Page 18 of More Than Meets the Eye

“Oh, I don’t want to be any trouble,” he protested, but I stood.

“Sheriff—”

“Please. Call me Paul, Miss Callahan.”

“Paul, then, and call me Tess. I live with a shifter. Cookies won’t cut it.”

“If you’re sure, I’d definitely appreciate it. I missed dinner tonight.”

Susan waved a hand. “I could eat something if you have extra, Tess. Lizzie and I missed a dinner break, too.”

Hungry shifters can become short-tempered, and probably hungry sheriffs, too. I didn’t want that. While everybody else, all of whom were law enforcement, shifters, or both, read the letters, I went to the kitchen and fed Lou some chicken. Then I built a dozen enormous sandwiches, since it had been hours since Jack ate his three steaks at the barbecue. I put the sandwiches and pitchers of lemonade and iced tea on the kitchen table.

“Come and get it.”

I took two sandwiches and a bottle of water out to Lizzie, who thanked me but wouldn’t let me near the garage.

“It’s not good, Tess. You don’t want to see this.”

When I got back inside, my kitchen looked like a swarm of locusts had attacked. There was nothing left of the sandwiches but crumbs. Everyone was still reading, too, but they looked more energetic about it.

“Okay,” Susan said finally, putting another letter down on the table. “If we put these all in chronological order, we’ll have a better idea of precise timing, but I think we know enough to start.”

“I can do that,” I said. Everybody handed me their letters. I went and got my stapler and fastened envelopes to letters, in case the postmarks became important later.

Yes, I read alotof mysteries.

Here’s what we learned:

About two months ago, NACOS reached out to Jack to ask him to consider taking the job of president of the board for a stipend of $100,000 per year. Or at least become a board member for a little less. (That number wasn’t specified.)

A couple of weeks after that, they wrote to say they were increasing the stipend to a cool quarter of a million dollars per year for president.

One month ago, NACOS sent a packet of sucking-up letters from various important people in the shifter community. They all wanted Jack to take the job. Now there was talk of expense accounts, introductions to important people, and other unnamed “perks.”

At this point in creating the list, I looked up at Jack. “If you don’t take the job, can I have it? I bet the president of NACOS doesn’t have to deal with magic disco balls or rude magic mirrors.”

Then I had to explainthatto Susan and Reynolds.

More letters with higher, better, and more ridiculous offers followed.

“Why didn’t they just call you?”

Jack gave me a sheepish look. “I’ve been getting a lot of spam calls. I just send them to voicemail and then delete them.”

I looked down at the letter in front of me and read off the number. “Sound familiar?”

He pulled out his phone and grimaced. “Exactly that.”

I held out my hand for his phone. “Why don’t we settle this right now?”

When I started dialing, Sheriff Reynolds gave me a surprised look. “You’re calling important people at one in the morning on a Saturday night?”

“Watch me,” I said dryly.

When a man answered, I put the phone on speaker, turned up the volume, and set it down in the middle of the table. “Tess Callahan, calling for Jack Shepherd.”

Jack rolled his eyes but waited for the man to say something.

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