64. Juniper
JUNIPER
The day became steadily better after the vision.
My and Levi’s relationship was still being repaired, but things were better than they had been.
Apart from that, we’d had a record day of sales at the shop.
The morning weather had been trash, and folks decided shopping indoors was a good way to pass the time.
By the time I left for Beatrice’s place, I was in a markedly better mood than I’d been in when Levi had arrived that morning.
The weather had cleared up, the sleet and freezing rain dissipating into a bright, cloudless cobalt blue sky. After lunch, the temperature had again crept back up, and it was pleasant going.
My good mood was shattered when I turned on to Clawson Avenue and saw Eugenia coming out of an alley between the hardware store and a small coffee shop.
I frowned as she glanced behind her, as if checking to see if she was being followed.
She must not have noticed me, and the wind was in my face, preventing her from catching my scent.
That alley opened on the opposite street, Broadway Avenue, and led right to the store.
Had she been spying on me? I knew it wasn’t a good idea to follow her, but I did it anyway, because I wanted to know what the hell she was doing.
Especially since her body language and facial expression radiated sneakiness.
Whatever she was doing, she didn’t want anyone to notice her.
“What the hell are you up to?” I muttered under my breath as I picked up the pace to keep her in sight.
When she rounded the corner onto Main Street, I hurried to get to the same corner, afraid I’d lose her, and when I got there, it proved my fear correct.
She was nowhere to be seen when I peered around the Central Bank building.
All I could see was an empty road. She must have shifted and sprinted off into the trees on the far side of the road.
I contemplated shifting and trying to track her down, but the thought made me laugh.
What the hell was I doing? Why did I give a fuck what Eugenia was doing?
Hell, for all I knew she was hurrying home to use the bathroom, or maybe she’d banged one of Anders’s buddies and didn’t want him to find out.
I’d let her take up too much real estate in my head as it was; I needed to stop obsessing over whatever dumb shit she was doing.
Chiding myself for trying to play private detective, I headed for Beatrice’s house and managed to put Eugenia out of my mind.
Less than a mile from Beatrice’s apartment, my phone rang, and when I glanced at the screen, I stopped walking. Why was Anders’s mother calling me?
“Hello, Mrs. Burnell.”
“Good afternoon, sweetie. How are you?” the woman asked, her tone warm and welcoming.
“I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” I was a little confused. Since I’d come back with Anders, I’d only spoken to his mother a handful of times.
“I’m great,” she said, then her tone became more business-like. “Listen, I thought you might come over to my place for dinner. I’d really like to get together with you to iron out the last few details for the mating ceremony.”
“Oh. Uh… sure. That sounds lovely.” Maybe if I built a good relationship with his mother, she could get Anders to grow up and be the man the pack needed him to be. The man I needed him to be.
“Great! I’m going to put in an order at the Chinese restaurant near my place. Can you pick it up on the way? Meet at my house around six?”
“Sure. I’ll see you then.”
“I look forward to it,” she said.
Several hours later, as I walked up the steps of Mrs. Burnell’s house with a big paper bag full of Chinese food, I wondered if Anders knew I was here. Had his mother told him? Or was this something she’d planned alone? I shrugged it off as I pressed the doorbell.
Monica Burnell opened the door a few seconds later. She looked at least ten years younger than her sixty years, with a dark blonde pixie cut and vibrant blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when she smiled.
“Juniper, I’m so glad you could come. Get in out of the cold,” she said, beckoning me inside.
“Thanks,” I said, stepping into the warm foyer.
The first thing I noticed was how nicely appointed the home was, the second was the smell.
Incredibly strong potpourri gave off a cloying, almost overpowering scent.
It made my sinuses burn, but I did my best to act like I didn’t notice.
“I’m glad you asked me to come,” I said, trying not to grimace at the scent.
“I was getting a little stressed out planning all this by myself.”
She patted my back. “I’m sure Anders has no patience for it, does he? The boy has never been a planner.”
I couldn’t have agreed more, though, he did seem to have an almost obnoxious desire to plan this alliance between the packs. When it came to money or power, he was more than happy to plan. That didn’t help my opinion of him.
“Where can I put the food, Mrs. Burnell?” I said, hefting the bag.
“Oh, gosh,” she said and chuckled. “Call me Monica, please. Let me take that.” She scooped the bag from my hands and I followed her to the kitchen.
After pulling out the containers, I made myself a plate of orange chicken, fried rice, and a couple of small spring rolls.
Thankfully, the smell of the food helped subdue the sweet smell of the house.
We ate and talked about the weather, my grandparents’ store, and everything that was going on around town.
“I can’t tell you how excited I was when I heard you’d finally learned to shift,” Monica said while dipping a crab rangoon into the sweet and sour sauce. “I always thought it was awful how those kids teased you when you were younger.”
