by Ruby Knoxx
“It is,” I said. “But I’m not understanding why that matters now.”
As soon as I said it, I realized it. At some point, Kat would start discovering that she had a neat trick she could do. And if she was the only kid on the playground with this neat trick, and suddenly a five-year-old became a lion cub …
“Oh god,” I murmured.
I immediately started searching for the latest local news stories on my phone, anything that might indicate that animal control had been called about a lion on the playground. I couldn’t believe I was having to search for it, and I was a little more amazed that there actually were articles about exactly that, though none of them dated within the last five years.
I huffed and put down the phone on my lap, leaning my head back in the seat again.
“So then you haven’t talked to her about it, have you?” Leon asked.
“No I haven’t talked to her about it,” I snapped, a whole new set of worries going through my head. The idea of people shooting my baby with darts or, even worse, bullets. Or of her shifting back in front of them. Of a few dozen children seeing Kat go from animal to human and back again. Then what would happen to her?
I poised my phone again, deciding that maybe I should just refresh my search, just in case something popped up in the last thirty seconds. Nothing.
I gave up on the news and called the elementary school office again.
“Hi,” I said, feeling insane even as I spoke. “This is Justine Wilson, you talked to me a little bit ago about my daughter’s absence?”
“Oh, hello Mrs. Wilson,” the secretary said.
“Miss, actually,” I said, not even knowing why I was bothering to correct her. “Look, I’m trying to recall anything at all this morning. Kat stayed the night at a family friend’s house last night who dropped her off this morning. She is certain that she did. Um, I’m just wondering if anything strange was reported on the playground this morning?”
There was a pause.
“No,” she replied. “But your daughter is missing?”
I closed my eyes, swallowing and hating that I was having to have this conversation. “Yes,” I breathed.
“And your friend said she definitely dropped off your daughter?”
“She did,” I replied. “No one has said they saw anything odd?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Thank you,” I said, clicking off before I could talk to her more.
“Should we call the police?” I asked Leon.
“Not yet,” he said. “I can do what most police departments can do, and it can stay off the record with me.”
I was about to ask why it needed to stay off the record but answered my own question as soon as I realized that it might bring Child Services into play. That was not a group of people I needed to be dealing with.
“Oh god,” I moaned, fresh tears coming to my eyes. “What am I going to do?”
“I have an idea,” Leon said, putting that reassuring hand back over my knee and giving it a squeeze. “Just leave it to me, alright?”
As we approached the school, he pulled the car around the corner, out of sight of the building, and parked. “Trust me, and go along with it.”
Chapter 11 – Leon
I didn’t know what was fueling me more, the fact that Justine was upset or that I wanted to find her daughter. And did I want to find her because I cared about my mate, or was it because I was feeling the first twinges of fatherhood? Or maybe it was because I recognized the threat that Kat, as a shifter child, might accidently expose the existence of shifters.
All I knew was that I felt the rush of needing to find that girl, and fast. I knew it wasn’t fair to say that I wanted to find Kat as much as Justine did. After all, Justine was her mother, and I only just found out about her. But I felt a fierce protective instinct take hold of me, and I knew that I would do just as much to protect that girl as I would to protect Justine.
“Come with me,” I said as I got out of the car, popping the trunk. I pulled away the carpet that lined it and was taking out the spare tire by the time Justine followed me to the back.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I didn’t answer but instead removed the false bottom under which the tire had been and pulled out the briefcase under it. I knew she wouldn’t like what was in it, but needs must. I turned the number dials on either side of the two latches of the case until they read the right code before opening it.
“What the hell are you thinking?” Justine hissed as she swatted my arm.
I knew she wouldn’t like what was inside.
“You can’t bring a gun into an elementary school!” she persisted.
“I’m not,” I said, moving the two handguns aside and reaching for the police badge. I waved the little case with the badge in it at her before stuffing it into my shirt pocket. I put everything back before closing up the car. “Just follow. You don’t have to say anything. They know who you are, right?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe? I mean, there are hundreds of kids that go to that school, and Kat’s still relatively new there.”
“Well, just follow my lead.”
“Do I have to pretend to be someone or something?” she asked as we started to make our way toward the school.
“No,” I said. “Just you. But I’d rather you didn’t pretend that part.” I winked at her, but she missed it. I was glad she did. I realized what an idiot I was, winking at a distraught and worried mother.
I followed Justine to the front entrance of the school. The administration offices were immediately at the entrance. A woman sat at one of the desks behind the counter, looking at the computer. As Justine leaned on the counter, I followed suit. The woman looked up, her eyes falling on me first, a slight blush coming to her cheeks, before she saw Justine. Whatever she saw in Justine’s face startled her, and her gaze returned to me.
“I’m Officer Riley, and this is Justine Wilson,” I said. “I’m investigating her daughter’s disappearance.”
