Livy briefly debated not answering and seeing if the female would just leave, but . . . she wasn’t in the mood to be hit. Again.
“I’m fine.”
Cella gave her the “Be brave, little one. Be brave” expression.
Unable to keep up the façade anymore—and for Livy, five seconds of keeping up the façade was damn near a record—she asked, “Need something, Cella?”
“I know it’s your first day back . . .” And Livy watched the She-tiger actually struggle with the mere idea of giving Livy work “at this difficult time.”
Putting it down to Irish-Catholic guilt, something even Catholic honey badgers never worried about, Livy decided to let the woman off the hook.
“It’s all right,” Livy soothed. “I, uh, need something to do to get my mind off things.” That was what people said when they were going through mourning, right? It sounded right. Like something she heard on one of those made-for-TV movies she’d had on in the background last night while she was up playing computer games.
“If you’re sure,” Cella hedged.
“I’m sure. What do you need?”
Malone held up an eight-by-ten picture of one of her players. “Is it possible we can make him look less . . . serial killer-y?”
Livy stared at the picture. “The man is seven-five, he weighs nearly five hundred pounds, and he’s missing part of his face.”
“Not missing it.” Malone looked at the picture. “Those are just claw marks . . . from his wife. A lovely She-lion.” She leaned in a bit and whispered, “Given during the throes of passion, I’ve heard.”
“So I don’t need to put ‘How to Stop Domestic Violence’ pamphlets in his locker?”
The She-tiger gazed at Livy, not getting the tacky joke at all. Before this job, Livy had spent most of her time with full-humans. Like most HBs, who either hung around other HBs or full-humans. It was rare for a honey badger to be around so many other breeds and species of shifters, and Livy often had to remind herself that life among shifters was . . . different. Shifter males often respected their mates because if they didn’t they knew the repercussions would be swift and long-term. Cops were rarely involved. Shelters never used. So those tacky jokes she heard around full-humans—that she, tragically, was not above using—most shifters never got.
Livy’s father once pushed Livy’s mother during a fight, around the time his drinking had just begun to get bad. Joan Kowalski retaliated by pinning his hand to the kitchen table with a steak knife. The move, of course, didn’t kill him . . . but it reminded Damon how far he could go with a fellow shifter. Especially a female one.
“Do you want me to take the scars out? Or rebuild his jaw?” Livy finally asked when the She-tiger continued to just stare at her.
“I don’t know if his fans would like that.” Cella continued to study the pictures. “Maybe we could put a hat on him.”
Livy scratched her cheek. “A hat? You want me to take the picture with him wearing a hat?”
“Uh-huh. Just cover his face a bit.”
A couple of years ago, this would be where Livy would jump up, snarl she couldn’t work under these conditions, and storm out. Unless the photo editor was rude about his feedback; then Livy would just go for his face. This time, though, the fight completely out of her, Livy just shrugged and said, “Sure. Let’s use a hat.”
Malone blinked and now studied Livy. “Really? You don’t mind?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.” Malone placed the photo on Livy’s desk and walked to the doorway. She stopped, looked back at Livy, nodded, and walked out.
Once she was alone, Livy spun her chair away from the door so that she faced the wall behind her. She had some proofs of shots she was planning to use for her gallery show but she didn’t even see them. She didn’t see anything. She just stared straight ahead and waited. For what? Livy had no idea.
“How do you tolerate that noise?” Dee-Ann Smith asked, her cold, dead, dog-like eyes glaring. She sat behind a desk with absolutely nothing on it. No computer. No paper. No phone. Not even a little lamp. There was just a chair on one side, two chairs on the other, and a metal desk in between. And there was just something so damn disturbing about that. The woman had missed her true calling as a Soviet agent during the Cold War. The Communists might have actually won with her on their side.
Vic shrugged. “What noise?”
“That noise.” She pointed at Shen, who sat next to him, munching on his bamboo.
“What about it?” Vic asked her.
“That doesn’t annoy you?”
“Not as much as it’s obviously annoying you.” Vic raised his hands, then lowered them. “Did you hear anything I just told you?”
Before Dee-Ann could answer, Cella Malone suddenly slid into the doorway, her shoulder hitting the defenseless wood there.
“Sorry I’m late,” Cella said, smiling at Vic and Shen. “What are we talking about?”
“Was wondering if that bamboo eatin’ gets on ol’ Vic’s nerves.”
Vic’s mouth dropped open at Dee’s words. That was her main concern?
Cella, now standing beside Dee on the other side of the desk, placed her hands on her hips and stared down at Shen. “I think I could get used to it. Besides, as a male, there are definitely worse things he could be doing.”
Dee grunted. “You have a point.”
“And let’s face it, you canines have a very low tolerance for sounds.”
“All shifters are sensitive to sound.”
“We are, but you guys get weirded out by the most minor noises. And when I’m traveling with the team and we all hear a siren, only the canines start all that goddamn howling.”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a good howl, feline. Better than hissin’ like a slowly deflating air bag.”
“I’m getting cranky,” Vic announced and he watched the two females slowly turn their attention directly on him. “Cranky,” he growled out between clenched teeth.
“Problem?” Dee-Ann asked him.
“Why did I come all this way if it was a waste of time?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll get paid for your information.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Vic saw Shen wince. And with good reason. He wasn’t some rat like Bohdan, running around, passing out info for coins or to get out of trouble. And it annoyed him when people acted like he was.
Vic stood and stepped around Shen’s legs.
“Hold up, hoss.”
“We’re done, Dee-Ann.”
“Wait.”
Vic stopped.
“Close the door, hoss.”
Vic glanced back at Dee-Ann. After a moment, he stepped back and closed the door.
Dee-Ann moved from the chair to her desk, resting her ass against the metal. She motioned to Cella and the She-tiger leaned in. They whispered back and forth to each other for nearly a minute before they focused on him again.
Finally, Vic couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s going on?”
“Management,” Cella said, “has been backing off finding Whitlan.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Few months.”
“Why?”
“We’re not sure. But they’re definitely not putting the resources to it that they had been.”
“But we ain’t giving up,” Dee-Ann said flatly.
“We’ve been given different assignments, but we just can’t let this go,” Cella explained.
“You can’t work on it openly, though,” Vic guessed.
“We have other assignments. But if you have some free time . . .”
“You want me to do what three major organizations haven’t been able to do in more than two years.”
Dee-Ann grinned. “Yup.”
“Hi, Livy!”
Livy, working hard not to sigh, swiveled her desk chair around and gazed at the wolfdog standing in her doorway. How painful is this particular conversation going to be? Most days she could easily tolerate Blayne Thorpe. It was fun to torment the long-legged wolfdog. Cruel, but fun.