I had to bite my own tongue to keep from pointing out that her son had been the ringleader of that little group that had liked to fuck with me. “Kids can be cruel. I’m happy to have my wolf now, though.”
Once we were done eating, we started on the ceremony.
Monica helped me make some decisions on things I hadn’t been sure about and also got me to change my mind on which valet company to use for parking cars.
Eventually, our conversation moved to other things as we perused brochures for local photographers.
“Have you had any dealings with Leviathan Cross?” Monica asked.
I nearly spat out the coffee I’d been sipping. Dealings? I mean, he’d done things to me that would make some porn stars blush, but I doubted that was what she was getting at.
“Uhm, yeah,” I said hesitantly. “I met him in the forest. He helped me learn to shift.”
“I’d heard that, but wondered if it was true. You know, when he showed up in town, word spread like wildfire. He’s a legend. We all heard about him when we were kids. I’m sure you did too.”
“I did.”
She started laughing. “Oh, goodness. I just remembered. When Anders was a little thing, almost five years old and still wasn’t fully potty trained, I told him that if he shit his pants while we were at the grocery store one more time, I’d leave him in the woods for the Demon Wolf to take.
Guess what? No more poopy pants after that. ”
I snorted, and it turned into a full-blown giggle. After the fight we’d had and the way he’d acted the night before, the idea of him walking around with crap-filled underwear was a delightfully hilarious scene.
Monica’s smile faded, and she looked out the window wistfully. “You know, my grandfather actually knew Leviathan. He was his beta. He never had a good thing to say about him after what happened with Leviathan’s poor mate.”
The smile died on my lips at the mention of one of our suspects. Looking at her, I tried to gauge what she was thinking and what she might know.
Clearing my throat, I decided to probe a bit and see what kind of information the woman might have.
“You know, Levi didn’t kill his mate. That was all a misunderstanding,” I explained. “I’m helping him figure out exactly what happened way back then. To, uh, get some closure. Did your grandfather tell you anything about what happened the night Naphele died?”
She pinned me with her gaze, and a chill crept up my spine. Gone was the jovial woman who was making jokes about her son and sharing her beef and broccoli with me. Now, there was a fiery intensity behind her eyes.
“I would be very careful around Leviathan Cross,” she said, speaking slowly, enunciating the words. “I would also stay away from investigating that murder.”
Her words couldn’t have thrown me more if she’d followed them up by kicking me in the chest.
“I’m sorry?” I frowned in bewilderment. “Why wouldn’t we look into it? Surely there wouldn’t be any danger to either of us. That murder happened a hundred years ago. Do you honestly think anyone would be mad at us if we found out who actually killed Naphele?”
Monica’s face softened. She shrugged and smiled sadly. “Shifters live a long time. Old wounds and old scandals heal slower than they do in the human world. I think it would be safer and smarter for you and Mr. Cross to drop it.”
Yes, shifters lived a long time, but not that long.
Rafe Thornton would be almost a hundred-and-thirty years old right now if he was still alive.
The man had retired from being a pack elder twenty years prior due to his failing health.
As far as anyone knew, he’d been moved to a shifter nursing home to live out what remained of his final days, and even then he’d been the oldest shifter I’d ever heard of.
Well, except for Levi, but that was different.
Few—if any—shifters would spend years in the wolf form to prolong their lives.
And honestly, even if they wanted to, I doubted many would be able to keep their sanity the way Levi had.
Remaining in wolf form that long typically had bad side effects.
From the look on Monica’s face, I could see she was being serious.
Maybe they were afraid of their family being pulled into an old crime?
Anders wasn’t a very beloved alpha, and I’m sure even his mother knew that.
They wouldn’t want any kind of black eye on the family name, even if it was towards a dead man.
“Got it,” I said, smiling at her and lying through my teeth. “You’re probably right, honestly. It was a long time ago. It’s probably best to let it go. I’ll talk to Levi about it the next time I see him.”
Her smile once again grew warm and welcoming.
“Good plan. But again, be careful around Leviathan. I know his reputation is mostly urban legend and bedtime stories, but someone who’s spent that much time in the woods can’t be all the way there, you know?
” She tapped her temple for emphasis. “I’d make sure you only meet him when there are a lot of other people around. ”
“Sure thing,” I said.
“Good girl.” She squeezed my shoulder as she stood. “I’ve got some ice cream in the freezer. Let me go get some. We can crush the fortune cookies on top and squirt some chocolate syrup over it. What do you say?”
“Sounds great.”
When I left an hour later, I had a sneaking suspicion that the late Rafe Thornton might have climbed to the top of our suspect list. If the man was innocent, why was Monica so dead-set on making sure no one investigated a hundred-year-old murder?