“When my muse was calling me awake, Kay answered her phone. So she got the pussy option. But I couldn’t get ahold of you. Your phone went right to messages.”

  “I turned it off. I was exhausted.”

  She popped a hand onto her hip while she scrutinized me from head to toe. “You look like you’ve been ridden hard and put up wet.”

  “Not last night,” Rex said, standing at my door. “BJ needed to catch up on her sleep. If I had my druthers, I’d keep her in bed all day.”

  Now. that sounded like a good idea. Just the thought of a long day in bed with Rex sent a tingle through my system. But what Rex didn’t add was that he was cooperating with the police by staying in town. He had his own workday to contend with. So, sadly, there would be no romping rodeo in my bedroom today.

  “If you tucked her in bed, Bobbi Jax would miss out on seeing everything,” Kay was saying. “And Luna. Luna is bound to be in her element. I can’t wait to see her there.”

  “Yeah, BJ told me Farrah’s marked Tadger as the dude to fulfill Luna’s fantasy.” Rex grinned. “Having met the guy, I’m thinking he’s not the kind who’s gonna pull on a furry mask to get laid.”

  “Didn’t get that vibe from him, huh?” I asked.

  Rex snorted and lifted his ringing phone to his ear, peeling back around the corner. “Rex Parker speaking.”

  “So,” Delight opened the bag and stuck her head in, “my muse had me pawing around in my closet.” She came back out with her hand on some brown fur. “Now see here, I’m a pink lion, and Kay is going as a pussy. I don’t normally do animal themes, but I remembered I had this for a bachelor party I did this once.” She pulled out a lot of synthetic fur. She snapped it out to show a furry body then she held up a mask. “Look, you can go as a hamster.”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  “Gerbil then. I can’t ever tell them apart, anyway.”

  “No!” I said. Going back to bed the way Rex had advised seemed like the very best recommendation under these circumstances.

  “Bobbi Jax, don’t be a party pooper,” Kay said.

  “I’m not being a party pooper. And Kay before you start with hamsters and butt jokes. Stop. I just can’t. At least not until I’ve had some coffee.” I reached out my hand and made a give-me gesture. “Delight, it’s nice of you to go to the trouble to bring that…costume.”

  She shook the bodysuit at me. “ShifterCon magnificence.”

  “Fine. That you brought the magnificence for me to wear, but the weather says it’s going to be a hundred degrees today. Even if we’re going to be in the air conditioning, I’m not going to walk around with my head shoved into a rodent mask. Not happening. I’m going to finish getting ready in my normal clothes now.” I accepted the cup from Kay’s hand with a thank you and put up a finger. “Uh-uh.”

  “But…”

  I shut the door.

  13

  Thursday Mid-morning

  With our blaze orange Chemistry fliers in hand, we stood in line to get in to ShifterCon.

  Once again, I was surprised.

  I seemed to be the only one who, in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, stood out. Everyone else was in the spirit of things. Though, I would take some credit, the T-shirt I was wearing was a Christmas gift from Kay. It was a picture of Twinkles with cow horns photoshopped in place. And while she was couth enough not to spell it out, most people got that it meant horndog. It was themed. Just not as themed as the fabulous cat eyes that Delight had created for Kay.

  Also, not as hot as the Lycra that Delight had stretched over her.

  “You have VIP tickets.” The girl smiled and nodded at us as if we’d been expected. She pulled up a stamp pad from under the shelf. “You get this one.”

  We each held out our hands to get a wolf stamped on the webbing between our thumbs and forefingers. “See?” the girl said. “When you wiggle your thumb, the wolf runs.”

  “Cool,” Kay said, trying it out.

  “When you get to the Chemistry booth, show them your stamp, and they’ll give you your VIP bags. It’s on aisle A at the end of the row.”

  “Thanks,” Delight said and pushed us through the doors. “Whew! I thought I was going to melt like a pat of butter out there in that sun. Looky here, I think the boa feathers are molting. I can’t be a fierce pink lion when my feathers are molting!” She pushed the hood back from her face and waved her hand to improve the airflow.

