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

updates. First, thanks again for flying us to the crash site.” He had riffled through Nadia’s file of photos, found what he was looking for, put it on the vintage trunk Lila used as a coffee table. She hoped to be buried in it someday. (Roomy!) “D’you mind telling me what this is?”

They all leaned forward to look down at the pic, which was kind of funny, given that at least three people in the room had already seen the photograph. To Lila’s eyes, it was just another pic of twisted metal and torn cloth, with something that looked like a mangled backpack, all smooshed and flattened at the edge of the frame.

Wait. Not a backpack.

“That’s a parachute,” Berne said, staring fixedly at the picture.

“Uh-huh. A parachute in your plane. The plane you lent to the Smalls.”

Berne was still staring.

“Do you often carry parachutes on your planes?”

Ten. Excruciating. Seconds. Went. By.

“Magnus?”

“As a matter of fact.” Berne looked up. “Yes.”

“More than one?”

“Usually two.”

Oz took a few seconds to digest that. “Why?”

“In addition to being a ferry pilot, I take people jumping.”

“Wait, what?” Lila could have bitten her tongue; the filter in her brain hadn’t engaged quickly enough. But Oz just looked at her expectantly. Keep going was (probably) written in his body language. Or Keep out. She sometimes got those mixed up.

“Lila? Something to add?”

He’s looking at me like he’s giving me a cue. Like I’m part of the IPA team. Or an aviation expert. Which is deeply nuts. “It’s just. When I heard Sally’s parents went down in a single engine, that’s the first thing I wondered about. But it doesn’t fly, no pun intended. An unmodified Cessna? Going down? That’s a terrible plane to jump out of. And a terrible altitude. There probably wouldn’t be enough time for the chute to deploy.” She looked around the room full of people giving her 100 percent of their attention. It was gratifying and nerve-wracking at the same time. “And depending on what was wrong with the plane, it was probably safer to stay on board. Planes are designed to glide even if the engine quits. It’s a much safer bet to stay put.”

“Because a parachute is not a magic wand,” Oz prompted.

“Well. Yeah.”

“For Stables,” Berne said, and Lila cursed herself for overlooking that rather large fact.

“You think a Shifter with no experience could have gotten into a parachute and jumped out of an unmodified plane at low altitude and lived to tell the tale? Of course you do,” Lila realized. “Because you think Sam’s out there somewhere, calling ISA and being sneaky.”

“That does explain a few things,” Annette observed.

“So why didn’t you say anything?” Oz asked Berne.

“A fine question! What’s that phrase of yours, Mr. Berne? The one you love to shout when you don’t care for a data set?” Nadia asked sweetly. “Ridiculous…? I forget.”

“Bullshit,” everyone said in unison.

“Ah! There it is.”

Berne straightened to his full height and looked Oz square in the eye. “Am I officially a suspect, lad?”

Oz held his ground. “Well, let’s see. You lent the Smalls a plane that crashed. Someone set Mama Mac’s house on fire with avgas. You didn’t volunteer any info about why there would be one parachute in the ruins. I even said it on the trip back: two people went up but only one came down. You still didn’t say anything.”

“One might argue that’s not my job, lad.”

“One might argue you’d do everything you can to help your friends, including questions you know the answers to, even if they haven’t been asked. Oh. Sorry… As you made clear, Sam wasn’t your friend. Sue was. And Sam knew it, too—he warned his daughter to watch out for you.”

Berne raised his eyebrows. “Is that what he did?”

“Did you and Sue used to go out?” Lila asked.

“How—not that it’s anyone’s business, lass, but how did you know?” For the first time, Berne looked really worried. “Did Sally say something?”

“You think a kid is up on her mom’s ex-boyfriends?” Devoss, maybe. Not Sally. “Nobody told me. It’s just a theory that answers all the questions.”

“All what questions?”

“Well, you’ve repeatedly emphasized that Sue was your friend, not Sam. And loaning someone a plane is a pretty big favor. She was obviously special to you. And it explains why you only visited once or twice since Sally was born. Because who wants to make nice with the guy who got your girl? Who wants to look at their ex-girlfriend’s kid and wonder, ‘What if she hadn’t broken up with me?’”

“For your information, lass, I broke up with her. Nobody ‘got’ Sue, she was always her own woman.”

“Okay.” Whatever you need to tell yourself, Berne.

“Clever, clever girl.” Berne’s tone was low and quiet. He wasn’t scowling, he wasn’t getting red, he wasn’t clenching his cabbage-sized fists or pacing. Lila couldn’t tell if he was pissed or dogged or mildly curious. Which was horrifying, frankly. “And I’ll ask you lot again: Am I a suspect?”

Oz shrugged. “Even if you were, we’re not cops. We’ve got no lawful authority to make arrests and don’t get me started on the jurisdictional issues.”

“But I simply adore getting you started on the jurisdictional issues,” Nadia protested.

Oz didn’t miss a beat. “We’re technically not supposed to be investigating the crash at all, just figuring out the best custody arrangements for the cub. IPA gives us more leeway than the Stable foster system, but our authority is still limited.”

“A lot of words to avoid answering my question, lad.”

“What cops are investigating?” Lila broke in. Did Shifters have their own police force? Or was it like their military, the Twopers: nothing official or, as Garsea described it, “nothing so organized.” “Iowa staties? The Scarville police? Or is it a federal issue?”

“Funny you should ask, darling.” Nadia waved another folder. “The Lake Mills Police Department, who tirelessly guard the safety of Scarville citizens both Stable and Shifter, has written off the recent unpleasantness as pilot error, though it’s absurdly early to do so. So no homicide investigation.