“Oh, of course,” the secretary said. “I was just on the phone with you. Just wait one moment. Let me just get you Principle Ledsma.” She stood from her desk and went back to an office for a moment before returning with a woman with short graying hair.
“I’m Principle Ledsma,” she said, her eyes moving between me and Justine. I could plainly see her skepticism. I showed her my badge, which she leaned forward to inspect before nodding, satisfied. “How can I help?”
“I assume you keep security footage of the premises?” I asked.
“Of course we do.”
“I would like to go through this morning’s footage,” I said. “We’re trying to cover all our bases to find Kat Wilson.”
She drew in a long breath. “I see. Well, I can’t let the footage leave the property without a warrant, but you’re more than welcome to look at the footage here.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s all we need for now.”
We followed her back past her office to a room where there were a few computers and a couple of filing cabinets, though not much else. One of the computer screens was on, divided into nine panels showing different parts of the school. It was pitiful, in my opinion.
“You don’t have the cameras monitored?” I asked.
“Unfortunately not, Officer Riley,” she said, sounding exhausted. She dropped her chin and looked at me over her glasses. “Budget cuts.” She punctuated each syllable of the words with her annoyance.
That was all she needed to say. I nodded my head as she walked me through how to access the different files on one of the other computers.
“I don’t think we’ll be too long,” I said. “We’re only looking for an hour’s span of time.”
“Well, take all the time you need,” she said. “And if you feel like sticking around and keeping an eye on the live cameras too, I won’t say no.”
With that, she left us to it, closing the door behind her.
&
nbsp; “You’re not a cop,” Justine said as soon as we were alone together. “Are you? I thought you were special forces.”
“No, I’m not a cop,” I said. “But there are certain perks to the job, and being able to use the law to my advantage is one of those perks. What time would your friend have dropped off Kat?”
“I think maybe eight or so,” she said.
I began lining up files to open, one at a time. Finally, we found one that showed the playground. In case her friend had come earlier or later, I decided to start the video half an hour earlier.
“So we just watch through this?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” I said. “It’s not one of the more exciting parts of the job, but it’s a necessary one.”
I leaned back in my chair and caught myself before I put an arm around Justine as we watched the screen together. There were hardly any kids on the playground at this time, but I didn’t want to skip anything forward. I didn’t want to risk missing anything.
“Leon?” she asked. “Why did you come back to the office this morning? I mean, after you and Mr. Rogers left.” I could hear the grimace in her voice as she said his name. At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like him.
“Rogers ran off with the file you put together for me,” I said. “I needed another copy.”
“Oh.” Her response was almost flat, like wet clay falling on the ground. Was that disappointment?
There was no sound to the video, and so we watched, our breathing the only noise in the room.
“Justine,” I said after a few minutes in the quiet of the room. “I wanted to tell you that I’m really sorry about last night.”
“Please,” she said. “We don’t need to talk about it right now.”
“I think we do,” I said. “I want you to know that I was just surprised, was all. There were a lot of surprises for me yesterday, and I think I just … I don’t know. But I didn’t mean to walk out like that.”
“You’ve shown me what you want to do,” she said. “That’s fine. You don’t have to be a part of Kat’s life.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“Honestly, Leon,” she said, rubbing her face with both hands. “I can’t talk about this right now.”
There was a pleading in her voice that I understood. She didn’t have the capacity for this conversation, not when she didn’t know if she would see her daughter again. She didn’t need to hear the part where just as she might be losing her child, I had decided to step up, that I did want to be a part of her life. Every kid deserved to have two parents, and every shifter child deserved to have a parent who knew what was going on with them.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the first picture of Justine and Kat that I had seen the night before. I couldn’t stop seeing myself in her, and I couldn’t help but feel that I was missing from that photo. All night I had thought about pictures of her to come, where I wasn’t present. She would be okay, of course, if I wasn’t there. Justine was an amazing and strong woman, and I had no doubt that Kat was in capable hands with her. But why should she only have one parent when she could have two?
Still, I just wanted her to know that I was going to do everything I could to make sure everything was alright. I wanted her to know that I would be there for both of them and that no matter what she thought or felt about me, she was still my mate.
“There!” Justine said, pointing to the screen. “That’s Nina’s car.”
Just on the edge of the screen, I could make out a green Volvo with a woman behind the wheel. She got out and helped a little girl with black hair out of the back of the car, equipped with a backpack that looked large enough for her to fit in it. They hugged, and the girl walked toward the playground.
For a moment, I was transfixed on the image. That was my daughter. Right there, hugging that woman in the video, was the fruit of my loins. My daughter.
I shook my head out of it, trying to keep my head on the task at hand.
“Does she not like kindergarten?” I asked, noting that the girl seemed to be prolonging her journey to join the other kids.
“It’s still new to her,” Justine said. “It’s early in the year, and she’s only there for part of the week. I don’t think she quite has the pattern down yet.”
We watched as she neared the fence and Nina’s car pulled away and out of the shot.
