So here she sat, in her van, trying to determine whether to drive home or pop into the Boone Mercantile and Grocery for more Mylanta. She heard her name being called through the cracked window and turned to see Bonita De Los Santos waving at her from the front of the post office.
She rolled down her window to hear her call, “Miss Jillian, I’ve got something for you! Actually, I’ve got two somethings for you. All the way from Washington, D.C.!”
A large woman with a perpetual crown of braided salt-and-pepper hair, Bonita was a touch-know psychic who kept informed of all the news in town simply by touching the envelopes as she sorted. She knew who owed money, who was getting love notes from people they weren’t married to, and whose kids were getting into college. But she took the confidentiality of her job very seriously, she’d told Jillian during her interview. She never told a soul what she learned from the mail, even if they offered her cash or boudin.
“How are you holdin’ up, honey?” Bonita asked.
Jillian smiled wearily. “I’m all right, Miss Bonita. How are you?”
“Oh, everybody who’s come in today has been talking about poor Ted and Gladys. It’s a heartbreaking thing, to have two of our own taken from us. But the town’s been through worse than this. Hurricanes, plagues, the War of Northern Aggression. We’ll lock our doors, keep a watch over the people we love and we’ll get through it, just like everything else.”
Jillian nodded, her shoulders feeling a little lighter as she crossed the street and entered the tiny post office, which Jillian suspected was original to the early settlement days of le Lieu Mystique. Under the space where most post offices hung wanted posters, Bonita had written “Mind Your Business and Move Along” in bold Sharpie print.
“I’m not really expecting anything from my office, Miss Bonita.”
Bonita heaved a toaster-oven-sized box onto her counter. It was stamped with “Handle with Care!” and “This Side Up!” and “Perishable! Keep in Cool Dry Place!”
“Oh, honey, it’s not from your office. It’s personal. Both of them are. I just thought I’d save myself the drive all the way out to Miss Lottie’s place,” Bonita told her.
The other box was much more subtly appointed and labeled with Sonja’s impossibly neat handwriting. Both boxes had been shipped “express high-priority speed,” whatever that meant.
Jillian’s eye narrowed. “How much did you see?”
Bonita’s expression was sympathetic. “Enough to know that you’re not gonna be happy when you open one of them.”
“Should I have you open it?”
“No, that’s not my business. I just wanted to forewarn you. I find it helps people not to feel so sucker-punched,” Bonita told her.
Jillian took the rather elegant pearl-handled letter opener Bonita was offering and cut the box tape open. The return address read “Swirls and Sprinkles” in Crystal City. The box contained a dozen carefully packaged cupcakes from her favorite bakery from home, plus multiple dry ice packs to keep the buttercream frosting from melting.
She pulled a note from the desk of Tate Ashford, Esq., out of the box. Hey Sweet Cheeks. Jillian groaned. She’d always hated that freaking nickname. “I called Sonja because I couldn’t get you on your cell.”
“Of course you called, because your evil ex-boyfriend super powers helped you sense that I was attracted to another man and you had to put a stop to it,” she muttered.
She says you’re in the middle of nowhere and I shouldn’t call you, because you don’t have any reception.
“More like Sonja told you not to call me because she would gladly set you on fire with the power of her brain.”
But I thought that you would appreciate a little taste of home. I know what a sweet tooth you have and how mad you got when I ate your chocolate cupcake that time. It’s those little things about you that I miss, the little quirks that drive me nuts when we’re together, but I miss when you’re not with me. I think I made a mistake, breaking things off with you, and I think I should come visit you and talk about-
She slammed the note down on the counter. “Nope.” She shook her head. “Nope.”
Of course Tate would claim that he broke up with her, instead of the other way around. Of course Tate thought he’d “made a mistake” breaking up with her. He frequently came to this epiphany if he thought she was dating someone else or she might forget about him. And the cute little story about how mad she’d gotten about him eating her cupcake? It had been her birthday cupcake that Sonja had left on the counter as a surprise for her. She’d come into the kitchen, dressed for a date with Tate to find him eating it. Somehow, he managed to turn her irritation over his selfishness into a charming little anecdote about how irascible she was.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Bonita said, patting Jillian’s hand. “I did warn you.”
She nodded. “You did. Did your visions happen to show you how utterly lacking in self-awareness and ability to boyfriend this person is?”
Bonita pursed her lips. “I’m not sure that I know what that means.”
Jillian pasted on a smile. “It’s okay. Miss Bonita, would you like a dozen cupcakes? They’re from one of my favorite bakeries back home. But for reasons I’m sure you can see, I don’t think I can stomach them.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you! I could take them over to my grandkids and they would be pleased as punch.”
“Tell the kids I hope they enjoy them. Tell their mother I’m sorry about the sugar high.”
“Eh, my daughter-in-law has it coming. She doesn’t think I know what she’s been up to on the internet.”
“Wow.” Jillian laughed as she grabbed Sonja’s package and backed out of the post-office. “Mothers-in-law in Mystic Bayou take it to a whole new level.”
Bonita cackled. “Yes, we do!”
