CHAPTER 2

“Isabella’s an ugly duckling, Blue. She doesn’t take after our side of the family, that’s for sure,” Peyton offered when I asked for a description of his half-toothier niece.

Clayton quickly concurred. “Some call her gangly.” Peyton shot him a look and his twin winced. “Not to her face,” Clayton added. “We wouldn’t want to hurt her tender feelings.”

The other twin nodded. “She’s kind of sensitive.”

I wasn’t quite sure I believed the twins had a relative—at least not one who acknowledged either of them, let alone a kidnapped niece with a fetish for molars.

But if they did, and she was kidnapped, the outcome could be very bad. Seven Tooth Fairies had been brutally murdered over the last year by a faceless killer known only as Jack the Tooth Ripper, the last one just over three weeks ago, leaving the Fairies without a dentin collector. Until now. If what the twins said was the truth and their half-fairy niece was next in line to become Her Toothiness, she could be victim number eight. I wondered if they suspected as much. “Who do you think kidnapped her?” I asked.

“That’s what we’re paying you good money to find out. If you’re not up to it . . .” Peyton said, his eyes on the teeny check in my hand. My fingers curled around the paper. “I’ll find her.” Alive or dead, I added silently. “You can bet on it.”

“Good,” he said with a nod. “Then we’ll leave you to it.”

And with that, the twins hefted up their tiny pants and left my office, the stench of cabbage and fairy dust trailing behind them. Tinkles of demonic laughter followed them down the hall and out of the building.

Damn it, the winged devils had duped me.

They sure as hell knew more than they were letting on, and that could only mean one thing. I was in serious trouble. I glared down at my foot with its missing toe.

When would I learn?

 

An hour later I had downed half a bottle of whiskey, for purely medicinal purposes. Who knew what sort of diseases those two carried? And then I picked up the phone, dialing a number I’d sworn never to call again, a number that often haunted my nightmares.

Oddly enough, the first three digits were 666, the mark of the beast, which fit Little Bo Peep to a T. “What?” Bo’s overly sweet voice answered.

“Hey, Bo,” I said. “It’s Blue.”

“Blue?”

“Blue Reynolds.”

“That name doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Bo.” I rubbed my fingers over the bridge of my nose. “I said I was sorry about . . . well, you know.”

“Sorry?” Her voice rose two octaves, nearly blowing out my eardrum. “You electrocuted my entire flock. I hire you to find them and next thing I know, the neighbors are enjoying a nice rack of lamb. From my sheep!”

I grinned. Add enough BBQ sauce and the damn things could’ve passed for tough chicken.

But Bo wasn’t finished listing my multitude of sins. “And then after we . . . you never called.” She blew out a harsh breath, as if deflating under the weight of my failings. “What do you want, Blue?”

“I have some information . . .”

“What makes you think I care?”

I bit my tongue. “Have you heard anything about the Fairies lately?” Little Bo Peep, for all her talk of tending her sheep, spent an abundance of time tending another flock, one filled with rich politicians and gangsters. She knew exactly where the bodies were buried because she’d put them there.

She snorted. “Stay away from those winged bastards. Fairies aren’t the forgiving kind. They’ll cut your bluish heart out.” As opposed to Bo Peep, who, a year ago, had hired two thugs to kneecap me in a dark alley. Since I walked without a limp, Bo held more than a wee grudge.

I sighed. “Too late.”

“What’s going on?” she asked, sounding interested for the first time since our conversation started. “Do you know something about Jack the Tooth Ripper?”

As much as Bo wanted revenge for her fried flock, she wasn’t stupid and, more importantly, at heart she was a businesswoman. And any leverage when dealing with the Fairy Council would pay dividends. And the biggest influence would be catching the fairy serial killer.

“I might know a little something about something,” I lied, reeling her in. “But there’s a price.”

Her sigh echoed through the line. “I expected no less from you.” She paused for a moment. “Let’s get it over with. How much?”

I thought of my cramped office, my even smaller apartment, and the large hole in my sock, not to mention the nearly empty bottle of whiskey in my bottom drawer. It would be so easy just to name a price, to sell what little untarnished piece of my soul still existed. But I needed something else more. Something I’d longed to have for over two decades. Answers. The kind kept locked in dark places. Places a guy like me could never access, not without the right sort of pressure. “You know what I want, Bo.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “You ask too much.”

“I ask for what I’m due.” My fingers gripped the phone tighter. Sparks flew from my fingertips, melting the plastic beneath. “No more. No less.”

“Nothing good will come from it, Blue. Just let it go.”

“I can’t.”

“Don’t I know it.” She hung up, leaving me holding a half-charred receiver to my ear. I cursed, throwing the phone against the wall. A large phone-shaped chunk of plaster fell to the floor. Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm the rush of violence and heat filling my body. I hated the way I’d let her get to me. But she had information I needed. More than needed.

What she knew could possibly save me from my electrified curse, a curse I’d had since birth without any clue how or why it happened.

If only I could find a way to pry the information out of her.

I picked up a broken pencil from my desk and tapped my chin with it, replaying our conversation. Bo Peep kept her cards and her sheep close to her abundant chest, but she had let something slip.

Or rather she hadn’t let it slip.

Apparently, no one besides the twins either knew or cared about the kidnapping of a half-human, half–Tooth Fairy. That meant one thing: Either the twins were setting me up, a definite possibility knowing those two, or the Tooth Fairy’s kidnapping was being kept hush-hush for a bigger reason.

Not that my speculation mattered one way or another. If the Tooth Fairy were still alive, I would bring her back to the tiny arms of her loving family.

Or die trying.

Scratch that.

The twins’ check didn’t cover funeral expenses.