Dad glided over that comment. “Dick is with her. He’ll make sure everything goes the way it should. Are you okay? You didn’t get into the same stuff she did, did you?”

  “I didn’t get any of the substance on me or in me, no. Hey, Dad, I could use a favor if you could.”

  He tipped his head.

  “I shut down the bar and raced off, leaving Twinkles in my office. Could you just take Twinkles back to my apartment? Oh, wait.” I grabbed his arm. “Actually, could you take Twinkles to Kay’s apartment? That way you can check on Bella.”

  “Who’s Bella?”

  “Oh,” Delight said, digging through Kay’s purse. “BJ, Kay, and Rex were chasing the licker and ran over the poor, sad pussy.” She dragged Kay’s key chain out of the bag.

  “I’m not even going to try to figure out what that means.” He reached for the pink pompom Delight was holding up. “Fine, Bobbi Jax, I’ll take Twinkles to Kay’s place, and I’ll figure out while I’m there what a Bella is.” Dad looked down at the keys. “Kay’s driving a Ferrari?” He focused on Rex. “She doesn’t know how to shift.”

  “She’s learning,” Delight said, “and lucky for her, it’s a full moon. That helps.”

  Dad stared at Delight for a long minute. Shook his head and turned back to Rex. “It’s your car, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Rex answered. “I lent it to Kay for as long as she needs it. We were teaching Kay how to shift when we found a Savannah cat named Bella. Kay’s fostering it while the police find the owner.”

  Dad tossed the keys into the air, caught them, and, without another word, headed out the door.

  “Sit down,” Delight said, fanning her face. “It’s like you have ants in your pants.”

  “They won’t tell me anything,” I said for the thousandth time. I had tried to call Kay’s brother, Connor, to let him know what was going on. But so far, I’d gone right to voice mail. I was reticent to call their parents until I had some solid information. It might be better coming from Connor, anyway.

  “Dick said he’d come to tell us as soon as they know anything,” Delight said. “Good that he’s staying with her. I don’t think the doctors and nurses would take too kindly to having a tongue bath.”

  Rex reached out a hand. “Hey, Slick, why don’t we go and get something to drink. There’s a vending area one floor up. It might be good to move around a bit. There’s nothing you can do here until word comes.”

  “I should stay here and wait for Dick.”

  “I’ll stay and wait. You two go on.”

  “Delight,” Rex asked, “can I bring something back for you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, settling into a seat, “but thank you anyway.”

  As I slid my hand into Rex’s, and we turned toward the stairs, Dick sauntered through the swinging door, heading toward us.

  Rex pulled me in front of him and wrapped his arms protectively around me. After our last encounter with the licker, he knew I’d be conjuring worst-case scenarios. And he was right.

  Dick held up his hands as if to pacify my fears. “Kay’s stable.”

  There was an audible rush of air as Delight, Rex, and I all exhaled forcibly.

  “They’re admitting her overnight and running tests. Normally, they’d send her home, based on her health picture. They’re keeping her with her permission, so we can keep a closer eye on her behaviors and try to figure out what the substance is that makes people…lick.”

  I nodded my head vigorously. Yes, that was what needed to be done. They needed to figure this out, and it had to be stopped.

  “But this substance seems to run its course pretty quickly. I’d say that from the point where Kay got the substance in her system to the point where she could modulate her behavior was about a half an hour.”

  “Dad said her vitals were off in transit,” I said, trying to calculate. From the point she was licking until the point that the paramedic was on scene was less than ten minutes. Then there was the trip to St. Esmerelda’s maybe another fifteen minutes. “Did they do anything in the Emergency room to help with that? Pump her stomach? Flush her system?”

  “No,” Dick said. “They were still trying to understand the circumstances of her being here when she started buttoning her shirt back together and looking embarrassed.”

  “Could that have been true of Sarah Elizabeth, too? The thirty-minute time frame?”

