A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

flashed him a sympathetic smile. “Some cases are like that. You’ve heard me make the same complaint.”

“I dunno, you complain all the time. Sometimes it’s hard to narrow ’em down.”

“Har, har. All I’m saying is I know our work can be problematic. You dig and dig but all you raise are more questions. You think you’ll never figure it out or, worse, you will figure it out, but nothing can be done to help the cubs in question. If David was here, he’d tell you the same thing.”

Is she talking about Opal? Because once upon a time, IPA had discovered neglect and abuse, but not in time to save Opal Adway. Only her brother. And there had been many dark days (several spent in the purple house up the street) when he doubted he had been saved.

“You kick over rock after rock,” she continued. “You reread your files until the letters don’t make sense anymore and kick more rocks. But sometimes, when you can’t see anything besides your mistakes, when the night is darkest, you stumble over the right rock, and now I hear it, I’m mixing my metaphors when all I meant to say was hang tough.”

While she spoke, Annette had casually risen, casually sidled over to the stove, casually eyeballed the big black pot simmering away, casually reached for the small spoon

“Ouch!”

and casually got her knuckles rapped.

“Sorry.” From Lila. “Macropi made me promise to keep you out of it ’til suppertime.”

“When is that?” Annette whined.

“I’ve no idea. Macropi didn’t tell me when supper would be served in my kitchen.”

Oz cleared his throat. He was having trouble figuring out if Lila was genuinely aggrieved, or fake-aggrieved to cover her concern. “I called her from the car so we could talk about Iowa.”

“You’re both uninvited pains in my ass,” Lila pointed out. “And you’d better stay for supper, because Macropi made ten gallons of chili for some reason.”

“And two pans of corn bread,” the lady in question added, coming in through the kitchen door while lugging…something. She gave Annette an awkward one-armed hug. “Where’s David, m’girl?”

“Case. I’ll fill him in when I go home. What’re the cubs up to?”

“They’re back in Lila’s shed, hoping I’ve forgotten about them. They’ve fixed it up nicely, Lila, and I assume that’s partly your doing?”

“It’s a shed,” Lila replied. “Why would I give a shit?”

Which wasn’t an answer, but Oz decided to keep that observation to himself.

“And look what I found!”

“Perfect. We can hang it right there,” Annette said, gesturing to the blank expanse of wall opposite the kitchen table. “There’s still a nail left from the last tenants.”

“Why have you dragged a whiteboard into my kitchen? And why do you think you’re going to hang the whiteboard you dragged into my kitchen? And where did you find a whiteboard to drag into my kitchen?”

“Your shed,” Mama Mac replied, in a tone that implied it would have been strange to not find a whiteboard there.

“Oh. Of course. My shed. The shed I should have inventoried, definitely. You found a whiteboard and hauled it in, just like people do every day because it’s perfectly normal and not weird at all.”

“Trust me, it will help.” From Annette, who retrieved her purse, dug around, then set half a dozen dry-erase markers on the table. “As will these.”

“Yep. Also totally normal. Who doesn’t walk around with dry-erase markers just in case someone produces a random whiteboard? Again, why would you need—oh.” Oz had grabbed the black marker and started scribbling a rough Smalls family time line on the now-hung whiteboard. “So you guys work for IPA but don’t actually…y’know. Work at IPA?”

Oz had no idea how to answer that, so he kept scribbling. Because the truth was tricky. They were brainstorming in the Curs(ed) House’s kitchen for the same reason that Annette occasionally wore salmon: because cub trafficking.

The kitchen screen door twanged open again. “Hi, Lila! Hi, the rest of you guys!”

“You know all our names, Sally,” Annette pointed out kindly.

“Uh-huh. So when’s dinner? For everybody, including the big kids who only wanted to help me so really they didn’t do anything wrong so they’re not really in trouble I bet?”

“I’m still thinking about that,” Mama Mac replied.

“Which part?” Lila asked.

“How much trouble they’re in.” To Sally: “And dinner is right after you go wash up.”

“I’m clean, though,” the cub protested as she was gently shoved toward the kitchen sink.

“You’ve been playing in a shed all afternoon, m’girl. You’ll be taking a shower tonight, too.”

“But it’s Friday!”

“And everyone knows Friday showers are absolutely forbidden,” Lila added. “Minnesota state law. Or is it a federal law? I haven’t kept up on the legislation.”

“You go wash up, too,” Mama ordered.

“I’m going, but not because you told me to. After wandering around in a field half the day, I need a shower. I’ll be quick, I promise.”

“Don’t rush,” Macropi told her. “This is your home. We’ll wait for you.”

Annette let out a groan they all ignored.

“I’ll hurry. And toss Baby4U. Or at least hide it properly.”

Oz, who’d been hunched over scribbling, suddenly straightened. “Baby for what now?”

Mama rolled right over him. “Sally, go tell the others that supper’s in half an hour,” she said, blotting the girl’s clean hands dry. “Scoot, now.”

As Sally scooted, Oz turned to watch Lila head upstairs.

* * *

“Shit!”

Lila knew it was going to happen; why was she cursed with a half-second of foresight? The bathroom counter was agreeably long—the room was shaped like a lowercase “l”—and her pro tem house guests had spread out their sundries. Macropi had placed a glass jar full of cotton balls beside their toothbrushes, and Lila had knocked it over when she was reaching for the lotion. Stupid.

“Are you okay?” Oz, from the other side of the door. Damn. The guy went through two rooms, up the stairs, and to the end of the hall in the half second between the crash and her yell.

“I’m—”

There was a sharp crack, and the door opened with a crash.

“—fine.” She took in a wild-eyed