Second Nature (13 page)

"Not really."
If I say yes, the smitten fool will badger me for more information about Jorie.
She had no tolerance for that right now.

"Oh."

Griffin didn't need her nose to detect his disappointment.

"Ms. Price said you didn't pass out. Is that right?" he asked.

"Not even for a second," Griffin said and silently added,
Even though Jorie sprinting after the Maki made me feel pretty faint.

"Any dizziness or nausea?" the doctor asked while he probed and prodded.

For a moment, she did feel dizzy. It had nothing to do with the blow to the head, though. The scent of Jorie's pain still hung in the air, and the doctor was standing much too close, crowding her. She wanted to lash out, get him out of her personal space, but her training kept a tight leash on her instincts. "No," she ground out.

"Feeling confused or disoriented?" he asked.

A thousand things about this assignment were confusing her. "No."

Finally, after more questions and more prodding, Dr. Saxton moved back and pulled out a small penlight to shine it into her eyes.

Griffin jumped up from her seat. She couldn't allow him to do that — her eyes would reflect the light, making them appear to glow. Human eyes didn't do that. "I think that's enough. I told you I'm fine." She growled at him and stormed out of the treatment room.

The Kasari receptionist was already gone. Not that it would save her from having to answer a question or two from Griffin. No one escaped when she was hunting for information. She couldn't afford to exclude any Wrasa who knew Jorie from her investigation.

Dr. Saxton caught up with her as she reached the waiting room. "Get plenty of rest. No strenuous physical activity and no driving for a while. You should have someone keep an eye on you for tonight," he said. "In fact..." He looked at Jorie, who was giving her statement to the police officer. "It might be a good idea for both of you not to stay alone tonight."

Oh, yes, let me guess. You're offering to keep Jorie company.

If Jorie recognized the implied offer, she ignored it. She was completely focused on giving her statement. "He was about..." Jorie's gaze swept over to Griffin as if she was using her as a measuring stick. "Six-four, very muscular. Not in a bodybuilder way, though. He looked more like a lumberjack, but he wasn't. A lumberjack couldn't afford the expensive shoes he wore. I think they were handmade. Very soft, well-worked leather. How odd." Jorie closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "He didn't wear a watch."

It took some effort not to stare at her. Jorie was right, of course. Most Wrasa preferred comfortable, if expensive shoes that allowed them to connect with the earth beneath them. They also didn't wear wristwatches. Shifting while still wearing a watch would either damage the watch or lead to injury.
She saw all that while the Maki held a knife to her throat?

"I don't think he was from around here," Jorie said. "He had a Chicago accent."

He did. The Maki had come from their Saru office in Chicago. Like most younger Wrasa, he had forgotten their old language and had picked up the accent of humans where he lived.

Amazing. I doubt his own mother could describe the Maki that well. If Jorie's powers of observation are that good, is it possible that she knows so much about us just by observing?
Still, it meant that Jorie had to be aware that she was watching shape-shifters. A traitor had to be involved in some way.

A wrinkle of confusion formed between Jorie's brows. "But what would a low-life criminal from Chicago — and one that wears expensive, handmade shoes — do in Osgrove? It's not exactly rich pickings around here."

"Let's not jump to conclusions, ma'am," the officer said. "We'll know more once we investigate this more thoroughly." They wouldn't. No one would ever search for the perpetrator or do anything to solve the case. Maybe the report would just be misfiled.

Finally, after Griffin had given her statement and they both signed the report, Jorie asked, "What can we do to protect ourselves from identity theft?"

"First of all, cancel all your cards, call the credit reporting agencies, and file a fraud alert. That will stop him from opening accounts and taking out loans under your name," the Kasari officer said. "And you should be more careful in your home too since we assume he now knows your address."

Griffin flashed him an angry gaze behind Jorie's back.
Are you crazy?
That was not the wording that she knew Jennings had instructed him to use.
We don't need her to be even more careful.

