Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

I expected out of a fifty-year-old man with Marine tattoos on his arms. “People don’t usually change tapes often enough, so the saved footage is too grainy to be much help, or else they record over an important incident without realizing it. DVDs are better. These can’t be written over. When they fill up, they’ll automatically switch to a secondary disc. Since you’re only activating them when you are not here, they probably won’t fill the first disc in a week. So you just change them once a week—most people do it on Monday or Friday. Then you store them for a few months before you throw them out. If something happens to your system here, the boss is recording remotely as well.” He obviously loved his job.
    After some additional instructions and a little bit of a sales pitch to make sure we were happy with what we had, Adam’s man left with a cheery wave.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Gabriel told me. “I’ll change them for you.”
    He’d been as happy to play with the new toys as the tech had been.
    â€œThanks,” I told him sourly, unhappy about the boss is recording remotely part. “You do that. I’ll go take my temper out on that Passat’s shift linkage problem.”
    When there was a lull in customers about two, Gabriel came back to the garage. I was teaching him a little here and there. He was going on to college rather than becoming a mechanic, but he wanted to learn.
    â€œSo, for a person who just shelled out a lot of money for a security system, you don’t seem too happy,” he said. “Is there some trouble I should know about?”
    I pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes, doubtlessly leaving a trail of the sludge that covered every inch of the thirty-year-old engine I was working on and had gotten a good start on covering every inch of me, too.
    â€œNot much trouble that you need to worry about,” I told him after a moment. “If I thought there’d be a problem, I’d have warned you. Mostly it’s just Adam overreacting.”
    And it was overreacting, I’d decided after thinking things over all morning. Only a moron would believe that I was joining Bright Future in order to protest the fae—and somehow I was pretty sure that stupid fae didn’t last long. If they talked to Uncle Mike—or Zee (even if he was still angry)—they’d know that I was still trying to clear Zee.
    I might know a few things that made the fae uncomfortable, but if they wanted me dead for it, I’d already be dead.
    Gabriel whistled. “Jesse’s father installed the whole security system without asking you? I guess that’s pretty aggressive.” He gave me a concerned look. “I like him, Mercy. But if he’s stalking you—”
    â€œNo.” He’d go away if I told him to. “He feels he has reason.” I sighed. Things just got more and more complicated. I couldn’t involve Gabriel in this mess.
    â€œSomething to do with Zee’s arrest?” Gabriel laughed at my look. “Jesse warned me yesterday that you’d be preoccupied. Zee didn’t do it, of course.” The confidence in his voice showed how innocent Gabriel still was: it would never occur to him that the only reason Zee hadn’t killed O’Donnell was because someone else had gotten there first.
    â€œAdam’s afraid I’m stirring up a hornet’s nest,” I said. “And he’s probably right.” I wasn’t really mad about the security system. It was more than I could afford—and it was a good idea.
    I always get angry when I’m afraid—and Adam terrified me. When he was around, it was all I could do not to follow him around and wait for orders like a good sheep dog. But I didn’t want to be a sheep dog. Nor, to his credit, did Adam want me to be one.
    Which was something I didn’t need to tell Gabriel. “I’m sorry to be such a grouch. I’m worried about Zee, and the security system gave me something to fuss about.”
    â€œAll right,” Gabriel said.
    â€œDid you come back to help me with this engine or just to talk?”
    Gabriel looked at the car I was working on. “There’s an engine in there?”
    â€œSomewhere.” I sighed. “Go do some paperwork. I’ll call you in if I need a second hand, but there’s no reason for both of us to get dirty if I don’t need