Page 12 of Bears Behaving Badly
“Thattraumatized teenager, yeah.”Soft touch, even after everything she’s seen. Prob’ly her only fault. That and her distractingly perfect bod.“For now, at least. You’ll recall we don’t know shit yet.”
“It’s true. We are in a shit-free zone, knowledge-wise.” She eased the cub back into the big clear box on wheels people made babies live in for some reason. The fluffy werebear—probably a subspecies of the American black were—made a faint snuffling sound of protest, then flopped over, wriggled on its belly, stuck its rump into the air, and promptly started snoring. “Caro’s a blank, and Lund seems to think his assault was the equivalent of ‘You kids stay off my lawn,’ except with shattered bones and severed fingers.”
“Jesus.” David was trying to stay on track, but couldn’t stop staring at the cub. Then he glanced at Annette and everything instantly got worse. “Kid sounds like he’s gargling gravel through a megaphone. How does that much noise come out of that tiny body?”
“Focus, David.”
“Right.”Good advice. So don’t lose focus. Just let it be. Let. It. Be. “You’ve, um. Got something.”
“Pardon?”
“Your shirt.” He leaned forward and brushed at the drool on her shoulder. This close, he could see the outer ring of her iris was a deep brown, and the inner ring was russet. Depending on the lighting, her eyes would gleam like banked coals. “There. I… Oh. It’s not…coming off. Sorry.”
She smiled. “Why apologize? You’re not the one who drooled on me.”
Oh God. If only.Back to business…back to business!“You get anything off Lund? Besides the obvious?”
She shrugged. “Well, no, but I wouldn’t expect to. It’s a hospital.”
In other words, too many smells, too many sounds, too many people…getting a scent-read off Lund had been like trying to eavesdrop on a quiet conversation from the other side of a crowded room. She’d been able to catch some but not all of it. And what she’d heard might not be right.
“Same. I think he talked to us here on purpose. It wasn’t just about letting us know he wasn’t pressing charges. He’s obfuscating like a motherfucker. And now he’s in the wind. I’m betting if you follow up, he’ll be on extended vacation somewhere out of our jurisdiction, like Mars.” Silence. “Annette?”
“Sorry, I can’t get over ‘obfuscating like a motherfucker.’” She snickered, then added, “But you’re right. So, why?”
As they talked, the staff was quietly working around them, and one of them would occasionally catch Annette’s eye with a nod or say howdy. David had never had cause to visit the peds ward before, but Annette was obviously familiar with the place. They all seemed to know her; no one had batted an eye when she’d scooped Spencer, Cub J. out of his clear box.
Before David could elaborate, a chubby RN in her mid-thirties, with curly brown hair and a lone dimple, appeared out of nowhere (was there a secret door behind the fridge full of formula and pureed meat?), went right to Annette, and handed over a small bundle of fur and a tiny bottle.
“Thanks, Sharon.”
“Sure, saves me a little time. She’s doing great, by the way. Probably will be discharged sometime tomorrow.” The nurse nodded at David and went back to work.
David unconsciously flared his nostrils
(werefox)
as Annette cradled the small red bundle o’ fluff and popped the bottle in. “I hate to harp on this, but Lund’s the victim. He should be screaming for help and lawyers, not necessarily in that order, so maybe…” She eyed David while the werefox guzzled. The tiny bottle was almost empty. Before his eyes, the interior of that bottle was becoming a food desert. “Maybe you’re onto something. Maybe heisthe bad guy. Orabad guy.”
“Whatever he is, he’s not gonna be any more help today.”
She sighed. “No, that was clear. And we can’t interview him again unless we want to explain the bad optics to our bosses.”
“Pass.”
“And unless Caro starts singing, we’ve only got one lead to follow right now.”We’ve? Oh, you’re partners now? When didthathappen? And was it before or after you went on your imaginary date?
She sighed again, still looking down at the kit. “Dev.”
“Devoss,” he agreed. Which, depending on where someone stood on the “sticky-fingered scam artist who cons at a graduate level” debate, was either great news or shitty news.
Why not both?David’s dead mother whispered in his ear, and he almost smiled.
Chapter 6
“What are you talking about, gone?”
“As in the child is no longer here. He is absent from this place. He has…gone.”
