I looked up from the page at Peter. He frowned and turned to Rachel. “You purposefully antagonized her by wearing that fur.”
She shrugged. “So what? I may have wanted to ruffle her feathers—” She smirked. “Or fur, more like it. But I didn’t kill her. She took care of that herself.”
I glared at her. I couldn’t imagine if someone showed up to my wedding wearing an owl hat or something. It’d be disturbing at best, but considering Letty didn’t have any friends or family there to support her, it could have driven her to extreme measures. “If you drove her to it though, you’ll be guilty of manslaughter.” I raised my brows at her, and she paled.
Peter nodded. “No more questions for you tonight, but don’t leave the island. We’re still waiting on testing the food, and we’ll also need to get a writing sample from you.”
She blanched. “A writing sample? For what?”
“We need to test it against a letter delivered to Joe Santos, the caterer.”
She shoved back from the table and lurched to her feet. “You’ll have to speak to my lawyer.”
Peter lifted his chin. “Gladly. We’ll do that.”
She dug around in her purse, handed him her lawyer’s card, then huffed and stomped off.
“Wow. She’s a real piece of driftwood.” I shook my head as my gaze slid back down to the magazine. With all the high-level changes in governments around the kingdoms lately, there’d been murmurings of a shift towards more transparency and inclusiveness.
I ran a finger over the glossy page—I’d never seen shifters coming out in such a public way. I bit my lip—maybe the winds were changing. Maybe there was hope that life could get better for shifters—that maybe we could come out from underground.
The profile of Chaz and Letty occupied the left-hand page, while on the right side of the spread, a photograph of Sam Snakeman hung his head, his chin disappearing, and pushed his glasses up his nose. I scanned the text. It described Sam as an ambassador to the island of Kusuri for the new administration and a public advocate for shifter, animal, and monster rights.
What sets Sam apart is his unique origins. Born a snake, Sam developed the ability to shift to human form later in life. All other known shifters are exactly the opposite—born human, they can shift into other creatures. Sam has adopted the surname Snakeman, since, as a born snake, he didn’t have one. He’s using his connections to royalty to push for equal rights for all and an end to discrimination against shifters.
“Now there’s the way to do it.”
Startled, I looked up and found Peter reading Sam’s profile over my shoulder. I shot him a puzzled look, and he blushed. He lifted a palm. “I just mean, this Snakeman fellow is abiding by the rule of law and working with the system to change things.”
I frowned. “Versus?”
His throat bobbed. “Versus…” He squared his shoulders. “Versus being subversive and operating outside the law and outside society. How are shifters supposed to integrate if they all want to do things their own way, have their own code and hierarchy?”
My neck and chest grew hot and I bit back a retort, willing myself to take a few deep breaths. “It’s different for Sam. He’s not like other shifters.”
It said right there in the article. He hadn’t been raised with Ludolf lording over him—he hadn’t even been raised human at all, unlike the rest of us. Which maybe gave him a chance now to speak out in a way most of us couldn’t. I huffed. “It’s unfair to assume we should, or could, all be doing that.” I raised my brows at Peter. “You don’t have all the information.”
He huffed. “Yeah… because no one will give it to me.”
We sat in tense silence, the lute music floating through the elegant space. I bit the inside of my cheek. I hated this—just when Peter and I seemed to be settling back into our playful dynamic, this issue around what I was came between us.
Daisy turned and laid her huge head on Peter’s thigh and whined. Fighting again? What’s new with you two.
Peter sighed and patted the table. “In any case, if Rachel knew Letty was a shifter, the private investigator the Harringtons hired had to have discovered this.”
I nodded. “True. Which makes me wonder what he and Mr. Harrington were really arguing about the other day.”
Peter rose. “We need to go talk to the Harringtons again.”
Daisy’s tail wagged as we headed for the exit. Finally—I can get out of this ridiculous jacket.
I whined back at her. The jacket was covered in tawny hairs. You can take the jacket off the dog, but can you get the dog off the jacket?
She glared up at me.
18
CYBIL
Peter, Daisy, and I made our way back into the country club’s lobby, and freedom from my oversized tweed cage was in sight, when a petite woman suddenly stepped out from behind a potted tree and I ran right into her. She stumbled back and I grimaced. “Sorry!”
She huffed, smoothed her button-up shirt and pencil skirt, then looked up.
Surprise washed over me. “Cybil?”
Her pert expression turned to shock as she took in Peter, Daisy, and me. “Oh. What are you all doing here?”
I arched a brow. “We could ask you the same thing.”
She frowned at my enormous borrowed sports coat. “And what are you wearing?”
I waved a hand. “Off topic.” We weren’t planning on seeing her here, but now that we’d literally run into her, I figured we should question her about the piece in La Mer. I pointed at the magazine in Peter’s hand. “Did you know Letty was a shifter?”
He held it up,
