Dire Warning WC0.5 by Stephanie Tyler Read Free Book Online

regular basis, the wolf would need to have an awful lot of self control. That didn’t jive with the whole rogue, moon crazed theory.
    “Maybe we’ll get lucky with the names and addresses,” Jinx said.
    “None of them look familiar,” Stray said. “Can’t believe a wolf’s there.”
    The doorbell rang and Marley called down, “The food’s here.”
    “I’ll take care of it,” he called to her, and when he heard Rifter and Marley coming down the stairs he told Stray, “Gotta run—check in later.”
    He opened the door and paid the delivery guy who handed him five bags of food in return. He put them down on the big table near Marley’s desk.
    “I’m going to check out the property before I eat—you stay here with Marley,” Rifter told him before heading outside.
    Marley opened the bags and spread out the containers on the dining room table that sat in the middle of the room. She brought out napkins and sodas from the kitchen, and while Jinx ate standing up and watching the windows, she went to a desk with a laptop and tons of stacked papers and picked at her chicken and snow peas.
    Jinx, on the other hand, wolfed down several containers before broaching the topic of the tape with her. “So, do you know what the wolf looks like in human form?”
    She glanced up at him as she shoved the chopsticks in the container and put it on the desk in front of her. “You can’t really tell from the tape. At least I couldn’t. Bill said he wanted to show me the most important part—I was a witness in case it got lost or something.”
    “Rifter and I really need to see it.”
    “Look, I understand but there’s no way Bill’s going to let that happen. It’s his entire future—he’s been doing this job for ten years and says he’s seen things people only dream about—or think are made for TV movies—and now, he can prove to the world that monsters do exist.”
    It sounded like a prepared speech and something Marley didn’t believe at all, but he still bristled. “Some humans can be classified as monsters, too.”
    “Now you’re on the side of the monsters?” Marley asked.
    “If they don’t bother me, I don’t bother them. And I don’t think of ghosts as monsters.”
    Now it was her turn to look offended. “I don’t either. And we don’t hurt any of them.”
    “But you invade their privacy,” he pointed out. “Look, I’ve got more to gain from people like you all than the ones who respect the otherworld.”
    “You really believe too, don’t you?”
    “Yes ma’am.” He figured he should probably leave some food for Rifter, threw the empty containers away and grabbed a soda. He pulled a chair next to her and motioned to the piles. “Lots of paperwork with this job?”
    “These are all from people who claim to have ghosts or need our help or say they’re seen a vampire or wolf or something,” she said as she shuffled through the envelopes. “It takes forever to sift through them—and a lot more to figure out which are legit or not. Especially the ghost ones. Most people just have bad pipes.”
    Well hell, the girl knew something. “So when did you start doing this?”
    “About a month ago,” she admitted. “Not very long at all.”
    “Because you saw a ghost?” he guessed and she gave a small laugh.
    “How’d you guess?” She fingered the open flap of an envelope as she spoke. “I was just starting my junior year. I moved into a new dorm and I saw her. She was standing at the foot of my bed and her mouth was moving like she was trying to tell me something really important. I got scared and ran out. The next day, I called Bill—he’s pretty famous on campus—and he went into the room and said he helped the girl cross over. And then he asked me to work with him.”
    Yeah, the ghost Marley saw in her room was no doubt still there, and Jinx made a mental note to fix that. “Is that the first ghost you saw?”
    “Yes,” she said quickly. Too quickly, but Jinx would’ve been