She was going to have to be careful how she handled this. She didn’t want to go to Jillian and complain because then she might come across as someone who couldn’t manage conflict with her coworkers. But at the same time, she wanted to make sure her contract fee wasn’t going to be split with someone whose hiring she had no control over. How was she supposed to pay off her father’s debts with half of her fee? If that was the way Jillian was going to run things, Dani was going to have to set out on another assignment. Whether her next assignment was with the League or not depended on Jillian’s response.

Dani blew out a long, labored breath at one of the few stop signs between the rift and Main Street. She really hoped that she didn’t have to leave Mystic Bayou. She really liked it here. She liked her strange house on the water. She liked her friendship with Jillian and the connections she was making with residents of the Bayou. It had been a long time since she’d had a friend that wasn’t Trudy. And she’d liked what she’d started with Zed . . . until it got weird.

She was going to have to think on how to bring that back into non-weird territory. But first things first, her job.

Dani climbed the steps to Jillian’s office building, taking deep steadying breaths. She reminded herself that she was not approaching Jillian as her friend, but as her boss. She’d done nothing wrong, and she wasn’t making any unreasonable requests. She had to remain calm, but firm. And she could not accept any bullshit from Lara, the cranky secretary, who was lurking at her desk like a watchful vulture.

Dani didn’t even pause as she passed by. “Is Jillian free?”

“Almost never.” Lara sprang up from her desk, following Dani to Jillian’s door. “You can’t just walk into her office, she’s the head liaison! Do you have any idea what that means?”

“I really respect that you’re about to throw yourself across me like I’m some sort of incendiary device, but I need to talk to my boss. And I happen to know she is taking a morning pie break at this time of day, so I don’t feel like I’m interrupting any secret matters of the supernatural state.”

Jillian opened the door, her glasses propped on top of her head. “What’s all this noise? Dani, is everything okay?”

Lara jumped in. “I tried to tell her, Dr. Ramsay, but she—”

“I ignored her completely,” said Dani. “She did her best to keep me out.”

“Lara, it’s okay, really,” said Jillian. “You don’t have to give me the full Buckingham guard detail. Why don’t you go grab a cup of coffee or something? Decaf?”