the hangar behind.

“Well, fuck.”

“And you didn’t see that part,” she told Knox.

“How does it work?” I asked. “That’s some real James Bond shit.”

“I do the flying, not the science. But it’s coated in a radar-absorbent metamaterial that changes colour to match the environment in real time. Plus the infrared signature looks like a flock of birds.”

Another press of the button, and the helicopter reappeared. Huh. Guess there were advantages to working for the government after all. And still a lot of drawbacks, which was why I didn’t.

We headed for the house. Pale was handling the situation in Utah, not that there was much to handle. We hadn’t even broken into the house in the forest. The door had been unlocked. Hebert was still alive. And we’d accidentally solved three missing persons cases instead of one. All the Beaver County Sheriff had to do was smile at the press conference and take the credit, and everyone would be happy. Well, maybe not Michelle. Or Carole-Ann Murray.

When Slater broke the news about Hebert, Carole-Ann had burst into tears. At some point during the night, she’d confessed that the breakup had been partly her fault, and after Hebert began contributing financially to his son’s welfare, they’d resurrected a tentative friendship. Slater was escorting her and Marcus to Utah, and Dan was finding them somewhere to stay.

And Luna? Luna was doing okay. If there was one word to describe her, it was “resilient.” As soon as she’d finished answering questions, she’d be on her way back to Vegas with Ryder, and I needed to get her finances straightened out before she arrived.

Which meant pressuring Elene to give back the stolen money, hard if necessary. But I also wasn’t about to let a kid die just because his aunt was a thief and the healthcare system sucked.

“Can I borrow some clothes?” I asked Storm. “And a shower?”

“Sure, take whatever you need from my closet. I need to go Febreeze the bird.”

I scrubbed myself from top to toe twice with Storm’s coconut-scented shower gel and dressed in a pair of freshly laundered yoga pants and a slouchy top, but when I walked into the kitchen, Marcel still wrinkled his nose and said, “What’s that smell?”

“Me and the dog were playing tug of war with a dead deer.”

“Urgh. Why didn’t you just let the dog win?”

“Is there any coffee?”

“Of course. We have an excellent Jamaican java at the moment, or there’s a nice fruity arabica from Caldas. Or if you want a stronger hit, you could try the Vietnamese robusta.”

“Definitely the robusta. Thanks, Marcel.”

I took the coffee out to a quiet corner of the main courtyard along with a trio of macarons and a slice of chocolate cake. This was why women joined the Choir, wasn’t it? Nothing to do with Pale’s winning personality or the cutting-edge accessories; it was Marcel’s cooking.

After a sip of very good coffee, I scrolled through my phone to the number I needed.

“Hey, Artemis. It’s Emmy Black. Long time, no speak.”

Artemis Sacker was the eldest daughter of David Sacker, CEO of Bio-D Pharmaceuticals. David was a bit of a dick, but in the past couple of years, he’d mellowed, and as part of that mellowing, he’d branched out into philanthropy. Now Bio-D had a hardship relief programme that funded drugs for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford them. Twenty-year-old Artemis combined selling make-up with running the programme, aided by her sister, Isolde, and their fifth stepmother, who had surprised everyone by staying married to David for longer than ten minutes.

“Ohmigosh, hi. How are you? Are you calling about the party?”

“What party?”

“The Egyptian Extravaganza?” The what? “I thought that maybe the date on the invite was wrong, seeing as it’s only two weeks before the Halloween party.”

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