Semi-Broken
Book 4: Harper Hall Investigations Series
Dedication
To Connor, my lead engineer. The dog poop cannon is a great idea and I definitely want one. But can you finish plans for my Death Star first? Thanks.
Acknowledgments
First of all, thanks to my husband Don for giving me the freedom (and the office space) to follow my dreams. (And I swear to God, I love you, but if you ask me “is it done” one more time, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.)
Thanks to Connor for helping me keep my sarcasm skills sharp. You’re learning quickly, and one day, my son, the pupil will out snark the master.
Thanks to my parents who have never failed to support me in all my efforts. I wouldn’t be doing any of this without you.
Thanks to L.E. Wilson for your support, advice, and superior BETA reading skills. Without you, everyone would be left to wonder who the hell was taking care of the baby.
Thanks to Renee Wright for your keen editing eye (and for your tolerance of my many, many typos), and to The Design Dude at Knockin’ Books for my fan-freakin’-tastic cover art.
Big thanks to Tania Gray for providing consistent writing motivation (often in the most hilarious ways possible). You helped me stay focused on what was really important (i.e.: getting the damn book done).
And last but far from least, huge thanks to all the fabulous readers who’ve stayed with me on this crazy journey. The fact that you guys not only get my weird sense of humor but enjoy it shocks the hell out of me and makes me the happiest (and luckiest) writer in the world. I’ve said it before and it’s still totally inadequate, but thanks. You all mean the world to me.
Chapter One
Watching the woman he loved marry someone else could make a man do some pretty crazy shit. And watching her have a baby with the monosyllabic douchebag?
Well, now that could make a man do some semi-suicidal shit.
Lucas Cooper was walking, talking, breathing proof of that fact at the moment.
He could almost see the headlines now: Former Vampire Crimes Unit police detective arrested for impersonating a doctor and kidnapping a mental patient.
Awesome. His mom would be so fucking proud.
Lucas ran a finger under the starched collar of his stolen lab coat and frowned at the girl through the tiny barred window on the triple-chained cell door. “Are you sure that’s her?”
To his left, Dr. Violet Marchand pulled the girl’s medical chart out of the plastic sleeve on the door. Flipping through the first few pages, she said, “That’s her. Not what you expected?”
Hell no, Lucas thought. Hospital security had described her as a brutal killer. He’d been expecting to see someone larger, more imposing, dangerous-looking. Less…delicate and feminine. “How long has she been in solitary?”
“Since her last escape attempt.”
Lucas glanced at her, incredulous. “That was over six years ago. She’s been in this cell ever since?”
Violet shoved her glasses up with her index finger. “Yes. She’s actually very lucky. When supernatural patients don’t respond to treatment, they’re usually…eliminated.”
Lucas wasn’t so sure that anyone stuck in this place could ever be called lucky.
The psych ward at Midvale Prison was pretty much upstate New York’s version of Arkham Asylum. It was dark, it was scary, and it reeked of foulness Lucas didn’t even want to contemplate. Human patients would never be expected to live in such conditions. But the only humans at Midvale were the ones paid to keep the monsters in check.
Midvale was a vampire facility.
Seemed there were limits to the rights vamps had earned so many years ago when they came out of the coffin. Criminals and crazies, as far as Lucas could tell, didn’t have any more rights than cockroaches.
It was shit like this—this place—that had forced him to walk away from his job as a detective with the VCU. There was no real justice for any paranormal beings, only what the humans wanted them to think they had.
No wonder shapeshifters like him remained firmly in the shadows, refusing to let humans know they even existed.
Lucas turned his gaze back to the prisoner. She sat on the concrete floor next to the bolted-down bed, her ankle shackled to the steel frame with a heavy gauge chain strong enough to keep an ox immobile. The weighty links looked ridiculous encircling her slender ankle. Like a Chihuahua wearing a Rottweiler’s collar.
