“Please don’t be shotgun blasts,” I murmured, hoping I wasn’t about to become the party police.
The Yard Birds had flocked together, about a dozen of them, and you could never be too careful. Alcohol and firearms do not mix. Unless you’re blending a murderita. But when I cracked my window, my fingers crossed, rap music pulsed in the air. I had been hearing the bass.
At least the massive hangover this promised Mrs. Gleason and her friends guaranteed that their eagle eyes would be too blurred to keep tabs on me.
For once, that would be a blessing.
Certain my neighbors were practicing safe keggering, I drove us into town and parked in the employee lot.
The three of us crossed to enter the store from the rear, and I paused with a hand on the knob.
Clay sidled up to me. “Want me to go first?”
I couldn’t find my voice, so I shook my head and pushed inside before I lost my nerve.
A gasp escaped me at the total destruction of what had been a small dream come true.
Everything that could be broken had been, including the security cameras mounted in the corners.
Crunching over broken glass, I met a pair of officers at the front door who greeted me with curt nods.
We had a small police force, so their faces were familiar. Their name tags read Waters and Downy.
There was no sign of Miss Dotha or the girls. She must have driven them home after the police arrived.
“Ms. Hollis,” Waters greeted me. “Do you have any enemies? Anyone who might want to hurt you?”
The abrupt questions shocked me into silence when I had been expecting the usual social niceties first.
“What he means is, this level of violence strikes us as personal.” Downy cut his partner a sharp look then gentled his tone. “Do you have any idea who could have done this or why they targeted your store?”
The only choice I had was to stick to the lie I had been telling. “My ex-boyfriend.”
“All right.” Downy offered me a polite smile while he made notes. “What can you tell us about him?”
“Hold up, Downy.” Waters cut into his partner’s questioning to assess Asa and Clay. “Who are you two?”
“We’re with Rue,” Clay told him. “She let us in.”
Asa did his best to appear as nonthreatening as possible, but Waters broke into a sweat looking at him.
“The man responsible for this mess is Neil Wells,” I said loudly over Waters, then launched into my cover story for them both.
Neil Wells had existed, and he had been abusive to his girlfriends, but I had never been one of them. Black Hat put him down for blowing up a church to kill the vampires who slept in crypts beneath it. Why a selkie had it out for vampires, I had no idea, but Neil also managed to kill eight humans in the blast.
The director wasn’t about to let that slip, since dead humans meant investigations that might expose the bones of creatures the Bureau didn’t want to explain to mortal authorities. I figured Neil torched his reputation during his life, so I wasn’t doing him harm by compounding his legacy after his death.
The police questioning dragged on for about thirty minutes, give or take, before Miss Dotha arrived on the scene.
“You boys have your answers.” She shooed the officers out of the store. “Let the poor girl process.”
The officers knew Miss Dotha at least as well as I did since neither of them opened their mouth to sass her.
And yes, Miss Dotha considered anything she didn’t want to hear sass.
Gathering me into a fierce hug that smelled of lilacs, she patted my back, and the faint hum of distant magic in her blood soothed me. “There, there, dear.”
Miss Dotha’s affection was catlike, in that she gave it when she wanted, and she had claws.