Page 13 of Were-Geeks Save a Kitten

Yordan looked around. “There would have to be some sort of clue. Some record or something. And it would be—”

“Here. In his personal things.”

“That have been locked behind an impenetrable wall for nearly two years?” He glared at McNabb. “How could you let it go this long?”

“It’s a really long fucking list!”

Yordan pushed to his feet, his exhaustion fading beneath a desperate need to search every inch of Coffee’s room. And if the bastard really was alive somewhere in fairy heaven, then he was going to grab the asshole by the collar and...and... He’d kill him for real. Or kiss him. Or both, probably.

“Damned asshole,” Yordan muttered. He went to Coffee’s desk as The Scot started on the closet. “You don’t have to help me look.”

“The hell I don’t. If he’s alive somewhere, we have to find him.”

“What if it’s fairy heaven and he’s sunning himself on a beach somewhere?”

The Scot shot him a hard look. “You know any fairies who have reason to treat werewolves with that kind of kindness?”

No. No. And hell no.

“Then we better get to work.”

Chapter 6

Deal? What Deal? Did Someone Make a Deal?

Kit felt his gut clench in panic. Fairy deals were slippery, ticking time bombs, and if Coffee really had died with a deal in place, any number of existence-ending disasters could be now on the horizon. Most people made expedient deals. Get me out of this problem, and I’ll give you my firstborn child. Those were personal disasters. Not so fun, but really not his problem. But a get-out-of-dead deal was something bigger. It was long-standing, and it messed with reality. Coffee would have had to give up something big in return. Like the nuclear codes kind of big. No, not like that. Fairies always wanted something weird. Turn people into donkeys weird or spin straw into gold.

Wait, he was mixing stories. He took a deep breath and tried to focus. What kind of fairy deal could Coffee have made? Best guess came down to—save me from death, and I’ll be your servant.

Given that Coffee was privy to a lot of Wulf, Inc. secrets, that could mean havoc on the organization. And it could explain all the weird disasters going on around HQ. Maybe.

Bottom line, they had to find out the details. But Coffee’s room was a disorganized mess of clutter and dust. Five minutes of searching told him that they needed a systematic search.

He looked at Yordan and realized the man was calmly moving in an organized pattern through Coffee’s desk area. It was reassuring, really, and it helped Kit clear his emotions away enough to breathe. Or he did until Yordan looked up at him.

“You’re panicked.”

“No. Maybe. Well, yes. I’m thinking about all the possibilities. Some of them are—”

“Horrifying. I know. But the only way to get more information is to find it.” Yordan clenched his hands into fists. “What the fuck was he thinking?”

“Now who’s panicking?” Kit shot back. It helped to banter a bit. “But randomly going through this disaster area will take hours. We’ll have to do it, but there has to be a better way. You knew him better than I did. Where would Coffee keep something important?”

“The man was a random collection of impulses and trivia. Look around. This was as organized as he got.”

Both their gazes landed on Yordan’s stack of bills. It was the one clear place in the entire room. They both had the same thought as they stepped closer to it.

“Why did you put the money there?” Kit asked.

“It’s where people paid their debts. Always. He had a ritual where they had to—”

“Come to his room to settle their bets. I remember.”

Yordan’s gaze cut to him. “You had a running bet with him, too?”

“Not a running one. Just one, but...” Oh God. It couldn’t be.

Kit felt the blood drain from his face. Holy shit, could that be the source of his problem? All this time, it was a fucking bet with a dead man?