Moody as a Minotaur, page 2
“No can do, Pow,” Finley said.
And why was he using the awful nickname? Fin hadn’t even been born when, while trying to learn how to say my name, I came up with Pow Cow instead of Parker. My cousin—and damn near every other member of the family—used it anyway. At least he’d dropped the cow part, but without it, Pow seemed like something straight out of a Batman comic with its own exploding balloon and exclamation mark. I didn’t have the energy to live up to a nickname like Pow on a regular day, and especially not on a day like today.
“Seriously. The apartment is the size of the restaurant, so I have a lot of space and two spare bedrooms.”
“My team is with me,” he said.
“What team?” I glanced at Finley’s van and saw a couple of people eyeing me curiously. “Who are they? What’s going on?”
“Can’t talk now,” he said. “We still have to check in, haul our equipment inside and all that. Later.” He ran back to his van and hopped inside. A second later, he and his van of strangers sped off toward the Tarbeck Motel, the only motel he could be talking about. I tended to just think of it as Levi’s motel.
I sighed. Again.
Levi liked routines. He was going to be pissed about staying at work late. He hated waiting for people to book into their rooms. And, by the look of it, they must have reserved a few. Our mutual friend Carter and I always told him he should let his staff deal with the late arrivals. But Levi had a thing about wanting to meet the people he let stay at his place.
His hands-on approach was quirky, but that was hardly the most noteworthy thing about Willow Lake.
I grabbed my grandmother’s bags and made my way up the stairs.
Nana had already shed her jacket and was poking through my kitchen cupboards. I carried her luggage to my largest spare bedroom. I didn’t go into this room often, so I did a quick check that everything was as it should be before returning to the kitchen.
Now, with any luck, I’d finally find out what the hell was going on.
2
SOMETHING HINKY IS GOING ON (AND IT ISN’T BDSM, HOWEVER YOU DEFINE IT)
PARKER
I wasn’t unhappy to see Nana—not exactly—but this was the first time she’d ever visited me, which was suspicious. We usually only saw one another at family functions or on our bi-monthly video chats. It was safer that way.
I loved her, but Edith Girard was a force to be reckoned with. She wasn’t shy about offering her opinions and she had a lot of them, particularly about the lives of her unmarried grandchildren. She’d also made a formidable drill sergeant during her mandatory summer bootcamps, and that was an image that would be etched in my mind for the rest of my life.
You know the grandmotherly stereotype of a plump older woman who perpetually smelled of cookies, wore indulgent smiles when they saw their grandchildren, and dressed in pastels and polyester? That was not my grandmother.
Nana was more angles than curves, she couldn’t bake to save her life, she was more apt to make you want to confess to things you didn’t do than cheat to help a little kid win a game, she wouldn’t be caught dead in polyester, and she thought pastels should be reserved for children who hadn’t figured out how to talk yet. Presumably, at least according to Nana, once they could talk, they would then know how to protest such horrendous fashion decisions.
Today she wore a form-fitting black turtleneck and slim black slacks, like she was prepared to carry out a heist at a moment’s notice. The outfit was a striking contrast to the gray of her hair. I bet she had a black balaclava tucked away in her bags so her head could match the rest of her outfit.
“Your mugs should be above the dishwasher, not all the way over by the fridge,” she said without looking at me. She frowned at the kettle, like her ire would make it boil faster.
“Has something happened?” I asked, ignoring her commentary on the organization of my kitchen. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
She walked over to the window and flicked the curtain aside so she could look out at the street below. She glanced one way and then the other, as if checking no one was close enough to hear what she had to say. It didn’t matter that we were on the second floor. It was all very double-0. She tugged the curtain closed again, seemingly satisfied with what she saw… or didn’t see, maybe?
“You said something hinky is happening in this town,” Nana said.
“What? No, I…” My words trailed off. Shit. I’d forgotten about our chat last night. That explained why I was so tired today. The café opened at six, so I wasn’t usually up late.
It was all coming back to me now, though. As soon as I’d opened my mouth last night and mentioned how Willow Lake gave me a weird feeling sometimes, I regretted it. The silence on the other end of the line had been what you might call a speaking silence. I hadn’t really understood what that phrase meant until that moment. There was so much expectation and anticipation and tension suddenly between us. Even half-asleep, I remembered worrying about what she’d do. In my defense, I’d been sound asleep when she called. Hell, for all I knew, she’d chosen to call after midnight for that exact reason—knowing that if she woke me, I wouldn’t be as guarded. She was sneaky like that.
The kettle beeped to say the water was hot, and Nana set about making her tea.
“Do you want a cup?”
I got up to make my own, because I was too tired to have a conversation with my grandmother without some kind of bracing drink. Tea would have to do. It worked for the British, right?
“Well?” Nana asked once we were seated at my small dining room table. She narrowed her cool blue eyes at me.
My grandmother had worked for the government her whole life, but no one in the family knew what her job had been. My mother thought I was fanciful in thinking it had something to do with spying or interrogation—”She started working there in the seventies,” she’d say. “Of course she was a secretary”—but I didn’t believe it. Not for a minute. Especially not with my grandmother looking at me the way she was right now.
