by Ally Summers
Rawlings
Undercover Shifters
Ally Summers
Meredith Clarke
Copyright © 2019 by Ally Summers & Meredith Clarke
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Rawlings
2. Jessa
3. Rawlings
4. Jessa
5. Rawlings
6. Jessa
7. Jessa
8. Rawlings
9. Jessa
10. Rawlings
11. Jessa
12. Rawlings
13. Jessa
14. Rawlings
15. Jessa
About the Author
1
Rawlings
“Another hiker dead!” I jumped as my captain slammed the newspaper down on my desk. “And how do they already have wind of this?”
“It's not like I gave an interview or anything. Somebody called asking if someone had been lost up on Thunder Pike. I couldn't lie about it, we've had a chopper up there. People were going to notice.” We were a small community, with tons of tourists, of course, people were going to notice. My bear practically sighed beneath my skin. Cap was being ridiculous to think otherwise. I ran my hand through my dark shaggy hair. It didn’t used to be so messy but I hadn’t been getting much sleep these days.
“I agree, people are noticing. Especially because we have a pattern.”
“We don't have a pattern!” I said rolling my eyes. “A few hikers have been lost, it's not uncommon for this time of year.” My captain was always so quick to jump to conclusions. We barely had any leads to suggest it was more than just missing hikers.
“A few? The number is nine for the season, Rawlings. That's not a few, that's a pattern. To these people's families, we're not doing enough. And I don't want to hear from the County Commissioner about how I'm not busting my ass trying to find a reason for all of us. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes sir.” I sighed, rubbing my temples. I wasn't trying to make light of anyone going missing. That wasn't the point. I was just trying to figure out what the hell is going on, as was everyone else in the department. But the problem was that I didn’t have a single lead. It felt like we were hitting a brick wall anytime we went up to Thunder Pike. And that wasn't the only location where people were missing from. And we couldn't find a single connection between any of them. Besides the fact that they were shifters, which is why my department was assigned to them to begin with. While the rest of the station handled regular cases, my department only focused on cases that involved shifters. My kind.
Supposedly they were sending some bigwig detective all the way from Portland to help us determine if the missing people were involved in some other case in their jurisdiction. But deep down I knew they weren't. These were just regular folk, going on a hike, and getting lost. And honestly, maybe some of them meant to get lost. Being a shifter was hard, on a good day. And with the new laws and legal registration, some people were giving up on Humanity altogether. Shifting permanently and never coming back. And that was their right! Who was I to question them? Just because I fit in just fine with “normal” society, didn't mean that other people didn’t struggle with it.
“That Detective from Portland will be here in the next couple days, I think. But in the meantime I want you and Griffin to head up to Thunder Pike and see what you can find out.”
“Those people hardly talk to us, they're not going to give us any information about some missing bear.”
“I don't care what they tell you, but I want you to do some sniffing around. Do I make myself clear?” I stood, fighting back my bear rumbling deep inside me. My captain, while my boss, was no alpha, and my bear was not going to take shit from him.
“Of course Captain, we'll get to the bottom of this.”
“You better, or it'll be all of our jobs on the line.”
“Griff, we're up.”
Griffin jogged up next to me holding a donut in his hand and grabbed his jacket off of his chair by his desk. The office was busy for this time of day, but everyone had a case to solve. If not some smaller case, then they were all assigned to one of the hikers. Find out where they lived, who they talked to, what kind of shifter they were. We were all busy, all the time. It was exhausting.
“Where we headed?” He asked muffled, his mouth full of donut.
“Thunder Pike.”
“You're kidding. People up there won't say crap to us about what's going on. You know they keep to themselves.”
“I know that, and you know that. And honestly I think Captain knows that too, but at least then he could say that we made an attempt.”
“So what? He wants us to question people? Act like they’re some type of suspects. You and I both know that's not true. Nobody up there would hurt anybody. Not intentionally at least.”
“I know,” I took a deep breath. “But he's serious Griff, he's threatening our jobs. He’s getting pressure from people higher up. He says that we have to find the end to all of this.”
“The end to all of what? People go missing. We're not a tiny area. Hunter's Lake is a huge tourist destination, humans and shifters alike come here from all over the United States.”
“And even Canada,” I said winking.
He rolled his eyes.
“What was that girl's name again? Charlene?” I said with a smirk on my face.
“Yeah, what about her?”
“Have you heard from her?” I asked as we got into my unmarked car. A nice SUV that the station had provided Griff and I share.
As partners we practically shared everything. War stories, long nights doing surveillance, and every once in awhile we would get a little bit into our love lives. Mine was simple though, because it was nonexistent. I was married to the job and happy to be. I didn't need some woman complicating my life. Griff was different though, he was always looking for someone. And I didn't blame him for it. Our bears were practically uncontrollable until they settled down with a mate. But for some reason mine was just like me, couldn't care less about finding a mate. Griff on the other hand, was always looking for the one. All that I remembered about Charlene was that she was Canadian, and had brown hair.
