by Riley Storm
Something stank, and she intended to uncover it. Even if it meant dealing with a dressing-down from Dunbar, which she was sure would come her way eventually. It wouldn’t be the first though. That ass had done everything he could to keep her on traffic duty, working patrol.
Sexist old dick. How does he keep getting elected?
The question was irrelevant, and she pushed it to the side as the gates to Pace’s house appeared. According to rumor, the entire Aterna family lived in the compound. She’d never visited it before, but the size of it told her that the rumors were probably spot on.
Two stories were visible over the top of the gate, but knowing that the sharp-edged and modern structure was set into the mountain told her that there were probably other floors as well. The white stone wall was at odds with the black gate. The solid metal blocked all view inside.
She pulled up to the gate, rolling her window down, wondering how she was going to get in.
A speaker buzzed from the ground nearby, hidden by a rock. “What do you want?”
“Deputy Frazer, Five Peaks Sheriff’s Department. I’m here to speak with Pace. I have some questions for him regarding an incident yesterday.”
There was a long pause.
“Open the gate,” she growled, not in the mood to play any games.
To her surprise, it started to open immediately. She’d expected to have to play games and force her way in. The gate split in half and retracted almost silently into the walls. There wasn’t the usual grinding or motor noise that she would have associated with such a contraption.
Money. Far too much money.
She drove in, greeted by a large courtyard that stopped at the front of the house. A garage door on her left seemed to indicate underground parking. On a mountain.
Yup. Way too much money.
Carla got out of her car and headed for the front door. Nobody was out to greet her yet, but before she could reach the front door, a figure appeared in the glass at the side, and a moment later the door opened.
It was Pace.
“Deputy Frazer,” he rumbled, coming down the stairs.
Carla took a moment to look him up and down. Without the covering of plaster dust and ripped clothing, he looked…well, even better than he had the day before.
He wore a suit today. Obviously tailored and expensive, it clung to his thick chest and broad shoulders like it was a part of him. He tugged at the sleeves in that manner all men did who wore suits often, settling it back into place before sticking out a hand in greeting.
“What are you doing here?” he asked when she didn’t immediately respond.
Carla looked at his face, watching the almost icy blue of his eyes for any signs of nervousness. There were no crinkles of tightness. His lips were full and relaxed. The jaw was chiseled and at ease, he didn’t tilt it sideways. In fact, as she analyzed the entire structure of his face, the diamond shape displayed absolutely no tenseness.
That wasn’t to say she didn’t spy anything out of the norm. It kept coming back to the eyes. There was something almost…otherworldly, about them, perhaps? They looked like they had seen a lot, which didn’t match with his outward pleasant behavior.
What are you hiding, Pace Aterna?
“I have some questions for you,” she said, crossing her arms, waiting for the inevitable glance from Pace as the action emphasized her chest, even while in uniform. Everyone looked. They always looked. In her younger days it had been a blessing. She’d never paid for drinks.
Now it was nothing but an annoying distraction while she was trying to do her job. Still, the crossed-arm look always seemed to let people know she meant business, so it was an annoyance she dealt with.
Pace’s eyes never moved. “Ask away,” he said, watching her.
Suddenly put off by the intense interest in her, Carla wasn’t sure what to do next. Just like that, with one action—technically the lack of an action—and he’d stolen the conversation away from her. Pace was in the driver’s seat now, not her, and Carla did not like it one bit.
“You weren’t telling me the truth yesterday,” she said. “And I have proof now.”
Pace frowned. “Proof? What do you mean?”
“Mainly video from the security system,” she said, watching his face.
Now it was tense.
“Video?” he asked, obviously working to keep his voice calm. “Where is it?”
Carla rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Why would I tell you that? I secured it before I came up here, just in case you decided to do something stupid. Well, something else stupid. Your first mistake was lying to me.”
Pace beamed at her. “You have spunk, Deputy. I like that. Tenacious, unwilling to admit defeat. That is an admirable characteristic, it truly is. I respect you for it.” Then his face drew tight and serious. “But you are barking up the wrong tree here. I have committed no crime, and as I said, I will pay for the damages. The wrong will be righted.”
“You expect me just to believe that?” she challenged. “When I saw what happened in there?”
Truthfully she hadn’t exactly seen it. Everything that really would blow open the case had unfortunately happened off camera, but she had enough. Enough to be more persistent than Pace wanted. He would slip up, and she would have him then.
“Really, and what did you see?” Pace asked, now crossing his arms.
Carla looked, unable to avoid her gaze being torn away by the sudden bunching of not just his chest, but also his biceps, the suit working hard to contain them.
Dammit.
In a game of nerves, she’d flinched first, and the little tug at one corner of his mouth told her that he knew it.
Carla tightened her arms slightly and took in a deep breath, feeling her uniform tighten.
Pace’s eyes twitched. It was so quick she nearly missed it, but he’d given away his notice.
What the hell are you doing? Stick up your tits just to make him look at them? Get a hold of yourself. You are here on official police business. Act like it, and not like a peacock in heat.