Of course, my mother didn’t know about Nana’s summer bootcamp either. The motto What happens at Nana’s house, stays at Nana’s house was a promise I’d never broken.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” I said. “It’s nothing.”
She pressed her lips in a tight line, a clear sign of her disappointment. “Don’t ignore your intuition, Parker. I taught you better.”
Yeah. I guess she had, which is probably why I’d talked to her about it when I was sleepy last night. I truly believed nothing heinous was going on in Willow Lake, but something wasn’t quite right.
I wasn’t imagining how the back of my neck itched sometimes, like predators surrounded me, and I was the prey. The weird feeling didn’t bother me exactly, but it wasn’t easily dismissed either. I mostly noticed it at the pub. Some days, I swore my skin tingled with apprehension. Of what, I didn’t know. And, if it wasn’t nefarious or illegal, why did people regularly stop talking when I approached?
“I don’t know what you mean,” I hedged. Although I knew the gate had been broken open and whatever horses I had in that stable had bolted and were on the other side of the country by now.
She pierced me with her gaze, letting me know without words that she wasn’t buying my weak attempt to dissuade her. “What happens at that pub you always talk about?”
Oh God. She wouldn’t try to stake out the pub, would she? My heart picked up its pace. These people were my friends. They might laugh off her behavior as a funny little quirk in the beginning, but if she caught the scent of anything hinky, as she called it, she could be unrelenting.
I had to reroute her line of questioning. Distract, distract, distract.
“Why is Finley here?”
“He’s useful.”
My fingers tightened on my mug. “Why aren’t you answering my question?”
She stared at me for a moment. “He and his university friends have dubbed themselves paranormal investigators. The whole thing is all a bunch of hogwash, but that’s the brilliance of having them here. No one will take them seriously. They own some surprisingly decent surveillance equipment and when people find out about the couple hundred thousand yahoos who follow their YouTube channel, Finley and his wannabe spiritualist friends can usually gain access to places others can’t. I wished I’d thought of a cover like that…” Her eyes widened slightly, like she realized she had been about to say something she shouldn’t in front of me. Rather than finish her sentence, like I wished she would, she took a sip of her tea.
“What do you mean? Does he really try to find ghosts and things? Or is it a ruse?”
“Oh, they think they’re going to find ghosts. Foolish kids. These ones he’s with today look like they have more sense than the last ones he went out investigating with, but they’re all still determined to prove ghosts exist. I don’t know what is wrong with people these days, letting themselves believe such hocus-pocus baloney. But that doesn’t mean Finley and his friends aren’t useful. They’re usually so busy looking for orbs and listening for disembodied voices that they ignore what’s right in front of them.”
“Have you joined them in their investigations before?” It sounded like she had. How had my mother missed this?
“They can be useful, but they aren’t my only options.” She lifted her eyebrow as she stared me down. “Now it’s your turn to answer my questions. Tell me about the pub. And quit stalling.”
I pursed my lips. There had to be something else I could ask her to redirect her questions.
“Parker Llewellyn Girard, I said quit stalling.”
God. She’d pulled out my middle name. She was serious. I huffed out a breath and stared at my tea. “There’s nothing to talk about. I go there. I play pool. I have a few drinks. That’s it.”
She hummed and narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you telling me the truth? You don’t have to sugarcoat things for me like you do your mother. I’ve seen a lot in my years on this earth.”
“Huh?”
“I looked the place up online. It’s the pub that’s attached to the old inn with the same name, right? Willow Lake Inn and Willow Lake Pub.” She shook her head in disappointment. “Terrible names. But that’s beside the point. Neither place has much of an internet presence and what is there isn’t good. A rudimentary webpage and nothing more. It looks like someone put it together in 2001 using duct tape, a pencil, and a beginner’s guide to HTML.”
I was about to explain that Ryley, a new guy in town, was redesigning the websites for a bunch of businesses in town, mine included, but she kept on talking.
“And the reviews for the inn are horrible. They talk about strange sounds and other dodgy things. Seems like it could be a front for something else. Human trafficking? Drug running? It could be anything. And there’s an article online about an explosion there earlier this summer. Was it a meth lab?”
“A front? A meth lab?” When did my life become a police drama? “No way. The chief of police and one of his deputies hang out there all the time. I think he would have noticed something.”
“Right. So, he’s on the take.” Nana nodded and tapped her chin. “It makes sense. They’d need the local LEOs to be in on it. The town is too small to let something that big go on without detection otherwise. Unless the police are completely incompetent. Which is possible…” she mused. I got the sense she was talking to herself more than to me, but I was compelled to speak, to defend my friends.
“Van is a good cop. There was a problem this past summer with one of the deputies, but it was investigated, and the person was taken into custody. I don’t think they’d do that if the place was corrupt. And he’s recently hired a new guy, who seems good too,” I insisted. Although I didn’t know Dillon, his newest deputy, as well as Van, I had a good feeling about him.
She pursed her lips in a way that suggested she pitied me. If we were sitting closer, she probably would have patted my head in that condescending manner adults use on small children. “Now tell me, is the pub one of those BDSM clubs?”