“No. She hasn't reached out. Not that I really expected her to, she's human. She doesn't understand our ways.”
“You mean the mating thing?”
“No I mean the whole claiming ritual. I thought things were getting a little bit serious so I started to explain some of our traditions and she freaked. Started spouting some feminist stuff about how she'll never be owned and that was the last time I saw her.”
“But you’re a feminist.”
“And so are you, but it doesn't mean that sometimes women misunderstand our lifestyle.” He sighed and slowly rolled down the window. “I really liked her. She was fun.”
“Well maybe fun isn't what you're looking for man.”
We got onto the highway and made our way towards Thunder Pike. With a 45-minute drive ahead of us I cranked up the radio. Not that I wasn't willing to listen more about Griff's love life, but I needed to focus. I needed to think of any way to get the Thunder Pike people to tell us something about the missing shifters.
When we arrived it was pretty much exactly how I expected it to be. A bunch of lonely cabins overlooking a cliff, it wasn't that it wasn't beautiful. Had they taken better care of it, it could be something really picturesque, but really the people of Thunder Pike just didn't care. I had a cabin not t
erribly far from here, and the scenery only fifteen minutes to the West was just as beautiful. Because me and my neighbors, we were interested in keeping it natural, keeping it the way it was meant to be. But Thunder Pike was a little bit more redneck than my neck of the woods. The shifters up here were unruly. Bears and lions and tigers that couldn't be tamed. They just couldn't live with the humans, though sometimes I didn't blame them. Shifter laws didn't really favor us as a species, they favored the weak. Our supposed prey back in the day.
The people of Thunder Pike and other various shifter communities around the country just felt like they needed to be off the grid. Needed to be away from all the politics and rules. They're on their own up there. If they were sick, they didn't call the doctor. If they needed shifter interference, they didn't call the police. They just lived on their own, partially off the land, and they had jobs that allowed them to be on their own. Few of them were truck drivers. A couple farmers, and one local healer that mostly did some pretty hard drugs. It was a hard life up there. But it was a life that they fought for. And they fought hard to keep it a secret.
So as soon as we got out of our car I could see the shifty eyes. The distressed amongst the group watched me warily. I knew getting them to talk was not going to be easy. Even though I only lived fifteen minutes from here, I was still considered an outsider. Luckily I had purchased my parcel of land from one of them, an older lady named Norma. She also had land down in town as well. A couple cottages and a bed and breakfast that while she owned she didn't really ever go visit. Tourists just weren't her thing. It took us standing there for about five minutes before she wandered out of a mobile home with a smile on her face. It was the warmest welcome we could possibly get.
“I know I have old eyes but I can't imagine that I see Beau Rawlings in front of me.” She said with a smile as she opened her arms to me.
“Your old eyes see more than you're willing to admit. How are you Norma?”
She released me and gave my partner scowl. “Old. Not getting a day younger, but you didn't come up here to make small talk did you Beau?”
I shook my head. “Oh, no, I'm afraid that I'm here to talk business.”
It was like the whole community leaned into hear what I had to say after that word. She crossed your arms and side-eyed at me.
“Well? Get on with it. Why have you come to Thunder Pike?”
“Norma you know why.”
She rolled her eyes, maybe I do, maybe I don't. But I'd like an explanation either way.”
“Fine. We're here to talk about the missing hikers. I know something's going on up here, and we need information.”
Griffin spoke up, “Ma'am it's not that we mean any disrespect, but you know that you've got some unruly residents up in these parts”
She took offense to that. “You think one of these guys hurt those hikers? We all know those hikers were shifters! Bears don't hurt Bears.” She said flatly.
“But sometimes tigers do,” a low voice said behind her.
Casey Green emerged from behind Norma, a giant of a man and a tiger shifter.
“Is that a threat?” I asked him sternly.
“It could be.” He offered. “All that I'm saying is she's right, Bears don't hurt Bears. And sure, I've gotten in a few fist fights with them, doesn't mean I'm going to pull some hiker off the trail.”
“We recognize that,” Griffin offered. “But we need information, and the trails not far from here.”
“Neither is your cabin!” Casey said angrily.
“Are you accusing me of hurting these hikers? I'm a police officer.” Was he serious? My bear roared beneath the surface. If I could just take one hit at him...
“That doesn't make you perfect.”
“Fair enough.” I had to stay calm. Keep my bear under control or risk my job. Casey was a troublemaker. I knew that, so why was I allowing him to set me off? I offered him my card but he didn't take it. Norma rolled her eyes and yanked it out of my hand. “But call us if you see anything.”
