Illusion (Shifters Forever More Book 4)

by Elle Thorne

  “Right there.” He half-turned to point her in the right direction. “That’s—”

  Pfft.

  A sound she knew only too well. A suppressed gunshot.

  A red-black hole a little larger than a pencil eraser appeared on Colin’s temple. His eyes rolled backward then he collapsed, dropping the keys.

  Meredith couldn’t have said what instinct kicked in, but she swooped down, snatched the keys, and lunged behind a large truck’s wheel well.

  Panic rose in her throat in the form of bile.

  Hewasshot.SomeoneshotColin.Ohmygod.Whatthehell?

  She swallowed the fright down.

  Think.Think.Think.

  The shot came from over there, so she should head in the opposite direction and pray someone wasn’t looking for her from there. Of course, wouldn’t you know it? The Buick was in the opposite direction. Son of a bitch! She pulled one knee up, making ready to run, and took off as fast as her legs would carry her toward—

  Where?Where?Where?

  Wheelock Park. Yeah. She knew the park well enough to get through it without being seen. There was a culvert on the other side of the park. Next to the Joseph River. The large culvert was well covered by foliage. No one would find her. She could hide there.

  She sprinted. Way harder than she’d ever have thought she was capable of, and for way longer than she’d have thought possible. Down one street, across the next, staying in the shadows. She didn’t stop. Not even when she thought there might not be anyone behind her anymore. She finally hit the park. Leaning against a large tree trunk for cover, she planted her hands on her knees and lowered her head, struggling to suck air in. Three deep breaths, and then she felt for the phone in her back pocket. Still there but sticking up. She opted to carry it because the last thing she could afford to do was lose it.

  She took off again. She was nowhere near there yet. Maybe she’d gone a third of the way. Surely, she could slow her speed a bit. Like maybe jog instead of sprint. She gave herself permission to do just that. She paced herself, running through the park, avoiding the paths, stealing between trees and hiding behind bushes, avoiding roots and obstacles, stopping every so often to be sure she didn’t hear anyone following her.

  The third stop, she caught the sound of the river flowing which meant she wasn’t far from the culvert. Of course, it would be harder to find in the dark. She’d never been here after nightfall. Could she use the phone’s flashlight feature? No, probably a stupid idea. It would be a dead giveaway as to her location. Not to mention, it would drain the battery, and she didn’t have a charger with her.

  “I bet there’s a charger in the Buick,” she muttered. Which was the opposite direction of where she was heading. Oh, well.

  She found a trail next to the river. It looked familiar, but who could be sure in the dark? There. There it was. The culvert was right behind that cluster of brush. She slipped behind the bushes and made her way through the sloshy mud, trying to stay on the outskirts of the large concrete tunnel, where there seemed to be less accumulated water. She made her way deeper and deeper, her hand on the side, trailing her fingers along the hard surface, trying not to cringe, flinch, or squeal when a cobweb brushed her cheek. She hoped it was a cobweb and not a spider.

  How far in should she go? Would there be creatures in here? Like maybe rats? She shuddered.

  “Meredith!”

  The call was faint, sounding far away. And she knew it wasn’t someone she wanted finding her. She hunkered down in the darkness, leaning against the cold concrete, trying to ignore the chill seeping into her bones from having wet shoes.

  She needed to stay put until…until what? Daylight? Would they give up on her then? Who were they anyway? Razorpeak people? She squeezed her hand around the phone. She had no one she could call. If she called Dr. Broussard, he might call Agnes Gaston. And then she might call those Razorpeak people. How far deep did this conspiracy go?

  She did know one person she could call. She dimmed the screen and punched in her father’s number. No answer. Went to voicemail. Surely, he wasn’t on a flight already. She tried again only to have the same results. This time she left him a message. She whispered, “They killed Colin. I don’t know where—” What was she going to say? I don’t know where to go or which hotel to go to or how I’ll get there? “I’ll call you later.”

  Then for good measure, she powered the phone down. Just in case, because even if it vibrated, there was a possibility someone looking for her would find it.