Shaking herself mentally, Carla grinned as confidently as she could. “I saw the other person,” she said. “The one you were fighting. I saw, things…”
Letting her voice trail off, she watched his face, wondering how he would react to that insinuation. As if she'd seen everything. What Carla had really wanted was a clear view of how the support pole had been destroyed, but she’d not been granted that. It had happened off screen.
She’d been ready for Pace to laugh it off, to brush it aside like it was no big deal. His overly confident attitude was so securely in place, it took her a long second to accept that it had slipped. This was no momentary twitch of his eyes to glance at the swell of her chest either.
Pace looked nervous. He hid it quickly, schooling his features, going stone-faced. But even that was a giveaway that she’d rattled him. Feeling good, she bluffed.
“I even saw the start of it all,” she said. “Tell me, what happened? What went wrong that you started fighting?”
Carla had screwed up. She saw it in his face as she spoke. Her bluff had been way off track.
The smug, confident smile returned, and she had to resist the urge to mash her fist into his far-too-handsome face.
“I think what you saw, Junior Deputy, was just me stumbling around. Like I said happened. After all, going through a glass door like that would rattle just about anyone.”
“That’s not what happened and you know it,” she countered. “I have video to prove otherwise.”
“Really? And how did you obtain this video?” he asked casually. “Because I distinctly remember hearing Sheriff Dunbar tell you to drop it, and leave it alone. I’m sure he wouldn’t like to know that you’re out here, disobeying his orders. Harassing an upstanding citizen like myself. Why, that’s almost grounds for a complaint against the Sheriff’s department.”
Carla seethed internally, but she knew he was right. Her bluff had failed, and without concre
te evidence, there wasn’t much she could do. A couple of frames of someone flying through the air wasn’t enough. Without concrete proof that someone else was there, she was dead in the water.
They were at a stalemate.
God she hated him. His lips, the perfectly cultivated beard scruff. The immaculate suit that looked so good on him. The huge eyes that just clamored for attention. Smooth skin. Oh, and the obvious dedication to his fitness. Those muscles!
Carla swallowed and forced herself to stop drooling. This man was a suspect! His looks were useless to her and she needed to stop thinking about them. Put his long, regal nose and cute little dimples when he smiled out of her head. That was what she needed to do.
“I know there was someone else,” she said, trying to end on the high ground. “Once I get the other footage back, I’ll prove who, and you’ll have a lot of questions to answer, mister.”
Without waiting for a response, she spun on her heel and marched back to her car. Let the gorgeous dickhead stew on that for a bit.
Once she was in her car, she slammed a fist into the dash. Just once.
I really don’t like this guy.
Pace got on her nerves far too easily for Carla’s liking.
Chapter Six
Pace
To say he was dreading this would be an understatement.
It combined many things that Pace simply did not consider to be fun or a good idea. Public speaking? Absolutely not his thing. He was far more comfortable behind a computer or working on a car. Politics and diplomacy, those were Logan’s realm, not his, he didn’t want them or like them.
Pissing off a bunch of powerful dragon shifters didn’t quite make his top-ten list of ways to have a great day either. Which, by stepping up onto the central platform and telling the assembled group that one of their number had tried to rob his clan, would be precisely what he was doing.
Someone was going to get pissed off. Pace wasn’t sure who, just yet, but he doubted that the session would end peacefully. That just wasn’t his luck.
“Pace,” Logan hissed as he stepped forward.
With a sigh, Pace followed his clan leader up onto the dais. The room was organized with the five clans facing a raised speaking platform, which would be the tip of the star of a pentagon, if imagined in a shape.
Looking out, Pace took in the clans. To his immediate left was Clan Aterna, his family. The threat would not come from there.
Arrayed in a loose semi-circle from left to right after Aterna were Clans Rixa, Atrox, Teres and Valen. The five dragon clans that had come to Five Peaks nearly eighty years earlier, to fight against the creatures attempting to come through the Gate. Or at least, whatever had become of them after the humans had tried to nuke the mine shafts.
Pace had read all the history texts, especially the ones not available to humans. He knew the truth, about how the abandoned mine shafts had been converted to nuclear testing sites during the humans’ Second World War. How that testing had inadvertently revealed another Gate to the Otherworld.
That was how the clans came to be in Five Peaks. Called to the Gate by its very presence, they had come to protect humanity from whatever lay on the other side. Faeries, vampires, shapeshifters and others.
Now they met once every three months, all five clans. Not every member of the clan came, but some did, including all the heads. They would discuss anything new, any changes or events worthy of note, and then go their separate ways. Besides the occasional mating, there was very little interaction between the clans. They usually stuck to themselves.
And now I get to accuse one of them of harboring a traitor. How lucky of me.
Logan raised his hand, and the room quieted. One thing about the dragons was that they generally disliked the formal part of the meetings. The drinking, feats of strength and boasting of exploits that came after were the real highlight of the quarterly meetings. So when there was business to attend to, they sat down and shut up without much trouble.
Nodding his thanks, Logan turned to Pace. “You’re up.”
“Lucky me,” he muttered, stepping forward and projecting his next words. “My fellow dragons.”
Several eyes rolled at the formality, but Pace ignored them. He wasn’t here to win their adulation. He had to tell them what was really going on.
