Page 41 of Shadow Scorching

“I’m not upset, Auntie. Kyann enjoyed dinner. Are you all right? You sound a little out of breath.” Dante kept his voice light.

“I’m all right, I think,” Tilly said, though she still sounded out of breath. “I had a late night and didn’t sleep well.”

“What did you do last night?” Dante asked.

“I met Jet for dinner.”

I jerked my head up, staring at the phone. Dante paled, his skin as pale as his hair.

“Where did you go?” Dante scrambled for something to say.

“We ate at the Gold Mirror. It’s a new restaurant—fusion cuisine. It blends Scandinavian cuisine with Caribbean. The blend sounds odd, but it’s delicious. Then we went back to my place and talked. I was so tired, though, that I cut the night short. I might be coming down with something.” The more she spoke, the shakier she sounded.

“Maybe you should call the doctor?” Dante asked. “You might be getting a little anemic.”

That was a reach, I thought. Shifters—especially carnivores—seldom got anemia unless they weren’t eating enough meat. But it might spur her to get checked out.

“I’ll take a nap, and if I still feel this way later, I’ll call my doctor.”

Dante hesitated, then said, “Auntie, this morning we found Kyann’s neighbor on her back porch. She slipped, hit her head, and was hypothermic when we found her. I don’t want to have to come over and find you so sick that we might lose you. You know I love you.”

She paused, then said, “Yes, my dear, I do. You’re my boy. You might be my great-nephew, but I love you like a son. I promise, if I don’t feel better by tomorrow, I’ll call the doctor.”

“So, what did you and Jet do after dinner?” Dante asked.

“You know,” Tilly said, sounding confused, “I don’t remember. He left early because I wasn’t feeling well but…for the life of me, I don’t remember what we even talked about. Imusthave caught a bug. I’m going to take a nap. I’ll call you tomorrow, regardless of how I feel.”

Dante hung up, then glanced at me. “Jet knows where she lives, and I’m not happy about that.”

“Are you sure you can’t talk to the Pack master? This concerns one of their elders. Surely, given her status, the Council of Elders would want to know?”

He worried his lip. “No, they wouldn’t see me. Once you’re exiled from the Pack, you can’t waltz in and ask for an audience.”

I thought for a moment. “What about an anonymous tip? I could call your Pack’s Elda-Care that your aunt volunteers for.”

He thought for a moment. “I’d say the best way to do that is to send a tip that we’re worried about Tilly Franco, and that we think a wellness check might be in order. We could say we’re worried that she might need some help and oversight with her finances.”

“How do we do that?” I asked.

“We make a throw-away email and email the Elda-Care Coordinator. I can’t remember who it is, but they oversee the Pack’s elders. They monitor their general health and they help find insurance and doctors for elderly members who need the help.”

I set my laptop up and went to Send-A-Mail, a free email service. I brought it up on a proxy server, so that nobody could trace the IP address back to me, and then created a new email—[email protected]. With Dante’s help, I typed out an email asking for Elda-Care to perform a welfare checkon Tilly Franco. I added that we were worried she might be mismanaging her funds and that she was vulnerable.

“She’ll besopissed if she finds out we did this,” Dante said, hitting send. “But it’s worth her being mad at me, if they do check on her. Meanwhile, I can’t shake how worried I am that Jet knows her address.”

“What I find disturbing is that she doesn’t remember what happened when he came over. I wonder if he spiked her drink.”

Dante paled even further. “Do you think he?—”

“Oh!” I said, realizing what I’d implied. “I wasn’t even thinking inthatdirection. I suppose that is a worry, but he seems after money. And I doubt if he’d risk his set-up for a little nookie. The guy’s handsome. He can probably have about any woman he set his eyes on. Especially if he keeps his mouth shut.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Dante said.

“My thought is that, if he spiked her drink, he had the opportunity to case her house. You know, to find out where she keeps her jewelry, maybe look for a safe. If I were him, I’d also search for any hidden entrances. Security cams—too…he could learn how her security system is set up and maybe change the code to one he can use.”

“That’s bad,” Dante said. “I don’t know what my aunt was thinking.”

I had been thinking about that as well. “I wonder if she didn’t know how to get out of it. She’s been brought up to be polite. To be a good hostess. Matriarch or not, she has spent her life following the rules. She was literally a role model for the perfect political wife. It might be hard to get out of that mode of thinking, even though she could probably do what she wanted and get away with it.”

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