Rawlings

by Ally Summers

  “Well I hope he's a little bit older than me.”

  I laughed again. “I'm sure that he is Mr. Jacobson. So what can I do to get started?”

  We spent the next several hours going through the library piece by piece. I learned where the different sections were, how community members came in to use the computers, and that their internet was pretty much a huge hub for any campers and people living out of their vans who were local. Apparently that was quite popular, not just because of the beautiful scenery and weather, but also because Hunter’s Lake had become a bit of a hotbed for shifters that were moving through the area. Mr. Jacobson explain to me that some would stay for just a few days, while others would hang out for a few weeks before moving on. He said it just had always been that way, he didn't really know why. I told him I thought it was just because the place seemed so welcoming, that's small town charm really drew people in. It was what drew me here after all.

  As six rolled around Mr. Jacobson was slowing down dramatically, taking a lot of breaks and sitting down. The place was completely empty and I figured that I could handle closing up, after all he left me a detailed manual sitting on the desk. I could figure this out! I was going to have to, soon enough anyway. And there was only one more hour that the library would even be open.

  “Mr. Jacobson? Why don't I close up for us tonight? You've done so much for me today! It would be the least that I could do.”

  He looked at me nervously. “You'll follow the manual? Make sure the back doors are locked first before you lock the front doors? All the lights have to be shut off and all the computers have to be unplugged.”

  “Not a problem. I can handle it, I promise you. It gives me an opportunity to show you why you hired me.”

  He picked up a mug that was sitting on the counter, still full of coffee, he said. “This morning it was a madhouse in here, I could hardly get a break. I'll just clean this out and then I'll be on my way. And Jessa?”

  I looked up from the manual to study his eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “I'm glad you're here. This place means the world to me, and I can tell that you are ready to be invested too.”

  He smiled at me almost a little sadly and then took his mug and walked toward the bathrooms at the back of the library. He emerged just a couple minutes later as I was still paging through the manual and said his goodbyes before he headed out.

  I continued to read for another forty minutes or so before I realized that it was nearly time to close up. No one had entered and the place was silent. I loved the silence of the library. I walked through some of the bookshelves taking a look at the books that were featured, picking up a couple and paging through them. I would never get over the smell of a good book. As I was nearing the back of the library with the keys in my hand suddenly the lights went off. I panicked. I looked down at my smart watch and realize that it was 7:00 on the dot, maybe they were on some sort of timer? But no, I couldn't remember that from the manual. It specifically said I needed to turn the lights off. And then the worst happened, the fire alarm went off. The place was pitch black with white strobe lights coming from the walls and a terribly loud alarm going off. But where was the fire? I didn't smell any smoke. I ran back to the front counter grabbing my cell phone as I made my way to the front doors. I took one last look over my shoulder but I didn't see anything out of place. No smoke. No fire. Just darkness.

  I dialed nine-one-one as I pushed through the glass doors and I waited for help to come.

  This was not going to be easy to explain to Mr. Jacobson. I had just totally ruined my first night on the job.

  3

  Rawlings

  “Who's this meeting with again?” I asked Nolan another member of our unit.

  “I don't know,” he said with a shrug. “Some hotshot sergeant from Portland? I guess that the captain thinks that our situation could be related to theirs. But it's been a couple years since they've had any activity. It just seems a little strange.”

  “Wait, the guy who was supposed to come for a face-to-face? We’re video chatting instead? Clearly he doesn’t feel we’re very important.”

  “You mean it seems like he's wasting our time,” Griffin added looking a little annoyed. I couldn't blame him though, this was our third meeting with other area detectives and sergeants in the past week. And none of them had any more information then then the one before it. Same situation, shifters were going missing, dead bodies were turning up, and then the story would change. They only had kids that had been kidnapped, or it turned out that they were teenage runaways, or the latest was a few girls had gone and joined a commune in California. That had nothing to do with us or our situation whatsoever. So as we walked into the conference room for another video chat, we all grabbed our coffee and sat down with a sigh.

  “Gentlemen,” the captain began this is Sergeant Giovanni Janson from Portland. He's going to talk to us about a organization that takes on shifters and convinces them about purity.”

  “Purity?” I asked. “What kind of purity?”

  The sergeant popped up on the screen. “I'm glad you asked. The Claw is an organization that focuses on shifter purity. They only allow shifters to enter to breed with other shifters, there are no interspecies relations whatsoever. They consider humans to be beneath them and I would go so far as to say that they would even consider humans as potential slaves if the opportunity presented itself.”

  Nolan raised an eyebrow, “If the opportunity presented itself? What does that even mean?”

  The sergeant continued. “Listen I'm just saying that if you have a couple kind of outlying community members who have been kidnapped, or convinced to join this organization it definitely resembles a cult. And you know that followers will do anything to make a cult leader accept them further into the organization. I would say that they would steal humans in order to do that if they thought it would get them a higher rank or more attention.”

  I started to take some notes, “And who is their leader?”

