Livy pulled her sharp fangs out of the lion’s skull and stared at her.
Toni motioned with her hand. “Let’s go.”
Livy unwrapped herself from the lion and dropped to the ground. At only five-one, she was tiny for a shifter, but her size never stopped Livy from accepting a challenge. It had made for entertaining times at school.
Livy spit the lion’s blood out of her mouth and calmly walked around the still screaming cat. She went back into the training rink and came out a few seconds later with her worn backpack.
Once Livy was by her side, Toni gestured at the cat, who now had several people around him trying to help. “Was there a reason you did that?”
She shrugged. “He was rude,” she said flatly. “You know I hate rude.”
Toni didn’t bother trying to get Livy to not attack at the slightest provocation. She’d stopped lecturing her long ago. Her friend would never change, because Livy loved who she was and, if she were to be honest, Toni loved who Livy was, too.
Most importantly, Toni’s entire family adored Livy, although Livy never seemed to understand why.
“So what’s going on?” Livy asked after spitting out a bit more blood.
“Got a job for you.”
“Will I be whoring?”
“Not this time. I’m sorry.”
“You know how I love to whore,” Livy stated with that flat tone that freaked people out, because no one ever knew whether she was joking or not. It had caused some awkward times when the police were involved, but Toni could usually talk the cops out of actually arresting them.
“I know.” Toni tugged the sleeve of Livy’s light, black denim jacket. “Let’s go get you cleaned up, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Are you sure?” the She-tiger asked. And like two well-trained monkeys, Lou Crushek and Desiree MacDermot nodded in unison.
Dee took the piece of paper from Malone, studied the mug shot of Whitlan’s former cellmate. “I’ll handle it.”
“No,” all three said in unison.
“You know,” Dee told them. “If I were a sensitive gal, I might be insulted right now.”
“It’s nothing personal, Smith,” Malone told her. “And trust me when I say that you must be there. But . . .” She looked at Desiree.
“You’re our . . .” Desiree thought a moment, “. . . last resort kind of girl.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re the one we turn to when all bets are off.”
“I think we should move on this as soon as we can set it up,” Crushek told them. “If Whitlan finds out that we know, trust me when I say he’ll find a way to get to this guy.”
“Fuck,” Malone suddenly hissed. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”’
“I’ve gotta go to Russia. To meet with the coach for the Siberian team.”
Dee sighed. “Now?”
“Yeah. Now. Ric just told me to handle it.”
“Let’s not get in the way of what Cella needs to do for Ric,” Crushek, the hockey fanatic, chastised. “It’s team business.”
“And I can’t go,” Desiree announced.
“Why can’t you go?”
“Cap won’t let me. I’ve had bad experiences with clinically diagnosed sociopaths.”
“Bad experiences?”
Desiree scratched her neck. “I may have shot a couple. Totally in self-defense, of course.”
“But the Captain would prefer answers first,” Crushek kindly explained.
Not understanding the boundaries that the NYPD had to exist under, Dee re-focused her attention on Malone. “Don’t you have an entire staff to help you?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Malone’s gaze suddenly moved off and then she grinned. “As a matter of fact, I do have a staff.”
Ricky was sitting on the stairs by one of the exit doors with Reece when Rory came up.
“Well?” their brother asked.
“Humans have been all over here,” Reece said.
“Did they get in?”
“Nah,” Ricky said around a yawn. “But tightening security really couldn’t hurt.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, little brother,” Rory sneered. “Is this boring you?”
“A little.” When Rory’s eyes narrowed on him, Ricky quickly held up his hands. There wasn’t a lot of space in this stairwell, and that made it harder to fight his brother.
Rory looked off. “What about cameras?”
“They don’t have any in the stairwells, but I’d suggest we tell them to put some in here.”
“And full-time monitoring,” Reece added.
“Twenty-four-seven and guards trained by us. Right now the Center only has a couple of old leopards watching the place after hours.”
“Yeah. That sounds good. I’ll write the report.”
Nodding, Ricky and Reece got to their feet. Rory’s phone went off and he pulled it out of the back pocket of his jeans. He answered it and was quiet for a moment; then his eyes suddenly locked on Ricky.
“I’ll ask him,” Rory said.
“Ask me what?”
“It’s Ronnie Lee on the phone. Laura Jane is running around telling the other She-wolves that you were so disturbed by her very presence yesterday, you ran off after some jackal. Ronnie wants to know if there were really tears in your eyes when you made a break for it.”
While Reece laughed so hard he was bent over at the waist, his hands resting on his knees, Ricky took off his Tennessee Titans cap and scratched his head. Because his day had just gotten crappier.
Livy held up a color print of Bo Novikov trying to force a smile. “This is what nightmares are made of.”
“I know,” Toni agreed while she licked her spoon free of Greek yogurt. “That’s why we need you.”
“This isn’t really my thing, Toni. I—”
“If you say you’re an artist, I will hit you.”
Chuckling, Livy tossed the picture back onto Toni’s desk and ate more of the French fries she had purchased. After spending some time catching up, they’d gone to the Sports Center food court and had picked up their lunches. Fish and chips for Livy. Yogurt, salad, and a burger big enough to choke a rhino for Toni. She’d bypassed the fries, but now she was regretting it while she watched Livy eating hers.
“I was not going to say that. At least not to you.” Livy shrugged. “But I hate sports. I hate sports guys. I hate people. I hate dealing with them. Talking to them. And portrait photography means talking to people. I also hate—”
“Yes, Livy. I know. You hate . . . pretty much everything.”
“Pretty much.”
“But this will be good money. Clean money, Liv. And God knows you can’t even think about trying to do another office job.”
“Why? I’m a fast typist.”
“Yes. But then you throw the computer at the office manager and I’m bailing you out of jail . . . again.”
“He was rude.”
“You think everyone is rude. But with shifters, you’ll be right and they can fight back. At the very least they’ll be fast enough to duck a flying PC.”
“That hard drive did ram right into his head. He was out for, like, ten minutes.”
“Is that restraining order still in effect?”
“I think it expired last year. But I wasn’t planning on going back to Utah anytime soon.” Livy took a handful of her fries out of the newspaper they were nestled in and dropped them on the plate with Toni’s burger. “Honestly, though, how much money could this really get me?”
“A lot.”
“Really?”
“You should think about it. You’d be able to live some place you’re paying for rather than just crashing on someone’s couch . . . like the couches of people you don’t know.”
“It’s called squatting and it has its place in society. And one paycheck isn’t going to—”