The officer didn't react to her anger. If he recognized her as the daughter of his nataks, he hid it well. Like all Wrasa in high-adrenaline jobs, he had excellent control over his emotions to keep himself from shifting at inopportune moments. "You might want to look into buying an alarm system," the officer added.

Good.
Now they were back on track. According to her host at the bed-and-breakfast, the owner of the only security company in town was a Wrasa, who could give them the access codes to Jorie's house.

"And change your habits, just in case," the officer said.

"Change my habits?" Jorie repeated with a frown.

The officer nodded. "Don't let him know you're living alone, for example. Surround yourself with people — and if you can, maybe even people who look like they know how to defend themselves." His gaze flickered to Griffin as if by pure chance. "Make him think trying to break in is not worth the risk."

Ah, nice improvisation. Surround yourself with people, huh? People who look like they can defend themselves... and you.
Griffin looked down her solid, muscular body and held back a grin.

It was a pale, visibly shaken Jorie who finally left the doctor's office. She looked as if she was just now beginning to understand the consequences that having her wallet stolen could have. Walking next to her, Griffin could smell her frustration and the hint of fear that Jorie managed to hide so well.
Come on. Don't get sentimental. You're here to do your job, not to feel sorry for some human.

Jorie stopped in front of her car. Her fingers played with the keys in her pocket. She pulled them out and opened the passenger side door. "Come on; get in. I'll take you back. You took a hit on the head, so it might be better if you don't drive for a while. With the police patrolling the area, your rental car should be fine parked in that side street until tomorrow." She waited until Griffin folded her large frame into the passenger seat, then closed the door and went around the car to settle into the driver's seat. "Where are you staying?" she asked when she started the car.

"A bed-and-breakfast at the other end of town," Griffin said. She didn't give directions, because she didn't want to go back to the bed-and-breakfast. "The doctor said it might be a good idea for you not to be alone tonight. Do you have anyone waiting for you at home?"

"I'm fine on my own," Jorie said. Her glance darted to Griffin, then back to focus on the street. "What about you? Is anyone waiting for you at the bed-and-breakfast? Someone who can take care of you?"

Probably the Maki with the notebook.
Griffin suppressed a snort.
It seems human fairytales are about as realistic as Wrasa legends. I don't think the damsel in distress is supposed to just send her knight back home to his castle after he rescues her from the big, bad dragon.
Being abandoned in her hotel room was not part of her plan. "No," she said and closed her eyes, pretending to be more affected by the blow to the head than she really was.

When Griffin felt Jorie's gaze rest on her, she pressed her fingertips against her temple, faking a headache.

With a sigh that would have been inaudible for the human ear, Jorie steered the car in the direction where Griffin knew her house to be.

Ha!
A triumphant smile crept onto her face, and Griffin quickly made it look like a pained grimace.
Score one for the cat.

*  *  *

"I hope you like cats," Jorie said as she unlocked her front door. "I have three feline roommates."

Griffin grinned. "Oh, don't worry. I love cats." The problem was that cats didn't always love her. Like most animals, cats seemed to sense that Wrasa weren't really human. Cats usually reacted with confusion, fear, or sometimes aggression to Griffin. After a while, Griffin often managed to get them to accept her as a fellow cat, but the first welcome was less than warm.

Sucking in the air through her mouth, Griffin tasted the scents of Jorie's house as they entered. No Wrasa scent anywhere. In fact, the only humanoid scent she detected was Jorie's. It filled every room, making Griffin feel as if she were wandering through the forest in spring, with waterfalls of light filtering in through the leaves. She could almost feel the spring sun warm her skin, almost hear the buzz of insects and the flapping of birds' wings.

"Let's go into the living room." Jorie's voice pulled her out of her momentary trance.

Griffin's gaze slid left and right. None of the cats seemed to be inside, so she could focus on Jorie's home and what it told her about its owner. Judging from the size of the living room, it was the biggest room in the small house — and probably the most used. The scent of coffee and paper hung in the air. Griffin's nose detected it long before her eyes made out the empty mug on the coffee table and the tall bookshelves lining every wall of the room.