“I am better off single,” Jillian sighed, pulling her phone out of her bag while she kept her package under her arm. She had a whopping two bars of reception and rejoiced, calling Sonja’s number.
Sonja’s smoky voice rolled into her ear. “Sweetie! I’ve missed you! How are your beautiful, built bayou beaus?”
Jillian unlocked the van and dropped the care package in the passenger seat. Closing the door, she smiled sweetly at Enola Pelz, one of the bear-shifter matrons she’d met at Clarissa’s crawfish boil. Enola smiled and waved back, slowing down ever so slightly as Jillian asked, “I’m fine and I love you, but don’t distract me with your brilliant alliterations. Why is my ex-boyfriend sending me some sort of misguided baked love offering?”
The other end of the line was silent for such a long time, Jillian had time to get into the van, where her conversation wouldn’t be overheard by Enola’s super naturally gifted ears. “He did what?”
“He sent me a box of cupcakes from Swirls and Sprinkles, with the kind of packaging that makes the rush shipping cost like an extra fifty bucks. How did he even find me? Did you tell him where I am?”
“No, you know I wouldn’t do that… Aw, that sonofabitch. He came to the apartment the other day and I was sending you a care package. I was labeling the box when he knocked on the door. I didn’t even think about him seeing it. I just can’t even believe he would send you cupcakes, after that shit he pulled on your birthday.”
“Right?!” Jillian cried. “Thank you. Like it’s some sweet little relationship story and not another example of why I broke up with him.”
“He’s still claiming he broke things off?” Sonja sighed. “I’m sorry, hon. He’s a useless, spineless, brainless prick, doing what useless, spineless, brainless pricks do.”
Jillian sighed. This was the basis of her friendship with Sonja, something Tate never got, the neurological accord between their two brains. Sonja understood how Jillian thought and why she thought it, and even if Sonja didn’t agree with Jillian’s thoughts, she validated them. “Thank you.”
“Did you open your present yet?”
“Crap, I’m sorry, I was so pissed off at Tate, I just—”
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“No, this is better, I can hear your reactions. You’re using your Swiss Army Knife keychain to cut through the tape, aren’t you?”
Jillian pulled her trusty pocket-knife away from the box. “No.”
“Yes you are, and I love it, because I’ve missed your predictable preparedness, which has been sorely lacking around the office lately. Come on, woman, just open it.”
As soon as the tape gave way, Jillian cried, “Oh, you didn’t!”
Jillian pulled a plushy version of Drogon, the black and red dragon from Game of Thrones, from the box and cuddled him to her chest. “I love him!”
“I got him from that online geek emporium you like so much. I figured if we can’t binge-watch G.o.T. together, you can at least snuggle up and put your cold feet on someone who won’t complain about it.”
“I have a circulatory condition,” Jillian shot back as she dug into the box. Sonja had sent her favorite brand of lavender Earl Grey tea, novelty socks with obscene phrases on them, some honey-based lip balm from a hippie herbalist shop they loved in Georgetown, and her mother’s secret recipe spice cookies.
“You have feet colder than the Wall, woman.”
“You shipped me pryaniki, so I forgive your harsh foot hate,” Jillian sighed, prying open the Tupperware container and shoving one into her mouth. Her voice was muffled by cookie when she added, “I love you. You are my favorite person. This is a far superior baked love offering, compared to Tate’s.”
When Jillian opened her eyes, she realized that Enola was still standing there on the sidewalk, watching Jillian cuddle a stuffed animal to her chest while moaning over cookies. Jillian waggled her fingers. Enola grinned and walked away.
“Oh, and Mel didn’t realize you’d already left for your assignment and sent you something he’d knitted. I told him I would send it along to you.”
Jillian lifted what looked like a cozy for her earbuds made from multicolored eyelash yarn. “This is your fault for suggesting he take that class at the senior center.”
“He’s retired! He needs something to keep those long froggy fingers flexible.”
“Okay, Sonja, you only alliterate this much when you’re nervous, what’s up?”
“Are you somewhere you won’t be overheard?” Sonja asked, lowering her voice.
“I am now, yes.”
Sonja whispered, “I want you to look in the bottom of the box, inside the manila envelope marked ‘MONTHLY BILLS.’”
“What’s going on?” Jillian tore open the envelope and found several printed interoffice emails from the League administrators. Sonja had thoughtfully highlighted the portions that mentioned Jillian by name. This was what happened when you roomed with the child of a Cold War-era spy. A care package was never just a care package.
“Your name is being whispered in the halls and it’s not a good thing. The Powers That Be are not happy with the fact that you’re involved in a murder investigation and that one of your subjects has turned up dead. I just transcribed a memo where two board members suggested replacing you with another anthropologist.”
Jillian gasped, deeply offended. “But I didn’t hurt anybody!”
“I know that. But the board wants results and they want them now. Akako Tomita herself asked to review your proposal for the Chile expedition.”
Akako Tomita was the head of the League’s DC board. She was an intimidating, beautiful kitsune, who sounded oddly like Helen Mirren, despite the fact she had the physical appearance of a twenty-five-year-old Japanese woman. Jillian had never spoken to her directly because Jillian was a junior researcher and junior researchers didn’t have the clearance to talk to Akako Tomita.
