She caught me looking at her and shook her head. "How can they afford to feed themselves? I mean, I've seen Jack at Beau's eating three or four of the specials all by himself for lunch, but I guess I never thought this was a daily occurrence."
"Shifter metabolism," I told her. "Remember, the tigers each weigh a quarter ton in their other shapes. And Logan … well, his eagle shape was the size of a small pony."
Logan nodded and put another burger on his plate. "Plus the energy the shift takes."
Jed, who was looking much better since eating, looked up. "And I haven't eaten food in centuries. I have some catching up to do. Maybe we could go hunting later to put by some venison for the winter? I would not want to deplete your stores."
Logan hummed anmmmsound. "I do love venison."
"Youwon't be around for the winter," Jack told the eagle shifter.
"We don't have to worry about depleting stores these days," I told Jed. "We just go to Super Target when we run out of food. We'd like to get a grocery store in Dead End one day, but so far, no luck."
"Ah." Jed nodded. "I have heard of this place.'At Target, what we value most shouldn't cost more.'"
"Right!" I said. Evidently, all those radio waves had filled him in on modern stores. "We shop there for food."
"Perfect." Jed leaned back in his chair and smiled at me.
"Perfect?"
"We will visit this venison store."
Or maybe radio waves weren't exactly enough…
12
Tess
Jack put a hand on my shoulder to stop me when I stood to help him clear dishes.
"You sit. My turn."
"Okay, but don't you want me to put the cookies in the oven?"
Both Logan and Jed perked up. "Cookies? Yes! The Keebler elves. E.L. Fudge. More chocolate! I once mentioned the cookie-making elves to the Fae and nearly started a war."
"They don't like Tinkerbell, either," Jack said, grinning.
Susan just laughed.
After the first batch was out of the oven and demolished, we finally got down to business.
"Okay, let's have it. The entire story, please, Mr. Shepherd," Susan said, pulling a notebook out of a slim, black briefcase.
"Nice bag," I said.
She flashed a grin. "Thanks. I splurged when I got the sheriff's job."
Jed toyed with his coffee cup, ignoring this interplay, and then sighed. "First, I should give you some context by going back to the beginning."
Logan groaned. "Three hundredyearsof context? Maybe I could skip this part."
"The door's that way," Jack said, pointing. "Don't let it hit you on the—"
"Whyishe here?" Susan looked at me. "And who is he? Agent Vasquez didn't like him, and I've learned that where there's smoke, there's definitely fire with P-Ops."
"I'm sitting right here, beautiful. Ask me anything you want," Logan said, clearly trying to be charming.