  “Mama, mama, that ladies a flamingo!” some kid said, pointing at Delight while he stumbled along with his hand gripped tightly by a woman in a pig costume.

  “Flamingo?” Delight gasped, appalled.

  “Where do you want to go first?” I asked, looking down at the schedule of events.

  “Flamingo?” She grabbed up her long tail and petted it.

  “It’s a child,” I said reasonably. “He hasn’t even been to kindergarten yet. He made a mistake.”

  Kay pointed at the time slot. “We just missed the pony play races.”

  “That there’s a shame,” Delight said. “How about we go here, and see Madame Fortuna, she’s telling people what their spirit animals are. I’d like to know that.”

  “My spirit animal today is the sloth,” I said, following along behind.

  Delight pushed past the striped curtains and squinted into the dark interior of the animal totem tent. A woman encumbered by an enormous turban and a thick wreath of beaded necklaces waved us in.

  “I came to find out about my spirit animal,” Delight said, her voice quivering with excitement.

  “Come. Sit. Give me ten dollars.”

  “Yes, ten? That seems fair.” She patted along the sides of her pink Lycra, then turned to me. “I don’t have any pockets. I didn’t bring any cash,” she said.

  I pulled out a ten-dollar bill from my wallet and handed it to Delight.

  Delight handed it to the satin be-robbed woman.

  The woman shoved it into her cleavage. “Your hands.”

  Delight reached forward.

  “I am an animal guide, and I call to the air, the land, and the sea. Tell me,” she crooned. “Who will guide this woman? This…” She looked Delight over, settling her gaze on Delight’s Adam’s apple and the piece of toilet paper Delight had left stuck to her chin when she shaved this morning. “This woman.” Then she hummed the theme from The Lion King.

  I snorted, and Kay smacked me, shifting around and settling her expression into one of reverence to the process.

  “Come. Speak. Come. Come!” Then the woman pulled a deck of cards from her sleeve, shuffled them, placed them in front of Delight. “Cut the deck and hand the top to me.”

  Delight did as she was told, shooting a look over her shoulder at us, and grinning broadly. “I bet I’m a peacock. You see what I’m saying? All fabulous and colorful.” She handed the top half of the deck to the woman.

  The woman flipped it over. “You are a whale!”

  “What now?” Delight pressed on the table to get up. She looked more like a ram to me. Like she was ready to body slam the woman for insulting her.

  “And what a graceful and amazing animal for you to have as your sister spirit.” The woman continued as if Delight wasn’t ticked off.

  “The whale is a mammal but lives in the ocean. A whale sings its own beautiful songs. From looking at this card, I can tell you that you are easy going and happy.”

  Obviously, the woman hadn’t looked up and seen Delight’s face.

  “You are a social animal. Honest, frank, people find it easy to get along with you.”

  “This is true.” Delight sank slowly back into her seat.

  “You are a wise advisor.”

  Delight turned to us with a nod of her head. “This is true. I do give good advice. You both should listen more when I’m giving you my good advice. It comes from me being a whale spirit.”

  “You enjoy your pod of friends. You enjoy joint endeavors. You have foresight. And you are successful when you try new things.”

  “See there? She’s absolutely right. And that’s what I thought when I entered the Queen Bee of the East Coast contest. And I won. I got me a sash and a crown. And a year’s supply of honey.” She turned back to the woman who was picking up the cards and stashing them back up her sleeve. “A whale. Yes. I can see that now. And I do like to eat fish. And no one else in my family likes that. So that explains it now. A whale.”

  Delight stood up, and we sidled out of the tent.

  “Let’s go get our VIP bags,” Kay said, looking down at her map.

  “How about here, Kay, you can have a python massage.” We stepped over to watch the man in an alligator suit lying face down on a massage table. The man in blue scrubs was draping the pythons down his back.

  “Those are some fat snakes,” Kay said.

  “I feed them a couple of chickens each before they provide massage services,” the snake wrangler said.

  “So they weigh more?” Delight asked.

  “Yeah, I guess that, too,” he said.

