Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

of me killing Tim ... and all the stuff before that. He shrugged nervously and looked away. “There are a few who know something about fae or werewolves, but ... if they know anything more, they keep it quiet for fear of losing their jobs.”
    He sighed and came back into the shop. “Go ahead,” he told Zee. “Let’s watch Tim’s cousin paint the shop.”
    Once the two shadowy people moved fully onto the parking lot, Courtney was unmistakable. Instead of watching the whole process, Zee fast-forwarded it until the pair walked off with bags of empty spray-paint cans almost two hours later. He stopped the images when Courtney was close to the camera and impossible to mistake, her pretty, rounded face hard and angry. Zee flipped back and forth a little until we got a clear view of her companion’s face, too.
    The security system hadn’t been in place long, but Zee loved gadgets. He must have spent some time playing with this one.
    â€œIt’s Courtney all right ... I don’t remember her last name,” I told Tony. “I don’t recognize the man at all. If it were Bright Future, there’d have been more people.”
    â€œIt’s personal,” Tony agreed grimly. “You are going to want to give me those disks and file charges so we can give her some time to cool off. She’s not going to stop harassing you anytime soon unless someone heads her off at the pass. It’s safer for everyone if it’s the police and not the werewolves or the fae.”
    Zee ejected the disk and handed it to Tony.
    Tony frowned at it a moment. “I’m not worried about the kids, Mercy. But there’s something about those bones and that guy that is sending my old radar into fits. If that’s not a death threat, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. You stick close to that werewolf boyfriend of yours for a while.”
    I gave him a martyred sigh. “Why do you think Zee is still here? I suspect I’m not going to get a moment to myself for the next year, at least.”
    â€œYeah,” he said, a smile lighting his eyes. “It’s tough when people care about you.”
    Zee made a sound that might have been a laugh. He covered it by saying sourly, “Not that she makes it easy on them to watch over her. You just wait. All she’s going to do for the next few weeks is complain, complain, complain.”

3
    WORD HAD GOTTEN OUT THAT I WAS BACK IN THE SHOP and my regular customers started stopping in to express their sympathy and support. The graffiti only made things worse. By nine I was hiding in the garage, with the big overhead doors shut, even though that meant that the garage was hot and stuffy, and my electric bill was going to suffer.
    I left Zee to handle the customers, poor customers. Zee is not a people person. Years ago, when I first came to work here, his nine-year-old son was in charge of the front desk and everyone was properly grateful.
    I spent most of the morning trying to figure out the troubles of a twenty-year-old Jetta. Nothing more fun than sorting through intermittent electrical problems, as long as you have a year or two to waste. The owner got off her job at three in the morning and twice had gone to start her car and found the battery drained though the lights were off.
    There was nothing wrong with the battery. Or the alternator. I was upside-down in the driver’s seat, with my head up the Jetta’s dash, when a sudden thought came to me. I rolled over and looked at the shiny new CD player in the ancient car, which had held only a cassette player when it had last visited here.
    When Zee came in, I was using Power Words to describe service techs who didn’t know how to tie their own shoes but felt free and easy meddling in one of my cars. I’d been taking care of this Jetta for as long as I’d been working on cars, and felt a special affection for it.
    Zee blinked at me a couple of times to hide his amusement. “We could give your bill to the place that put her stereo in.”
    â€œWould they pay for it?” I asked.
    Zee smiled. “They would if I took it in.” Zee took a personal interest in our customers’ cars, too.
    We locked up for lunch and went to our favorite taco wagon for authentic Mexican tacos. That meant no cheese or iceberg lettuce, but cilantro, lime, and radishes instead—a more-than-fair trade in my view.
    The wagon was parked in a lot next to a Mexican