From the bed linens to the tank top and loose draw-string pants she wore, everything in the room was gray, faded and cold-looking. The only splotch of color was the girl’s hair. The thick, chestnut waves tumbled around her nearly bare shoulders, the ends almost reaching her waist. Her head was tipped down, so that mass of hair obscured her features from his view.
She looked young. Small. Alone.
“Why is she chained to the bed?” Lucas asked. “Seems like overkill in a maximum-security facility.”
Vi sighed. “According to Dr. Daniels, she’s prone to violent rages. Her behavior is…unpredictable. They keep her under with Thorazine most of the time.”
Lucas had seen patients subdued with Thorazine before, but they generally weren’t completely catatonic like this one. “They drug her every day? That can’t be good for her, right?”
“No, it’s not,” Violet murmured. She glanced back down at the chart and frowned. “1600 mg a day…that can’t be right. I’ve had two-hundred-pound psychotics that I only gave 800.”
Lucas didn’t say it, but if she was what they thought she was, she was probably three times stronger than the average two- hundred-pound psychotic.
Violet continued skimming the chart, eventually looking like lava might start pouring out of her ears at any moment. “The original dose administered was 200 mg a day, which was a reasonable starting point. Dr. Daniels,” she said, spitting out the name with the kind of venom most people reserved for talk of Hitler and flesh-eating bacteria, “increased it by 100 mg a day until she was taking 1,600. No other dose had affected her. Even if she’s a dhampyre, that much Thorazine could destroy her liver and kidneys. She’s lucky to be alive.”
Yeah, alive, but gorked out of her mind on Thorazine, chained to a bedframe in the lowest ring of hell. This girl was in no way lucky. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Why is she here at all? Humans shouldn’t have any idea what she is.”
Shit, he’d only found out dhampyres—genetically engineered half-human, half-vampire hybrids—existed a year ago.
When the woman he loved married one of the fuckers.
“According to Harper’s research, she was arrested by the human police for murdering a vamp in Harlem. She, uh…” Vi paused, swallowing hard, “…ripped his head off. Literally. That’s when the Harlem Vampire Crimes Unit was called in. Because she’s not a vampire, but obviously not human either, they completely avoided the courts and brought her here. All she would tell them when they brought her in was that she worked for Sentry. She didn’t even know they’d folded.”
The demise of Sentry had been a huge, huge deal in the paranormal community. Sentry had been older than even the most ancient immortals. For centuries, they’d policed paranormal activity, eliminating vampires and shifters and other things that went bump in the night without prejudice. That all changed when vampires came out of the coffin.
Once humans knew about the existence of vampires, all bets were off. Sentry was tried in the court of public opinion and found to be severely lacking. They folded like a cheap card table soon thereafter.
This girl’s time with Sentry obviously overlapped with the vamps’ big coming out party. She must’ve been out on assignment when her whole world came crumbling down around her.
And then they locked her up and pumped her full of enough Thorazine to drop an elephant.
And vamps wondered why shifters didn’t want humans to know they existed?
“How do we even know this is his sister?” Lucas asked.
Violet adjusted her glasses and smirked up at him. “He has a name, you know.”
Lucas was well aware that he had a name. But speaking the name of the fucker who’d married the woman he loved felt like gargling broken glass, so it was just easier to think of him as douchebag, or asshole.
The luckiest douchebag asshole on the planet. Not that he was bitter or anything. Nope, not at all.
But Violet just continued to throw her all-knowing smirk at him—the kind of smirk that only really smart people could pull off effectively—and waited for him to answer, so he sighed and finally said, “How do we even know this is Riddick’s long-lost sister?”
Her answering smile was a little annoying. It almost looked like she was proud of him for saying the asshole’s name. Well, fuck that noise. He growled at her and she rolled her eyes.
“Geez, chill out,” she said, tucking a wayward strand of icy-blond hair back into her complicated-looking up-do. “We don’t exactly know this is Grace. Harper’s research suggests this is her. She wanted to be sure before we told Riddick. Didn’t want to get his hopes up.”