“We have a problem.”
Every eye in the room was instantly on him. Pace wished that there had been a lectern, a table, a ledge, something he could rest his hands on, or grip a little tighter. But there was nothing, just a raised stage for him to address the others.
“Two days ago, I was at the bank that Clan Aterna uses for its common funds,” he said, proceeding to outline the general events. When he finished, there was silence in the entire room.
“One of us has again tried to steal a treasure that doesn’t belong to them,” Pace said, reminding everyone of how his clan mate Asher had seen his treasure stolen, and then planted it in the vault of another clan to try and implicate them. Thankfully, the plot had been unraveled and the thief stopped before any real damage was done.
Or so they’d thought. Pace was now starting to wonder if that was but the first in a series of attacks designed to weaken the bonds between clans. Even as he looked around the room now, he saw plenty of glances being directed at the other groups. Everyone was on edge, trying to figure out who was behind it all.
Victor, head of Clan Atrox shot to his feet. “You’re claiming that one of us did this?”
“It was a dragon,” Pace reiterated. “From one of our clans. I don’t see his face here, but I know for a fact that he could be nothing else.”
“So you do accuse us of breaking the Scarlet Accords!” Victor shouted back. “How dare you!”
Pace sighed. “I am not accusing you, or Atrox, of anything, and you know it. I have no proof of which clan the person belongs to. It could be any.”
“Even Aterna?” the irate clan head challenged.
“Well no, Pierce, because I know what my clan mates look like,” he said, exasperated. “It has to be one of the others.”
“So high and mighty of you.”
Logan stepped forward. “Victor, stop being a dick. We’re all worried here. This is the second attack in a month on Aterna treasure. None of you have been targeted yet. Think about it from our end of things.”
Victor clamped his mouth shut. Pace exchanged a look with Logan. Clan Atrox and Victor were not normally that outspoken. Why was he suddenly so upset about this? Could he really be hiding something?
Pace doubted it. If Victor and Atrox were the bad guys, his outburst here had just put the spotlight on them more clearly than anything else. Not a great way to remain hidden. No, in all likelihood it was just an emotional reaction. They were scared, all of them. Nobody knew who would be next.
“Whoever it is, they must be brought to justice,” another voice said into the silence. “Our justice.”
Pace glanced over to see that it was Pierce, head of Clan Teres who was doing the speaking. Ever a calm voice among some of the more vocal ones, Pace respected the Teres head immensely.
“You are the closest to this person,” Pierce continued. “You know them, have seen them. I vote that Pace be charged with bringing this person in to face our justice.”
“What? No, I’m not…” Pace looked around wildly. All the other clan heads were nodding in agreement.
“You must,” Logan said quietly. “Look, they are all in favor of this, Pace. You know we have to do whatever we can to keep things peaceful. If we don’t, fighting will break out, and dragons will die.”
“It’s not that bad,” Pace denied hotly.
“Victor was about three seconds from jumping the stage,” Logan said. “I know him, trust me. This is bad. Really bad. Worse than it looks. If we don’t get a handle on this, it’s going to go south, and fast. We need to find this guy. Now. Do whatever you have to, to find them.”
Pace’s shoulders sagged.
“This is so not fai
r,” he muttered, but that didn’t change a thing.
He had a job to do and it was time to do it. Which meant finding all evidence he could to help him identify the thief and what clan they belonged to.
A smile came over his face as he realized the first bit of good news about his new mission.
Boy, is she not going to be happy with me…
Chapter Seven
Carla
“What is it, Frazer?”
Sheriff Dunbar looked up from his desk, bushy white eyebrows furrowing together in a mixture of irritation and disinterest. It was obvious he already didn’t give a lick what she had to say and was ready to dismiss it out of hand.
That wasn’t going to stop Carla this time though. She had proof. Not the greatest, but enough that any superior officer with two brain cells would encourage her to dig deeper. Unfortunately for her, she was pretty sure Dunbar wasn’t quite up to that level of intelligence. Evolution had skipped him, it seemed.
“I’d like to show you something, sir,” she said, entering his office and closing the door behind him, the cheap plastic blinds rattling against the thin glass.
If he ended up chewing her out, everyone outside would hear about it. Five Peaks Sheriff Department wasn’t on the top of the list for state budget allotment. One Sheriff, one senior deputy, four junior deputies and one administrative assistant for the Sheriff. That was about all they had. Even “Dispatch”, aka Judy Loggins, was actually shared by the fire department, EMS and police.
All these rich families paying to keep themselves out of the news, and they can’t even find a way to increase our budget legally.
Not that Carla really wanted the fingers of any of the Five any deeper into Five Peaks than they already were.
“Show me what, Frazer? Hurry up, I’m busy,” Dunbar snapped as she came to a halt in front of his desk.
“Video, Sir, from—”
“You want to show me a video?” Dunbar rumbled, leaning back in his chair. “Is it the dashcam footage from your car? Does it show you going up the mountains to the Aterna family and pestering them?” His voice rose as he spoke, until by the end he was shouting at her. “Does it show you abandoning your duties for no apparent reason?”