Jensen slowly made his way through the mansion, following Caroline with Kaylee by his side, and Fran and Darla in semi-flanking positions behind his mate. Kaylee's "copies" followed along behind Kaylee and the twins, each looking around the renovated mansion. Mostly trying to see what had changed since the last time they were there.
Zack followed, rather obediently behind them. Part of him wanted to follow the other males, and was surprised to learn that Roger, Lawrence, and Ulysses were male. As all of them looked rather scrawny... almost girl-like. It made him feel confident that he would get plenty of action from the Pack's females as Nick would be his only real rival... but in regards to the present inspection, he hadn't a wolf that long, and spent the first hour of wolf-hood losing his virginity with four eager she-wolves. So he followed the inspection group.
Martha and the pups brought up the rear of the formation. They crossed the many entrance hall as Caroline explained the obvious changes they had made and went to a side room near the front. Before it had been used as a trophy room that housed Jennifer I and Bartholomew's own past academic and/or athletic awards along with what awards Jennifer II had won for cheer-leading with Glendale High. Now, it was full of boxes that housed the items that were being sold and would be shipped.
"Lawrence and Ulysses did the most to package all of the boxes," Caroline explained, "and with the help of the shadows have their addresses of where they are to be delivered to for the items already sold, and only a post it note for those not yet sold."
"The shadows will likely finish up that work," Jensen commented, "all the pack will be needed for these will be physically handing them to the deliverymen."
Caroline nodded and began to lead the group on the rest of the inspection tour.
++++++
Julie nervously made her way into Glendale's police station. The officers there were all busy and paid her no mind as she went in, but she wasn't there to see one of the average officers. She was there to speak with Glendale's Chief of Police. She had tried the FBI the day before, and was only given the runaround, mostly because she couldn't name the agent that had recruited Frank.
That left her with one option, Glendale's police. He had to have met with the agent that recruited Frank, as it wouldn't seem bureaucratically accurate to yank an officer off the force for some special assignment without talking with his boss first. She found him getting a cup of coffee outside his office.
"Gill!" Julie called to him, "Gill, I need to talk to you!"
Her call raised several heads that turned to look to her, "Gill's" among them.
"Julie? What brings you here? How are things at home?" the Chief of Police, Gill, asked as he saw the woman and approached with his coffee in hand.
"We need to talk, Gill," Julie spoke, "Privately."
"Of course," Gill nodded, "come on into my office. We'll let these people get back to work."
They then turned and went into the office.
"So how are things at home?" Gill asked as he sat down, "Frank told me there was some trouble when he resigned."
"Resigned?" Julie gasped.
"Yes," Gill spoke, "something about dealing with some family trouble."
"There hasn't been any family trouble," Julie answered, "Abbey and Samantha are as smart as ever and are quite well. Nothing is wrong at home. I'm here because Frank told me that he'd been recruited by the FBI for some special assignment in Iraq. I don't want him going there and I want him to come home."
Gill blinked at all of this. The two stories were conflicting in every sense of the word. He didn't know how to really respond.
"I'm sorry, Julie, if you're here looking for any FBI contacts we've had, there aren't any," Gill said slowly, "Glendale has been a very quiet city, crime-wise. Nothing has gone on here to attract the FBI, and while Frank was a very good officer, I doubt that would be enough for the FBI to even consider recruiting him. They have their own school that they put possible agents through."
"Are you saying he lied to me!? Because Frank would NEVER do that!" Julie growled at him.
Gill only sighed. Julie's story conflicted with what Frank had told him. From an outside perspective, Frank DID lie to them, but Gill knew Glendale well, and knew Frank well. If he did lie, it wasn't of his own volition... but tracking down Frank would likely be impossible for the police other then a basic missing persons search. And enough time had passed that it would not be likely that there would be any clues as to where Frank had gone.
"He might have... although that would be tough for me to explain," Gill sighed as he pulled out a small business card, "we'll start a missing person's search, but I won't guarantee that we'll be able to meet with much success."
He then handed Julie the card.
"Meanwhile, you might want to look her up," Gill finished, "She might be able to explain things better then I can."
Julie looked down at it and read the name "Madam Serenity" at the top of the card.
"You're sending me to a fortune teller?" Julie gasped, "my husband is missing and you're sending me to a fortune teller?"
"She'll be able to explain some things a lot better then I can," Gill sighed, "and you'd be more likely to believe it from her then you would from me. There is a lot that goes on in Glendale that sometimes seems weird to people outside Glendale... Madam Serenity has helped us the most in these cases."
"Can't you do anything?" Julie demanded, barely holding back tears.
"A basic missing person's search, but as I said, it's not likely to succeed because we simply can not figure out where to start looking," Gill told her, "Or would rather we go house to house knocking on doors till we find him?"
"That'd be a start!" Julie cried and rushed out of the office, taking the card with her.
++++++
Back at "Wolf Manor" the pups gathered outside the manor to meet with two 99.9% deer, who were looking back at the pups somewhat nervously, as Martha stood nearby. The inspection had gone well and the rest of the pack was setting things ready for the rest of the day's activities.
"We thank you for doing this," Jenny said to Jack and Marcine, "You'll really help the pack."
"You worked hard when you were on our grounds crew," Bart added.
"Than...nnkkuh ya...ooo," Jack spoke in response as the final changes for him and Marcine were beginning.
"We come to wish you good bye to humanity and welcome your herd," Alice curtsied.
"Goo...duh ba...i," Marcine spoke, her voice losing its human tones and sounding more like it was imitating human sounds.
And then it happened. Jack and Marcine's tails finishing their growths and the two deer began to move away. Marcine raised hers, revealing the bright white underside to the pups and to Jack. She was ready to conceive fawns and let Jack know that she was ready. Jack followed her, took one careful sniff and was quick to mount her.
"Will they be happy?" Kevin asked curiously as the pups watched the two mating deer.
"They are playing the saxophone," Bart commented, using the euphemism the pups used for mating, "which is actually kinda weird."
"Weird?" Marcy asked.
"Deer usually mate in the fall," Bart explained, "but we're currently in spring and Jack still has velvet on his antlers. Bucks generally shed that velvet before mating, and that is done during the summer."
"Maybe they are different from normal deer," Jenny commented, "because of the game."
"Maybe," Bart nodded.
"Come along now, pups," Martha spoke, "let's let them mate in peace."
The pups then took Martha's hands, or tail and went inside, where Bart and Jenny would have their own work to do. Marcy, Kevin, and Alice likely would have to find something else to do.