“So we can catch ’em all together. Nice work, Hot Stuff. Okay, let’s follow her and….”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because I promised her.”
There was a deathly silence as my assistants digested this information.
“So she walks and Green and Scaly dies, is that it?”
“You’re sellin’ out your partner for a skirt? That musta been some kiss.”
I slowly turned to face them, and, mad as they were, they fell silent.
“Now listen close,” I said quietly, “because I’m not going to go over it again. If we tried to follow her back to their hideout, and she spotted us, she’d lead us on a wild goose chase and we’d never catch up with them . . . and we need that so-called corpse. I don’t think her testimony alone will swing the verdict.”
“But Boss, if we let her get away….”
“We’ll find them,” I said. “Without us dogging her footsteps, she’ll head right back to her partners.”
“But how will we….”
In answer, I pulled Luanna’s scarf from my tunic. “Fortunately, she was kind enough to provide us with a means to track her, once we recruit the necessary were wolf.”
Guido gave my back a slap that almost staggered me. “Way to go, Boss,” he crowed. “You really had me goin’ for a minute. I thought that chickie had really snowed you.”
I looked up to find Massha eyeing me suspiciously. “That was quite a kiss. Hot Stuff,” she said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that young lady is more than a little stuck on you . . . and you just took advantage of it.”
I averted my eyes, and found myself staring down the road again.
“As a wise woman once told me,” I said, “sometimes you have to do things you don’t like to support your partner. … Now, let’s go find these Woof Writers.”