That sounded like Harper Hall, all right. She’d want to shield her husband from the pain of seeing his sister in a place like this if at all possible. She was always thinking of others first. It was one of the things he loved most about her.
Lucas gave himself a sharp mental slap across the face. Don’t go there, dumbass.
He cleared his throat. “Fine. What’s the plan?”
“I’ll talk to her. See if I can get my hands on her complete records, not just the garbage in this file,” she said, pinching the file between two fingers and holding it away from her as if it were a bag of steaming dog crap. “Her doctor is a quack. There’s more to her hospitalization than meets the eye and I intend to find out what they’re hiding. Harper suggested I bring you because she was hoping you’d be able to pick up any scent that might link her to Riddick, you know, genetically.”
And he believed that was true. If she was related to Riddick, even a few times removed, he should be able to smell it. Werewolves were talented like that. What he didn’t believe was that Harper’s motives for sending Violet on this little mission with him were purely practical.
If he knew Harper—and he did—she was trying to be a matchmaker on this one.
People in love always wanted everyone around them to be in love, too. It was a fucking obsession for them. Well, it wasn’t happening. Not this time. Not with Violet.
Been there, tried that.
Violet, despite her propensity to blurt out inappropriate comments when she was nervous, was ridiculously adorable, pretty, and charming. And as one of the only shrinks in the state of New York who specialized in treating the paranormal community on an outpatient basis, she was also in a unique position to understand the…complications of his life.
So, in a fit of desperation to move on with his life after Harper gave birth to Riddick’s baby—a baby that could’ve been, should’ve been his, damn it—he’d gone out with her on a few dates.
It didn’t take long for Lucas and Vi to realize they made better friends than lovers. Besides, Vi was too damn smart and intuitive for her own good. She knew where his head—and heart—were right away and she’d wisely ended things before either of them could get in too deep.
“Fair enough,” Lucas said. “Are we doing this here?”
Vi motioned for the guard at the end of the hall. “No. Let’s move her to an interrogation room. It’s been several hours since she’s had any drugs. She should come out of her Thorazine coma soon, I’d think.”
In a whisper, she added, “And remember that you’re supposed to be a doctor. I don’t want anyone to know you have ties to the VCU. It makes people in places like this jumpy.”
Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. Especially since he didn’t have ties to the VCU anymore.
The guard fumbled with a ring of keys on his belt as another guard approached with a wheelchair.
One guard waited with Vi in the hall while Lucas pushed the wheelchair to where the girl was sitting. The other guard unlocked the chain on her ankle, then leapt back as if a girl on enough Thorazine to take down a charging rhino could jump up and snap his neck. The other guard looked jumpy as well. All because of a girl who couldn’t be more than five-foot-five, or weigh more than one-twenty soaking wet. What a bunch of pussies.
Lucas stared down at the top of her dark head for a moment, not knowing exactly where to grab her in order to get her in the wheelchair. Finally, he slid his hands under her arms and lifted, probably too roughly because she was even lighter than he’d anticipated.
When he tried to ease her into the wheelchair, she surprised him by gripping the lapels of his stolen lab coat in two white-knuckled fists. She lifted her head slowly, her eyes pausing on his chest first, then moving to his throat and chin, and finally, latching onto his.
His breath lodged in his throat. Jesus. She was beautiful. Delicate, knife-edged cheekbones, full pink lips, dark-winged brows, and eyes bluer than any he’d ever seen.
And those eyes were full of pain. If he had to guess by looking into them, he’d say her age could be measured in centuries, even though he knew she was only in her early thirties.
Lucas was accustomed to people needing him. He’d been a cop, for God’s sake. People had relied on him for years. But this woman needed him in a different way than anyone else ever had. He could read it clearly in those blue, pleading eyes of hers. This was a matter of life and death. Hers. The protective instincts he’d tried so hard to bury leapt to life in response to her unspoken plea.