Jillian feebly protested, “I’ve only been here a few weeks.”
“They’re going to call you Thursday and request a preliminary report about the population, species represented and basic cooperative systems. Use all of the discussed bullet points I highlighted in the emails. I made you a list, which I included in the envelope. You need to have it ready to go the minute they ask for it. Any delay will give them the excuse they need to recall you.”
Jillian pinched the bridge of her nose and leaned back in the seat. “Maybe they should recall me.”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re doing a great job. You said yourself that the information you’re gathering is amazing.”
“I’m way over my head here, Sonja. People are dying and even to the casual observer, it seems to be connected to the work I’m doing. Maybe if someone else was here, it would stop.”
“And maybe pieces of a satellite will crash into someone’s house tomorrow and you could make that your fault, too.”
“Again, harsh,” Jillian said dryly.
“I’m just saying that unless you’re putting a sign on people’s houses that says, ‘Hey, come murder this person who talked to me,’ it’s not your fault. You know I love you and don’t like to criticize you when you’re going through one of your inevitable existential crises, but it’s just a little self-indulgent to make a murder spree about you.”
Jillian pressed her lips together in a thin line and inhaled deeply through her nose. “OK, you may have a point.”
“Stop taking the weight of the world on your shoulders. Let murderers take accountability for their own actions.”
Jillian sighed. “Why are our conversations never normal?”
“Normal doesn’t exist. It was a rumor started by McCarthy in the 1950s.”
“Spoken like an employee of an international shadow agency.” Jillian started the van. “Thank you for saving my job.”
“Any time. Go snuggle your dragon.”
“Yeah, it’s funny you say that…”
Sonja, whose gossip senses were highly attuned, gasped. “What?”
“I figured out what kind of shifter Bael is, or at least, he showed me.”
“Ohhhh.” Sonja purred. “And what did he show you?”
“He’s a dragon shifter,” she said. “His whole family, dragons, with the wings and everything.”
“Really? But they’re so secretive!”
“Well, it took him a really long time to tell me.”
“So how is that going?”
“There have been some interesting developments.”
“You totally let that dragon guy into your treasure box, didn’t you?”
Jillian squealed. “He used his wings in weird ways and I liked it. KThanksBye!”
“What? Wings? Details! Don’t you dare hang up!”
Jillian guffawed as she pressed “end.”
She sighed. “I really needed that.”
Later, Jillian was sitting at her kitchen table in her panties and an OSU t-shirt, because somehow, it had gotten even hotter and more humid over the course of the day. She’d gone home directly after Sonja’s call to start working on her progress report. She’d already completed two of Sonja’s bullet points, species represented and government services integration. She would complete religious interaction before the end of the night, and then finish the rest of the report by the next night.
“I will not be out-brain-maneuvered,” she muttered as she typed just a little harder than was strictly necessary. “This progress report will make Akako Tomita herself weep with gratitude that the League hired me. Okay, probably not because Akako Tomita is a scary badass who makes business suits look like armor… And I’m talking to myself, which is not something that amazing anthropological geniuses do.”
She stood to retrieve some iced tea from her ancient fridge, but stopped when she heard footsteps on her porch steps. Why hadn’t she heard a car pull up? She reached for the large butcher knife in her knife drawer and pulled it out. She crept closer to her front door, swallowing around the thick lump in her throat, wishing for once that she had a window in the door. Her legs shook under the weight of the icy fear sinking through her middle.
“Jillian?”
Her head dropped to her chest. She knew that voice. She yanked the front door open to reveal
Bael walking up to her door.
“Are you insane?” she yelped.
Bael didn’t even pause at the doorway, just picked her up by the waist and threw her legs around his hips. He crushed her mouth to his, while walking toward the stairs. She gasped and he took the opportunity to sweep his tongue into her mouth in a devastating lash. He must have removed his gun-belt in the car because she didn’t feel it digging into her as he moved. There was a level of presumption there she was willing to forgive if he kept doing that thing with his tongue.
Also, point of fact, she wasn’t wearing anything but panties and a t-shirt, which made his job of undressing her too easy, even while carrying her upstairs. She moved to wrap her arm around his neck and realized she was still holding the butcher knife. Naked with a butcher knife and a dragon. Was this real life?
She dropped the knife over the bannister and hoped she remembered to pick it up in the morning. The back of her head thwacked against the bedroom door as his hand scrabbled for the knob.
She yanked at his belt buckle and shimmied his pants down enough to let his hard length spring free. She gave him a filthy grin as she ground down against him, letting him glide along her warm, wet folds. He kissed her, mimicking the roll of his hips with his tongue. She groaned as she slid down, taking him to the hilt. She curled her hand around the back of his neck, rocking against him, growing wetter with every movement.
She tilted her head back, giving him the access he needed to bite and lick at the hollow of her throat. She could feel delicious tension building inside of her and grunted in frustration. She didn’t want it to be over just yet. But, she did want Bael’s hands on her, and he was blindly tapping his fingertips all over the door.
“Where is the doorknob?” he growled. She laughed, reaching down to open the door.