Page 17 of More Than Meets the Eye

Yes, dead deputy.

It was even worse, though. Quark was also the beta of the Riverton werewolf pack.

“Will this be a serious problem for your power structure?” Jack asked. “Do you have anybody in line to be the next beta?”

It took me a minute to realize Jack was asking because Reynolds wasn’t just the sheriff, he was the alpha of the Riverton wolves. It made sense, because he was a big guy about the size of a bear and almost as hairy.

Wow!

I wondered if bear shifters existed, but I decided to ask later.

“Not unless you’re volunteering,” Reynolds said, his low rumbling voice wry.

Jack just shook his head.

“Okay,” I said, interrupting all this hearty shifter banter. “Why is he dead? Who killed him? Why did they kill him?Howdid they kill him? I imagine werewolves?—”

“We prefer wolf shifter,” Reynolds said seriously.

“Are hard to kill. But, most important to me, and I’m sorry if this sounds selfish, is this: What was he doing in my garage? At my house?” I realized my voice had risen in both tone and volume when Lou scrambled out of my lap and ran for the safety of my bedroom.

Reynolds nodded. “That’s a good question.”

“I was hoping for a good answer,” I muttered.

“The only thing I can think is he told me he was going to give Shepherd a call and ask him about NACOS. Maybe he came in person.”

Jack growled. “I keep telling everybody I don’t know a thing about NACOS. Tonight is the first time I ever heard anything about it.”

“Um, Jack?” I waved my hand. “Remember all that mail you brought over here to sort a few weeks ago?”

“Yeah?”

“When I moved the bowl to dust, some envelopes fell out. There was more than one from NACOS.” Jack knew I cleaned when I was happy, when I was stressed, and when the house was even a little dirty. So, piling a foot-high pile of mail in a too-small bowl hadn’t been my favorite thing he’d done that week.

Living together tookcompromise.

“Oh.” He looked far more upset by this than I thought made sense.

“Hey, no problem. It was just a little mail.”

He didn’t answer me, just jammed his hand in his pocket and stared off into space for a second or two, then he headed down the hall. “Easy enough to figure this out, then. Tess, is the mail still there?”

“As far as I know.”

When he came back out, he carried a thick stack of envelopes. They were all heavy, embossed paper with a snarling wolf logo.

“That’s a problem right there,” Reynolds said. “Using a wolf as a logo rubbed a lot of the other shifters’ fur the wrong way right out of the gate.”

Heh.

Rubbed their fur the wrong way.

Jack handed a few to each of us. “If we read one or two each, maybe we can figure out what caused Quark to want to see me so badly he drove out here without bothering to call.”

Susan looked impatient, but the crime scene people weren’t on the way, and it’s not like we had anything else to do. I went and piled cookies on a tray, made another pot of coffee, and brought it out for anyone so inclined. When Reynolds thanked me but looked at the cookies and sighed, I thought about Jack and the legendary shifter appetite.

“Sheriff Reynolds, can I make you a sandwich?”

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