For Your Paws Only (Supernatural Enforcers Agency #2) by E A Price

his home because he was afraid that someone else would try to move in on his turf?”
    Avery nodded. “Yeah, he was apparently really obsessive about it.”
    “But it’s been a week, and Reginald is definitely not coming back, yet no one else has tried to, why not?”
    Wayne shrugged. “Maybe they’re too scared.”
    The lioness pulled off her sunglasses. “You think there’s something to that?”
    He wasn’t the best as solving puzzles and working things out, so he relied on the instincts of his wolf to steer him in the right direction. And his wolf seemed to think it was odd.
    “It just seems weird, I mean, Reginald has blankets and even canned food in there – why wouldn’t another homeless person want them? It’s not like Reginald is coming back for them.”
    “Something’s scaring them away,” she agreed.
    “Do you think you guys can find out what?”
    Wayne nodded. “We’ll grab that care worker and see about finding some people who knew Reginald.”
    “Good, I guess I’m going to look through the stuff the techs actually did take from this place.” Cutter sifted through the paperwork he had on the case. “I can’t find a report on it.”
    Avery snorted. “There isn’t one. Hale didn’t do anything with it.”
    His wolf rumbled at the mention the chief crime scene technician. Hale was a crocodile shifter who suffered from a superiority complex – namely that he believed every single person on the planet was beneath him.
    “Fucking crocodile,” grumbled Wayne.
    Hale wasn’t exactly liked throughout the SEA, but, in particular, he didn’t get along with the gator shifter. It wasn’t a matter of personality; it was a matter of species . Wayne had tried to explain it once. Apparently there was this big rivalry between alligators and crocodile shifters. Crocodiles tended to be richer, snootier and had serious chips on their shoulders, and considered gators to be the lesser hicks of the shifter world.
    As far as Cutter was concerned, they were all just lizards and almost the same. Although, he didn’t say that out loud, not after the first time when Wayne went berserk. Hale treated Wayne with as much respect as gum he’d stepped in and was having trouble scraping off the bottom of his shoe.
    “Why hasn’t Hale done anything with it?”
    “Well, when I asked him about it, he told me it was low priority,” said Avery. “He explained that the items weren’t from the actual crime scene and because the murder was of a homeless man, he considered the case to be less important than his other cases.”
    His beast growled as he snapped the file shut. “He actually said that?”
    “Almost word for word,” confirmed Avery.
    “Fucking crocodile,” reiterated Wayne.
    Cutter rubbed his head, running his hand over his short, bristly hair. “I’ll go talk to him.”
    Avery pouted. “Aww, I’m sorry I’m going to miss it. Usually, when you talk to someone, it ends with punching. After the crap he gave me over the case, I’d have loved to have seen Hale getting punched.”
    “Wouldn’t we all,” muttered Wayne.
    “I’m not punching anyone.”
    The lioness threw back her head and barked with laughter. “Gets funnier every time you say that. C’mon, Leatherhead, let's go.”
    Wayne stood up and stretched his lithe form. “Leatherhead?” he inquired in amusement.
    Avery gave him a look of mock exasperation. “Apparently you’re not as well versed in eighties cartoons as I am.”
    The alligator gave her a cheery, crooked smile. “Nah, growing up, we never had a TV. My momma said it rotted your brain.”
    Cutter bit his tongue. He could have argued that fish head stew and all the other putrid sounding dishes he raved over might do that. But, like crocodiles, he’d learned that his momma’s kitchen prowess was a sore subject. Seriously, though, his family seemed to eat all the parts of animals that everyone else threw away.
    The lioness looked at Wayne agape. “You poor thing, how on