“Traction? Shit.” I frowned up at him. “No one said anything about traction.”

Ethan smiled grimly, dropping a grimy razor from the countertop into the bag.

“It was a joke, Faythe. His arms and legs are fine. And by some miracle, he didn’t lose any teeth.”

That was the best news I’d heard yet, because while a dentist could replace a broken or missing human tooth, the artificial parts would have to come out before Shifting. There was nothing that could be done about broken teeth in cat form. At least, not for a cat that wasn’t supposed to exist.

“I feel terrible. I shouldn’t have taken his keys.”

Ethan shrugged. “I told him I’d hold you down once he’s back on his feet, so he can get in a good swing or two.”

“Just not my face. Please.” I ran my fingers through damp hair, arranging and rearranging it, looking for a way to cover the left side of my face without compromising my vision. No luck. I could either satisfy my vanity or preserve my depth perception, but I couldn’t do both at once.

“Okay, you’ve primped enough. Now go bug someone else,” Ethan said, shooing me out the door. “I have to clean the bathroom.”

“That should be interesting,” I quipped. “Maybe I should stay and watch.”

“Maybe you should stay and help.”

Cupping one hand behind my ear, I grinned, pretending to listen. “I think I hear Marc calling.”

Ethan grunted and opened his trash bag, and I left him to his work.

I’d had serious doubts about the guys’ ability to clean, in spite of Marc’s reassurance, but never in my life had I been happier to be wrong. I’d spent less than half an hour in the bathroom, but when I came out, there wasn’t a soda can or pizza crust in sight. The floors and furniture were stil dusty, downright filthy in places, since there wasn’t so much as a bottle of Windex in the entire house. Stil , the transformation was unbelievable.

Eight large black trash bags sat piled against one wal of the dining room, each bulging with irregular shapes and closed with a white wire tie. Against the opposite wal , three more bags stood, half-full and stil open.

“Those are for the burn pile,” Marc said from behind me, nodding at the row of open bags. “The rest we’l drop into the nearest public Dumpster.”

“What’s in the open ones?”

“Anything that could expose us or identify them. Eric’s ID, his bloody clothes and shoes, al his personal possessions.”

Nausea stirred the contents of my stomach. “Please tel me you didn’t put him in a bag, too.”

Marc chuckled. “You’ve seen too many movies.”

“You’ve buried too many bodies.”

“I won’t argue with that.” He put one arm around my shoulders and squeezed.

“Eric’s stil in the basement. We don’t have time to deal with that kind of cleanup.

We’re just playing Merry Maids.” He paused, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “Haven’t you seen Pulp Fiction?”

I smiled. That was one of my favorite movies, and he knew it. “Let me guess, the Wolf is coming to tidy up my mess?”

“More like the Pink Panther. Your dad’s sending Michael over tonight with another crew to deal with the big stuff. The body, the mattresses, dismantling and disposing of the cages.” Marc ticked off the details on his fingers like he might name items on a grocery list. A bag of sugar, a loaf of bread, a gal on of milk, the corpse in the basement…

He grinned. “Rule number one for closing the site of an incident—never dispose of a body in broad daylight.”

“I’l try to remember that,” I said. “What about the furniture?”

“They’ll burn all the mattresses, including the ones up here, and leave the rest of the furniture, what little there is. The landlord can do whatever he wants with it.”

“So, you guys are almost done?”

“Just about. But we’re stil waiting on Parker and…” Listening, he turned toward the kitchen window, which I noticed they’d covered with a rough square of cardboard. “They’re back.”

“Good. I need some clothes.”

“Real y? I heard terry cloth was in this year.” He grinned, hooking a finger beneath the top edge of my towel. I slapped his hand away, trying to maintain a stern face. It didn’t work. “Come on, you look good in Egyptian cotton.”

“I look better out of it,” I teased.

His mouth dropped open, and his moan followed me through the dining room and into the entryway, where I peeked out through the glass in the front door. Abby tripped going up the front steps, smiling at something Parker had said, and I opened the door in time to catch her before she flattened the bulging Wal-Mart bags dangling from each hand.

“Thanks.” She brushed past me into the house, seemingly almost…normal. I glanced at Parker, one eyebrow raised.

He shrugged. “She just needed to get out.”

“I guess so.” But I credited her improvement to the houseful of familiar cats, rather than the fresh air. Smiling, I took the bag he offered. Clothes. Final y.

Abby followed me to the bathroom, where Ethan was stil busy. She dropped a bag of cleaning supplies on the counter and I led her to Sean’s room to change, on the assumption that his scent would bother her less than either Eric’s or Miguel’s.

My cousin had decent taste. Either that, or she knew me better than I’d realized. For me, she’d picked out a pair of low-rise jeans and a dark red tank, with wide shoulder straps. Black hair looks good against red, so I was pretty happy. Until I looked in the mirror. I should have known better than to look in the damn mirror.