“What ate my friend?”

My voice sounded shrill and unsettled me. As much as his plastered-on grin had bothered me, the dead serious look that spanned his face now was far worse. Something in his furrowed brow said I didn’t want to know what he meant. He elaborated anyway.

“Ate. Shredded. Consumed. Whatever you want to call it,” he said, settling into the passenger seat. “I have a pretty solid theory, but I need to see where it started to be absolutely sure. If you take me to his house, you’ll be the first to know. Probably the only to know, if I’m correct.” He gave a shrug.

It was clear he had no intention of telling me more until he got his side of the bargain, and I could not begin to make myself turn him down. I was far too curious for my own good.

I regretted my curiosity as soon as he closed the door and we were elbow to elbow in my little car. This was far too close—too intimate—for my comfort. And of course, he looked perfectly at ease.

Traffic thinned as we veered away from the river and left Route 7 behind, and my thoughts had some space to organize and rally.

“Major,” I began, but he cut me off.

“Doc.”

“What?” I asked.

“Doc. Major Dakota Harrison is a mouthful. My friends call me Doc.” He said without looking up from the notepad he had been scribbling away at all morning.  

I chewed on that, finally deciding that this was a situation that called for clarity.

“I’m not your friend, Major.”

He looked up and was back to his overly friendly, irritating smile.

“You’re too pretty to have enemies; you should be my friend.”

“It’s wildly inappropriate for you to be hitting on me right now.”

“Yeah, but it’s fun.” He gave a shrug. “Life is short, we could be tomorrow’s entree for all we know.”

My god, this man had absolutely none of the decorum the plant lackeys usually held.

“Also a wildly inappropriate thing to say.”  I muttered.

“You were about to ask a question?”

I set my jaw. I knew I should just shut my trap and drive. Being around the plant people was kind of like being under arrest; no matter how innocuous he may seem, anything I said could be used against me. But as the silence stretched, I couldn’t shove down my curiosity.

“What kind of animal could drag a man from his home, take him five miles to the river without a trace, and then…” I trailed off. The nausea was back at the thought of the bits of person that had come in on the nets.

“Chow down like it was the Grinchy roast beast?”

No. Decorum. At all. That was an image that was going to linger. I gave him a nod and stared pointedly at the road ahead, determined to bring back the previous comfortable silence. The Major went back to scribbling.

“And who says it’s an animal?” He asked.

I whipped my head in his direction. There was no way he could be implying what it sounded like he was implying.

“You don’t think a person did this??”

He only shrugged. We rode the rest of the way in silence. I sifted over the day in my mind, jumping from the broken door hinge to the scratched-up dirt floor to the horror at the river. It would make sense that they’d send the MP’s if they thought this was a person. Their whole interest seemed to be in shutting us up. They’d come in to tamp down the hysteria, lock someone up, and sweep it all under the rug. Their efforts would be wasted, though, because there was no way that a human could do this. Maybe a bear or a mountain lion. Or something else. But not a human.

“Who’s here?”

“What?” I asked, but as I pulled from my thoughts, I saw what he meant and really wished I’d refused him a ride.

Luce’s bike was parked front and center of the Thomas house. I swear she was determined to give me a goddamned aneurysm. She had probably come back out of morbid fascination. The opportunity to really poke around without the office of the Mayor keeping tabs on her— maybe get a souvenir now that she knew someone had died here.

“I’m gonna kill her,” I muttered as I unbuckled and stepped out of the car.

I was vaguely aware of footsteps following in my wake as I marched into the house.

The gaping front door was barely behind me when I found more than what I was looking for. I came in just in time to see Claude Henry frantically buttoning his jeans with Luce standing next to him. Her shirt was completely unbuttoned, lipstick smeared, and skirt askew, but she just stared at me with her hands parked on her hips. Claude Henry was fidgeting in his apparent discomfort, but Luce stood straight and proud.

“Oh.” The major said with a low chuckle. “Hello, there.”

Luce trailed her gaze past me and raked it slowly up Harrison’s body. Claude Henry, appropriately fastened now, tensed, and his eyes darkened. My sister had no shame.

“Who is this tall drink of water?” She asked.

She walked over to him without bothering to cover herself. If the situation weren’t so embarrassing and absurd, I would have laughed at the way he froze like cornered prey. His eyebrows lifted, but when he spoke, he managed to sound steady and professional.

“Ehrm.” He cleared his throat, “I am Major Dakota Harrison. Plant Investigative Police Division.”

