Free Shapeshifted by Cassie Alexander

still wasn’t a direct answer.
    “Why?”
    “Because reporting things to the police won’t change anything. Not down here. You haven’t seen one yet. Nor will you. We’re off their maps, unless there’s been too many bodies to ignore. But,” he said, leaning his head forward, looking directly at me, “you seem willing to be very lax with rules.”
    “Heh.” I hadn’t exactly been reaching for the phone yesterday. I felt a little sheepish—he had a point. “The place where I used to work, it didn’t always pay to ask questions.”
    “And yet here you are, interrogating me,” he said. He gestured me forward, and we began walking again.
    “You haven’t even gotten me started yet, really.” We had just half a block left. Now was my chance for the most important question—we were too close to the train station for him to abandon me. “Eduardo drew some blood on my last patient, but you didn’t order lab work. Did he make a mistake? Do I need to talk to him about that tomorrow?” I asked as casually as I could, trying to make myself sound managerial.
    He shrugged and shook his head, too fast. “Don’t. I’ll say something to him.”
    “He did tell me to ask you, when I asked him about it,” I pressed.
    “We see a lot of patients each day. Mistakes happen. We should be lucky if they’re all so benign.”
    I regretted his choice of words. It was too easy to slide in my mind from things that were benign to things that weren’t, currently growing inside my mom.
    “I will talk to him,” Dr. Tovar assured me after seeing the look on my face.
    “It’s not that—” I began to explain, but saw my train coming down the line. I knew I hadn’t seen a refrigerator full of blood-draw mistakes—but I wasn’t sure they were worth throwing down with my day-old boss over just yet. For his part, he looked like he wanted to ask me what was wrong, but I could see him restraining himself. Maybe I wasn’t the only one worried about crossing lines. Behind me, I heard the air brakes start. “Sounds like I should go—” I waved and started trotting backward.
    My leaving decided him. He went back to being a doctor again, surely as closing a door. He stood a little straighter and nodded at me. “Have a safe trip home, Nurse Spence.”

 
    CHAPTER NINE
    I took the train all the way to my parents’ house. Not the same train—they lived in the nicer part of town, off a different line—but it only took about thirty minutes. I got off at their stop, and it would still be a walk to their place, then—
    I looked down. I was wearing the same outfit I’d worn at the clinic. When I’d been seeing patients. Frank, in particular. I may be immune to everything this side of TB, but my immunocompromised mother was not. There were germs all over my clothes. Shit.
    I stood at the station—probably the safest in the city, as my folks lived in a gentrified zone—and called her.
    “Edie—are you coming by?”
    “Tomorrow.” I told her who I’d seen today, and where I was. She was disappointed, but also amused.
    “Weren’t you just working at the sleep place?”
    “It got boring.”
    She laughed. God, I loved to hear her laugh. “Well, I’m sure you’re doing the Lord’s work, wherever you are.”
    Yeah, about that. Actually, Mom, I’m there because I’m trying to find a sympathetic supernatural creature to save your ass. Too late to argue now. Plus, I loved her. “Can we do dinner again tomorrow? Don’t cook. I’ll bring food in.”
    “That sounds lovely. We’ll expect you tomorrow night.”
    “Give me till seven thirty so I can go home and take a shower first.”
    She said, “See you then, dear,” and hung up.
    Still feeling foolish, I swiped my card to get back up to the train.
    *   *   *
    By the time I stopped off for takeout and took the train back, it was almost eight o’clock. I set the food down as soon as I got home and shooed Minnie off when she got too close. I didn’t think I needed to