Kitty Raises Hell (Kitty Norville 6)

“Yeah. Let me know if anything weird happens, okay?”

“Weirder than usual?”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “That.”

We hugged. I left another jar of the stuff with her, just in case. She waited to watch me drive away before going back inside.

My cell phone rang Tuesday morning when Ben and I were still in bed. I didn’t want to answer it, but I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t my phone, because it played “I Wanna Be Sedated.” It went almost all the way through the chorus before Ben grunted and poked me, forcing me to action.

Caller ID read Hardin. I groaned.

The very last thing I needed in the midst of all this was a call from Detective Jessi Hardin. She was the Denver PD’s resident expert on what they called paranatural situations. If a body turned up in a back alley that looked like it had been mauled by a wolf or drained of blood, she headed the investigation. This was mostly through happenstance and Hardin’s bullheaded determination to educate herself now that these things—these monsters—were in the open and publicly acknowledged. She was a believer, and the supernatural didn’t scare her. No, it only pissed her off.

For some reason, she always called me when she stumbled across something new and freaky. Like I knew any more than she did.

I didn’t want to answer, but if I didn’t, she’d show up in person. She usually brought along crime-scene photos of dead bodies. I wanted to avoid that if I could.

Just before the call would be shunted to voice mail, I answered. “You have a body, don’t you?”

“I have a body,” she answered, but without the peppy sarcasm I had come to expect from her. One of the things that made her good at her work was a sense of humor.

“I guarantee you it wasn’t werewolves this time, I promise.” If one of my pack attacked a person, I’d deal with the murderer myself.

“I know. This is something completely different. Kitty—”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Why are you calling me? Are you going to show me gruesome crime-scene photos?”

“Kitty, be quiet for a minute, please.”

I shut up, because she sounded serious, stone serious, like she wanted to be doing anything other than having this conversation.

She said, “Do you know a man named Mick Cabrerra?”

The name took a minute to click, because I’d heard his last name maybe twice in my life. But I knew only one Mick, and my mind turned worried circles wondering what my disgruntled werewolf minion could have gotten into. “Yes.”

Hardin’s voice was strained. “We found his body last night. I’m sorry.”

“What?” I’m afraid I squeaked. “What? But how? I saw him just a couple days ago, he was fine. What could kill him—he’s a werewolf. Did you know he’s a werewolf? He can’t be dead.”

“Yes. The blood test is standard autopsy procedure now. We haven’t been able to reach any next of kin, and he had your name and number in his wallet as an emergency contact. Was he part of your pack?”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “But how did he di

e?”

She sighed, which meant it was something odd, unusual, something she didn’t want to talk about. “It’s complicated. But there was a fire.”

Somehow, strangely, that didn’t surprise me. Fire had been hunting us, and now it had gotten one of us. I didn’t want to picture Mick burned up like that, dying like that. I closed my eyes as the breath went out of me.

“Do you want to come down to the morgue? To see him? We can talk about it in person, if you’d like.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him; I’d already seen enough bodies. But I thought that later on I might want the closure.

“Okay, yeah,” I said. “I should do that.”

“We’re going to spend a little while longer looking for his family.”

“I’m not sure he has any family, Detective.”