“Damnit,” Justine muttered. “She just drove away like that.”
“I don’t think she could have foreseen her not making it through that fence opening,” I reasoned.
She pressed her lips together and continued to watch as Kat’s feet turned, moving her toward a bush. As she neared, she shifted.
“Oh my god!” Justine exclaimed, her hand going to her mouth. “Did you see that? She just—”
I didn’t hesitate. I was already pulling my keys from my pocket and freeing a thumb drive.
Despite the fact that what she did was utterly forbidden in the shifter world, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in the now cub. She had figured that out all on her own. And what was more, she had gone to do that where people wouldn’t see her. Good girl. She was a cute little fuzzball of a lion cub, too. I could see that she had a dark stripe down her back. I had one of those too when I was a cub.
“I can’t believe it,” Justine muttered. “I just can’t believe it.”
“I wish I could have known about her,” I said. “I could have told you to expect something like this.”
I hadn’t meant to make the comment, and I didn’t miss the light expulsion of air at it as Justine tried to ignore it. I didn’t mean to scold her for it. It was all circumstantial, and I could even go so far as to say it was my fault. On many levels.
I hadn’t noticed that there was a car in the shot, toward the top right corner. I hadn’t noticed it until a man opened the car door and got out, slowly walking toward the school. He was dressed in a black suit and wore sunglasses. He went straight to Kat.
“Oh no,” Justine said.
I felt an involuntary growl at the back of my throat as I watched the man pick up the cub, collecting the clothes that had fallen from her and her backpack. He was so casual about it, like he was picking up a ball. And as calmly as he entered the shot, he left, the cub covered with Kat’s clothes.
“He took her,” she whispered, her fingers dancing on her lips. “That bastard took her!”
“Don’t worry,” I said, leaning forward to get a look at the license plate. I could just make it out, and I pulled out my phone to type it in. “We’ll get these plates run when we leave here. We’ll find out where he went.”
I began fiddling with my keys, wriggling free the thumb drive.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes darting between my keys and the door.
“We need to erase this,” I said, holding the drive up. “I have a program on here that will replace the segment with a loop. I do it all the time.”
“A policeman you most certainly are not,” she muttered.
“It’s necessary. This is evidence of shifters, and we can’t have that. Besides, you haven’t actually reported Kat missing, which means no actual police officer is going to look through this. The chances that someone will discover that this file has been tampered with are pretty low. And by the time they do …”
“They’ll know that I was in here with you,” she finished.
“I was going to say that I doubted they would remember who you were.” As the program did its thing, I took Justine’s hands in mine, turning toward her. “I’m going to do everything I can to get her back, okay? She isn’t gone forever, just for now, and it won’t be for long. I will find her.”
I could see her wanting to doubt me, wanting to argue with me as her fear kept a tight hold on me. But in the end she nodded, hanging her head as she rolled her lips inward, tears falling down her face. I kissed the top of her head, not caring if I had the right to. She was my mate and deserved comforting.
The
program finished erasing and looping the segment without Kat in it, altering the clock that had been running at the top of the screen to match the rest of it. I pulled the thumb drive out and put it back on my keychain, standing.
“What do we do now?” she asked, looking up at me. She was such a badass, and that was part of the reason I was attracted to her. But now, she looked up at me with lost, pink eyes, and I wanted to wrap her in my arms and just hold her until all of this was over.
“I’ll take you home,” I said. “That way, if somehow she finds her way back, there’s someone there. And in the meantime, I’ll get the number plate run through the system and see where we can go from there.”
Chapter 12 – Justine
We arrived back at my apartment, though again, I hardly noticed the drive. I was so wrapped up in worry and guilt. How could I have not thought that Kat might be a shifter? Surely that was something that should have crossed my mind, right?
Then again, during the time she was young, I was so engrossed in just healing myself and being able to hold her, that I don’t think I would have cared if she came out of my womb as a baby giraffe. I would have loved her as my own. Though, perhaps during childbirth I might have had something to say about it.
That whole time of my life was surgery after surgery, healing, resting, physical therapy, learning to speak again, learning to hold and squeeze a ball—the only thing I saw of my daughter was when Mom brought her by to see me in the hospital, and then when I moved in. And it took so much time before I could even hold her on my own. That was all I wanted to do, just hold her on my own.
By the time I could and we were well enough to look after ourselves—well, I was well enough to look after both Kat and myself—Leon, or rather, what Leon was, was the farthest thing from my mind. I just knew that she was my healthy little girl.
But surely, as the years passed, as I began noticing the people in the world who were shifters, as I began even applying for the job that landed me in LA, I should have considered the possibility that Kat might be one, right? If I had, then I could have talked to her about this. Or could I? What if I decided to talk to her about it, and she had no idea what I was talking about, and it turned out she wasn’t a shifter? Then I’d have a human little girl who ran the risk of telling the other children she met about them.