  “Well right now they don't have one. There seems to be a group of Elders that's running the organization from underground. We stamped out quite a few of them lately and even though they continue to grow over the years they've gotten more and more subdued. I can't lie Captain, I'm pretty surprised that you contacted me. The Claw just hasn't been as active lately, and certainly they are not about murder. If only because it brings too much attention to them. They don't want that kind of attention. They just want to do their business without being in the forefront most of the time. They think it's safer that way.”

  “Is it safer for the general public?” Griffin asked.

  “Probably not. Because it means that we do put them at the bottom of our pile of terrorist organizations. And the fact of the matter is they aren't real terrorists. As much as they have they pose a domestic threat, it's really only a threat here in Portland. I haven't heard anyone say that they have gone out of their way to smaller towns. Especially a tourist town like yours Captain, there's just way too many humans there. I don't think that they would want shifters from your area to join the ranks.”

  “So the sounds like another dead end,” I said looking directly at the captain and putting down my pen. My bear forced me to pace back and forth, annoyed by this lack of a clue. We had nothing new here.

  “I wouldn't say that.” The captain said smiling at the sergeant, “This information has certainly been helpful. Even if it's not for current events, in the future we need to pay attention to these things. Making sure that this organization, The Claw, doesn't start to take people from our area. We need to keep our eyes open gentlemen, we have to keep our people safe.”

  “Is that not why we're all here?” I asked. “To try to keep our locals safe? But if this is another dead end then we need to keep looking. We need to move on.”

  The sergeant agreed with me. “Yeah I've got a mountain of paperwork in front of me as well, unfortunately, the Claw is not the only organization in our area that's up to no
good. We've got quite a few human gangs as well that create their own fair share of trouble.”

  “Of course,” our captain added, “have a good day sergeant.” He turned the television off in front of us.

  He sat down at the head of the table shaking his head, obviously hoping that this was going to be the lead that we were looking for.

  “So what do we know?” He said looking directly at me.

  “Not much since my interview at Thunder Pike. Norma hasn't contacted me with any new information, I'd say that we're pretty much up the creek with them.”

  Griffin nodded. “You know how secretive they are up there boss. I'm surprised that Rawlings here got them to talk as much as he did. They do trust him more than the average bear though. And I definitely wouldn't recommend one of our human detectives wandering up that way. That’s just asking for trouble.”

  The captain nodded. “I was just hoping that we would get more. That we would know more at this point. Nine people have gone missing in the past eight weeks. That's more than a person a week at this point! And we've got nothing?”

  “Maybe not nothing Captain,” Nolan said as he held his radio to his ear. “Looks like we've got a break-in at the library, fire alarms going off but the fire chief says there's no fire there. Wants us to send backup.”

  Captain stared at us for a moment but no one moved, “Well go!” He shouted as he waved us off.

  “We’ll take this one Nolan, I know you've got to get home. You've been here way too long already.”

  Nolan nodded and grabbed his jacket ready to head out for the night. Twelve-hour shifts were the worst and I wasn't about to send him into some sort of burglary when he had already been here for eleven and a half hours.

  “You guys be safe out there,” he said as he gave each of us a fist bump before walking back towards his desk.

  Griffin and I grabbed our jackets and rushed out of the department.

  Time to get to work.

  As soon as we arrived on the scene it was evident something had gone down. All the fire trucks in town were there, sirens off but lights still going. Everyone just to be seemed to be standing around. Including a beautiful brunette with curly hair hugging herself outside of the doors.

  As I approached one of the firefighters, a friend of mine, Jordan jogged up to me.

  “No smoke, no carbon monoxide issues, the place is clear. We were just waiting for you to arrive, didn't want to leave the young thing by herself.” He said with a wink.

  “What's the deal?” Griffin asked him. “No fire but you guys are here?”

  He shrugged, “Must have been something faulty with the fire alarm system. Or a break in I guess. The employee said she was locking up for the night and all the sudden everything went off and then the fire alarm sounded. She ran out and called nine-one-one on her way out the door. Just in case I guess. She seems pretty shaken up though. Said something about being new to the area? I don't know interviewing is more your thing than mine. But if you guys have got it from here we're going to head out. Get back to the station and get ourselves some dinner.”

  “Isn't it a little late for that?” I joked with him.

  “You know us wolves, we eat whenever we get the opportunity to. See you later guys!” He walked back over to his crew and they began to load back up into the fire truck.

  “I'll handle the interview,” I said to Griffin, “why don't you walk around back and see if any of the doors are ajar or if the alarms are broken somewhere? I don't hear anything now, so I guess they've already turned it off. I just hope the sprinkler system didn't go off in there with all those books.”

  Griffin nodded and wandered away from me into the darkness. They were street lights on but it was still pretty dark, a cloudy night covering the moon. I walked over to the employee and immediately I was starstruck.

