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“You’ve got a visitor,” the secretary told Alice Anders as she waltzed in the office to check her inbox. “I just paged you. He’s waiting for you in the principal’s office.”
“Am I in trouble?” Alice asked archly.
To her surprise, the secretary only shook her head, looking flustered, and gestured at the principal’s door even more anxiously.
Leafing through her pile of fundraiser fliers and dress code memos, Alice opened the door absently, and drew up short.
Sitting in Principal Wetch’s seat was an undeniably impressive figure.
At six foot four inches tall, Alice was used to towering over other women, and even many men. But when this man stood politely when she entered the room, she had to look up to meet his eyes, and his shoulders were proportionally broad. His suit, probably worth twice Alice’s middle-school gym teacher salary, did nothing to hide the fact that he was incredibly ripped. His brisk handshake was strong and he was dead handsome, with a strong, clean-shaven jaw, and an artistic touch of gray in his short, dark hair.
Alice would have eaten her dirty gym socks if he wasn’t a shifter, and her bear rumbled in cautious agreement.
“Can I help you?” Alice asked, sitting across from him at his imperious gesture. She started to sit gingerly, then slouched deliberately.
“I think you can,” he said in a silky voice, settling into the principal’s seat and leaning back. “I understand you’ll be traveling just after the end of the semester for your coworker’s wedding.”
“Yeeeeees,” Alice said, drawing out the word. “Is there some problem with that? I should have my grades done in plenty of time. I’m only a gym teacher.” She could not quite keep the challenge out of her voice; she never backed down from a fight, and she sensed that this would shortly become one.
He smiled at her. “You’re a bear shifter.” It wasn’t a question.
Alice froze, and could not help glancing at the door, still barely ajar. Shifters were a well-kept secret in this area.
Before she could formulate a response to his statement, he went on. “You have a brother in Oregon, and two aging parents here in Lakefield.”
He gave her a conspiratorial look. “Such a shame that they’ll be losing the house.”
He continued before Alice could so much as blink at him.
“You teach gym at Lakefield Middle, and have been the wrestling coach here for seven years. You’ve taken them to regionals three years running, which is very impressive for a school of this size. You never returned your last rental to Blockbuster before they went out of business five years ago. Your bank account has seven hundred and twenty-three dollars in it, and you have lined up an under-the-table summer job at a construction firm laying concrete forms.”
Alice wasn’t the sort to stare. Glare maybe, if a student needed to be intimidated, but staring was for women who were easily shocked, or let themselves be surprised.
She was staring now.
“Interesting, that your last visit to Shifting Sands Resort ended up being canceled due to... what was it? Chicken pox?”
Alice didn’t believe for a moment that his hesitation was anything but feigned for effect.
“It’s rare for adults to contract chicken pox,” the strange shifter observed. “Rarer still for shifters to get it.”
“You need a note from my doctor?” Alice asked mockingly. She made herself keep her casual posture, even though she and her bear were both bristling in alarm.
“I already have it,” the man said casually. “But it’s a little odd that it was from a doctor in Portland. And that your airline tickets were changed at the last minute to Oregon, rather than Costa Rica. Took a bit of a hit on that, didn’t you?”
Alice was done pretending. “What do you want?” she asked outright, sitting forward and planting her feet.
The stranger smiled slowly. “I have a matter of interest at the resort, a problem that has recently escalated, and one that has proved unexpectedly challenging.”
Alice immediately distrusted his tone. “What kind of interest?” she demanded. “And what does this have to do with me?”
“I have an offer for you,” the man said smoothly, not answering any of her questions. “One that will more than cover your time and any inconvenience. One that will more than cover the medical costs your brother needs.”
Alice felt her heart drop out of her chest. “What do you know about that?” she asked fiercely, not even trying to pretend ignorance.
“I know that a million dollars will go a long way towards his care and comfort. With plenty left over to buy your parents a lovely retirement home.”
Alice forced herself to act like she wasn’t intimidated, though her stomach and her heart seemed to be having a wrestling match in her belly. “Oh, a million dollars,” she said mockingly. “Is that all?”
“Very well,” the shifter across the desk said, his mouth curving up in a smile that indicated he knew she was bluffing. “Fifty million. Money is no object to me.”
Alice had always thought that breaking into a sweat from anything but exertion was just literary nonsense, but she did now. “Fifty million?” she murmured, in a very un-Alice way. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
He laughed, and it was a surprisingly warm laugh. “Don’t look so shocked, Alice. I’m not going to have you murder anyone.”
That had been the only thing Alice could imagine for that kind of money, but she somehow didn’t feel relieved. “What is it you want me to do?” she repeated.
“The owner of the resort is a woman named Scarlet Stanson.”
You don’t have to murder her, Alice had to remind herself.
The man slid a business card across the desk. “All you have to do is find out what kind of shifter she is.”