How to Run with a Naked Werewol(19)

I endeavored to make myself as useful as possible, without actually helping him on those ethical-gray-area cases. I kept a bag of oranges and apples in the truck, which Caleb was happy to munch on. When I couldn't get fresh fruit, we took megadoses of vitamins C and D. Getting scurvy is not all it's cracked up to be.

I became Caleb's personal-assistant-slash-Bluetooth, searching through files as he drove and preventing him from making phone calls that could endanger both of us. I managed to drag him kicking and screaming into the current century by finding a reasonably functional laptop and the world's smallest printer in a pawn shop near our motel in Denali. Being married to a boastful computer genius did have its advantages. I'd managed to pick up a few tricks through the years, especially knowing of Web sites where you could obtain not-quite-legal information about citizens at large. So, with the portable wireless hot spot I persuaded him to buy from the cell-phone store, I was able to (a) help with Internet research and (b) avoid the Alaskan version of hipsters who frequented Internet cafés.

They were like regular hipsters, with more flannel.

And if I happened to find lots of information about those who committed violent felonies but none about people who just owed money to the wrong people, well, that was just too darn bad.

My new "apprenticeship" put me in frequent contact with Caleb's "home base," a bar in Fairbanks owned by Caleb's improbably named friend Suds. A former Alaska State Police trooper, Suds served as a central communications hub between Caleb and the investigators (and other less reputable entities) who hired him, passing along assignments and information. Before I showed up, they communicated primarily through phone and fax. I didn't know if Suds appreciated my "interference," but I did manage to form some sort of bond with him when I spent the better part of three hours explaining how to scan and attach documents to e-mails. I earned his respect when I tolerated the F-word three times in one sentence without getting all delicate about his language.

Since I'd been "promoted," Caleb got me my own prepaid cell phone at a general store in Donwell. He said he didn't want me to have to come looking for him if he was working. But I got the idea that boredom played a factor in the purchase, particularly after he started texting me while he was "in the field" to keep himself entertained.

You know your life has taken a turn for the bizarre when a werewolf is sending you winky emoticons.

In consideration of his lack of computer skills, Caleb let me take over e-mail communications with his clients. I spent most of my nights in the motel rooms, alone, working on the laptop or reading, a simple pleasure I hadn't had time for until recently. I wrote up progress reports, submitted invoices, and even set up a PayPal account so Caleb could collect payments immediately from investigators working in other states. This was a purely selfish gesture. More money in Caleb's account meant a nicer class of motel room (read: motels with cable channels besides porn, but still, mysteriously, no available double rooms).

Unfortunately, Caleb took notice of my primary motive when he came back one night to find six expense reports and even more invoices ready for his signature.

"You seem to be zipping through the paperwork at an alarming rate," he said, blinking at the sheer number of documents I had prepared.

"I just like to be efficient," I said, all big eyes and innocence.

"And it has nothing to do with your wanting me to work toward your destination just a little bit quicker?" he asked.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He slid out of his heavy jacket and kicked off his boots. "We'll get there when we get there, Rabbit, no sooner, no later."

"I have business I've got to take care of in Anchorage. I'm anxious to get to it."

"What kind of business?"

"Personal business, the kind that comes with a deadline," I retorted.

"But you're not rushing through my business so we can get to yours faster, right?"

Now was so not the time to tell him that I was punting certain files to let the lesser offenders run free and clear the road to Anchorage. "I'm not rushing," I told him, sounding just a little more prim than I deserved to at the moment. "I'm streamlining."

"And I appreciate that," he said. "Just don't streamline me out of a job."

"I couldn't possibly. I would hate to see what you would do with your handcuffing skills as a civilian."

He stared at me, eyebrows raised. "I could think of a couple of things, just off the top of my head."

I groaned. "Walked right into that one, huh?"

He nodded, chuckling to himself as he removed my phone from the charger and plugged his in. He didn't even glance at my screen while he removed the cord. He'd never asked to see the phone. He never checked my messages or the most recent calls. He trusted me with it. Even when it was in his hands, he guarded my privacy.