  Squatting against the concrete wall, huddled, almost in a fetal position, Meri found herself thinking of someone she had told herself she had no right to think of.

  Dunn’s face came to her mind. Those chiseled self-assured features countered by vulnerable, kissable lips. His strong arms, wide chest. Damn him. How’d he get in her head like this? More than her head, she realized. He’d found his way into her heart. She tightened her arms around herself, her fingers splayed along her abdomen, where a little one depended on her to get them out of this alive.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dunn gunned the rental car they’d picked up at South Bend International Airport not far from Notre Dame. It was after midnight, and he was in no mood to tarry. Meri needed help. She needed him.

  “Fifteen minutes.” Griz gripped the oh-shit handlebar above the window. He was getting plenty of use of that handle with Dunn’s driving.

  Sorry, not sorry.

  “Bet he makes it in seven,” Doc said.

  The three of them had used Tito’s plane—the white tiger shifter had laughed and said he was thinking about leaving it in Bear Canyon Valley permanently. As the alpha of Bear Canyon Valley, Grant Waters offered to buy it from him, claiming they seemed to need a plane a lot more than he’d have originally thought. Griz had nodded in agreement. And Dunn hadn’t said it, but he was hoping the pleasantries would come to an end and they’d get on the damned plane and get to the South Bend Airport.

  And they had. And now they were in South Bend, heading to her apartment near Notre Dame.

  “What makes you think she’s at her place?” Griz asked.

  Dunn growled. He didn’t like to think of what could be happening if she wasn’t.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” It seemed Doc was trying to defuse the situation.

  “I don’t think we’ll get to that bridge.” Griz pointed at the blue and red lights, the patrol cars blocking access to her street.

  “Shit.” Dunn threw the car into reverse and parked in the nearest spot he could find. “We’ll take it on foot the rest of the way,” he said through clenched teeth. Cops could only mean one thing. Nothing good.

  They exited the vehicle, and with a click on the fob, Dunn locked it then began to take long strides toward the circle of cops.

  He was almost there when a uniform stopped them. “This is a crime scene.”

  “What happened, Officer?” Griz stepped forward, flipped out a badge Dunn didn’t know he had—what organization was that badge from?—and pocketed it swiftly. “We’re going to see my friend’s girl.”

  “DB,” the uniform said.

  Dunn’s stomach clenched. He knew damned well that meant dead body. Doc put a hand on his shoulder.

  The cop’s eyes took in Doc’s gesture. He shook his head. “Not female.” He turned to Griz, clearly identifying with him as a fellow LEO. “Male. Thirties. No ID. Maybe a professional hit. No shooter. Yet.”

  Dunn let out a slow measured breath of relief. The DB wasn’t Meri. Was she the shooter?

  Griz nodded. “We need to get to her apartment.” He pointed in a general direction.

  “Stay clear of the tape.” He indicated the yellow crime scene markers.

  “Will do.”

  As they made their way down the street, on the opposite side of the crime scene, Dunn took in the street numbers, looking for the one Mae had told him was Meri’s. He muttered under his breath, “Didn’t know you had a badge. What kind?”
/>   “It’s provisional.” That was all Griz said. And clearly, all that he was going to say on the matter. “There’s her address.”

  They crossed the street quickly, ignored by the LEOs now that Griz’s provisional badge had gotten them through the gatekeeper.

  “Second floor,” Griz said, very unnecessarily because Dunn knew already. They ran up the stairs in unison, not wasting a second.

  2B. That was hers. The door was closed, but smoke was rising from beneath it. “Not a good sign.” Dunn grunted. He grabbed the handle and pushed on the door. Of course it was locked, what had he been expecting? He braced himself to ram into it.

  Griz put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me.” He stepped forward and raised a small, well-worn, brown leather case. “Also provisional.”

  Seconds later, the door was open, thanks to the lockpicking instruments in the brown case. He didn’t want to think how Griz would have explained that one away, should the cop have asked to frisk them for some reason.

