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“You're going to have to go back and talk to people again,” she said, accepting the glass he passed across to her. “All I've got is flat data, but you're right, everyone who is on the list could have had access to the back office either honestly or by stealing a key, or sneaking in under another pretext. So you need to—”

“Go see who sounds guilty?”

“Actually, I was thinking you could see who rats out on whom.”

She took a hasty sip of her drink, trying not to look at him, in case he had that Disapproving Tonica look on his face.

“You know we can't actually question anyone. Not legally. We don't have—”

“An investigator's license, yes, I know, you remind me enough.” No need to tell him she'd looked into it, and decided against it—for now. “But people are people. This may be an all-volunteer organization but it's still an office. There are going to be slights and crankies and feelings of favoritism, and somebody's going to say something because they
want
to say something.”

She was speaking from experience. Her last office job had been for a start-up company that she loved, and she had enjoyed working with most of her coworkers, but there hadn't been a larger bunch of misunderstood primadonas and cheerfully nonmalicious troublemakers in the world, and that totally included Max, much as she loved him.

“So I should go in there and start asking who's the one they think most likely to steal petty cash out of the cookie jar?”

She studied the flow of liquid inside her glass, and then risked looking up at him. “Yes?”

“Yeah. I think you're right.”

She blinked, but held back her surprise. Usually he made her argue a bit harder before he agreed.

“Stir the pot a little, see what floats. I'll go back and say I'm considering the kitten.” He frowned. “Or maybe not.
Penny gave me the cold shoulder yesterday. Literally. She landed on my shoulder, took one sniff, and then disappeared. I haven't seen her since.”

Ginny held back a smile at his slightly put-out tone. “I thought she wasn't your cat?”

“She's not.” He scowled at her. “Drink your gimlet, Mallard. Maybe it will inspire you to some kind of insane breakthrough.”

She raised her glass in salute. “In Gin, Inspiration. At least, once the gin's in Gin.”

She laughed at the expression on his face, and drank.

S
aturday night was usually Teddy's
main shift, with Stacy running the tables. After yesterday's incident—specifically, after he saw how well she'd handled herself—Teddy made an executive decision to switch that around, giving Stacy her first go at being primary bartender on a Saturday night. He decided to do it then, rather than waiting a week or two, so she didn't have time to think too much about it. Saturday was as close to crazy as it got: if she could handle that, she'd be ready to fly solo anytime.

“You playin' Momma Duck to your duckling?” one of the regulars asked, a little unkindly, when he came out from behind the bar with a tray.

“You lot are a tough crowd,” he said in response, depositing their drinks on the table in front of them, sliding each pint in front of the correct person with the ease of many years of practice. “If I wasn't here, who'd help her out with the foofy drinks y'all try to order—Seth?”

That, as expected, got laughs from some of the regulars. Seth was a good man, and handy to have around, but he had no interest in the front room, and would be about as useful as Mistress Penny-Drops when it came to serving drinks.

And speaking of the long-tail, Teddy thought, where was she? Penny occasionally came by in the afternoons, but she was always there at night, particularly when he was working the night shift, but there hadn't been ears or tails of her all day. Maybe she'd holed up somewhere, sleeping off a hard day of mousing or . . . whatever it was she did all day.

He wanted to take a nap, too. His normal schedule had him sleeping until noon, but he'd been up by 10 a.m., and even though he'd gotten a quick run in before meeting up with Ginny, his body had never quite gotten into gear.

Ginny had gone back to the office soon after her single martini, leaving him the printout of reports of everything that she'd found out, annotated with her comments. He knew that he should have been studying them; he'd even taken them with him when he had dinner pre-shift, bolting down a chicken club and a bottle of seltzer, but never actually opened the folder. He'd figured he'd have a better chance to look them over in the morning, when he was less distracted, but the fact that he was obviously avoiding it bothered him.

He was her partner, however he'd backed into it. He was supposed to have her back. And having her back meant staying current with the case.

The guilt was half expected, and entirely unwanted. He hadn't planned on any of this—not the partners, not the responsibility, and sure as hell not the guilt—when he agreed to help her out on one job. One job, no more. He already had a full-time job, and he wasn't
that
bored. But
he had no idea how to get off now. He'd committed. He was, as Ginny herself had gleefully pointed out, hooked.

He didn't have much time to think tonight, though; the tables were hopping. He spent most of the night collecting drink orders and delivering them, busing tables when needed to make sure there wasn't too bad a buildup at the close. The one night they'd gotten behind on that, it had taken until nearly 3 a.m. to get all the glassware washed and sorted. You made that kind of mistake once, and the lesson took.

“Hey, Tonica, what's tonight's menu?” someone called out as he passed.

He stopped and noted that their table was covered in empties. “If you're too drunk to read the chalkboard, Henry, you're too drunk to be trusted to order anything. Do I need to take your keys?”

Henry, who “drove” a motorized wheelchair, gave Teddy two fingers, and then saluted him with it, while his companion deposited their empties on Tonica's tray. “Flash us some leg, maybe we'll leave you a tip,” the other man suggested.

“Down, boys,” he said, hoisting the tray, shaking his head and laughing. These guys were pussycats compared to some of the idiots he used to have to deal with, before he landed here. Even yesterday's Grabby Hands was, all things considered, mild.

So what was it, that drove someone to misbehave? That was the question they needed to figure out.

Teddy scanned the bar again, gauging where he'd be
needed, and what groups were reaching the end of their stay, when he caught a glimpse of familiar blond curls. She had come back in and settled at the far end of the bar in what had become her usual spot, where she could look out the front window and make sure that Georgie was all right.

It had been pissing down rain earlier tonight, so he hoped to hell that she'd left the dog at home.