He knew some kind of reassuring words were probably in order, but he certainly couldn’t find them. At a complete loss for the first time in his life, all Lucas could do was stare down into her eyes, hoping to convey that he would help her any way he could.
Suddenly, her head fell against his chest and she went limp in his grip. He slid one arm around her waist, the other behind her knees, and lifted her as gently as possible. He glanced at the wheelchair, then started for the door without looking back at it again. For some reason, he couldn’t make himself put her down just yet.
The guards and Vi parted, letting him pass.
“Um…the wheelchair…”
Vi let her sentence drift off when Lucas shot her a sharp look.
She cleared her throat. “He’s got her,” Vi assured the guards as she hurried after Lucas.
Chapter Two
It took an hour for her to shake off the effects of the Thorazine and look at them with anything resembling comprehension. And as she glanced between Vi, Lucas, and the two armed guards outside the prison interrogation room, she seemed to understand that she’d simply gone from being chained to a bed to being handcuffed at a table.
Not exactly an improvement in circumstances. And she clearly wasn’t too happy about it.
Her eyes landed and stuck on what was probably a nice, darkening bruise under Lucas’s right eye. He smiled ruefully at her and touched a finger to the place she’d nailed with a flying elbow when he’d finally managed to pull her off the guard she’d been wailing on. “Yeah, you did that,” he said, no trace of judgement in his voice.
Hell, he would’ve done the same if he’d been in her position. Even though he’d most likely have a dandy black eye the next day, he was oddly proud of her for putting up such a valiant fight while still trying to overcome the effects of the drugs pumping through her system.
Beside him, Violet cleared her throat. “It’s a common occurrence, I’m afraid. Some patients react…badly when they’re coming off certain drugs.”
Lucas snorted. Badly? Best he could tell, she’d broken one guard’s arm and another’s clavicle, in addition to dotting his eye. She’d reacted like a fucking world-class MMA fighter. It’d been magnificent.
Vi leaned forward. “I’m Dr. Violet Marchand,” she said, her voice calm and smooth. It was her I’m-talking-to-a-demented-psychopath voice. Lucas knew it well. She’d used th
e same tone when she’d dumped him.
The girl jerked her chin in Lucas’s direction. “What’s your name?”
A chill—not a bad one—skated down his spine. Jesus, that was some voice she had. It was the direct opposite of Vi’s carefully modulated tones—low, raspy, sexy as all hell.
Vi elbowed him in the gut, snapping him out of his stupor. “Lucas. Lucas Cooper,” he answered.
She didn’t reply, just continued to shift her gaze between them slowly, methodically, unblinking. He’d seen that kind of careful assessment of a room and a situation before.
Lucas drew a deep breath in through his nose, catching her scent. Hospital-grade soap and laundry detergent. Warm female skin. And beneath all that…
Yep. If her ever-watchful gaze didn’t give her away, her scent always would.
He was sitting in front of Noah Riddick’s little sister.
When she remained silent, Vi prompted, “Can you tell us your name?”
“Don’t have one.”
Vi’s gaze shifted to Lucas, and he could tell she was thinking the same thing he was. Was the girl weird, crazy, or just being purposefully evasive?
“You don’t have one?” Vi asked gently. “What do people call you when they want to get your attention?”
Completely devoid of emotion, she said, “My designation is 754821.”
Lucas swallowed a growl. She’d been a prisoner her whole life. Abandoned as a baby by a father who couldn’t care less about her, raised and trained by Sentry to do their bidding, then left to rot in this hell-hole when Sentry folded. She’d never had a life. Probably didn’t even know what a normal life entailed.
Suddenly he wanted to track down every last member of Sentry upper management and beat the ever-loving shit out of them.
When Vi’s pointy little elbow jabbed him in the ribs again, he realized he must’ve growled inadvertently. Shit, if he didn’t get hold of himself, he’d wolf-out in front of them and risk ending up in a padded cell of his own.
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