Page 46 of Bears Behaving Badly
“Exactly.”
“Mama, if you have knowledge of illegal activity or potential illegal activity, like abuse or—or anything like that, something Caro conveyed to you in writing, shouldn’t that supersede your moral code?”
“Our moral code. But it’s nothing like that. She didn’t indicate where she’s been or what she’s done or who she thinks might come for her or any of the things you’re ferreting out. If anything, she was calm as a clam.”
“Clamsarepretty calm as a rule.”
“She saw me hunting in the cupboards for honey—”
“There’s honey?” Annette gasped. “You could be standing there obstructing me while I was eating honey?”
“—and the next thing I knew, half my cabinet contents were all over the floor and she was trying to get me to throw away the peanut butter. Guess she doesn’t like the smell, even through the jar.”
“This is all singularly unhelpful.”
The older woman shrugged. “Not my job to make yours easier, Nettie, but days like this I wish it was. Somebody did terrible things to that poor cub, and not just this month, either. And it started before whoever-it-was got their claws in. I’ll bet you everything in my junk drawer, which only has half-a-dozen things in it now.”
Annette didn’t bother asking Mac how she could surmise Caro’s backstory; the woman had been a foster mom for decades. “Do you want to hear something strange?”
The older woman smiled. “You and your trick questions.”
“Dev—he’s another one of my lambs—”
“Yes, Caro mentioned him.”
Annette clenched her fists so she wouldn’t yank Caro’s notes out of the woman’s grip. “She did, huh? Well. He said Caro was his sister. Which is impossible. But now I wonder.”
“You wonder if he’s her brother the way I’m your mother. You’re wondering if they’re siblings by choice.”
“I can’t shake the feeling that a lot of what’s happening with Caro goes back to Dev.” Annette shook her head. “Too much has happened in too short a time, and I can’t figure out any of it. And I assume Caro didn’t write any ofthatdown, either.”
“No.” Uh-oh. Hands were going on hips. Eyes were narrowing. “But if she did, I wouldn’t give it to you.”
“You made your point, Mrs. Macropi. I’ll note it for the file.”
“Like that, is it?”
“No.” Annette took a deep, steadying breath. “No, of course not. I’m trying to tell you I understand, but I still have to do my job.”
Mama Mac waved away Annette’s job. “Well, your little lost cub didn’t write any of that down. It was more of an impression she gave me. I think she can barely face some of it herself. There are worse things than being snatched from your family.”
Annette suppressed a shiver. Her own sleuth2had been smashed apart when she was about Dev’s age. That had defined her adolescence and set her future in bedrock. It was difficult to imagine something even more dire and dangerous.
“What could be worse than stealing her, Mama?”
“Selling her.” When Annette was silent so long, Mama added, “Speaking of selling, the Curs House is for rent again.”
“It’s always been a problematic place.” To put it mildly. The small two-story house just down the block had been for sale for over a decade. The owner occasionally took it off the market to rent it out, and the longest any tenant had remained was four months. The tenants would get a new job. Or a new spouse. Or murdered. Or there was a fire. Or the basement flooded. Or it was taken over by possums. Annette, who didn’t believe in the supernatural, was reasonably certain the place was cursed. She was not the only person in the neighborhood who felt that way. “But that’s a problem for another time, and for people who aren’t me.”
“All right, then.”
“Meanwhile, regarding the case at hand, evil will be punished,” Annette vowed, although that was beyond her purview. Her responsibility was her charges’ safety, not vengeance. She left that to the court.
Usually.
2Sleuth of bears! Like flock of ducks, or gaggle of geese. (I LOVED RESEARCHING THIS BOOK.)
Chapter 18
