Her heart thundered. “Who’s there?” And then she choked out a big, fat lie. “I already called 911. The police are on their way.”
Grabbing a kitchen chair as a shield, Skye swung it in front of her and moved down the hallway as a dark figure flew from the bedroom into the dining room, whipping Boomer off his feet and tossing him across the room. The dog shrieked as he slammed into the far wall. His fear and pain engulfed her. That did it. She advanced on the thief, chair swinging. His head whipped around. He was young and tough-looking, with a scar that ran down one cheek.
Stupid bitch! He reached out and easily ripped the chair from her hands. Give that to me.
He hadn’t said the words out loud, but she’d heard them. Shocked, she stopped dead in her tracks. His black eyes focused on hers and she felt like something was probing her skull. She mentally pushed back. The look he gave her, like she confused him somehow, was followed by his fast retreat. He was out the front door in seconds, the dog snarling at his heels. He slammed the door on the dog’s nose.
“Boomer, honey, are you okay?”
Skye was shaking, but the dog’s tone shifted back into the familiar whine that said her brother was around. And then another voice shocked her.
“Have you already given some strange guy access to your apartment?”
Boomer bolted past her.
Barely breathing, she looked into the living room. There, next to the fireplace, stooping toward his dog, was her supposedly dead brother. The sun suddenly came from behind the clouds and through the bay windows in a shimmering wave of light worthy of a resurrection.
A weight lifted from her. She couldn’t breathe and pressed her hands to her chest, as if she could keep her heart from exploding with joy.
“Shade, you’re alive!” She started toward him. “What’s going on? Why did you let everyone think you were dead? Why did you let me believe I’d lost you?”
Her body felt electrified as she flew forward to fling her arms around her brother...
...and met nothing but air.
Was she going crazy, imagining him? Skye choked back a sob. Then Shade stepped toward her into the sunlight and his form lost its substance. She could still see him but he was translucent now.
Crying out in despair, she put out a hand to touch him.
Nothing.
Her eyes stung.
Shade was here but not.
How could this be? Had she lost her mind? she wanted to believe he was here with her.
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either. I should be gone.” Shade looked upward. “You know, with the big guy. I should be up there getting busy in his service, doing whatever it is he wants.” He frowned. “Maybe there’s something I left undone here.”
A wave of enervating emotion swept through her. Maybe she was imagining his being here simply because she wanted it to be so. Her pulse tick-ticked as she tried to think clearly. If she wasn’t imagining things and Shade’s ghost was here, there was a reason he was appearing to her.
“What happened, Shade? Who shot you?”
The smile faded and his expression turned grim. “Don’t know. I don’t even remember what I was doing.”
He was pacing the room, Boomer next to him. The dog’s love and happiness at being with Shade swept through her.
Ghost. Her brother was a ghost. Not so strange considering they’d always had a psychic connection and had communicated without words.
Without words.
“Wait a minute. That guy who broke in here. I heard his thoughts.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like he was talking to me. Only his lips weren’t moving. I don’t hear people, you do.” Suddenly, Skye realized she should be doing something about the break-in. “Wait! What am I doing?” She felt for her cell phone. “I need to report it—”
“Whoa, not so fast. Let’s see what he took first.”
Getting to her feet, she led the way to his bedroom. Drawers hung open. Shade’s things were scattered across the dresser. His diamond tie clip was still there. A gold ring. A couple hundred in cash.
Skye shook her head. “I don’t get it. Why would a thief leave this stuff behind?”
“Maybe he was looking for something connected with the case I was working on. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m not supposed to go anywhere until I remember. You’ve got to help me figure this out.”
This situation was surreal. Skye feared she was going to blink and Shade would simply disappear.
“Where do we start? Ethan gave me your personal things, but no casebook.” Shade always had his casebook on him. “Maybe Dad has it.”
“You know he’ll never give it to you. What about her cell phone?”
“Maybe Dad has that, too.”
“You know he doesn’t believe in full disclosure to anyone but another cop. Hmm, my online calendar.” Shade walked into the bedroom that held a desk and a couple of bookshelves.
In something of a daze, she followed. Her mind was spinning with this new development. She was still having trouble believing she wasn’t imagining it all.
Her ghostly brother tried to open the lid of his laptop. When his hands went right through it, he swore under his breath.
“Let me,” she murmured, sliding into the desk chair and flipping open the lid.
She went through the motions, but her mind wouldn’t focus, kept going back to the fact that this had to be impossible, that Shade couldn’t be here, that she was imagining him out of her grief. But every time she looked up, he was still there, either focused on his computer or on her with a worried expression.
Finally, she found his online calendar, and together they deciphered his notes going back a month. Several entries were marked DF at 10 p.m., but each entry cited a different location.
“DF...” Shade murmured. “DF... DF... DF...”
“Dogfight,” she said. “You were at one the other night. No actual dogs were fighting, though. More like wild animals. And where the heck did they come from?”
