Wanted: Undead or Alive

It's Some Shady Sh*t

"Why don't you ask Chantelle?"

It was beautiful, straight-forward, clear and brilliant logic. But...

"Chantelle doesn't know the whole score."

"Maybe she should. The supes exist and they're out there roaming the streets doing things that are legal to them and horrifying to us, and things that are illegal even for supes, and things that we would never even think could be done. What's going to happen to her if she gets in a bad scrape and pulls a gun on somebody who isn't affected by bullets?"

Ignoring the fact that he was speaking about supes as if he wasn't one of them, I had to admit that I'd had the same thought and even argued with Scoob about it once. Her stance was that telling one cop means telling all the cops, and The Organization was not okay with that. But this wasn't all cops. It was my best friend.

I set my plate aside and ran a hand over the food baby straining against my waistband. "It's not my secret to tell." That was it, in the end. If Nick or even Mandrake wanted to share their business with someone, that was one thing but me outing them was entirely inappropriate. "Hey, hold on. Why haven't you told?"

He avoided making eye contact. "I don't know. The secrecy gets kind of drilled into you from a very early age, you know?"

Fair enough. But still, she already knew I was working as a bounty hunter, and she'd met Nick on at least one occasion. Maybe I could ask and just leave out the details.

Afraid that I'd wake her if she'd had an early night, I sent a text. Still up? I have a question if you've got time to talk.

My phone rang ten seconds later, and Chantelle's voice came through the line. "You are my savior, Olivia Nowicki. Frank is watching basketball with his boys and I swear to god it's like having a house full of junior high kids to look after." Then, obviously to someone else, she shouted, "This is important. I'm going out to the patio. You'll have to get your own French onion dip."

Chuckling, embarrassment apparently forgotten, Drake stood up and started gathering plates and beer bottles.

"What's up, sis?"

"I have a work question."

Her tone turned instantly wary. "Go on, then." She'd come to a grudging acceptance that I liked my job and was reasonably good at it, but she wasn't thrilled about what I was doing. She said it was too dangerous, which seemed a bit hypocritical to me, but, so far, we'd successfully avoided any major fights about that point.

"Okay, well... So Nick was arrested."

"Your boss, Nick?"

"Yeah."

"For what?"

"Uh... murder."

I heard the squeak of metal springs when she dropped onto her patio glider. "Your boss killed somebody?"

"No."

"Girl..."

"He didn't do it," I insisted.

Mandrake peeked over at me with a raised brow.

I waved away his concern, and he went back to washing dishes. "Let me get it all out in one go, okay? And then you can ask questions."

"Alright, then." It was her Serious Cop Voice.

I cleared my throat. "Okay, so there's stuff you don't know and I can't tell you, but I swear to you on twenty years of friendship that none of it is shady or illegal. It's just private. Like... classified."

"Alright," she said again, her tone as cool as Lake Superior's icy, dark depths.

"It's like this; Nick's ex called him up. Said she was nervous about something. She wanted his help, but she didn't want to be seen with him in public or overheard because that would only make whatever the thing is that much worse. Last thing he remembers, he showed up at her house and walked inside."