Capitol Kidnap: Urban Werewolf Book 1 (6 page)

"I told you no pranks!" Naomi shoved Mac against his own wall.
 

"Actually, my dear, you didn't." Mac shook his head and kept laughing.
 

"Maybe we should just go," Naomi said. "I don't feel safe."
 

Mac fell to the floor when she released him, convulsing with laughter and clutching his sides. She left, and the others limped out after her.

M
OM
SET
THE
KEYS
ON
Naomi's kitchen table. Naomi was done, she wasn't going to sit at home with her mom and the boys until dark.
 

"I'm going to the flower shop," Naomi said, reaching for the keys.

"No, you're not." Mom snatched the keys away.

"I'm not sitting around here."

"You're not driving by yourself to a dangerous place with the moon–"

"The shop should be empty," Naomi said as her mother slipped the keys into her purse. "I'm not a child. I don't need you."

"You're my daughter and a member of my pack," Mom said, tucking the purse under her arm. "You will do what I say."

"Yeah, that worked so well at Mac's." Naomi snorted and reached for her mother's purse.
 

 
"What do you think you are doing?" Naomi's mother stepped backwards, moving her purse out of Naomi's reach. Her face was pale with anger. "You will obey me."

"If you were in your right mind I would listen, but you've just bulled through everything and everyone. You can't just do that."
 

"Excuse me?" her mother asked softly.
 

"You heard me! You think you can bully everyone here." Naomi swallowed hard, fighting the urge to spit at her mother.

"That's enough." Her mother stood up straighter and puffed out her chest.
 

"You don't act like this at home," Naomi said. She took a deep breath, trying to regain her head. "Please, trust me. Trust my judgment."

"I can't trust you. You let your brother tell that boy–"

"You mean Mikey? Who loves him–"
 

Naomi's face stung. It took her a second to realize she had been slapped. She balled up her fists, and stomped towards her mother.

"There it is, you think you're a little alpha strutting around here." Mom barred her teeth. Goosebumps rose down Naomi's back. "But you are part of my pack. You're alpha of nothing."

"I'm leaving." Naomi flung open the door. "Mikey is a great guy. He loves Bryan." She slammed the door behind her.

##

Naomi walked a few steps down her driveway, hoping to physically distance herself from the situation. Had Mom always been this controlling? Naomi realized her nails were digging into her palms. She forced her hands open and tried to focus on her breath liking yoga as she walked away. The sun was just starting to sink, turning the sky orange.

Naomi nodded to a couple she'd seen before walking their dog. The dog started jerking at his leash to get to her as soon as she passed by. The couple apologize sheepishly, but Naomi shrugged them off as she wandered past the purple house. Clearly, they weren't the owners. No way that husband had agreed to have a big butterfly the garage. Naomi had just left a voicemail for Mindy to take her to the flower shop, but she knew she was being followed. Jeff by the smell of him. Naomi turned back to face him, and recoiled a step. He was much closer than she had expected.

"What are you going to do? Tell on me?"
 

He shook his head and laughed as if that would be ridiculous. His laugh was warm and inviting. Naomi could imagine him as a wolf, tongue hanging from the side of its mouth, relaxed and open. She smiled.

 
"Sounds like you got a ride. Do you have room for one more?" Jeff said.

"Why?" Just because he laughed at the question, didn't mean he wasn't spying for her mom.

"Just thought you could use a little help." Jeff shrugged. "Besides, I don't want to sit around your house either."

"And my mom?" Naomi asked.

"Doesn't have to go."
 

Okay, she could agree to that. They walked in silence a little while before Naomi began to feel uncomfortable.
 

"What's it like being a detective?" Naomi asked after a while.

"A lot of paperwork. Getting information from county records and stuff like that. Just fact checking mostly."

"Sounds like my job. It can't be that boring though." Naomi heard a faint rustle as a deer behind someone's house e caught their scent and bounded away. Jeff and Naomi's eyes met then they both smiled at the thought of the hunt.
 