Luce gave a little hum as she pulled just inches from him and walked her fingers up his tie.

“PIP? They put a snack like you in a department called pip? Now that is a crime worth investigating.”

She practically purred as she leaned in. She was certainly the predator in this dynamic. The major took a step back, out of her grasp.

“Indeed. And you are?”

“I’m Luce. That,” she absently waved in my direction, “is my baby sister. She’s got a stick up her ass, but don’t worry, I’m all kinds of fun.” She said, advancing again, undeterred by his escape attempt. Her hand reached to rest on his chest.

It was too much. I opened my mouth to tell her to get her shit together, but as soon as her fingers touched his blazer, he caught them in a vice grip.

She cocked her head to the side, grin widening. It was all I could do not to groan aloud. She had that look in her eyes—she wasn’t going down without a fight.  As uneasy as I was, I was the picture of calm compared to the tension that radiated from Claude Henry. I imagine he didn’t picture his lucky afternoon going downhill quite so fast. Still, when the Major’s hands entrapped Luce, Claude Henry took a step forward. Apparently, he was still prepared to play valiant defender.

Harrison pulled his attention from my sister just long enough to freeze Claude Henry with a single raised brow and then gently but firmly moved Luce’s wandering hands back to her. He seemed to have found all the gravity and decorum he’d been missing so far.

“Ma’am, you and your boyfriend need to leave. Now. This is an investigation, and the Mayor and I have work to do.” He said.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Dakota.” She pouted, “Let’s go get a drink, and you can tell me all about PIP.”

From my angle, I could see the muscle flutter in his jaw. He was fighting a losing battle with either temptation or irritation.

“Major Harrison, ma’am. And thank you for the offer, but no.”

“C’mon, Lu, let’s just go,” Claude Henry mumbled from behind her.

“Oh, boo.” She said with a sigh.

She didn’t look at Claude Henry, but instead slowly buttoned up her blouse and kept her eyes on the Major. He kept his eye on hers and well away from where she was trying her best to draw his attention.

“See ya later, handsome.” She mouthed as she ran her hand over his bicep and walked out, Claude Henry in tow.

Harrison stood frozen until we heard the bike start, and then he slumped, bracing his hands on the table.  He ran his hands over the back of his neck.

“That ” He shook his head. “Is your sister?

I nodded, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“My god. She’s scarier than anything we are going to churn up here.” He said.

He wasnt wrong. I chewed on my lip and nodded again. No point in trying to defend this little scenario.

“Is she always like that, or am I just lucky? Who was the sad sap with her?”

“Yeah. I… sorry. She’s… I don’t even know what to say. That’s Claude Henry.”

That caught his attention. His face whipped up to mine.

“Claude Henry Flint? Like, your second in command — basically the vice Mayor of Charon?”

I felt the heat rising up my neck and into my face. Of course, he knew the org structure here.

“That would be the one. Vice Mayor is a pretty small job in a town this size.”

“Little bit bigger when you are sticking it to the boss’s sister, huh?”

I flinched. It would take years of my life to get over how embarrassed I was at what had just happened.

“Major, can we…”

“Doc.”

“What? What happened to Major Harrison?”

“He comes around under threat. I told you. She’s scary.” He said, dramatically widening his eyes and pointing after my long-gone sister.

“Let’s just check the place out. We are losing daylight.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

His fake salute was annoying, but I was glad to have an excuse to leave the topic at hand. The investigation was pretty short. We covered the same ground as earlier, with nothing new except a plate that had been pushed off the table and shattered. The carefully set table had taken the brunt of my sister’s “fun”.

The Major took on the basement solo. I didn’t trust my waning composure to hold. Small spaces were bad enough. Small spaces with mystery monster marks were more than I had left in me at this point.

My walkie had died, and I had a charger in the car, so I opted to wait there. The AC felt good on my face— it was still red and hot with embarrassment. I rested my forehead on the wheel, kneading the space between my neck and my shoulder, and trying to clear my mind.

The walkie powered on with a high-pitched whine, and I jumped, spilling old coffee across the center console. I was still cursing and sopping up the mess when the static was broken by a panicked voice.

“Eva, come in. Eva? This is getting bad. Eva?”

I could tell it was one of the field guys, but I couldn’t tell which. The voice got quieter but no less tense.

“Eva, don’t break in on the line. I am going to leave it live. They’re coming.”

Major Harrison had opened the door, but slipped in silently when he realized there were voices. We stared at each other as the message ended.

For a long moment, there was silence.

And then all hell broke loose.