Page 19 of Bad Medicine

Fucker had gotten away with murderinghis daughter and her boyfriend. “Why, honey? Do you know why?”

Her face was expressionless.“He had a fit of jealous rage. He didn’t want anyone touching me but…” Sheturned away from me. “But him.”

I didn’t need a sledgehammer—Ihad my wolf and my anger. I should have warned the homeowners before I broketheir wall, but I didn’t. I’d give them their money back. I punched my waythrough the wall, and finally, with Joe, Max, Arnold, and Jeff all watchingwith varying degrees of disbelief, I stared down at the bodies, and I saw them.Both of them. We all saw them.

When I looked for the spirit, shewas gone. She was free.

Behind that wall was nothingbut sadness. The others were unable to see the crying spirit, but they couldplainly see the corpses I uncovered. I told them everything I knew, and I toldthem she was gone.

“Poor thing,” Jeff said. “I’msorry I was so mean.”

An hour later, Joe, Max, and Iwere on our way to collect Lucy and Ash before heading to my mother’s house inHuntersburg. The police would deal with the grisly discovery behind theParsley-Reeds’ wall.

“Do you want me to drop you atyour car?” I asked Max. I already knew Joe was going with me.

“Nope,” he said. “Your motherrequested my presence.”

I wrinkled my nose. “She did?Why?”

He made his eyes big. “Um,because she likes me?”

I shook my head, frowning.“Yeah…no, that’s not it.” My mother was definitely up to something.

“When’s your birthday?” Joeasked. “Maybe she’s planning a surprise party.”

“She’s not above pulling astunt like that,” I told him, “but my birthday isn’t until next month.”

“The eleventh,” Max said.“Winter baby.”

I pulled into my drive and bothMax and Joe sat still for a few seconds in the silence, scoping out the area.Lucy was fine—I’d just talked to her—still, that didn’t mean a killer wasn’tlurking in the shadows with a gun.

And now I had something else toworry about. Something worse than a human killer. A shapeshifting killer. I’dtell them all about it over dinner. Not because I believed the shapeshifterwould target them, but because they needed to know what was in our city.

“Why the hell,” I murmured,before getting out of the car, “don’t these assholes kill each other instead ofgoing after women?”

“What?” Joe asked.

“We’ll talk about it inside.Come on, guys. Lucy is waiting with the delicious food.” And we were all eagerto eat—even Max, who mostly ate healthy things like kale and other, more exoticthings I could barely pronounce.

Lucy was all smiles as sheushered us into the house, except for a few shocked moments when she caughtsight of Joe’s face, and Ash could barely contain his excitement. He wiggledand jumped and mooed, then did zoomies around the room just to keep us laughing.He’d pause every once in a while to make sure we were paying attention, thengrin and take off again.

“Wash up,” Lucy said, finally.“The table is groaning beneath the amount of food I’ve prepared.”

The smells were driving me andmy wolf just a little crazy, and I rushed to wash my hands so I could get someof it into my complaining belly. Lucy hadn’t been exaggerating by much.

“Damn, Lucy,” Joe said as headmired the loaded-down table, “did you invite all of Shadowfield over?”

She beamed as she watched useagerly filling our plates. “You and Kait will have no trouble working your waythrough it, and I’ll take the leftovers to Susan.” She looked at me. “Shedoesn’t cook a lot, does she?”

“Not anymore,” I said. “Notsince I left home. I guess I got my lack of kitchen skills from her.”

She snorted. “Susan is averitable kitchen goddess compared with you. You used your oven to store extraweapons.”

“Hey,” Joe said. “That’s a goodidea.”

Lucy shook her head. “Max, putdown the Internet and eat.”

He set his enormous phonecarefully down. “I’ve put down the Internet,” he said dryly.