"Occasionally, I get a stakeout. Cheating husband, that kind of thing. You just have to have a good eye for detail."

"That's it, really? I have to do that already. Well, mine is staking out a cheater."

"What do you do at your," he paused for effect dragging out the word, "environmental firm?"
 

 
"They call it due diligence. Need to make sure that who says they own the land actually does." Naomi shrugged. "That means, I get to dig through musty file rooms accounting records and research paper trails. Pretty boring stuff."

"For the most part, so is my job." Naomi's phone rang, interrupting him.

 
Mindy bitched about being Naomi's personal chauffeur, but agreed to drive them. She just didn't want to get too close, so Naomi told her to meet them at the corner.

"Vampires, huh?" Jeff said.

"Yeah, but I think she likes being needed once in a while." Naomi and Jeff walked past the condos towards the noise of Folsom Boulevard. "You now, it's pretty cool to find another wolf who doesn't want the pack to take care of everything."

 
Jeff shrugged. "Someone has to take care the pack once in a while."

Naomi studied him, looking for some sign of a lie since he didn't seem like the team player, but he seemed to mean it.
 

"That's an alpha attitude if I ever heard one," she said.

"I'm not trying to rise above my place. It's just–this sort of fell into my lap and I decided to handle everything by the book."

"What happened?"

"Pretty boy Marcus got all the human girls after him."

"And?" Naomi asked.

"And they accused him of… Well, let's just say I proved he was innocent." Jeff clearly didn't want to say more. Mindy pulled up to them in Naomi's bug.

"Great, just what I need," Mindy said as they open the doors. "Two of you."

"Thank you Mindy. I appreciate you helping me find my brother."

"You damn well convinced me they're going to start hunting me down too, if we don't fix this." Mindy peeled out before Jeff and Naomi even buckled their seat belts. "Who's he?"

"I'm Jeff. I thought maybe you guys could use a little help with the flower shop."

"A little help, huh?" Mindy looked pointedly at Naomi. "Mother didn't want you alone with me, did she?"
 

Naomi shook her head, no."Mom's kind of gone a little crazy with this."

"Wouldn't you? Her whole existence is going to be destroyed because her son wasn't careful."

"He was careful. They used magic–"

"They had to find out somehow. It was either you or him that wasn't careful."

T
HE
FLOWER
SHOP
WAS
IN
one of those small brown one-story buildings at the outskirts of downtown. It could have held something like the Sushi Palace or the General Store, but the white and pink sign declared it was Sacramento City Florist. Mindy parked about a block down the street, in front of the Mexican food joint so the car wouldn't draw attention to them going to the flower shop after hours.

"Would we do if they're at the shop? Are we kicking ass and taking names?" Naomi asked. She clenched her fists in anticipation. The moon was up and she felt strong.

"We might wind up running like hell if we find anyone," Mindy said. Naomi try to peek through the window, but it was too dark to see through the tinted windows. She couldn't hear or see anything inside. Unless they were hidden in some kind of soundproof office, no one was there.

"How do you want to do this?" Mindy asked. Naomi shook her head. She'd never even thought about breaking and entering before.
 

"I can pick it, unless you have another way to let us in," Jeff said, but Mindy was already circling to the back of the building.

"Maybe they forgot to lock up the garage," Mindy called over her shoulder.
 

"Or maybe the other lock is easier to pick," muttered Jeff. In the alley a small padlock hung from the garage door. "Easier to pick," Mindy said as she knelt down. She grasped the lock, grimaced slightly then rose to her feet with the lock in her hands.

"That was quick, Jeff said. Mindy handed him the broken lock.
 

"I guess that's one way to get in," Naomi said laughing. She took the crumpled lock from Jeff, examining it. It was so smashed that she didn't anyone would even recognize it as a lock. She went to drop it, but before it slipped from her fingers Jeff closed his hand around hers. "That's evidence against us," he said. She handed him the lock he raised an eyebrow at her.

"Women's clothes. No pockets," Naomi said shrugging. She opened the door, and it slammed to the top of the track with a bang. A blast of cold air hit her in the face.