  From afar I could see her delicious outline and perfectly curled hair, but I couldn't see her eyes. Deep-set emerald green, they just spoke to me, and my bear. He immediately began pacing beneath my skin, ready to claw his way out if he had to. I had never experienced anything like it. I never lost control of my bear. Most of the time we were on the same page, occasionally when he needed to break out I would shift and run through the woods. Lots of locals around here did it, so no one was really shocked to see a random bear or tiger or cougar wandering around in the woods. But this time was different, he was practically clawing at my skin. I cracked my neck a couple of times to try to refocus myself, I couldn't change here, not now. I needed to interview this girl. And I needed to get my shit together.

  “Miss?”

  She took a deep breath before speaking. “Yes, officer. Listen I'm really sorry, but I don't know anything about anything. This was my first shift!” The words just started tumbling out and I could tell that she was stressed. My bear just wanted to protect her, I did too. Those perfect rosy lips and she was shaking slightly from the cold.

  Immediately I took off my jacket and offered it to her.

  “That's not necessary.” She said but as I left it hanging she decided to grab it and threw it around her shoulders.

  “I guess I didn't really dress for how cold it gets here at night? I don't know! I feel like this was all a terrible idea. My first night, can you believe it? My first night and the fire alarm goes off but there's no fire so I can't help the firefighters determine why the alarm went off! And there's nothing in the stupid manual about it.” She said as she held up an extremely thick binder for such a small library.

  “Manual?”

  “Yes, this is how I'm supposed to do everything every day probably for the rest of my life because I'm stuck in this tiny town with no family and no friends and was there a fire? Because I didn't smell any smoke!” She had started to ramble again. It was adorable.

  “No. There was no fire, we think it was just something faulty with the alarm system, but we got a call that there was a potential break-in. That would have set the alarm off kind of accidentally. Is anything missing?”

  Her eyes practically bugged out of her head. “Missing? What the hell could be missing from a library? I mean sure people don't return book sometimes and I guess that's technically stealing but what else would be kept in a library that's worth anything? The computers? They're like ten years old!”

  I put my hands up in front of her, “Okay I need you to take a breath and just calm down. Everything's going to be fine. Probably nothing is missing and just some kids were messing with you, they love to mess with Mr. Jacobson. I know he can seem like a really sweet older guy, but he has the tendency to be a little bit crotchety to some of the younger kids. They probably just thought he was closing up and played a prank. Let's just go inside and take a look around and make sure nothing's out of place, and you can get your belongings and we'll take you home.”

  She took a breath and said, “My car is here, I can drive.”

  “I insist. My partner will drive your car to your house and you can come in my car with me.” What was I saying? Victims weren't supposed to come in my car! But for some reason, I didn't care. All of her little stress ball was just pulling me in, making me want to protect her even more. I just wanted to be close to her, and inhale her scent, and make her feel better. Any way possible.

  “What's your name?”

  “Jessa, Jessa Langdon.” She said as she wiped some tears from her eyes.

  “Jessa, I’m Beau, Officer Rawlings, but you can call me Beau. I’ll take you home after we get your things. Is that okay with you?” I prayed she’d say yes. Also no one called me Beau, what the hell was I talking about?

  “Okay, that sounds good.”

  Griffin appeared from around the side of the building. “There's nothing over here Rawlings, all the doors in the back are locked just like she said they were. Doesn't seem to be any type of foul play.”

  I yelled back to him, “We're just going to pop inside and get her things, make sure nothing's missing. I'll meet you back out here in a couple of minutes.”


  We walked back in through the glass doors and immediately the victim, Jessa, let out a scream. “Oh my God! I don't think this was any kids!”

  I looked over to what she was focusing on. She was right, it wasn't. Glass littered the floor and claw marks were all over the carpet. The place had been destroyed in the front. And a big glass case right before the desk had been completely shattered.

  “What was in here Jessa? Can you remember anything?”

  She shook her head wide-eyed. “I know that they’re shifters in this town and everything, but why would someone do this? At the library?”

  We stood there in silence for just a few moments before Griffin followed us in.

  “I thought you were just going to grab her... Whoa. What happened here?”

  “I have no idea man. What would they be keeping in the library that somebody would shift to come get?”

  “And wouldn’t I have noticed? I've been standing out front this whole time! No animals went by me!” Jessa insisted.

  “Well they wouldn't have, would they?” Griffin asked her. “I mean they would have probably walked in looking like a human?”

  “And she wouldn't have known who was a firefighter and who wasn't. Somebody planned this specifically when you were here Jessa. Because they knew that you were new to the area and you wouldn't know any better. This wasn't just some kids, and this wasn't random, they were looking for something specific.” I put my gloves on and started to move some of the glass, and that's when I saw it a small plaque in the back of the case that identified what had been in it. “A shifter stone?” I said aloud to no one in particular.

  “You're kidding,” Griffin said in a little bit more serious tone than I would have expected.

  “No that's what it says, I thought those things were just a myth. I mean it's not like they have actual magical powers.”

  “Well clearly someone thinks that they do,” Griffin said looking at me knowingly.

  “What's a shifter stone?” Jessa asked looking between the two of us.