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All five of us.

Chapter six

Tara

I get out of bed to find my jeans, and then I remember where they are.

They’re in the duffel on the dresser, rolled up in a wet ball with everything else I own that isn’t in the Corolla. I unzip it anyway. The jeans have spent eight hours drying from the outside in, which means the legs are stiff and the seams are still damp. My T-shirt is worse. The only dry things in the bag are the bra I’d tucked into the zip pocket, and the socks I took off last night.

I put on the bra, the socks, and the damp jeans. That leaves Merek’s shirt.

It hangs to my knees. I gather up the extra fabric at my hip, twist it, and tie it in a knot, and in the mirror over the dresser I look like someone who lost a bet. My braid is half undone from sleeping on it. I redo it with my fingers and decide that’s as good as it’s going to get.

On the bed, Billy Bob lifts his head.

Then he lifts his nose, and his whole face changes. He goes down the ramp faster than I’ve seen him move since the surgery and noses at the gap under the door.

That’s when I smell it, too. Bacon. Coffee.

And voices. Male voices, more than one, coming from the far end of the house.

He told Lenart I was here. Fine. But I’d assumed “all five of us” meant later, at the Club, with a desk between us and a chance for me to put on pants that weren’t wet. I didn’t think it meant my host’s kitchen before I’d brushed my teeth.

I brush my teeth. Then I open the door, and Billy Bob is gone down the hall before I can grab his collar.

The kitchen is bright at one end and shaded at the other. Somebody has pulled the blinds down over the windows above the sink, so the half of the room nearest the table is dim and cool, and the sunlight stops in a hard line across the floor.

All four of them are there.

Merek is at the stove in a gray T-shirt and bare feet, with a spatula in one hand and the cast-iron pan spitting in front of him. His tail curls lazily behind him. He looks over his shoulder when I come in, and his eyes go straight to the knot at my hip.

“Morning, Trouble,” he says. “Nice shirt.”

Lenart is at the far end of the table, in the dim half of the room, in a dark suit without a single crease, holding a cup of coffee he isn’t drinking. He looks as if he’s waiting for a board meeting to start. He watches Merek look at me. Then he looks at me, and his face does nothing at all.

William is standing by the back door with his wings folded tight and his arms crossed, the way he stood against the wall in Lenart’s office. When I come in, he pulls out the chair at the near end of the table and turns it a few inches, so it faces the room instead of the wall, and so there’s space between it and everyone else. Then he goes back to the door.

Tav is sitting at the table, which is not built for him. His knees are higher than the tabletop, and his horns clear the light fixture by about an inch. Billy Bob is sitting at his feet, perfectly upright, staring at him with total devotion.

Tav has a strip of bacon between two fingers.

“Tav,” I say.

“Yes, Boss.”

“Are you feeding my dog bacon?”

“No.”

Billy Bob’s tail thumps on the floor. The bacon stays where it is, about six inches above his nose.

“There’s bacon in your hand.”

Tav looks down at his hand as if he’s surprised. “This is my bacon.”

“He had surgery last month. He swallowed a corncob. He’s on prescription food.”

The change in Tav is immediate. His ears go flat. He puts the bacon in his own mouth, eats it in one bite, and wipes his fingers carefully on a napkin. Then he looks down at Billy Bob with real regret.