  I’d want the pythons to be completely full and satisfied before I let them crawl over my body. That was for sure.

  Next to that, there was a woman in a tank of water. Mermaid. There was a mermaid in the tank of water. She had her elbows resting on a shell-shaped pool float, and she was singing. There was a sign that encouraged people to throw coins in the pool, and she would add her mermaid magic to help their wishes come true.

  “I feel an affinity to mermaids,” Delight said, walking over. “I just found out that my spirit animal is the whale,” she announced.

  The mermaid responded with a slap of her tail that sent a whoosh of water up into the air.

  We ran back out of the way as it rained down on us.

  “That there’s an unfriendly type mermaid.” Delight turned and slung a “Beach, please,” over her shoulder.

  “Delight.” I pointed at the little girl in the cow costume.

  “I said beach.”

  “Fine, look there’s the Chemistry booth, let’s go get our bags, and then we can go do the animal yoga.” I stopped to read down the events page and looked at my watch. “Yoga doesn’t start for another twenty minutes.”

  “Good,” Kay said, “That’ll give us time to get our spots.”

  “Okay,” Delight said. “I’ll do some cobra poses, but when we get done with down dog, I plan to down me some dogs. I say we go to ‘Hot Dogs’ for lunch.”

  Kay pulled the itinerary form my hand. “Uhm, that’s not a food cart. That’s a band. Look, there’s their photo. Fido with a guitar.”

  We set off walking. I could tell Delight was still upset that her whale totem didn’t find symbiosis with the mermaid.

  “Oh, cheer up.” Kay bumped her hip into Delight. “Do you know what the mermaid wore to math class? … Her algae bra.”

  “Oh,” Delight grumped.

  “Do you know why the mermaid ran away with the fisherman?”

  No one asked why. But Kay was undeterred.

  “He had allure.”

  That one made Delight chuckle, and the storm cloud lifted.

  “Hey there,” I said as I spotted Luna. “Have you all been busy today?”

  “Not bad. We’re signing people up for tonight’s after-hours VIP speed dating.”

  “That’s a very long day for you.” I frowned my compassion.

  “No, I’m meeting Tadger at Hooch’s. Farrah has her other employees doing that one. For the—” she cupped her hands around her mouth to keep her words private, “—wanna-be shifter crowd. The ones into cosplay.” She winked like we shared a big secret.

  Kay winked back. “Okay, you guys, no pussyfooting around. Let’s get to that yoga class. I need a good stretch.”

  Kay was definitely up to something.

  14

  Thursday, Opening Time

  At Hooch’s, I was coming back from checking that the bathrooms were clean and neat when I found Luna looking into my empty office. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Just checking,” she said.

  “Tadger is coming up the sidewalk.” I pointed through the doorway where I could see a slice of picture window.

  “Oh!” She scrambled toward the main area.

  Just then, Kay walked through the kitchen door with Twinkles on his lead. He headed straight for my office and a nap on my couch. I gave him a scratch behind the ears while I unleashed him.

  “You took him for a walk before you got here.”

  “His locator collar’s app pinged your phone?” Kay stood with her shoulder pressed to my door jam.

  “Yeah, you took him off his normal course. It pings when he leaves his area. When I saw he was making left-hand turns, I assumed you were trying to get your steps in for the day. How’s Bella doing?” I shut the office door behind us.

  “She’s sleeping on the top of my bookshelf. She seems to have made herself at home. I think Twinkles helped her acclimate.”

  We made our way into the main room.

  Tadger loped through the front door. We watched Luna dance into his arms for a hug. Then, they took seats at the bar.

  “Mmmm.”” Tadger snuffled her neck. “You smell nice.”

  “Thank you.” She lifted her wrist and sniffed. “I’m wearing FarrahMones. It’s a Chemistry signature product. It’s subtle, though.” She batted her eyelashes. “You must have a keen sense of smell.”

  “That was fun today,” Delight said, as Kay took the stool between Delight and Luna.

  “It was purr-fect,” Kay said with a smile. She shot a glance toward Luna.