  “We don’t know how she got the substance into her. We don’t know when she got the substance into her. But her blood draw looked clean. By the time she died, it had cleared. It has a very short half-life in the system. Potent, then gone, from what we’re seeing with Kay and what we know of Sarah Elizabeth.”

  I stared out the window with a frown. That seemed like an odd kind of drug reaction to want to develop. Usually, people wanted to ride a high for a long time period.

  “Hey, BJ.” Dick interrupted my thoughts. “I see you grabbed Kay’s purse, is her goody bag from ShifterCon in there with the samples she was trying? I’m going to need to take that to toxicology. If we can pinpoint the chemical, we might be able to stop the licker crisis.”

  “Won’t that take a long time?” I asked, turning out of Rex’s arms and reaching for Kay’s bag. I’d read enough police procedurals to know lab stuff could take months.

  “It’s the sucker who licks the sucker that licks folks, is what I’m thinking,” Delight declared.

  I stopped as I ran that through my head…yeah, I guessed that made sense, the sucker.

  Delight’s fists landed on her hips. “You start licking things that you don’t know where they’ve been, and you’re sure to get the cooties. Remember? Kay said right there at the bar she didn’t remember where she got that sucker she was sucking before she started licking other stuff.” Delight gestured toward Dick. “Like the top of your head.”

  “Kay stuck the sucker in her shot glass. I didn’t even think to package it up for testing. I left it there when I kicked everyone out of the bar and locked up behind the EMTs. Joe was still in the kitchen. He would have cleaned it up right away. It might be in the trash, or it might already be out in the garbage bin in the alley.”

  “And you can’t call Joe to ask. He doesn’t speak English,” Rex said.

  “I’ll send a car over.” Dick took a step back, pulling out his phone.

  I looked up at Rex, a frown pulling at the corners of my mouth.

  “They had the same color tongues. When they compare tongue swabs, they may pinpoint something.”

  I nodded.

  “Were you able to contact her family?” Rex placed his hands on my shoulder, which stopped my shivers. “They might want the update.”

  “Her mom and dad are in Alaska in their Winnebago. I’m not even sure that they have cell reception. Let me try Connor again.”

  Dick led the way as we paraded up the stairs, and found Kay sitting up in bed, shackle and handcuff free.

  I leaned over the bed toward her. “Stick out your tongue.”

  Kay dutifully obeyed.

  “That’s about back to normal.”

  “Pink?” Kay asked.

  “Forked,” I said.

  “Yeah, you got you a big old long tongue,” Delight said.

  Kay grimaced. “I think I can add that to the list of some of the more bizarre experiences of my life.”

  “You were among friends, no need to be embarrassed.” Rex was being gallant.

  Delight, not so much. “Mmm mmm, you had the whole bar there watching you. I’m pretty sure someone got a video posted up on social media. I bet you’re going viral being venereal. You looked like you were diseased.”

  “Rabid,” I added.

  Rex pulled a chair over to her bed. “Your behavior really changed, Kay. It was like watching another person. You weren’t showing a lot of inhibitions.”

  Delight nodded. “Yeah, not to say you normally have a stick up your butt, but you’re normally more lady-like and less lickerish.”

  “How are you feeling now?” Rex asked.

  “I don’t know. Weird.”

  “What did it feel like when the drug got into your body?”

  “Amazing. Freeing. I could do what I wanted. And what I wanted was…animalistic, I guess, is the best way to describe it. Following the call of nature.”

  “When I say nature’s calling it usually means I have to go to the bathroom,” Delight said.

  “No, not the same.” Kay pulled at her sheet and stuck it under her arms.

  I bet she was wishing she had a bra on under that thin hospital gown.

  “And here I thought you were team Terrance,” Delight said. “I know he’s out of town a lot, and Dick is a fine-looking man…but I didn’t think you went for Dick.”

  “Huh,” Kay said. “I think maybe it was an in-the-moment deal. In that moment, my skin needed more air, and Dick looked like something I wanted to put in my mouth. He looked…delicious.”

