Page 2 of Falling

“They’re probably about to offer to help,” Evie said, reasonably. “Describe them, though. Just in case.”

I looked over at the pickup again, where a tall man with dark, short hair shot with threads of grey and shoulders broad enough to strain the seams of the plaid shirt he was wearing open over a plain black t-shirt was stepping out. He caught me looking and waved. A bright, friendly smile lit up his face.

He still might have been a serial killer, but he didn’t look like one. Not that I knew what serial killers were supposed to look like.

“Little over six feet tall. Short black hair,” I said, waving back as he approached, since that seemed polite. “Late thirties, early forties, maybe? Built like one of your boxing friends.”

“A bear!” Evie enthused. “You’re always bear catnip, you’ll be fine now. Love you, bye.”

I took a breath to say something, but Evie had already hung up. Well. It was nice of her to answer the phone in the first place. She didn’t do that for just anyone.

The bear—she was right about that—stood a handful of feet from the car, looking me up and down.

Bear catnip. She was right about that, too.

Sometimes, I thought it was a shame I wasn’t gay. Might’ve been a whole lot easier.

“You must be the new librarian,” he said.

I looked down at myself, from leather shoes through wool pants to sweater-vest and actual tweed blazer, and smiled wryly.

“How’d you guess?”

The bear chuckled. “Seth mentioned you were late,” he said. “I have just enough brain cells left to put two and two together. Call me Sherlock Holmes.”

Despite myself, the day I’d had, the fact that I was still standing in the middle of a forest, and the fact that gas station coffee just didn’t cut it in terms of my caffeine needs, I smiled.

“So, is this something someone with limited mechanical knowledge can fix, or am I just giving you a ride and calling Big Dick?” Bear Sherlock Holmes asked.

I raised an eyebrow.

“He’s our mechanic.”

I wasn’t sure that explained the part I’d been wondering about, but it seemed rude to interrogate someone who was trying to help about someone else’s name.

“Do you know how to change a tire?” I asked, nodding to the sad, deflated state of my back-left tire. “I’m maybe seventy percent sure Achilles has a spare.”

Now it was Holmes’ turn to raise an eyebrow. “Swift,” I said, pointing to the badge on the back of the car. “Because⁠—”

My strange friendly bear laughed. “Yeah, I get it. Swift Achilles. Guess the tire is his heel.”

“No one ever gets that,” I said.

Holmes shrugged. “I always try to be different,” he said. “Luckily for you, I also know how to change a tire. Pop the trunk for me.”

“So you didn’t get murdered, then?” Evie asked the moment she answered the phone.

“No thanks to you,” I grumbled, throwing myself down on the bed, wincing at the way every muscle group in my body complained about the long drive. At least the bed was fine.

The bed was about the only thing that was fine. The cabin itself was a disaster. Only one lightbulb in the whole place worked, the bedroom window was jammed open an inch, the kitchen sink didn’t so much drain as evaporate and the whole place was grey and cold.

I hated it. I missed my cozy little apartment full of house plants and bookshelves and furniture that didn’t smell like something had died on it.

“I would’ve avenged you,” Evie said lazily. In the background, I heard a ball bouncing off the wall. She never could sit still.

Something tapped against the window. I looked up to see the beady eyes of a squirrel—possibly the same one from earlier, all squirrels looked the same to me—trying to squeeze through the inch of open window.

“Don’t try me,” I told it.