The man lowered himself and whispered, “Is Charlie baking?”
“Why are you whispering?”
“Shhhhhh! Fucking cat! Just answer the question!”
“Yes. She’s baking. Should I alert the media?”
“What’s she making?”
Zé remembered what Charlie had threatened Kyle with. “Cupcakes, I believe.”
“Cupcakes . . .” And the man said that word as if he was talking about something sacred. Like the Lost Arc of the Covenant or the Shroud of Turin.
“Thanks, cat,” the man said before he jogged away, again moving with an ease that Zé would expect of a shorter, leaner man.
As he stood there, wondering, Max came to stand beside him with a thin laptop in hand.
“What are you doing over here?”
“Talking to what I believe was some freakishly sized bear.”
“That’s pretty much the entire street, dude. What did he want?”
“To know if your sister was baking.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said she was.”
Max’s eyes grew wide. “You didn’t tell him what she’s baking, did you?”
“Cupcakes, right?”
“Oh, God. They know about the cupcakes.” Her gaze scanned the street. “They know about the cupcakes . . .”
* * *
Charlie placed another two trays of cupcakes on the dining table to cool and returned to the kitchen. She reached into the cabinet above the fridge and took out several jars of honey. She placed them on the kitchen table with all the other items she needed to make the cupcakes and the icing.
Wiping her hands on a towel, she walked back into the dining room and stopped, staring at the grizzly who’d opened her window and was stretching his long arm inside, his fingers attempting to reach the cupcake trays.
Placing her hands on her hips, Charlie asked, “Whatcha doin’, Lloyd?”
The bear stopped, his gaze locked on the floor, refusing to look up at her.
“Uhhhh . . . nothin’?”
“Is that a statement or a question, Lloyd? Because it sounds like a question. Like you’re not sure. Are you not sure what you’re doing, Lloyd?”
“He’s sorry,” his wife said, pulling him away from the window. “He’s sorry. We’re just going to sit out here and wait until you’re done.”
“Sit out there?” Charlie walked to the window and leaned out. They were everywhere. Sitting around her yard, in the summer sun, chatting and waiting—for her cupcakes.
Well, now she knew what had happened to the dogs. They usually stayed in the kitchen with her while she baked in the hopes that she’d drop something on the floor. But now she knew they were under her bed.
She reared back from the window. “Stevie!”
Charlie returned to the kitchen and again opened the cabinet above the fridge. The place where Stevie usually hid when bears invaded their house or yard. She was definitely not there, nor had she burrowed a hole into the ceiling of the cabinet so she could escape through the house.
Hearing a laugh, Charlie went to the butcher block by the small window that looked out in the backyard. There was Stevie, chatting with the bears while she sat on Shen’s lap. With the panda so close, Stevie wasn’t freaked out by the grizzlies and polars—the “man-eaters,” as she liked to call them.
Seeing her sister so comfortable and casual around people who used to make Stevie hide in trees made Charlie so damn happy, she didn’t think she could stand—
“Hey, Charlie.”
Startled by the voice, Charlie drew the .45 she always holstered to the back of her jeans before she’d even turned around . . . to find it pressed against her sister’s head.
“Dammit, Max!” Charlie quickly removed her finger from the trigger and lowered her weapon. “Don’t sneak up on me!”
“You didn’t smell me right behind you? Did you not take your allergy meds?”
Charlie returned her gun to her holster and walked to the cabinet where they kept the meds. Charlie’s were for allergies and general anxiety. For Stevie, extreme anxiety, occasional depression, and period cramps. There was nothing in there for Max. Charlie wouldn’t say her middle sister didn’t have any issues that could benefit from a little medication, but they weren’t issues Max would admit to.
“What’s going on?” Charlie asked after taking a couple pills and then spritzing her prescription nasal spray up her nose.
“So Zé opened his mouth about the cupcakes—”
“Yeah, I saw the invasion in our yard.”
“It’s quickly turning into a teddy bear picnic. I thought I’d go out and pick up some liquor.”
“We’re throwing a party?”
“We will be. Berg said he could get everyone else to chip in food and their barbeques so you can just focus on the cupcakes.”
“I guess I need to make more cupcakes,” Charlie reasoned when she thought about how many bears were in her yard and how many cupcakes they could put away. Of course, if they could offset that with some steaks, hotdogs, and burgers, the cupcake demands would ease a bit. “Could you pick me up some other stuff while you’re out?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Charlie opened a drawer, searching it for the little notepad she kept there. “Have you seen my notepad?”
“Oh. Here.” Max pulled it out of the back pocket of her cutoff shorts. “Sorry. I forgot I had it.”
Charlie took the notepad, grabbed a pen, sat at the kitchen table, and worked up a list of things she wanted her sister to pick up for her. As she worked, she could feel Max’s gaze on her.
“What, Max?”
“I’m sorry.”
“ ‘Don’t mention cupcakes around bears’ is not something that’s on the list of must-knows for the freshly shifted. Zé will figure it out.”
“No. I don’t mean that. I mean, everything else. I’m sorry about all that.”
“It’s not your fault. You have skills any black ops team would kill to harness. It’s their own fault they got their asses kicked.”
“That’s not what I mean either.”
Confused, Charlie pulled her attention away from her list. “What are you talking about?”
“About . . . everything I’ve done. What they were going to use to blackmail me. You know . . .” She looked away, scratched her forehead, shrugged. “That stuff they talked about.”
“Oh. That stuff.” Charlie went back to her list.
“Yeah. I’m . . . I’m sorry if I disappointed you.”
“Disappointed me?”
“Yeah. I have no excuse and I won’t try to make any. I just hope I can—”
Charlie leaned back in the chair and gazed up at her sister again. “I’m sorry . . . what are we talking about?”
Max let out a frustrated breath. “You know, the stuff I . . . stole?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“I guess I’m confused.”
“About what?”
“I thought you’d be mad.”
“About what?”
“The stuff I stole!”