  “Well, he must have been good,” Delight said. “You licked him a few times.”

  Kay was looking at the wall when she murmured to herself, “I wanted to in the worst kind of way.”

  “Yup,” Delight said. “It was the worst kind of way. That’s for sure.”

  “And I felt like there was nothing holding me back except you.” She turned accusing eyes on me. “You grabbed my hand, and I couldn’t do what I wanted.”

  “You know licking Dick in public is assault or something,” Delight said. “That’s what he told me when I got licked out in the street. It’s illegal.”

  Kay looked over at me, worry painted across her face. “We’re friends. Dick doesn’t mind when friends lick him. Does he BJ?”

  Rex looked over at me.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t licked Dick in well over a year.”

  And Rex’s face turned red as he held back the laughter.

  I held up a finger. “Dick,” I said, “with a capital D.”

  17

  Friday

  Tonight would be Rex’s last night with me, and I fully planned to make some lasting memories.

  He’d hired a limo to pick him up in the morning and was heading back to Atlanta. The contract that he thought was in place ended up being problematic and needing his personal attention. But he promised to show me all the personal attention I wanted tonight after I finished up at work. He’d leave for Georgia after I’d fallen asleep.

  I hoped I could close up the bar early tonight. I didn’t often pray for a poor showing, but if I had to have a slow business day, why couldn’t it be tonight?

  Delight was messing around with my sound system putting on some Lady Gaga, as Rex and I pulled the chairs off the tables and arranged them neatly in place.

  By the time I checked the clock and moved to the door to spin the “closed” sign to read “open,” Delight was holding a cocktail umbrella in her fingers, pretending it was a microphone, prancing around, lip-synching the lyrics.

  As soon as I turned the lock, folks started showing up. Many of the faces from last night were here. I guessed they were eager for the next chapter in the licker horror story. Sorry to disappoint, but I was planning on a very dull evening, and everyone could just head on home early. I put out the vibe and hoped people picked up on it.

  Delight wasn’t. She was in full drag queen cutting loose mode, shimmying up to Kay as she came in from the back.

  “Hey, you’re looking better,” I said, pulling my garnish tray from the fridge.

  “I’m feeling more normal.”

  “But not better?” Rex asked.

  “I kind of liked whatever it was in my system last night,” she said.

  “That’s a bad sign.” I pushed the tap, filling a stein for bar guy.

  Kay shrugged. “Hey, I heard back from animal control about Bella.” Kay took a stool next to Rex.

  “Yeah?” He angled to the side so he could see both of us.

  Delight sashayed over to the beat of the music.

  “The family is out of the country in Canne, France.”

  “Ooh lala!” Delight fluffed her bouffant.

  “And they just left Bella here?” I asked, setting out coasters.

  “Bella ran away just before they took off for the summer. They couldn’t find her to do anything with her.”

  “That must have been heart-wrenching for them.” I pressed my fist into my chest, looking back toward my office where I’d left Twinkles snoring in his sofa nest. “Can you imagine the devastation?”

  “I can, but this family not so much,” Kay said. “Apparently, they said that Bella was too wild for them, and they said that I could have her or I could take her to the pound.”

  “What?” I gasped. “That’s not the Bella I know.”

  “Maybe it was the people that was the problem,” Delight said. “An animal always senses how someone really is.”

  “True story,” a bar guy said as I put his beer in front of him.

  “So what are you thinking?” I poured a shot of Badge Bunny Booze and started on a vodka tonic.

  “Bella’s not very cat-like. She’s more like a dog. I mean, she has about ten commands that I was using on Twinkles, and she followed along. She’s very sweet. She’s good at cuddling. She and Twinkles are fast friends.”

  I put the drinks in front of the right patrons and sidled back to Kay. “Isn’t Terrence allergic to cats?”

  The bell over the bar door jingled.

  A regular, Amy Jambor, came into the bar.

  “Woot, Amy’s here,” another patron called out in greeting, flagging her over to the place next to him.

