Chapter Six
Riglan
It shouldn’t have bothered me. What I’d done the night before. I rarely let anything upset me or throw me out of the smooth flow of the life I’d created. But it did. And as I sat down and settled in to work, the feel of unease that had accompanied me all day grew stronger.
I tried to tell myself that it was just my unusual meeting with the human near the alley earlier today.
It served me right, that I had been seen, but my ferret was so swift and good at moving without being seen, I was shocked that he even noticed me.
And that my ferret not only let it happen but seemed happy about it.
Instead of immediately darting away, as he had on the few occasions when someone was near, he leaned into the moment and studied the human.
My ferret had always been happy with his appearance, vain even, and he didn’t need the admiration of others for that to be true.
But from where I lurked inside, I observed his reaction to the human bending down to look at him more closely.
Silly beast had preened, wanting the human to recognize his beauty.
And it seemed as if he did, but when the human called him a raccoon? He was shocked. Raccoons were an entirely different animal. People referred to them as trash pandas, a name my ferret felt was well deserved.
They looked nothing like us, with their big clunky bodies and large hands and feet.
Their fur was not sleek like ours either.
So, how could this human be so wrong? After it became obvious my beast was going to sit there and stare at the human, trying to convey things he wasn’t ready to understand, I took back control and ducked into the alley where I’d left my clothing.
“This is why we don’t do this in broad daylight around strangers,” I muttered, buttoning my shirt from the bottom to the top. “Next time, I’m holding my ground when you come up with an idea like this.”
I’d emerged fully dressed, expecting the human to have moved on, but there he was, still staring, and he had been taking up space in my mind rent-free ever since.
I needed to get this job wrapped up and start another. Plus, I had one of my special projects in mind. So, I had no time for thinking about a pair of dark eyes fringed with long lashes that managed to captivate my beast and I while insulting us at the same time. A raccoon? Really?
Should have been easy for me to shut all that down, but there it was. Maybe I was overtired or something.
My initial foray into the dating site’s problems had indeed led me to a red herring, and I’d had to back up and go in again, but I kept darting glances at the screen where I had the forum up.
It was a hacker group, not easy to find, and the fact that the guy looking for help had landed there at all meant either he had a whole lot of knowledge or just dumb luck.
His public posts had zero response, and I wondered if he’d tried DMing any of the other people, and if so, whether they’d responded or if maybe they’d done more than personally block him.
If they’d gone to the admins, he’d be out for sure.
I unblocked so he’d be able to message me.
After a couple of hours, with no sign of him in the forum, I began to think he probably had been booted.
Or given up. A little later, my rumbling stomach had me standing up with the intention of going upstairs for a snack.
With no sign of the guy seeking help, I had finally managed to put him mostly out of my mind.
His problems were his own. I was no superhero, not even an ordinary kind.
I sat at the kitchen table with a ramen bowl, instant but I always jazzed it up with some veggies, a hard-cooked egg, and anything else that looked interesting from the refrigerator and pantry.
It was an easy meal, but one I preferred not to eat at the keyboards.
An unfortunate spill of pho had resulted in an expensive replacement.
While I ate, my mind went back to both the human on the street and the desperate person with the stalker.
He must have found help. The police would be the ones to talk to, right?
For an ordinary citizen with a stalker? And he wasn’t on the forum tonight.
So, it was time to move on. Just like the human who thought we were a racoon, I’d never hear from the DM guy again.
Which did not stop me from peeking at the forum screen when I got back downstairs.
Of course it didn’t. Or from feeling a ridiculous sense of disappointment when there was no sign of him.
I could track him down, if I wanted to. Not that I did.
Unfortunately, when I sat down and leaned back in my high-backed chair, prepared to work—all I could think of was the desperation the man the night before had displayed in his pleas.
He really was frightened, and I’d done nothing but shut him down.
No, he probably couldn’t afford me, and what he was asking wasn’t in my normal line of work, but there were others who visited the forum who probably would be a better choice. Less expensive and more inclined to work for individuals one-on-one.
If he still needed help.
Everything about how I lived and worked suggested I should accept that he was not in the forum anymore and move on, but of course, I couldn’t. And as long as I had him on my mind, I was not going to be able to settle back in and get my real job done.
Finding him should be no problem. He’d have left a digital footprint I could easily follow, but just as I poised my hands over the keyboard to begin, he appeared in the room, not blocked by the admins, apparently. And I sent him a DM.
Can you give me more details? I might be able to refer you to someone.
And once I did, I could forget about him and get back to work.