Ilya said nothing until Boris stopped at the end of the access road and turned to look at him. “Back to the lodge or to the office in the village?”

“The office,” Ilya replied.

Aiden had appeared at the lodge just long enough to tell him that Victoria had gone into Sproing with Julian Farrow. At least, the description Aiden provided, along with talk of shelving books, sounded like she had gone to the village with Farrow. Confirming that she hadn’t been lured into a dangerous situation by some other male wasn’t meddling or interfering or undermining self-confidence or whatever a human female might choose to call it. Silence Lodge had a vested interest in Victoria DeVine, no different than their interest in a few other humans in the village. The terra indigene considered such humans nonedible prey because they were useful and could not be replaced easily. Protecting such a human was sensible, especially a human prone to those anxiety attacks, which left her vulnerable in ways that made it difficult to remember that she was not edible prey.

Well, once he verified that Victoria was working with Julian Farrow at the bookstore, he could focus on peeling back the layers of the Tie Clip Club to figure out if the humans who had arrived with Yorick Dane were secondary members, like Detective Swinn, who had been sent to drive Victoria away from The Jumble, or if they were the real enemy. Once he knew that, the Sanguinati would invite themselves to The Jumble for dinner.

“Those new humans brought a boat with a motor,” Boris said.

“They did,” Ilya agreed.

“You know what will happen when they put that boat in the lake.”

“Of course.” He met Boris’s eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled. “I’m looking forward to seeing the Lady’s response. Aren’t you?”

CHAPTER 61

Aggie

Thaisday, Sumor 6

Aggie flew to the porch railing of the Crowgard cabin, then cawed in surprise when Jozi flew to the porch next to theirs, which was where the Hershel and Heidi humans were staying. The latticework on the sides of the porches provided some privacy, which Miss Vicki had said would be important when they had human guests, but right now it got in the way of Aggie seeing why Jozi had gone to the wrong cabin.

<That’s not our place,> Aggie said.

Eddie came out of the Crowgard cabin holding one of the Wolf Team books that Miss Vicki had loaned to them when they had packed up her library. Well, she would have let them borrow the books if they could have asked her.

Aggie would fly over to Miss Vicki’s new nest soon and tell her the Crowgard had borrowed the books.

<Something wrong?> Eddie asked, using the terra indigene form of communication despite being in human form.

Aggie fluttered to the ground, then walked to the front of the other cabin to see what had caught Jozi’s interest.

<It’s a shiny,> Jozi said, pushing at a small object on the porch floor.

Catching sight of the sparkly, Aggie moved closer. Earring. A shiny that human females pushed through holes in their ears, which sounded awful.

Did finding the shiny dropped on the porch floor mean the female no longer wanted it?

<Where are the humans?> Aggie asked.

<Up at the main house,> Eddie replied. <They’re pecking at each other because they couldn’t make us give up the cabin.>

When two more males showed up this morning, that Yorick human had tried to tell the Crows they had to leave, but Aggie told him that she and her kin had rented the cabin for the summer and they didn’t have to leave. Then Yorick said they had to move to one of the other cabins because they didn’t need the fully renovated place. But Ilya wanted them to stay here and keep watch over these cabins and the main house in case the humans started any trouble. Besides, the rest of the buildings already had terra indigene occupying one or two of the cabins in order to keep watch.

When Eddie said he would call Ilya Sanguinati and tell the attorney that Yorick Dane was reneging on the rental agreement, which would mean the terra indigene were also free to renege on their side of the agreement, Yorick had backed away, defeated.

Another bit of metal caught a beam of sunlight. The back of the earring.

After Yorick retreated, the human females had come down to the cabin to peck at Heidi, yelling that she hadn’t done anything about clean towels and straightening the rooms at the main house. And Heidi pecked right back, saying she wasn’t their maid and they could wash their own damn sheets and towels. Then they squabbled about who would go into the village to purchase the sheets and towels the new males needed, even though they didn’t have a bed for the sheets.

Finally Heidi went into the cabin and fetched her purse. She locked up the cabin and stomped up the path to where the humans had to park the cars, saying she would buy the towels just to get away from the rest of the females.

The three remaining females had squawked at one another—or to one another; it was hard to decipher—before going down to the beach to lie on towels and overheat in the sun.

<Another shiny!> Jozi said when she spotted the metal backing.

<Leave that one,> Aggie said. <Take the sparkly instead.>

Jozi hesitated. <Why can’t we take both?>

Jozi hadn’t watched cop and crime shows with Miss Vicki, hadn’t seen the story where a female had dropped an earring while struggling with a male who attacked her and then took her away from her nest. It turned out the dropped earring had been a clue for the cops who were searching for her. And Jozi hadn’t had time to study humans closely enough to know that humans reacted differently to losing something and having something taken.

<If you take both, the female who dropped it will say we stole it and cause trouble,> Aggie replied. <But if she finds the metal piece, she won’t know if she lost the other part around the cabin or if the sparkly fell out of her ear when she walked down to the beach.>

<Oh.>

<Hurry up,> Eddie said. <Someone is coming.>

Jozi grabbed the sparkly piece of the earring and flew off to hide it in her treasure tree. Aggie flew over to the Crowgard’s porch and went inside their cabin to shift to her human form and put on clothes. There had been something about the way these new human males had looked at her and Jozi that made her wary of them seeing her without clothes.

By the time the males called Mark and Tony came in sight, she and Eddie were on their own porch, sipping cool water from the plastic glasses Miss Vicki had bought for the cabins.

The males walked by, predators assessing potential prey. She watched them too because something about the way they wore their shirts bothered her. Not that by itself, but combined with the look in their eyes . . .

<I think they have guns,> she said. <They are hiding guns under their clothes.>

Eddie cocked his head. <How do you know?>

<Miss Vicki and I watched stories about many kinds of bad humans. Some of them hid guns, or knives, under their clothes.>

<Are you going to tell the Sanguinati?>

Aggie nodded. First she would warn the rest of the Crowgard, who would warn the rest of the shifters living in The Jumble. Then she would tell the Sanguinati, and they would tell the Elders and the Elementals.

And all of them would make sure these two-legged predators never came close to Miss Vicki’s new nest.

CHAPTER 62

Vicki

Thaisday, Sumor 6

I had ignored the increasingly sharp hunger pangs—brought on, in part, by skipping breakfast that morning—until Julian set a plate in front of me that had the sandwich special from Come and Get It, along with thick-cut fries. The sandwich—corned beef and sauerkraut with Helen’s special sauce on toasted rye bread—was one of my favorites. So were the diner’s thick-cut fries. Julian had just uncovered his own plate when he heard the store’s screen door close with enough sound to be deliberate.

“Stay here,” Julian said quietly. He left the office break room, moving swiftly. Within moments I heard him say, “Oh. Hi. I was just about to close for lunch, but you can browse.”

Someone he knew.

I relaxed and took a big bite of my sandwich. All right, too big a bite. My cheeks resembled a chipmunk’s when it was gathering food for its winter stockpile.

Of course, that was when my yummy attorney walked into the room. He stopped in the doorway, looking startled. Then he walked up to the table and studied the paperback near my elbow.