Crowbones

CHAPTER 47

Vicki

Watersday, Novembros 3

The EMTs and Doc Wallace looked so pale and scared when they arrived, I figured beer wasn’t going to be numbing enough and was tempted to raid Grimshaw and Julian’s private stash of whiskeys and offer a bottle or two to the men. Then I remembered that someone would need steady hands to stitch up David Shuman, so I kept my thoughts to myself and my hands off the whiskey.

When Conan was asked why he’d swatted Shuman, his only response was to growl at everyone.

Not even Grimshaw asked him for clarification.

I went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, not sure who might want to drink it. I put the kettle on to heat up water and set my selection of teas on the kitchen table along with the mugs my guests used at breakfast.

Julian came into the kitchen, placed a bottle of whiskey on the table, smiled at me, and left.

I knew people often added alcohol to coffee to make it a blended drink. I wondered how mint tea would taste with a dollop—or five—of whiskey.

I was willing to play guinea pig and find out.

Intellectually, I recognized that people knowingly took a risk by staying at The Jumble. I recognized that people could get hurt—could get killed—if they misbehaved, because the terra indigene put up with only so much nonsense from humans before ending the nonsense, usually in ways that required the police to notify next of kin.

Recognizing those things didn’t alleviate the guilt I felt because Conan had swatted a guest and a person who wasn’t even staying at The Jumble had been killed because he’d been where he shouldn’t have been, doing what he shouldn’t have done.

I liked three of my current guests and sincerely hoped they weren’t the cause of any of this trouble. The other four people I would have happily kicked to the curb if I had any curbs and if there had been any place for them to go. Until Grimshaw and Ilya figured out who was responsible for killing whom, we were all stuck with one another.

A quick knock on the doorframe before Kira, Viktor, and Karol slipped into the kitchen.

Kira hurried over to the stove and turned off the kettle, which had been boiling away and whistling its head off, unnoticed by me because I’d been lost in thoughts of gore and guilt.

“Can we help?” Viktor asked.

I tried to smile. “I wish I knew.”

Not the answer these teens wanted, but it was the best I could do.