Free Tooth and Claw (The Harry Russo Diaries Book 2) by Lisa Emme Page B

bit as people made their
way out.
    A hand grabbed my arm from behind. “Harry, wait up.” It
was Nash.
    “Where have you been? I was looking for you,” I said,
grabbing his hand and pulling him up the stairs. I had lost sight of the
mystery man. “Come on, we’re going to lose him.”
    “Lose who?”
    “Just come on. I’ll explain later.” I hustled up the
stairs, pushing through some stragglers on the landing, dragging Nash behind
me.
    When we stepped outside, I looked around quickly. “Damn. I
don’t see him anywhere.”
    “See who Harry? What’s going on?” Nash stood with his
hands on his narrow hips, he had his detective’s shield clipped to his waist by
his belt.
    “There was a man. The wolf hated him. If he could
have torn him limb from limb, he would have.” I paced to the corner of the
church and looked down the street. The man was nowhere to be seen. “What
about the woman? Who was she?” I asked, walking back to stand in front of
Nash.
    “She’s just a nurse who works for a private firm. She was a
friend of the family, nothing more.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Look
Harry, enough with the super sleuth routine. Leave the investigating to me.”
    “No, you don’t get it, Nash.” I huffed out a breath. “The
wolf is trying to tell us something, tell me something. We have to find
out who the man is. He’s connected somehow, I know it.”
    “Come on Harry. Don’t you think it’s a bit of a stretch?
Some unknown man is involved in, well, we don’t even know what exactly, but you
think he’s guilty because a ghost wolf growled at him?”
    “It’s more than that and you know it, Nash. You saw the wolf. It’s not just some crazy thing I’m making up. And if you had seen
how he reacted to this guy,” I crossed my arms and glared at him. “Besides,
the nurse knew the man too. She kept looking over at him nervously the whole
time you were talking to her.” I stamped my foot. “They’re connected. I know
they are.”
    “All right, calm down.” Nash reached out and rubbed my
arm. “Even if it’s true, we have no way of finding this guy now.”
    I frowned. He was right. If only I had gotten his name or
his license plate or something. And then it dawned on me. “Of course, the
ring!” I grabbed Nash by his upper arms - man, are his arms pumped - and gave him
a little shake. “We can use the ring to find him.”
    “What ring? What are you talking about?” he asked.
    “The man was wearing a very distinctive signet ring. It
must be for a fraternity or maybe a professional designation. We can figure
out who he is using the ring.”
    “I don’t know Harry. That’s a pretty big order. With only
the ring and a physical description, we’ll probably have to spend hours and
hours searching for some kind of match.
    “Not if we get Bryce to help us,” I replied gleefully.

Chapter Eight

    Nash was understandably confused about how a dead guy was
going to help us find our mystery man. Of course he didn’t know that Bryce’s
ghost, who I had helped out a month or so ago after he had been murdered, had
never really left. Instead, he had taken up residence in my old computer.
    When he was alive, Bryce had been a computer specialist and
hacker extraordinaire, so it wasn’t really all that surprising that he had
managed to meld himself into the circuitry of my computer. Okay, so it was. I
didn’t know ghosts could do that, but ghosts do thrive on electricity, and so Bryce
had somehow figured it out. He had even upgraded and totally rebuilt my old
system from the ground up, and paid for it with money from a secret offshore
account. It was like having my own version of the super computer HAL inhabiting
my living room - without the plotting to kill us, hopefully - at least when he
was around, which hadn’t been much these days.
    Since Bryce was now the equivalent of a bunch of nanobytes
or whatever, and since just about everything was connected to the internet
these days, he had