Free Flight from Mayhem by Yasmine Galenorn Page B

my stomach and not in a good fashion. Not only did it give me heartburn, but it made me feel gassy and I would puff smoke if I burped loud and deep enough. All dragons did, even if we couldn’t breathe flame in human form. “I’ll go shopping later. Bette will take me, I guess. Listen, I was going to call you anyway. I need to ask you a question. What do you know about salamanders?”
    â€œThey’re lizards?” Chai sounded preoccupied.
    â€œI
know
they’re lizards. I mean the ones from the Elemental plane of Fire. We’ve apparently got one loose and running around the city, and now we need to go find it and send it back to its own plane. How would we go about searching for such a creature?”
    Somehow, I had my doubts that Alex had thought that far ahead yet. Lydia as good as told us she couldn’t banish it back to where it came from, and none of us could. Which meant we were going to need either a higher-powered sorceress, or . . .
    â€œSay, Chai . . .”
    He let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, yeah. I know. You need help. You can’t ask me. The djinn thing. I’ll be down there as soon as I wash out the shelves here. Remind Alex, Bette, and Ralph not to ask for my help. By now they seemto have it down, but you never know when somebody’s going to slip.” And with that, the line went dead.
    Satisfied—Chai could help us all he wanted as long as we didn’t ask for it—I set my phone down. At least one thing was going right. And I kept that thought until I stepped out into the outer office to find Bette weeping at her desk, where Chase Johnson—director of the FH-CSI—stood, looking uncomfortable.

CHAPTER 5

    B ette turned to me, swiveling her chair around. “They found her. They found Marlene.” Her face crumpled, and I realized I had never seen Bette when she was sad. She might be pissed or irritated or even just contemplative, but in the time I had worked for the agency, I had never seen her look this upset.
    By
found
, I assumed they meant
body
. I turned to the detective. “Dead?”
    â€œI’m afraid so. Homicide. And this is the tip of a much bigger problem.” He motioned to Alex. “I need to discuss something in private with you and your team. When you’re ready . . .” Alex locked the door and turned the CLOSED sign around. Wordlessly, Bette looked up at him and he moved to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and kissing the top of her head gently. The gesture made me want to cry—she looked so bereft.
    Chase cleared his throat, and Alex helped Bette stand.“We’ll meet in the lunchroom. Shimmer, will you escort the detective there? Bette and I’ll be along in a moment.”
    Ralph followed me, with Chase following him. I led them into the lunch room, where I motioned to the coffeepot. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Detective?”
    He nodded. “I can fix it myself, thank you.”
    I glanced down the hall. Alex was talking to Bette and I could sense the connection between them. It went back years, and I was glad he was here for her. I let them be. “Detective Johnson—”
    â€œPlease, call me Chase.” He nodded, not smiling, and the lines on his forehead told me he had seen far too much over the years. “You’re . . . Shimmer, right?”
    I nodded. Then, because I wasn’t sure how much he knew, but I knew he was tight with the D’Artigos, I added, “You probably should know that I’m a dragon, Chase.”
    He nodded, a faint smile creeping around the corners of his lips. “I already knew that, Shimmer. I keep close tabs on the Supe community. But thank you for making certain that I was informed.”
    â€œHow bad is it?” I nodded toward the door. “Marlene?”
    The smile vanished. “Bad, I’m afraid. It’s pretty ugly.” He added cream and sugar to