Jorie threw her keys onto a side table, almost toppling over a stack of newspapers. She lifted a laundry basket from the easy chair. The clothes in it were still unfolded, but Griffin's nose told her they were already washed and clean.

Wandering into the room, Griffin continued to look around. A small desk with an ergonomic chair was snuggled in one corner of the living room. Jorie's laptop sat on the coffee table, though, and the comforter that lay unfolded on the couch told her that this was Jorie's writing place. Straight ahead on one of the shelves, Jorie's own books were displayed. In someone else's living room, they would have looked like trophies, but from the way Jorie had rejected Griffin's praise of her novel, she knew Jorie was not a vain writer. The novels on the shelf probably served as a motivation whenever Jorie looked up from her laptop.

Both the desk and the coffee table were in sharp contrast to the rest of the clean, but not overly neat house. In those two areas where Jorie wrote, everything was in its place: index cards were separated by color and size; the pencils were sharpened, and pages of notes were lined up next to the laptop, where Jorie needed them.

She's organized when it comes to her writing,
Griffin thought,
but she's not anal about keeping order in the rest of her life. And she likes to travel lightly.

Except for the laptop, the writing utensils, and the books on the bookshelves, there were few personal knickknacks lying around. One lone framed picture balanced on a shelf, and Griffin planned on taking a closer look at the first opportunity, just to make sure that no one close to Jorie was Wrasa.

"Take a seat," Jorie said. With her right hand, she took hold of Griffin's arm and led her over to the easy chair.

Just as Griffin was about to pretend that the slender Jorie was helping to ease her 400-pound frame into the easy chair, the scent of fur, damp paws, and cat food hit Griffin's nose.

Her head jerked up, and her eyes detected movement.

A cat ambled into the living room.

The cat and Griffin both stopped and stared at each other.

Griffin took in the bushy tail that was flicking from side to side. The cat's long hair probably appeared reddish brown to the human eye.
A Somali,
she thought.

After a second of silent stare-down, the cat, still frozen to the spot, hissed at Griffin.

Griffin's upper lip curled. She barely held back an answering hiss, outmatching the cat's in volume and length.

"Agatha!" Jorie chided. "Sorry," she said to Griffin. "She's normally friendlier. Will is usually the one who gets all bristly around strangers."

Great. So I have to look forward to more attitude from her miniature tigers.
Part of her longed to put the feline into its place, but the rest of her knew it was childish.
There's no doubt who is top cat anyway, so focus on Jorie, not on the cats.

"Maybe it's the scent of blood and disinfectant clinging to both of us," she said. It was more than that, of course. The cat was reacting to a predator in her territory. Still staring at the cat, not wanting her to think that her retreat was a surrender, Griffin finally sat down. "Agatha and William... not exactly typical names for cats. Is that coincidence, or did you really name your cats after famous authors?" she asked to distract Jorie from the weird behavior of her cat.

"What did you expect? Tiger, Smokey, and Fluffy?" Jorie kicked off her shoes and flashed a rare grin in Griffin's direction.

"Would it surprise you to hear that one of the resident bobcats of Ouachita National Forest is named Bob?" As a matter of fact, Griffin knew a few bobcat-shifters with the same name.

"Ouch." Jorie had to laugh too. "It seems you could use the help of a writer on that project to come up with a few more original names."

Purring filled Griffin's ears as Jorie scratched the cat's neck. "You said you have three cats. What's the third one's name... Edgar Allan?" Griffin asked.

"No." Jorie was still smiling. "Her name is Emily. I call her Emmy."

Ah, I think I got the hang of it now.
Patient observation always paid off when you were a cat.
She likes to talk about writing and about her cats.
Then let's keep talking about her cats
. "And who is the boss in this household?" she asked. "Agatha?"

Not looking up from her attempts to get the cat to calm down, Jorie asked, "Would you believe I am the boss?"

"Not in a house full of cats," Griffin answered without hesitation. Jorie was impressive, yes, but not even she could control a cat.