And that was the moment-regardless of his weird job and supernatural status-when I fell just a little bit in love with Caleb Graham.                       
       
           



       


My reasons for getting Caleb a laptop had a third, even less altruistic layer of motivation. The private server allowed me to check in discreetly with Red-burn. When I went more than two weeks without an e-mail, I violated protocols and sent her an e-mail requesting a phone conference. She sent back a reply: "Just this once. " Which was why I loved her so much. She gave me a late-night appointment time that coincided with Caleb's meeting with one of his bar contacts.

Not knowing Red-burn's first name bothered me from time to time. This was someone who had saved and changed my life. And I wasn't allowed to know anything about her, not even the state where she was living. She could be sitting in the next building, for all I knew.

Even with Caleb safely ensconced in a bowling alley/dry goods store down the street, I felt the need to close the curtains while I waited for her call. Hearing that voice was a balm for my frazzled nerves, and for the first time in weeks, I felt that maybe everything would work out after all.

"Well, aren't you a voice for sore ears, or something like that," she said, giving a throaty giggle. "How are you doing?"

"Pretty well, considering. I'm just getting jumpy without updates," I said quietly.

"No news is good news sometimes."

"I know." I sighed, hoping I didn't sound too petulant. "Can you at least tell me what happened? Why'd you pull the escape hatch? Why now?"

Red-burn seemed to consider this for a long while before finally saying, "You're famous."

My mouth went dry. The last time someone had said that to me, it was after Glenn posted clandestine shower footage of me on YouTube. "What do you mean?"

"When we arranged your transportation to the Great Frozen North, we did it through one of our contacts who works at the Bellingham port terminal," she said. "He's able to hide ‘special passengers' on the manifest as unbooked rooms on the ferry."

I frowned. I already knew this. I had met "Captain Anonymous," another Network operative, at the port terminal just before boarding the ferry from Washington. He was a sweet, baby-faced blond in his twenties who gave me a bag of snacks and a Nicole Peeler paperback along with my tickets and Anna Moder information packet. I'd gone straight into the ladies' room, dyed my hair dark brown over the sink, and walked out as Anna.

The five-day ride on the Northern Sea Star from Washington State to Chenega Bay had been one of the more pleasant experiences on the run-clean sea air, the occasional whale sighting. Once I assured myself that Glenn was not, in fact, the guy selling hot dogs at the concession stand, it was practically a luxury cruise.

"Well, the captain didn't realize that the ferry line's marketing department would be shooting photos for the company Web site during your excursion. There's a media release agreement built right into the ticket's terms of use, which most people don't read, so they don't realize that when they board the boat, they're giving permission for the company to use their image in advertising . . ."

"Oh, no," I groaned.

"Your picture is smack dab in the banner on their home page. It's an adorable little boy and his daddy waving bye-bye to the Washington coast as their adventure begins. You're not front and center or anything, just sort of lurking in the background, looking like one of those Old World malevolent spirits that foreshadow sea disasters."

"That seems sort of harsh," I told her.

"Two words for you, sweetie: undereye concealer."

I snorted. It was such a normal, bitchy, girlfriend thing to say. Red-burn was caustic on occasion, but her dark humor always made me feel better somehow, as if my situation wasn't all that insane if someone could crack a joke about it.

"Anyway, with the dark dye job and the haunting undereye circles, you looked so different from your picture that the captain didn't even recognize you at first, and he's on that Web site every day. So when he did realize what had happened, he went to the company's IT guy to ask about changing the photo on the Web to some other shot. The IT guy told him, ‘You're the second person to ask about that photo this week.' He said some online image vendor inquired about that very same photo, hoping to acquire the rights to distribute it, then got downright hateful when the IT guy refused to give him information about when it was taken. Just that morning, the company Web site had shown signs of being hacked, but the only areas of the site that were improperly accessed were the image files and the ticketing information logged from the date of your departure. Security footage stored in a completely different server had also been tampered with."