“Shut the door,” Midas told Ford. “We need privacy for this.”
Ford handed Bonnie off to me then did as he was told and took up a position there.
“Release her.” Midas eased onto the floor with me. “She won’t run.”
Trusting him that she wouldn’t bolt for the gap under the door like a runner sliding into home, I removed the coaster and tipped the glass gently on its side where she could scurry out onto the polished concrete.
“You’re under no obligation to answer my questions,” he began, and I choked on an instinctive rebuke. “Refuse to cooperate, continue to endanger my pack, and I will turn you out. You have made no effort to socialize, and you refuse to live at the den. I didn’t push you because I thought you weren’t ready. Do you want a new life as a member of the Atlanta pack, or are you only using our resources to escape your old one?”
The two weren’t mutually exclusive, and Midas had a right to want an answer. I had no doubt he would do all he could to help her in any case, but there was no reason to shelter her at the Faraday, or employ her as his PA, if she had no interest in either long-term.
The mouse flexed its whiskers, jerked its head to glance back at me, then whipped its tail.
“No one is going to hurt you,” I reassured her. “We just want answers.”
The air around her shimmered, standing her fur on end, and she began to grow until I had to scoot back to make room for Bonnie the human to sit between Midas and me.
Dressed in the same outfit she wore to Perkerson, with the same damp hem, she inched away from Midas until she sat beside me.
Reading into her body language, Midas held my stare to convey this was my show.
As much as her posture begged for it, I didn’t touch her or comfort her. “Did you know Shonda Randall?”
“No,” she rasped. “I might have seen her in passing, but we were never introduced.”
New to the pack, living separately, I could buy that. “You were acting as Midas’s personal assistant.”
“Yes.”
“Did you intercept the call about Shonda’s death?”
“Y-y-yes.” She twisted her hands in the fabric of her skirt. “I took a message and gave it to Midas.”
Unlike my first exposure to her, where her fragility called to my protective instincts, I had trouble swallowing the act this time. I had spent too much time around her while she was glamoured to believe the stark differences in her personalities were genuine. A gwyllgi form could definitely boost her confidence. I had no trouble with that. But a corgi? A mouse?
A slim chance existed that she had blossomed under my care, but that smacked of an inflated ego, and I tried to keep mine squashed flat. Hubris had landed me with Ambrose, after all.
An edge crept into my voice I didn’t try to dull. “Did you recognize the caller’s voice?”
Bonnie wilted on the spot, and a sob escaped her. “Yes.”
“Who is it, Bonnie?” Unable to resist the misery pouring off her, I rested a hand on her shoulder. “Who are we dealing with here?”
“My son,” she whispered. “He’s my son.”
Pity softened my tone, but I wasn’t done yet. “That’s why you investigated Perkerson Park alone.”
“Siemen asked me to meet him, and I thought I could reason with him, so I went alone, but he wasn’t there.” A tremor shook her fragile limbs, and I tightened my grip. “Once I saw what he had done, I knew there was no saving him. That’s when I told Midas what I found, and then he called you.”
“You’ve been able to shift for a while now, haven’t you?”
“I wasn’t tricking you that first morning. I was terrified, so afraid Siemen was watching, waiting for me, I couldn’t switch back. I’m safer as my other self, and I didn’t want to face him like this.”
“I need some air.” Midas rose in a fluid motion and strode for the door. “Ford—”
“—keep an eye on her,” I finished for him. “I need to confer with Midas.”
As Ford stepped aside to let us pass, he flared his nostrils and swore under his breath, but I didn’t have time to stop and grill him if I wanted to catch Midas.
“Go back in and finish your interrogation,” he ordered, like his title meant boo to me. “You’re not done yet.”
“I’m done when I say I’m done, and I’m not pack. Your Jedi mind trick doesn’t allow you to boss me around, Goldilocks.”
The jaw I had admired earlier began grinding. Audibly. “You overstep.”
“Pretty sure the vow you made means not only can I say whatever I want, I can look you in the eye while I do it.” I bet he was regretting that decision in record time. “What is your problem?”
“I found her,” he said coldly. “I welcomed her into my pack, into our den.”
“I welcomed her into my home, into HQ.” Thank the goddess for her magical gag order. “So what?”
“This whole fiasco is—”
“Tell me it’s your fault, and I’m going online to purchase the world’s smallest violin to play for you.”
“She knew she was being hunted and said nothing. Thanks to me, a killer is—”
“—in Atlanta?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Try again. You found her here. Her son, if that’s who we’re dealing with, was always going to come after her. Atlanta was always going to suffer. It stands to reason that since she’s gwyllgi, and our initial tests show he’s warg, half warg anyway, he was always going to target the same demographic.”
“You told me yourself it was personal. That he was calling me to—”
“—brag? In light of what we’ve just learned, I better understand why the calls were placed to you. He watched her, found out you had taken her in, given her a job, and he discovered how to get in touch with her through her capacity as your PA.” I stepped closer. “This is not your fault. All you did was show kindness to a woman in need. There’s no shame in that. There’s no blame either.”
Midas speared his fingers through his hair and tugged on the ends. “Can I talk now?”
“The floor is yours.”
He stared at me, but he didn’t say anything.
“Well?” I cupped a hand to my ear. “I’m waiting.”
“You derailed my entire argument.”
“You’re new to the leadership thing. I am too. Believe me, I get it. It’s easy to accept the blame for every little thing that goes wrong. The thing is— We’re only human.” I snorted when he arched an eyebrow. “It sounds better than we’re only a necromancer and a gwyllgi, okay?” I sliced my hand through the air. “My point is this. We’re going to make good calls, and we’re going to make bad ones. We’re going to help some people, and we’re going to hurt others. We’re going to do our jobs to the best of our abilities, and there’s no room for looking back. The past is past. Chin up, eyes forward, head in the game.”
“The decisions you make don’t impact—”
“—a large group of people I’m sworn to protect?” I tapped my chin. “Hmm. It’s almost like being the POA means every heartbeat in the city is your responsibility.”