Fur

11 | Somewhere a Predator is

"Well thank you for the tour," Konrad says again as I exit his sports car, both of us returned safely to the parking lot of McNamaras' Café. "I really appreciate you doing this."

"Of course," I say, standing on the concrete stoop, my hand rested on the top of his passenger door. "Anytime."

"Maybe we can do it again?" He asks, leaning across the armrest to see me better. "I've got your number."

He's got my number... "That would be great," I say, and think that if I force my smile one more time my teeth will fall out of my head. ...How could I forget?

We say our goodbyes and I shut the passenger door, the tinted windows obscuring any further view of the interior. I step away from the car where he'd dropped me off at the café's doors and he drives away, carefully, as a gentleman would—or as a werewolf driving as he thinks a human would.

Konrad is not off the suspect list. He's only moved a tier down. There was no trace of Sophie on him or in his car, and I'm still alive after spending the day with him. His only crime thus far is being sickeningly flirtatious, and if we prosecuted for that the entire country would be overran with inmates.

I'm suspicious of Konrad, but not so much for murder anymore.

"Leila!!" Lattie's panicked exclamation gives me barely a warning before she's barreling into me, squeezing my midsection with every muscle in her body. "I'm so sorry!! I didn't know you were wary of him, I was just trying to mess with you! Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine, Lattie." I hug her back loosely, more focused on continuing to breathe than returning her affection. "I'm not mad."

"Really?"

"Really."

It needed to happen. I needed to take a closer look at Konrad, but I wish doing so had harbored more definite results. It could have gone better. Recalling how it ended—the incident over the cracked sidewalk—it could have gone a lot better.

"How is Nanni?"

"She's great. But she's been waiting on you to come back. She's still not letting me work up front and I think it's starting to tire her out."

I arrived here only three years ago, but it feels like I've known the McNamaras for a lifetime. Nanni has aged as if it were. She worries me sometimes. Even Lattie, with her rose colored vision and her sheltered view of the world, will get a look in her eyes every now and then, a pinch of worry on her happy, unmarred face. When she does, she won't say it. Lattie, who shares with me her every thought, won't breathe a word about her grandmother's age. But I know she thinks it. I know she sees it, hears it when Nanni groans sitting down or standing up, when she can't stand for very long or needs help with steps or has a new prescription added to her daily medications.

I won't say it, either.

Lattie and I go inside. When I switch shifts with Nanni she doesn't mention my oversleeping or nearly standing Konrad up—that's a dreaded conversation for later—but she does brief me on which customer needs what, who's waiting to order, who already has. She hobbles off to the kitchen with Lattie and stays for a couple of hours more whilst I speak with customers, serve their pastries, and take their orders.

She bakes cakes and brews coffees until six o'clock in the evening when she comes out to tell me she's heading home, that she doesn't feel well. I ask if Lattie or I should drive her. She says no, though a series of harrowing scenarios rush through my head for if she had said yes.

Lattie and Nanni will be apart, and I can't be two places at once. What if the stalker or the serial killer—be they the same or different—finds Nanni home alone? Intercepts her on the drive? Is waiting for her outside in the front garden's bushes as she goes to unlock the door? And Lattie... if I drive Nanni, she'll be left to run the café alone. What if he pays her a visit? What if someone asks her about Sophie—Local Girl Murdered—and upsets her?