  He ran inside, followed by the other two. The smoke came from the kitchen. He flipped the oven switch to off and looked inside. A very brown round circle perched on the rack. “Pizza? What the hell?”

  “Hang on.” Griz flipped the exhaust fan on. “It’s not burnt to a crisp, so she hasn’t been gone that long.”

  “Think she’s the one that killed the guy down the street? She have a gun?” Doc flipped through the mail on the counter. “This stuff’s not new. From before she went to Razorpeak.”

  Dunn scratched at his jaw, at the scruff there—how many days had it been since it had seen a razor? “She said she’s a pacifist. So I don’t see her having a gun.”

  “Yeah, but she shot that wolf shifter,” Griz pointed out.

  Dunn bristled at the implication. “She does what she needs to do, clearly. That doesn’t mean—”

  Griz held up a hand. “I wasn’t implying anything. Don’t go reading stuff into it.”

  Dunn headed to the other rooms in the apartment. Empty. But… “It looks like she was going through her clothing. Packing?”

  Griz joined him in her bedroom. “Yeah. It doesn’t look like it’s been rifled. Yet. So, if they aren’t here, going through her belongings…”

  Dunn got the drift. “They’re hunting her. She must be nearby.”

  “My thoughts, precisely.” Griz glanced in her closet. “So, where is she? Who’s the dead guy? And, wait. Can you track her by scent?”

  Of course, he could. Her scent was indelibly implanted in his senses. He couldn’t forget the scent of her, the sight of her, anything about her. “Let’s go. Maybe I can pick up her scent outside.”

  “If she didn’t get in a car, then we should be able to find her.”

  If. “Fuck,” Dunn added under his breath.

  “Not to throw a monkey wrench,” Doc said, making the other two whip their heads his way.

  “What?” Dunn snarled.

  “If she’s being followed by shifters, they could be tracking her scent as well. And that could be why they aren’t here, going through her things, looking for clues.”

  “Double fuck.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Meri startled. How’d she go to sleep in this cold, miserable setting with her body in a squatting position and her shoes soaked through?

  Wait. What woke her? There it was again.

  A soft footstep, a shuffling sound. She wished she’d picked up a branch, something she could use for a weapon. What did she have? Nothing. She couldn’t key someone to death. She couldn’t turn on the phone to see who was coming—it would take too long to power up. She could throw the phone at whoever it was, but what good would that do? It would probably land in the water in the middle of the culvert, and then she’d not have a phone.

  But dead people couldn’t use phones, so maybe she should throw it as a distraction.

  She rose slowly to her full height, legs numb from the chill and the position, and cocked her arm, then lobbed her phone directly at the location where the sound of stealthy footfalls came.

  Thunk!

  “Fuck.”

  She couldn’t help but smile at that, then she flexed her almost-frozen toes and rolled her ankles, poised to run. On one.

  Three.

  Another ankle roll.

  Two.

  More toe flexing.

  One!

  She lunged forward, prepared to sidestep to the far right and avoid the area where she’d struck her stalker.

  “Oomph!” She ran right into a body as solid as the concrete she’d spent who knew how long leaning against.

  She started to flail, striking, punching, kicking, anything and everything to get away.

  “Meri.”

  She froze.

  “Dunn?”

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded pained. “Good aim there. Right in the jewels.”

  She cringed. “Sorry. What are you doing here? How’d you find me?” A sense of alarm ran through her at the next thought. “Did you kill Colin?” Could he have? Why would he have?

  “Is Colin the dead guy by your apartment?”

  “Yes! Did you shoot him?”

  “No. But you’re definitely in danger.”

  “Yeah, I know. Why do you think I’m in this”—she waved her arms around, indicating the shithole she’d been in—“place?”

  “Let’s get you out of here and to safety then we can discuss things. Where’s your bag? You packed one, right?”

  “Shit! I left the oven on, a pizza in it. God, I bet—”

  “We turned it off. Your bag?”

  “Colin was carrying it for me. It’s… I guess it’s next to his body.”