  Luna only had eyes for Tadger.

  “It helps me with my policing,” Tadger replied to Luna. “I can smell the drugs on the bad guys if they’ve touched them at all.”

  “I can imagine that could be unpleasant, having such a sensitive nose.”

  “It can be.”

  Luna leaned closer. “Can you smell anything else on me?” A bat of her lashes, her voice sultry like some kind of weird mating ritual.

  “You smell a little bit like a steak.”

  She giggled and pulled a Ziploc baggie from her purse with what looked like barely cooked meat cubes. “I thought Twinkles might like a treat later.”

  “Luna, Twinkles is on a diet,” I said. “He can’t have any of that.”

  She looked between Tadger and me. “Wait. Are you two a couple?”

  “Me and BJ?” Tadger asked. “Nah, she likes to run around. She’s not interested on choosing a mate right now.”

  Luna tipped her head toward me. “You’re not his?” she pressed.

  I remembered what Justice had said about Luna wanting to be claimed as part of her fantasy “Nope.” I spun to grab a stein.

  “And Kay isn’t his?”

  “Nope.” When I turned back, Luna had the funniest look on her face, sitting there gripping her baggie of steak chunks. “We were talking about snacks and Twinkles,” I said. “I have to be very cautious about what he eats to stay healthy.” I sent a friendly smile. “That was nice of you to think of Twinkles. Normally, steak would be fine. But right now, he’s not allowed extra snacks. He’s been gaining so much weight, and I’ve been trying to be careful, but this last week alone, he’s put on an extra pound.”

  “One pound?” Luna’s brow furrowed. “And that matters?”

  “It does on a dog’s body,” I said.

  She nodded. “Interesting that Twinkles is a dog, not a wolf.”

  “Ha! A Wolf would be cool,” Kay said. “But wolves aren’t allowed in the city limits.”

  “Rottweilers can be pretty fierce.” I felt oddly defensive of Twinkles.

  “Oh right!” Luna said. “Of course! I just didn’t realize that decisions could be made. I had always assumed! So much to learn.” She smiled, and I was completely and utterly baffled by this whole conversation.

  Tadger turned away to take a phone call.

  Luna leaned in and spoke under her breath. “But just to be clear. You and Tadger aren’t a thing, right? You seem to be in a relationship.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, reaching for a bar rag. “We’ve been friends since we were kids.”

  Kay leaned her elbow on the bar. “They tried dating on for size one night back in college, but Tadger tends to be overly protective.”

  “Domineering,” I said.

  “That too,” Kay said.

  Luna got all moony-eyed. “Alpha.”

  “For BJ and me, Tadger’s like family,” Kay said. “Since he lives outside of town, BJ tries to make things easier for him when he’s working.”

  “Like using her office when he’s getting ready for his shift?”

  Kay nodded. “Things like that.”

  “Yeah,” Luna said. “I wondered. I saw on Twinkles’ tags BJ’s listed her address on the license.”

  “If a dog doesn’t have those tags on, he could be picked up by the pound,” Kay said, merriment dancing in her eyes. “Can you imagine what would happen if they kept Twinkles overnight in a cage? Can you imagine what would happen in the morning?”

  Luna’s eyes filled with concern. “Oh, no. That would be terrible.” She swiveled to catch my eye. “Thank you, B.J.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Luna pulled her purse from where it hung on the back of her stool and put the baggie away. “I don’t know all the ins and outs, yet. I seem to have made a poor choice. I’ll give this to someone else.”

  “I can take it for Bella later.” Kay held out her hand. “I mean, if it’s just in your purse, a human couldn’t very well eat that. Not in this heat. Too much of a paw-sibility of getting sick.”

  “What are you drinking?” I asked Luna as she handed the baggie to Kay.

  “Do you have Blue Moon?”

  “Sorry, I don’t carry that brand.”

  “Oh, okay, do you know how to make a wolf bite?” she asked, shooting a lascivious look toward Tadger.

  “Can you talk me through it?” I asked. “It seems to me that one uses Lucid Absinthe.”

  “That’s right.” She smiled.