  Amy plopped down on the barstool then caught my eye. “I brought my buddy Twinkles a cardiac arrest burger.” She held up the bag that smelled like Heaven.

  “I’m sorry, Amy, that was so nice of you, but he can’t eat that now. He’s on a diet,” I said and set a coaster in front of her.

  Kay looked over at her. “I tried a diet once after I’d gone to Italy for a month.”

  “Pasta pounds?” Amy asked.

  “Cheese and gelato, I think.”

  “What kind of diet did you do?” bar guy asked.

  “Banana.”

  “What?” I stopped mid-pour.

  “Banana diet. I could have eight bananas a day and water.”

  “That’s nuts,” bar guy said.

  “No nuts.” Kay shook her head. “That might have helped. Only bananas.”

  “It sounds like some kind of monkey business,” bar guy said.

  “Oh, now right there.” Delight waggled her finger at Kay. “That sounds like a disaster in the making. Bananas? Only bananas? That would make your potassium levels go sky high. I bet you were shaking like a leaf.”

  “Yeah, like a banana leaf,” bar guy tried again. “And that doesn’t sound very appealing.”

  “Boo,” Kay pouted.

  “He beat you to the punch line,” I said, reaching for the bottle of red. “Sorry.”

  She moped as she watched me fill a wine glass for her.

  “Look.” I set the bottle back on the shelf and turned to Amy. “Please don’t give Twinkles snacks while I try to get his weight under control. The only snack he’s allowed to have is green beans.”

  “That’s not funny,” bar guy said.

  “I didn’t mean for it to be.” I moved down the row, checking on folks.

  “All this talk about food is making me hungry.” Amy unwrapped the burger she’d brought for Twinkles and took a bite. She turned to her friend sitting next to her. “Hey, do you know what the cheapest meat is?”

  Her friend lifted his stein. “Deer balls, they’re under a buck.”

  They clanked steins and chuckled.

  And so went the evening.

  After a couple of hours, I asked Kay if she’d hold down the fort. Twinkles usually needed a walk about now.

  “I can take him, BJ,” Rex said, sliding off his stool.

  “Thank you,” I called after him. Man, that man did good things for a T-shirt. I could not wait for closing to get here.

  “Uh, Slick, you want to come here for a second?” Rex called.

  Why yes. Yes, I did. I winked at Kay, and Kay stood up to take my place behind the counter.

  “Take your time,” she called after me.

  18

  Friday Evening

  I moved through my office door, and Rex stood there in the middle of the rug. Twinkles was not in his nesting place. I glanced around. “Where’s Twinkles?” I asked.

  “Borrowed,” Rex said and held out the paper to me.

  Hi BJ,

  When I came in from the alley, I noticed Twinkles was a little lonely. I thought he might enjoy an outing. He’s with me, no need to worry! I’ll have him back to you by closing.

  XOXO,

  Farrah

  “He’s been dognapped.” I gasped, sinking down to the sofa. “Twinkles was dognapped.”

  “Okay, we know who has him. This signature looks just like the signature on her FarrahMones bottle. Dognapping might be a stretch.”

  “Farrah stole my dog.” I pulled out my phone.

  “Are you calling the police?” Rex asked.

  “No, I’m, ah, Twinkles wears a tracker. Usually, it pings me when he moves out of range, but I had my phone on mute. I just want to see… Okay, she didn’t take it off of him. That’s a good thing. He’s heading west.”

  Rex held out his hand, and I gave him the phone.

  “Kay,” I called. Okay, shrieked.

  Kay came running.

  “Farrah stole Twinkles.” I pushed the note toward her. Kay read it with a scowl, then sidled over to Rex. “Are you finding him on the tracker? What in the world is that woman think—” Kay stopped mid-thought. She took my phone from Rex’s hand. She flipped her fingers around looking at the map. Then she doubled over laughing.

  “What?” I asked.

  She laughed harder.

  “What?”

  “Tonight is the full moon,” she gasped out.