Bad Wolf (Wild Men 4)

“Yeah. I took a nap. Speaking of which…” I frown. “Have you talked to Tati? I had a weird dream that the baby was yelling at her through her belly that he wanted out.”

She snorts softly. “You’re probably just antsy, like I am. But your sister is fine, I just talked to her. Now come help your mom ice these cakes. You’re so much faster than me.”

I shuffle closer in my fluffy bunny slippers and tug my overlong sweater down, over my LaRue leggings with their print of cute Dead Sugar Skulls. “Move over, heathen. Only I can ice these cakes properly.”

“Thank you.” Laughing, she kisses my cheek and busies herself g

etting another cake out of the oven.

“Wait, how many cakes have you baked, Mom? This has to be illegal. I know you don’t get paid for this, but you’ve practically opened a bakery in our kitchen.”

“Shush now. Get to work, or I’ll never be ready on time. And no dipping your finger in the icing!”

How does she always know?

“Doing the usual rounds today?” I grab the spatula and get to work.

“Yeah. Least I hope so. I got no driver today, so I’ll have to call a cab. Always harder. I wish I’d learned to drive. You should, Gigi.”

“I’m planning on it. Matt said he’ll teach me after the baby arrives.”

She arches a brow. “He’d trust you with a car?”

“Psht.” I slather icing on the cake in front of me. “Why wouldn’t he? He can see how careful and studious I can be.”

“Have you met you?” my mom, the traitor, says. “And did you notice you just spread icing on the table, too?”

Crap. I shake my head and bite my lip not to laugh. Whatever. My brother-in-law is pretty awesome. He’ll teach me, and then someday I’ll buy my own car.

Mom wants that. She wants for me to be independent, because she never really was. By the time she moved away from her home and parents she never talks about, and got a job, she became pregnant with Octavia, then me, and then Merc. She was trapped from the start. No time or money for driving lessons, let alone buying a car.

She’ll never tell you she was trapped, though. She talks of my childhood with such joy, she makes it sound like a perfect time, when I know for a fact she was working three jobs to make ends meet.

While our douchebag of a father had it all and never gave her a cent to help out. Never acknowledged us. Never wanted anything to do with us. Instead, he trained his own son from his legal wife to look down on us and call us names on the street.

“What’s wrong with you today, girly?” Mom is frowning down at the cake I’m supposed to be icing. “You’re not concentrating. Want me to do that?”

“No. Sorry. Just a lot on my mind.” I focus on finishing the cake, then start on the next one. “Going to visit Becky again? Your friend who lost her memory?”

“Every week,” Mom says. “It’s Alzheimer’s.”

“Right. I remember now. Must be so hard for her family. Does she have kids?”

“Oh, I bet you remember the Lowes. Lived just down the street from us. Old house with a big tree outside and a swing.”

I freeze, the spatula gripped tightly in my hand. “Becky Lowe? That’s her name?”

“Oh yes. Becky Lowe. She has two boys, Sebastian, and… what was the other one’s name?” She taps her forehead, frowning. “James? Jack?”

“Jarett,” I whisper. “Jarett Lowe.”

“That’s the one.” Mom gives me a sunny smile. “See? I was sure you remembered them. Good people.”

Oh my God. What do you know: sometimes clues come from the person you’d least expect.

“Tell me about him,” I say, putting down the spatula on a handy plate.

“Who?”