“Sorry.” He shrugged. “I don’t remember. Maybe Ethan would know something.”
“I doubt it,” she said, thinking of his denial at the cemetery, “but I can try again.” she started out the door and up the stairs, then turned back one more time to see Shade standing in the doorway, his expression frustrated. “Are you coming?”
“It seems I can’t leave.” He illustrated by trying to enter the hall. Any body part he tried to move through the doorway simply disappeared. “Seems I’m trapped right here. I guess you’ll have to see Ethan alone.”
She wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation with Shade’s partner, who, like Dad, would want her to stay out of anything that was police business.
~
Skye found Ethan at his desk at the Area North offices, photographs of murder victims before him. His rugged features were gathered together in a tight frown as he studied them, as if he could determine the murderer if he simply tried hard enough. That was Ethan. Focused. Determined. Believing he could make things right for everyone. And he usually did. All reasons why she cared for him like another brother.
She had to clear her throat to get his attention. He whipped his hard gaze to her, then his eyes softened to a warm light brown when they met hers. “How are you doing, Skye?”
She took a deep breath. “I’ll be better when my brother’s murderer is brought to justice. Someone broke into his place tonight.”
Ethan lunged out of his chair as if he wanted to inspect her for injury. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
When she nodded, he stepped back, but his expression didn’t relax. His deep voice filled with worry as he asked, “You called it in, right?”
“No. Nothing seemed to be missing, but the intruder was looking for something.”
“You did see him?”
“I chased him out.”
He stood there for a minute staring at he
r. “This worries me, Skye. I can’t let anything happen to you, too. I’ll send a team over there to dust for prints, see if they find anything else that could identify this guy. Maybe you ought to move in with your dad for a while.”
She knew Ethan had an incredible sense of responsibility whether it had to do with the job or with a friend. “That’s not going to happen. How about giving me an update?”
Running a hand through his spiked hair, he sighed and dropped back into his seat, indicating she should take the one on the other side of his desk.
“There’s been another murder connected with the case Shade and I were working on,” he said. “A woman. The wounds looked as if they came from an animal. This isn’t for publication, but the ME says it was some kind of canine. The wounds on two other recent murder victims were similar.”
Which made her think about the predators at the fight. That must have been why her brother had been there. Investigating homicides. He’d made the connection and had been following up on it.
“What about Shade’s casebook?” she asked. “And his cell phone.”
Ethan frowned. “The odd thing was that we didn’t find his cell phone on him.”
Thinking of the casebook, she said, “Dad already got to you, right?”
His expression was all the confirmation she needed, although he said, “I’m telling you the truth about the cell.”
“He always had it on him. The casebook, too,” she reminded him.
“I know. And Roger said he spoke to him around seven, but Shade said he was late for something and couldn’t talk.”
“What could have happened between seven and the time he was shot? Maybe it’s in his car?”
“We checked. Not there.”
“I didn’t find it in his apartment, either.” She hesitated only a second before asking, “Ethan, what about his casebook?”
He looked down and straightened an already straight pile of folders on his desk. “I, uh, have to copy it first before I can release it.”
Certain he was stalling, she said, “Shade wants me to see his casebook.”
“You can’t yet.” He hesitated a second and then said, “You make it sound like he told you that.”
“As a matter of fact, he did.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Today. A little while ago. He’s here, Ethan. Shade’s here.”
“Oh, Skye...”
“Don’t look at me like that!” There was nothing to pity. She hadn’t imagined it. “Not here exactly. At his place. Apparently, he can’t leave the apartment.”
Ethan’s eyebrows furrowed. “Have you been sleeping?”
“Some.” Though weird dreams like the one of the mysterious stranger kept her from getting enough rest. Still, she knew Shade had not been a dream.
“Some,” Ethan repeated. “You need a lot of sleep before you can deal with grief at a distance.” He was out of his seat again, circling the desk to stand in front of her, his expression filled with concern.
“This isn’t wishful thinking, I promise you.”
“I know you want to believe you saw Shade, but your emotions are so jumbled, they’re fooling you, Skye. I understand. After my brother Mike was killed, I kept looking in every corner of the house, thinking he would step in and talk to me any minute.”
She’d heard the story before. Ethan had been in her life ever since he and Shade had started at the academy together. She knew all about the reason Ethan had decided to become a cop, to find his brother’s murderer and to put him behind bars. It killed him that he hadn’t been able to do that. Yet. She had great respect for him. He was a man of integrity and grit, and she appreciated how personally he took every case. But Shade had told her never to talk about her connection with animals in front of him, because Ethan had no sense of fancy and would simply scoff at her. He wasn’t scoffing now, though. He simply looked disbelieving and worried.
Still, she had to try.
“I know my brother is dead. He knows he is. But he’s still here in spirit. Unfinished business. He thinks he needs to crack the case and find his own murderer. With my help, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t humor me. Shade is in trouble. He’s stuck here, can’t move on until he finishes what he needs to do. He was your partner. Help me help him.”