"Why is it so cold in here?" Jeff asked.

"They must refrigerate it for the flowers," Naomi said. The door slammed shut, trapping them in pure darkness. Naomi's upper lip curled back and she growled low and quiet. The hairs rose on the back of her neck and her muscles tensed. The scent of vampire became overpowering. Her body tensed to shift to tear the threat apart. Suddenly, the light flickered on overhead.

"Sorry about that guys – didn't want anyone to see us coming in here." Mindy looked at them inside. "Don't rip my head off. It was a whole half a second." Mindy shook her head. "Honestly!" She pulled open the door into the main part of the shop and shoved the two wolves through it.

The ground crunched under Naomi's feet. Wilted flowers littered the ground. The two glass display cases were cracked open. The floor was warped where water must have spilled from broken vases and sat for hours untouched. Un-inflated balloons littered the counter and spilled out of a drawer. Nothing was in its place. There was a dark patch on the floor near the register who smell indicated blood. The sickly sweet smell of roses permeated the shop. Naomi could smell both decayed roses and the scent of the cloyingly sweet alcohol-based perfume.

"I don't think they're keeping him here," Mindy said.

"I know that perfume," Naomi said. "I knew it was familiar when I smelled it where Mikey disappeared, but I didn't connect it with the smell of magic." Naomi took a deep breath, considering her words carefully. "That's Ginger's perfume, but that can't be right. I just can't see her heading up this kind of thing."

"The perfume is the same as your coworker's?" Mindy asked.

"Yeah, I can't stand her." Naomi shook her head. This was not making any sense.

"Does she hate you, too?" Mindy asked.

"What?" Naomi asked startled. She understood where the questioning was going, but it didn't make sense.

"Mindy's right. Does your coworker hate you, too?" Jeff asked.

"You're saying she hates me, so she stalked me, learned I was a werewolf, learn dark magic to kidnap my little brother, and then plans to kill him and hunt down all werewolves, just because she hates me?"

"When you say it like that it sounds ridiculous," Mindy said.

"That's because it is ridiculous." Naomi chewed her lip. There was no way Miss Perfect Soccer Mom was involved.

"There what's your theory?" Mindy asked. "Her perfume didn't just get here."

"Maybe she's just another victim," Naomi suggested.

"She's only human, right? She's not any kind of –"

"No, she's not different. She's plain old-fashioned human so far as I could tell."

"Could you tell that Mac wasn't human?" Jeff asked.

"I…" Naomi shook her head. "He didn't really smell different. I mean, he smelled a little like the woods or a nature walk or something, but I just figured he actually had walked along the river."

"Ginger doesn't have anything like that, does she?" Mindy asked.

"There's nothing that sounds off about her except she loves that stupid perfume, which stinks so bad it hurts my head."

"What if it's not perfume?" Jeff asked.

"I can smell the alcohol base to it. Its perfume."

"Do you know where she lives? We can settle this right now – one little taste and I can tell fae from humans no problem," Mindy said. Naomi paced beside the counter, careful not to step in the patch of blood. Could Ginger be behind this whole thing? It just didn't seem possible.

"I don't know where she lives, or even her home phone number. I could call her manager and asked for her number. I mean I'd have to lie and say I have her wallet or something."

"I can get it if I go online for long enough," Jeff said. Both women stared at him. "What? As a private investigator subscribe to a website that gives the address and your family's names, among other things." He shrugged. "It's pretty simple."

"Mindy, could we – I mean, do you have internet at your place?"

"Hell no! I am not showing two wolves where I live. You forget most of your lot wants to kill me. Take your mom for instance."

"She's the reason I don't want to go back to my place. I don't think she's cooled down at all."

"Especially not tonight," Jeff said, looking out the window up at the moon. Naomi could feel the moon tugging at her, singing and her spirit that it was time to change. "She's pissed off at Naomi."

"Mindy, you don't want to even go within miles of that place. Not with my mom that angry."

"No. I am not taking you to home with me. I'll drop you off at the corner by your house."