“What does that mean?” Godiva asked.
Lance turned her way. “In every story you’ve ever heard, has anyone ever said anything good about lone wolves?”
“No.”
“It’s not good for wolves to be packless. But like I say, pity goes only so far. He could have made a lot better decisions, starting with finding a better pack. Even if it meant beginning at the bottom and working his way into the hierarchy. And, of course, not stealing your post office box, destroying your mail, and setting up shop selling evil charms.”
“What will happen to him?” Rigo asked Lance.
“That’s up to the Guardian. Bottom line, serious trouble. A lot of trouble, depending on what kind of charms he sold—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Alejo exclaimed. He’d turned to the last pages in the ledger, and held it out for them to look at.
Next to an address, and a huge sum of money, were the initials ‘LC.’
Rigo frowned, then glanced up. “Are you thinking ‘LC’ is Long Cang? Those initials could just as easily stand for any random hombre with the initials LC.”
Godiva had completely forgotten about Long Cang, the Oracle Stone, and all the rest of it.
“Look at look at the address,” Alejo urged. “Isn’t this your town, Mom?”
Godiva leaned against Rigo, steadying herself against his arm. For a moment she was distracted by how good it felt, which helped dispel a bit of the anger gnawing at her. But it flared right up again when she recognized the address. “Yes! I even know where that house is! Well, approximately. It’s inside the only gated community in town, where the wealthy people live.”
“Look at the date,” Rigo murmured.
“Wait. That’s . . . a few days ago.”
“Yes,” Alejo said, flipping between two pages in the ledger. “If LC is actually Long Cang, he’s in this book twice. Here, and one fifteen days ago. Which would be about the time those zombies turned up, right?”
Kaydi was back from searchi
ng the car. “It’s going to be a nightmare to trace all the customers and find out how the charms were used, and on whom.” She glanced skyward, and Godiva had a strong feeling she knew who would be part of that investigation. “I wonder where the hell he found this thing.”
“Who he stole it from, is probably more likely,” Alejo said. “Dad, if the first entry was the zombie charm, then what this means is, Long Cang has a new charm.”
Everybody looked grim.
Rigo said, “Here’s my suggestion. Let’s take photos of the Long Cang pages, both charm and antidote. Get them back to the west coast pronto.”
He turned to Godiva. “Neither of us studied Latin, but it’s the root of Spanish, right? Between that and Google Translate, we should be able to suss this out by the time we get back to Joey Hu. What say?” He grinned at her, a challenge they could share.
She grinned back. There were still so many questions, and she really wanted more time alone with him, but he was including her as naturally as if she’d been a part of the shifter world all along.
“Sure,” she said, and as the mystery part of her mind started running, she said, “Let me get my phone out. We can both take pictures, but why work off our phones if we don’t have to? My phone will talk to my laptop, so much easier.”
“Excellent idea,” Alejo said.
The Guardian agent reappeared then, and for a moment they split into two groups, Lance talking to the women about Guardian matters, and Alejo saying to Godiva and his father, “So what’s the plan? I can turn the rental in and drive the Phantom back home, if you want to fly out to the west coast from Chicago. That’s fastest.”
Godiva was about to agree, then she remembered her last morning with the other three of the Gang of Four. “No . . . hang on.” She smiled as she poked at her phone. Then she looked up grinning proudly. “There’s an even faster way.”
And she held up her phone so that everyone could see Jen’s text: Of course I’ll come and get you.
Chapter 16
RIGO
It was just after seven Chicago time, which meant it was just after five on the west coast. Rigo watched Godiva thumb away at the phone, her expressive face changing rapidly from apology to concentration. She was adorable at any time, but especially with that little grin curving her lips.