“I want to help you, Skye. I can get you someone to talk this out with.”
“Stop! Really. I’m not crazy.”
“Just grief-stricken. I understand.”
His concern was touching. Too bad he couldn’t believe. “Just tell me why Shade was at that dogfight the night before he was shot. Please!”
“What dogfight? Shade didn’t mention a dogfight.”
That threw her. Why not?
Ethan sank against his desk. “Shade was working on a case without telling me anything about it? That isn’t like him.”
“His short-term memory is gone, but he told me how to get into his online calendar and we saw several similar notations on different days—10 p.m., DF. That must stand for dogfight.” Or what her brother had expected to be a dogfight.
“What the hell was he thinking? What did he get himself into?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I can’t let you involve yourself. This could be a dangerous situation.”
“I’m not going to wait for the wheels of justice to catch up, not if I can do something to help.”
“And get yourself killed like Shade did? Stay out of it. Leave it to me.”
Skye couldn’t agree to that, so she didn’t say anything. She’d thought her brother had shared everything with Ethan, even things he hadn’t shared with her.
So why hadn’t he told Ethan about the dogfight lead?
Chapter Eight
Luc stopped at the security station at the entrance to the cloaked area of The Ark. No guard. Fuck. He swept his gaze over the casino, half the size of a football field. He searched beyond the banks of slot machines to the game tables—blackjack, roulette, craps—and to the sports book area and poker rooms along the back wall.
He spotted the missing guard in an aisle between banks of slots. There was no mistaking him. He had a thick head of silver hair worn long enough that it brushed the back of his collar. The man’s back was turned to the entry, and he leaned in to one of the patrons, a dark-haired woman whose hands were loaded with jewels. Luc reached for the surveillance headset clipped to his collar and tapped the push-to-talk button. “Andreas, report to your station now.”
The guard took a quick look over his shoulder and immediately straightened. He returned to the entry where Luc was fighting to hold his temper in check.
“Why did you leave your station?”
“I was only gone a minute, I swear.” Andreas’s thin lips turned downward. “I could see the door.”
“You didn’t see me come in.” Luc jutted his face into the guard’s. He couldn’t decide if Andreas had been planning to rob the woman of her jewels or if he had darker intentions. “Don’t leave your post. If you can’t do your job, you can always go back to working in the habitat.”
“Yes, sir.” Andreas shook himself. “Sorry, sir.” He rushed back to his station.
A scream suddenly raised the hair on the back of Luc’s neck. A cry prompted not by a lucky streak but by fear. Luc shouldered his way through the crowd and tapped his mike. “Security. Casino floor, now.”
At one of the blackjack tables, a customer was holding a gun on a dealer. Her eyes narrowed as she avoided looking directly at the gun’s muzzle pressed to her temple.
Damn. Andreas was part of his security team, but he’d been too bored to stay at his post and do his job. And that lapse had led to a problem for them all.
“What’s going on?” Luc asked, slowing as the harried-looking man wearing a suit with frayed lapels swung his gun arm toward him. Instinct made Luc want to grab the gun and ram it straight into the guy’s face. Adrenaline shot thr
ough him and his body tensed and his breath shortened. He fought the urge to resort to violence.
“I was cheated,” the man cried. “That bitch cheated me.”
Luc flashed a look at the dealer, who was struggling to keep her human form.
“I’m sorry this wasn’t your lucky night,” Luc said to the man, as he edged closer to him. “Why don’t we go to my office?”
“I’m not going anywhere. Neither is anyone else until I get my money back. Don’t come any closer!” he warned, his gun hand shaking.
Luc stopped moving. The man was obviously desperate. Also obviously, he wasn’t wealthy, and he didn’t seem of any importance. Luc didn’t sense any corruption in him, either, so why was he here? Was there some reason his father needed this man? Or had this one even been invited into the casino?
Luc’s half-brother, Nik, stepped in out of nowhere, accompanied by Doyle Craven, his pale, blond, sycophantic shadow. A tux stretched across Nik’s powerful shoulders, the blue-black material the exact shade of his eyes and slicked-back hair. His only ornament was the heavy gold ring embossed with a wolf, a snake, and a hawk, a gift from Pop when he’d turned eighteen and had been initiated into the upper ranks of the Kindred.
“I’m Nik Lazare, general manager of the casino.” He spoke directly to the man with the gun. “Let these folks go back to their games, no harm done. Come with me and I’ll let you into a private game room, give you the chance to win everything you lost.”
“Nik!” Luc growled. “I don’t think he’s the right man for that game. I’m handling it.”
Nik’s dark eyes flashed with anger.
“Not to this man’s satisfaction,” Doyle murmured.
Luc glared at the toady who never contradicted Nik. “I think there’s been a mistake here.”
“One I’m trying to fix,” Nik said, his thick lips pulling into a grimace.
Animal Instincts (Kindred Souls Book 1) Page 4