I choked on my tea and spewed it across the table. “What? Oh my God…” I wiped my hand across my mouth. “Did you say BDSM? There isn’t a… a… place like that here,” I sputtered as I mopped up my tea with a quilted place mat my mother had made for me a few years ago. I hated the things, but they were useful in situations like this. “Do you even know what BDSM is?”
I regretted the question as soon as it flew out of my mouth.
“Yes, of course I do. How old do you think I am? Do you think I wore a chastity belt when I was young?” She shook her head. “I lived through the sexual revolution. And I know very well BDSM doesn’t stand for Boobies, Ding-dongs, Sex, and Marriage.” Grandmother lifted one eyebrow and eyed me. “Although, in your case, it’d be more like Berries, Ding-Dongs, Sex, and Marriage.”
“That is definitely not what it means.”
“Well, I know that. I said as much, didn’t I? But if you want me to talk about ball-gags and whips with you, I can.” She lifted her head to a haughty angle and took a dainty sip of her tea. “Mafia types are often connected with sex rings. They might hide it in plain sight as a kink club.”
“On TV, but not here. This is Willow Lake.” I groaned. “How is this my life?”
“So… is it? I could totally see you as a power bottom, but I wouldn’t be shocked if you liked to be tied up and spanked.”
Oh my fucking God. “Please, for the love of everything holy, quit talking.”
“You have your eye on the big guy, don’t you? Is he your dom?”
I froze, but I was half tempted to throw myself through the window to escape this conversation. The long drop from my second-floor window to the sidewalk didn’t scare me as much as this conversation.
“I do not have a dom.” My voice squeaked.
“What’s his name again? Levi, right?” She cast her gaze over me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“You talk about him all the time,” she said, cutting me off.
Yes. Well…
“He’s a good-looking man,” she continued.
“Wait, how do you know that?”
“I hacked into your security cameras,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Well, it wasn’t much of a hack. You left your phone open and unattended at your mother’s house a couple of years ago.”
“What? When?”
“We were all there for Christmas. It was the first year your aunt refused to make the broccoli salad your mother loves so much.”
I remembered. My mother had tried making it with a store-bought dressing and it hadn’t been the same. Thankfully, Aunty Gina had agreed to make it again the next year. It was a staple of our holiday menu.
“You hacked my security system?”
She shrugged. “It was easy enough to add myself as a secondary administrator to your app and gain access.”
“You spy on me?” I gaped. And my mother thought my grandmother had worked as a secretary. There was no way.
“Don’t look so shocked.” She waved away my question. “I see the way you two flirt. Have you done the deed yet?”
“Done the…” I repeated, feeling a little faint.
“I figure you haven’t yet, based on the way you two dance around one another like peacocks. All fluttering wings and rattling tail feathers.”
“Feathers?”
“I hope he takes his time and gets you nice and ready. A big man like that is bound to be big everywhere. That much of a package requires preparation. The bulge in those pants he likes to wear…” She put her hands out in front of her, about a foot apart, and watched me as she spread her hands further apart.
“Stop! Stop talking about Levi and his…” I gestured to my crotch.
I froze. Oh God. I’d just pointed to my groin in front of my grandmother.
Jesus. I scrubbed my hands over my cheeks. My face must have been a thousand degrees. Any minute now, heat blisters would pop up. Then I’d have to go to the doctor to get cream, and he’d ask how it’d happened, and what on earth would I say? Saying “My grandmother almost made me self-combust” would for sure land me in a research trial where other Nana-like people would torment me until I literally went up in flames. All in the name of science.
“Don’t be such a prude.” Nana shook her head like she thought I was being childish.
“The Willow Lake Pub is not like that,” I argued, trying to steer the conversation back to slightly safer topics. “And Levi and I are just friends.” As much as I wished otherwise.
My grandmother pressed her lips in a flat line and turned toward the window again. “Well, you said something isn’t right, and if not that, then what’s going on?”
“It’s not that,” I reiterated.
What else it could be, I didn’t know.
3
WE’RE ALL FUCKED
LEVI
“You investigate what exactly?” I asked.
“All things paranormal and supernatural and occult and…” the good-looking young man on the other side of the reception desk said affably, like he didn’t know his words would strike fear in the heart of supes everywhere.
I scanned the paperwork he’d completed for more clues. The information was limited to his name—Finley Henshaw—and his address in the city. Damn it. My forms needed to be reworked immediately. I needed to ask more questions—important questions—like do you have a gun with you? Or who hurt you? Or do you believe the serial killer Buffy was a heroic character?
“You know,” Finley continued, as he grinned at me and waved his hand through the air. “All the things that go bump in the night. Ghosts, mostly. But we’re open to finding werewolves and vampires. That kind of thing too.”
The start of our conversation had led me to believe Finley was a nice guy. I should have known better when he’d checked in so late. I’d assumed he was an average human out for a weekend with his friends. Now, though? I wasn’t so sure. Did the gleam in his hazel eyes suggest he was plotting something sinister? When had his smirk turned smug? What did he know?