Casey walked away and the rest of the community dispersed but Norma stood next to me for a moment longer.
“Last week a shifter wandered into our territory. He was hurt, pretty bad. Babbling something about getting grabbed. He was a panther shifter, a young one. It didn't make any sense for him to be out here on his own. I let him sleep it off at my house, I figured he just had a rough night with the drink. But the next morning he was gone Beau. Gone like vanished into thin air gone. I saw him in the paper a few days later, listed as missing.”
“Norma, why didn't you call me?”
She shrugged. “Thunder Pike keeps to themselves up here. It's just tradition. But if you ask me Beau, something's going on in these woods. And it's no shifters grabbing these guys. This is something bigger, I assure you of that.”
2
Jessa
I set my bag down and looked under the mat for the key. It was only a small cottage, but it was just me so I felt like it would be fine. A new start, renting a cottage from an elderly woman in a small tourist town. I took a look around as I fumbled with the key and realize that the area was beautiful. I couldn't have lucked out any more.
After my last relationship ended I had to get the hell out of the city. I just needed some time away, I gave him the apartment and packed my bags and left. Most of my belongings were still in a storage unit back in Denver, but I needed a clean break. I wasn't even sure I'd ever go back for that stuff.
Finally the key made a click and I pushed open the door in front of me. I looked around at the small one-room studio apartment of a cottage and felt suddenly very panicky. What if I had made the wrong decision? I didn't have any friends here, or any family. It was just me. Me with a job at the local library, a small building. I wasn't even sure it had bathrooms or access to Wi-Fi. But I was supposed to be their new Librarian’s assistant, and I was supposed to introduce them into a new era which would bring tourists in to stop by to take out a book while they were on vacation. Right now the place was practically dead. I didn't even have to show up for an interview, they just did a phone call with me, and immediately offered me the job. But as I had driven through the small town in my car, one of the few things I brought from Denver, I realized that there probably wasn't a lot of other options. Library science was a dying profession to begin with, and it was expensive as a college degree considering there weren't a lot of jobs. I knew other people from college who had moved to the East Coast and some even to Canada in order to find full-time positions. I'd been lucky in Denver, working at a children's library. But that just wasn't for me anymore. I would miss it. I really loved the reading corner and all the little nooks and crannies of the old building I used to work in. And as I had driven past the library here in Hunter's Lake I realized that the building wasn't old in a historically beautiful way, just in a 1982 sort of silver and ugly gray a type of way. I would miss the smell of the old building and the way the brick felt against my skin is I curled up with a book in a corner, but this change was welcome. It was time for a new start. For a new life.
The next afternoon after touring a little bit around the town I started my new job. The library was small as I expected but surprisingly there were actually bathrooms and Wi-Fi in front of me. Everything was turning up aces. Going far better than I anticipated. I even had an off-street parking spot so I didn't have to pay.
“Miss?”
“Yes?” I said turning around as I surveyed my new workplace. An older gentleman stood behind me with glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. White hair covered his head and he had on the cutest navy blue suspenders I had ever seen, that matched his very pressed pants. He looked like the perfect old school librarian and here I was looking like a total millennial with tan shorts and an oversized white shirt, I even had what I called my Instagram hat in my backpack. But the scenery here was beautiful, and if I wasn't going to take some pictures for my social media, then what was I doing here anyway?
“Can I help you find somethin
g?” He asked, peering at me as if he was almost observing my every move.
“Yeah, I'm here to work. I'm Jessa. I think we spoke on the phone, are you Mr. Jacobson?”
“Yes,” he said as a warm smile formed on his lips. He extended his hand and walked up to me. I took it and grasped it tightly. My father had always taught me to give a good handshake. It helps make a good impression on people, especially people who were my new employer. And as sweet as Mr. Jacobson looked, I could tell that there was more to him. Maybe even an animal side.
I knew that Hunter’s Lake was full of shifters. It didn't bother me at all, there were tons of guys in Denver that I knew that were shifters too. Even a couple girls, though they were rare. But I had never actually worked for one before. I didn't think that that would change anything though, he just seemed like a sweet old man, probably looking to retire after giving a respectable amount of years towards his community.
“It's wonderful to have you! I understand you have a lot of experience in website design?”
I shrugged as I let go of his hand. “I wouldn't say a lot of experience, but I've built three or four of them for other libraries and events that I've worked on. There was the children's literacy program back in Denver, I started their website from scratch practically. After it crashed a few years ago it was kind of all on me.”
“I think we hired you to mostly help us out with this whole new tech world. You see I'm not very caught up,” he said as he pulled a flip phone out of his pocket.
I laughed. “That's fine, my grandfather doesn't have a smartphone either.”