Seeing her brought on another moment of guilt about the unread file, and then he shook it off. This was his job, keeping Mary's running like a well-oiled or at least reasonably well-maintained machine. Playing researchtigator was his job, too, but at the same time it was . . . something else. He'd get to the file in the morning, and to hell with her if she said anything about it tonight, guilt be damned.

There was a burst of laughter from the group she was part of, and he identified Ginny's friend Max, and a tall, lean black woman with a buzzed haircut and strongly muscled arms sitting on either side of her named . . . Lillian, he remembered finally. The three of them together looked like an upscale liquor ad, glossy and cheerful.

“Hey, Mallard,” he said, moving behind the bar and depositing the tray of empty glasses in the sink, sliding out of Stacy's way with the ease of experience. “Couldn't stay away, huh?”

“They came to see me off on my maiden voyage,” Stacy said, slapping his arm with the bar towel she'd slung over her shoulder, and then giving the bar a quick sweep, as though to emphasize her ownership of that bar, at least for tonight. “Because
some
people are civilized.”

From that, he was guessing that Jon, the other full-time bartender, hadn't been happy about her taking on more bartending duties, and he'd been vocal about it that afternoon, never mind that he'd just worked a full shift himself. Tonica could see trouble coming, but Stacy shouldn't be catching the flak from it. They needed three qualified bartenders, just to keep from burning out. Three, and another barmaid—or barboy. Teddy wasn't going to squabble over gender so long as they were competent, and . . .

If Patrick was serious about whatever plans he had for Mary's, maybe he could talk the owner into hiring more staff, too. You couldn't expand without, well, expanding, right?

“Tonica!”

He realized that he'd been staring at the glassware for longer than they really deserved, utterly tuning out the conversation flowing around him. Christ, what the hell was wrong with him tonight? “Yeah, sorry,” he said to Stacy. “I need two pints of Epic, and a Floater. Want me to make it?”

“Nah, I got it,” she said, and went into motion, setting up the two beers and pulling a highball down for the mixed drink, each movement smooth and precise.

“You trained her well, Obi Wan,” Ginny said, watching him watch her.

“I did. But there was natural talent there, too. Also natural stupidity,” he said, raising his voice a little. He still hadn't forgiven her for the flying tackle she'd made when they'd been threatened in the bar during the Jacobs job,
no matter how impressed he had been, or how well she'd proven she could handle herself now. That idiot'd had a gun.

“Well, like calls to like, I suppose,” Ginny said with a smirk, and he sighed.

“I walked right into that door, didn't I?”

“Yeah, you did.” She raised her cocktail glass at him and took a sip. “But she doesn't make martinis as well as you do. Yet.”

“Hah!” Max said, making everyone turn to look at him. “I just got it!”

Lillian, clearly used to playing the straight man in the group, sighed. “Got what?”

“Ginny! And Tonica! Gin and Tonic! Aw, so cute!”

The groans were heartfelt, and Lillian rewarded Max with a wallop across the back of his shoulders that sounded like it hurt.

“I get top billing, you note,” Ginny said smugly.

“Drinks up,” Stacy called, cutting off whatever response Teddy might have made, and he nodded, building the tray and carrying it back to the table.

Neither of them had mentioned word one about the shelter, or the missing money, but he was pretty sure they were both thinking about it. He was pretty sure neither of them could stop, no matter his earlier thoughts.

“Next time she bats those eyes and plays on your ego,” he told himself as he delivered the order, “just say
no
.”

*  *  *

The humans weren't working. Penny's tail twitched back and forth irritably, watching them. Finally, she'd had enough: sliding through unwary legs, she left the building. She trusted Georgie, she trusted their humans, but she needed to see for herself. Her own nose and whiskers would tell her what to do.

It was damp outside, the pavement unpleasant against the pads of her feet, but she would not let that deter her. Moving down the street, she kept to the shadows as much out of habit as caution: there weren't many humans walking down here, and those who were didn't notice her moving past their ankles. The rain had stopped, but the air and ground were both wet, and her fur was soon unpleasantly damp. She shook herself briskly and sneezed once, to get the moisture out of her head, and kept moving on to her destination.

Once there, though, she hesitated, staring at the building. There were two lights in the front, illuminating the empty parking lot, and another over the door, and a few dimmer ones around the edges of the building. Compared to the rest of the neighborhood, the building was well lit, and yet . . .

This was the place the other animals were talking about, the one the humans had gone to visit, the one Georgie had come from. She'd been able to find it easily enough, but now that she was here, her paws seemed stuck on the pavement. Her first impression was that it stank. In the damp night air she could smell antiseptic, and piss, sweat, and fear. But there were happier smells, too: of grooming and petting and playing, and if there were too many animals in too small a space, it was clean and warm inside. And Georgie had come from there. So it couldn't be too bad.

Right?

Her tail, upright, twitched just slightly at the tip.

Bad enough that the animals there were unhappy. Were scared. Bad enough that their humans had come here to sniff around, and then talked in the low voices they used when they were serious. But they weren't doing anything; they were in the Busy Place, talking not in the low voices of serious, important things, but the higher voices of not-serious.

As she stepped around the building, avoiding puddles and looking for a space in the fence she could slip through, something else caught Penny's attention. A confusion of smells: fresh paint, and gasoline, and another scent, different. Harsher, thicker . . . dangerous.

Her whiskers twitched, and her tail involuntarily lowered and lashed back and forth, a whiplike movement. This was what the other animals had been talking about. This was why they were afraid.

Penny hadn't survived on the streets by being stupid, or overly arrogant. She didn't recognize this smell, couldn't say where it came from or what left it, but that alone was cause for caution. Not everything was a threat, but the wise cat looked both ways and then looked again.

She stepped past that opening in the fence, and kept looking for another, farther away from the source of that smell.