“Uh-?huh, yup. Getting to something I don’t know anytime soon?”
“—but I can’t watch him every minute I’m here.”
“I don’t mind watching him—much—but you know he’ll only be cute and cuddly with you. With me . . .” She sighed. “With everybody else, it’s colic city.”
“Sorry, Jess. I can’t help that. But I appreciate you watching out for him for me.”
She waved it away, and obediently turned left when I pointed. We were now in a slightly narrower hallway, on hardwood floors this time, no carpet. The smell of food was very strong.
“At least you got the boy trained. Sleeps half the day and half the night.”
“He’s really very sweet,” I whined.
Jessica snorted and straight-?armed the swinging door into the kitchen.
Like everything, the Wyndham kitchen made mine look like a dining nook. At least four big tables—the kind you could chop anything on—with long legs. Another big table, marble-?topped, probably for baking. Three fridges. Another door, which led to industrial-?sized freezers. I could smell the Freon.
There were huge windows—one overlooking a kitchen garden—on every wall. The windows on the opposite wall overlooked the Atlantic.
“I could get used to this,” Jessica commented.
“So buy something just like it. You’ve probably got enough money in the sofa cushions for a down payment.”
Jessica shrugged and went to the nearest fridge while I slid onto a bar stool. “I like the place in St. Paul.”
I nodded. Shoot, before the mansion, she’d lived in an ordinary house in the suburbs. She had never lived rich, dressed rich, ate rich, or looked rich. It was one of her many charms.
“So you’re not, um, hungry, are you?” Jessica had extracted an apple and a Diet Coke. Wait’ll I ratted her out to Marc! He considered diet pop one step up from muriatic acid, whatever the hell that was.
“Naw. Sinclair and I snacked on each other for a while last night. I’m good for a few days.”
“Good to know. If you go nuts and accidentally chew on one of the locals—”
“Right, I get the picture, and duh, like I haven’t thought of that. How dumb do you think I am?”
Her answer was muffled in the loud crunch as she went to work on the apple . . . probably just as well.
“So, that Jeannie seems nice,” Jessica said, masticating slowly.
“Shhhh,” I said, putting a finger to my lips.
Jessica gnawed and crunched and all but growled at her McIntosh for a good minute, when the doors swung inward (werewolves must just know if someone’s on the other side; probably because they could smell them) and in walked Jeannie, carrying a toddler, and behind her, Lara.
“Hello,” Jeannie said. The toddler, a boy with his mother’s wild blond curls and blue eyes, waved a chubby hand in our general direction. “Sleep all right?”
“Like the dead,” I said cheerfully.
Jeannie rolled her eyes at me in a remarkable imitation of Jessica. She carefully set the toddler down in a high chair, strapped him in, then started rooting around for toddler food.
“Mmmmph gmmmph mmmm nughump mph,” Jessica commented, tiny pieces of apple flying like shrapnel.
“She didn’t know you had another kid.” Or forgot Jeannie had another kid . . . she’d been a little out of it when the Wyndhams visited us the last time. Chemo really plays havoc with your memory.
“This? This is Sean. And you remember Lara, Betsy.”
“Hullo,” the tiny werewolf said as she opened the fridge, pulling out a small Tupperware bowl. She popped the lid, and—
“Don’t you dare,” Jeannie said severely, pretending not to hear the delicate sound of Jessica’s gagging. “You have one of the chefs cook that hamburger, or ask me to.”
“But it tastes better when it’s raw,” Lara the Weird whined.
“You heard what I said.” Jeannie plunked a Lunchable in front of her son, who carefully began dismantling it and eating.
“But I want to eat a raw hamburger.”
Jessica raised her eyebrows at me while Lara placed her teeny hands on her teeny hips and glared up at her mother.
“Tough nuts,” Jeannie replied with admirable unconcern. “And that locked gaze might work with your father and the others, but it doesn’t do diddly to me. So: Cooked hamburger? Or no hamburger?”
“No hamburger.”
“Ah, starving yourself to spite the woman who gave you life.” Jeannie leaned against the counter and put a hand over her eyes. “Ah, ‘how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.’ ”
“Mommy Shakes,” Sean said, carefully picking up a pepperoni slice and popping it into his mouth.
“Yes, that’s right, Mommy likes to quote Shakespeare.”
Lara sighed. “Since I’m not going to eat my snack, can I go to the playground?”
“Lara, I’m sorry, but I can’t get away right now—your father and I have some stuff to talk about.” Her gaze slid to me, but I don’t think she was aware of it.
“I’ll take her,” I volunteered. “I’d like to get outside.”
“Oh. Well. That’s very nice, Betsy, but you’re not really used to werewolves, y’see, and—”
“Not used to—Hello? I lived with one of them?”
Jeannie gave me a long, speculative look, then beckoned with one finger. “Step over here with me for a moment. Would you?”
Jessica shot me her you’d-?better-?tell-?me-?everything-?later expression and added, “I’ll keep an eye on your boy for you, Jeannie.”
“That’s great, Jessica. If he wants another Lunchable—”
“And he will,” Lara piped up.
“—they’re on the bottom shelf in the fridge to your right.
So saying, she spun on her heel and walked out through a different door, one I hadn’t even spotted until Jeannie moved toward it.
I guess I was going back down the rabbit hole. Me and Alice.
Chapter 16
:I’ll trust you with my daughter,” Jeannie began the moment she’d started up four washing machines at once. The mysterious door had led to the mysterious Laundromat. The Wyndhams had their own Laundromat! Unreal.
Anyway, she got a bunch of the machines going and I was puzzling over that when I suddenly realized: she didn’t want Lara to overhear. Or anybody close by to overhear.
“I’m doing this,” she continued, “because I know you liked Antonia and wouldn’t have seen her dead. I’m also doing this because Lara can take care of herself. So if you turn evil and try to bite her or hurt her in any way, don’t be surprised if it’s your head bouncing across the playground.”
“That’s, um, sweet. You must be very proud.”
“But I need you to remember this: a werewolf cub is not a human child. They’re different.”
“Okay.”
“They’re faster. Stronger. Even crueler. She looks like a little girl to you, but you must never forget—she is her father’s daughter, the man who had to kill over twenty-?five werewolves to take the Pack. Do you understand?”
I just stared at her while all around us washing machines went shhh-?thump, shhh-?thump, shhh-? thmmp.
I’d expected the standard warning: if you bite my kid, I’ll hunt you down and shoot you dead.
But it wasn’t like that. Jeannie wasn’t scared for Lara.