  “You can tell me who Colin is later.” He pressed something into her hand. She felt the phone. It wasn’t soaking wet. “Nice toss. That’ll leave a mark on my forehead, no doubt.”

  “Sorry, again.” Seemed all she was doing was apologizing to him. “Did you— Why are you here?”

  He took her hand. “Looks like I’m saving you. I owe you, after all. You saved me, back at Razorpeak. Come on. Doc and Griz are waiting. We don’t need to stick around here.”

  It wasn’t long before she was in a car and heading— “Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”

  Griz turned to Dunn. “Flix texted. Said Saizon is in the area. Probably the one who took out the guy on her street.”

  She knew that name, Saizon. He wasn’t a good guy, based on what she knew.

  “Guess we should hightail it out of here,” Dunn said.

  Griz was driving. In the passenger seat was a man she’d not met who’d said he was Mae’s husband. Said he was called Doc. She was in the back with Dunn.

  “To where?” she pressed again.

  “Somewhere they won’t find you.” Griz’s intense gaze looked at her from the rearview.

  “That’s mysterious,” she whispered to Dunn. “I’m not wild about mysteries right now. My trust factor’s not very high.”

  “You trust me, don’t you?” In the lighting put off by the dash, she could see the spot on his forehead where she’d struck him with the phone. A line of blood an inch long ended at his temple.

  God, she felt bad about that. “I do.” And she did. Fully. She couldn’t explain why or how this man had come to be so trusted…well, maybe she could. God knew, they’d been through enough, and he’d proved himself.

  He nodded at the phone in her hand. “Do you need to call someone, let them know you’re safe?”

  She scrutinized him. “Like who?” What was he getting at?

  “The father of your baby?”

  Her barked laugh was derisive and out before she could stop herself. “Hardly. He’s— Hold on. How’d you know?”

  “I told him,” Griz informed her.

  She turned narrowed eyes forward, looking at Griz in the mirror. “Yeah, and I still don’t know how you or Mae knew.”

  Dunn groaned.

  “But to answer your question. No. I don’t. The baby has no fa
ther.” And truly, he—or she—didn’t. And wouldn’t. And that’d be fine. Not ideal, but fine.

  “No one else you should call?” Dunn persisted.

  “My father’s on a plane. I doubt I’d be able to reach him for a while yet.” But she would need to call him as soon as she thought he might’ve touched down. He’d get worried otherwise. And her father could move mountains to find her. He didn’t lack for connections. “Where are we going? I need to get access to a computer. I’ve got to get someone onto investigating Razorpeak. To expose their secret operations to create hybrid man-beasts.”

  “About that—” Dunn paused. “Can it wait? I promise I’ll tell you everything once we get on the plane to Bear Canyon Valley.”

  Before she could answer, Griz spoke. “Flix’s message also said Saizon’s got serious skin in the game to get a deathbe—”

  Dunn started coughing, cutting off Griz.

  “Deathbe—? Deathbe— what?” Meri asked.

  No one answered her.

  “That means Flix knows what I am. How does he know?” Dunn asked Griz.

  “I’d say so,” Griz said. “How does Flix know anything? He’s Flix. I can tell you it didn’t come from me.”

  “Or me,” Doc added.

  “Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Her patience was at an end. But despite her tolerance being on a short fuse, her desire for Dunn was on overdrive. What was it about this man that appealed to the very base of her nature? He created a thrum in her body that started somewhere south of her navel and rose to her chest. Damn him for having this effect on her.

  What is wrong with me? I’m a pregnant woman. I shouldn’t have these sensations.

  Should I?

  Chapter Nineteen

  “No.” Meri was stock-still. “That’s not possible.”

  Doc and Griz were in the main cabin of Tito’s plane. Dunn had brought her to the back where there was enough area for him to prove his claims if need be. They were sitting in jump seats, next to each other. Their arms touching. The spot where her skin met his felt like the nerve endings were raw and exposed with an awareness of her. He could tell it was the same with her. Her pulse raced, her breathing was almost labored.