Chapter 34: Mother's Trouble
The business card sat on Cole's desk for two days.
He'd photographed it, traced the phone number through three different databases, and come up empty. The number was a burner—prepaid, purchased with cash, activated the same day as the mysterious summons that never happened. Whoever these people were, they understood operational security.
Information is their specialty. They said that like it was a brand.
Cole filed the card away and shifted his attention to more immediate concerns. The information broker Ephraim still needed handling, but that required careful planning. Right now, he had a different priority.
His phone buzzed at 6:47 PM on December 7th.
"Cole." Adalind's voice was tight, controlled, the way it got when she was holding back something that wanted to escape. "I need to see you. Tonight."
"What's wrong?"
"Not over the phone. Can you come to my place?"
He was already reaching for his jacket. "Thirty minutes."
Adalind's apartment occupied the top floor of a converted warehouse in the Pearl District—exposed brick, floor-to-ceiling windows, the kind of space that announced its owner's success without stating it directly. Cole had been here twice before, for brief exchanges that never progressed past the living room.
Tonight, she met him at the door looking nothing like the polished attorney he'd grown accustomed to.
Her hair was loose, slightly tangled. Her feet were bare. She wore jeans and a cashmere sweater that probably cost more than his monthly rent, but the effect was vulnerability rather than wealth.
"Thank you for coming." She stepped aside to let him in. "I know this is sudden."
"You said you needed help. I'm here."
The living room showed signs of agitation—a wine glass on the coffee table, half empty; a phone face-down on the couch; the particular disorder of someone who'd been pacing. Adalind gestured toward the couch and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a second glass and the bottle.
"I need to tell you something," she said, pouring. "And I need you to listen without judgment. Can you do that?"
She's going to reveal something. Test how I react.
"I can try."
Adalind sat beside him, closer than usual, her knee touching his thigh. The contact felt deliberate—an anchor, not a seduction.
"My mother is in trouble."
Cole waited.
"Catherine sells... specialty products. Herbal remedies, primarily. Most of her clients are legitimate—holistic medicine practitioners, naturopaths, that sort of thing." Adalind's fingers tightened around her wine glass. "But some of her products have other applications. For clients with specific needs."
Hexenbiest potions. The Schade family business.
"What kind of specific needs?"
"The kind that don't get discussed in polite company." Adalind's smile was bitter. "My mother made a mistake. She sold something to someone who turned out to be... problematic. Now he's demanding more product, and he's threatening to expose her operation if she doesn't comply."
"Blackmail."
"Extortion. There's a difference, legally, but the effect is the same." She set down her glass and turned to face him fully. "I can't go to the police—obviously. I can't go to my employer, because that would expose family weakness at the worst possible time. And I can't handle this myself because..."
"Because you're not that kind of attorney."
"Because I'm not that kind of person." Her eyes held his. "But I think you might be."
The words hung in the air between them. Cole felt the weight of what she was asking—not stated directly, but implied clearly enough.
She wants me to make someone disappear. She suspects I'm capable of it. She's giving me permission.
"Tell me about the person causing problems."
Relief flickered across Adalind's face. "His name is Marcus Raines. He runs a criminal operation out of a bar in Southeast Portland—drugs, protection, information brokering. He bought some of my mother's products for... I don't even want to know what. Now he wants more, and he's threatening to go public with evidence of her entire client list if she doesn't deliver."
"What kind of evidence?"
"Recordings. Transactions. Enough to destroy her reputation and probably get her arrested."
Cole processed the information. Marcus Raines—the name wasn't familiar from his show knowledge, but that didn't mean anything. Portland's supernatural underworld contained thousands of players who never made it into the narrative.
"What species is he?"
Adalind's eyes widened slightly. "You know about—"
"I know about a lot of things. What species?"
"Schakal."
Jackal Wesen. Scavengers, opportunists, cunning but not particularly powerful. A valid target if the criminal activity checks out.
"And what exactly do you want me to do about him?"
The question was a test. Adalind could request investigation, legal consultation, intervention. What she asked for would tell him how far she was willing to go.
"I want the problem to stop." Her voice was steady. "Permanently. Whatever that requires."
There it is.
Cole nodded slowly. "This isn't PI work. This is a favor."
"Yes."
"Favors create obligations."
"I understand." She moved closer, her hand finding his. "Cole, I know we've been careful with each other. Playing games, testing boundaries. But this is real. My mother is genuinely in danger, and I don't have anyone else I can trust with this."
The words hit something he hadn't expected to be vulnerable. She was right—they had been playing games, both of them. Two predators circling, each trying to understand the other's nature without revealing their own.
But this was different. This was Adalind asking for help, really asking, with no games and no masks.
She trusts me. Actually trusts me. That's dangerous for both of us.
"I'll handle it."
The relief that flooded her features was genuine. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, her face pressed against his shoulder, her body trembling slightly with released tension.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."
Cole held her, breathing in the scent of her hair, and wondered when exactly this had stopped being strategy.
They stayed on the couch for hours, drinking wine and discussing the details Cole needed.
Marcus Raines operated from a bar called The Golden Jackal in Southeast Portland. He had employees—six to eight, depending on the night—and he rarely left the building. His operation was mid-level criminal enterprise: drug distribution, protection rackets, information brokering. The kind of work that attracted Verrat attention without actually being Verrat-sanctioned.
"He's connected to dangerous people," Adalind warned. "Not officially, but there are relationships. If he disappears, someone might ask questions."
"Let me worry about that."
Adalind curled against him on the couch, her defenses completely lowered in a way Cole had never seen. The professional polish was gone, replaced by something more human—fear for her mother, gratitude for his help, the particular vulnerability of someone who'd just trusted a relative stranger with something important.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "For dragging you into this."
"You didn't drag me anywhere. I volunteered."
"Why?" She looked up at him. "We barely know each other. Why would you take this kind of risk for someone you've had coffee with twice?"
Because I know who you'll become, and I want to change it. Because you're the first person in this world who's looked at me and seen something worth wanting. Because I'm lonely and you're dangerous and that combination is irresistible.
"Because you asked," he said instead. "And because I like you more than I should."
Adalind smiled—not the sharp, calculating expression he was used to, but something softer.
"I like you too," she said. "More than I should."
Cole drove home at midnight with her perfume still clinging to his clothes and the taste of her lips still fresh on his. Tomorrow he'd start hunting a Schakal crime boss. Tonight he admitted something uncomfortable to himself.
He cared about her. Not as strategy. Not as calculation. Actually cared.
This changes everything. And nothing.
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