Free Silver Kiss by Naomi Clark Page A

my arm. “I think
you’ve told us everything you can, haven’t you?” she asked Marc. He
nodded, wide eyes fixed on me. “Great. We’ll get off then.” She
handed him her business card. “Just give me a call if you think of
anything useful. I know Molly’s family would be so grateful.”
    He glanced at the card. “Is there a reward
or something then?”
    “ Maybe.” Shannon smiled
brightly at him. “Thanks for your time, Marc.”
    “ Yeah.” He looked back at
me, apparently satisfied I wasn’t going to rip his throat out.
“Yeah, and hey, you ever want some fun, you come find me.” He
winked again. “I know loads of fun stuff.”
    “ You’re not my type,” I
assured him as we left.
    ***
    “Not entirely a wasted day,” Shannon said as we drove home. “I
still don’t feel like we’re really onto it yet though. I’ll have to
ask Tina about this Stuart or Simon, see if she knows
anything.”
    I stared out the window at the passing
houses. Twilight was falling fast, bringing another light snow
shower with it. The streetlights turned the snow orange, giving the
city an eerie, otherworldly glow. “What about the wolf Tina had the
affair with?” I asked. “Is it worth checking him out?”
    “ I’ve pretty much ruled him
out already,” she replied. “According to Tina, he bitterly regrets
the affair and is working hard to repair his marriage.”
    “ She already told you about
the affair?”
    Shannon shrugged. “I asked her about Molly’s
dad and it came up. She didn’t go into much detail.”
    “ Has he got kids, the other
man?” I asked.
    “ None. Which I suppose just
compounds the damage. His wife can’t conceive, but he knocks up the
first woman he hops into bed with for a drunken fling. It’s got to
be unbearable for the wife.”
    And it hammered home how strange it was that
Tina had aborted the child. To conceive twice ought to be a joyous
triumph for a wolf, regardless of the circumstances. I wondered, if
she hadn’t been caught out, would she have kept the cub and claimed
it as her husband’s?
    “ Here’s what I think at the
moment,” Shannon continued. “It’s a straightforward enough
scenario. Molly’s angry and resentful over how the Pack treated her
mum, but she’s also angry at Tina for messing up her—their—life.
She’s fallen in with a bad crowd, probably got into drugs if what
Marc says is true and now she’s met someone new and she’s run off
with him. It’s a way to upset and piss off her mum and get some
attention at the same time.”
    “ If that’s the case, she
might just come back on her own when she’s had enough,” I mused.
“She’s only fourteen—she’ll miss her home comforts soon enough,
surely?”
    “ Hopefully, but I think I
have to act like that’s not the case. Which means the next steps
are finding out who this Stuart or Simon is and figuring out how
she might have left the city. Checking out CCTV and that sort of
thing.” She rubbed her forehead. “I hate going through CCTV tapes.
It’s so bloody boring.”
    “ Find out if she was into
Silver Kiss,” I said. “Vince said Oscar was fine until he started
smoking that.”
    She nodded, but I could tell she was only
half listening. “I never thought of wolves as being into drugs,”
she said after a brief silence. “It’s weird to think of werewolves
shooting up or snorting coke.”
    “ Well, maybe we’re not as
superior to you puny humans as we like to make out.” I switched the
radio on and the blast of bubbly pop music filled the car, keeping
us both quiet until we were back home.
    Actually, there was a long tradition of
drug-use in werewolf history. Back in the Middle Ages, before it
was understood that wolves and humans were separate species, people
believed they could transform themselves into werewolves by using
potions and rituals. They’d smear themselves in anise and opium, or
drink beer mixed with blood under the light of the full moon and
wait for Satan to show up