by Alexis Davie
Now we’re getting somewhere, Piper thought to herself. At least that explains why they’ve arrested her.
“Okay,” Piper said soothingly. “Let’s get the chief back in here, shall we? We’ll find out what’s going on and get this whole mess sorted out. Just tell the truth and if I tell you not to answer something, don’t. Is that okay?”
Nancy nodded and Piper stood up and crossed the room. She looked up and down the corridor. It was empty and she sighed and stepped out and turned to go and look for the chief. He was easy enough to find. She found his office a few doors down and tapped on the door.
“Yeah,” Chief Carter called.
Piper opened the door and stuck her head around it.
“We’re ready for you,” she said.
“Okay,” he said, making no effort to move. He stayed looking down at some paperwork he was going through.
Piper waited impatiently in the doorway until Chief Carter looked up again, a questioning eyebrow raised.
“Clearly the other lawyers in this town run to your schedule. I don’t. My client doesn’t need to be here at all, and she most certainly doesn’t need to be here any longer than she has to be so you can feel important,” Piper said.
Chief Carter laughed softly, a sound that got Piper’s back up.
“You’re such a New Yorker,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with me feeling important. Everything isn’t done in a rush here like it is in the big city.”
He stood up as he was saying it and Piper bit her tongue, holding back her next cutting remark.
“Trust me, it took me a while to adapt to this slow living too,” he said.
“You’re not from the town?” Piper asked, wanting to know more about the chief despite herself.
“No. I was LAPD for five years before I came here. Homicide division,” he said.
Piper winced, thinking of some of the horrors he must have seen.
“What made you come out here?” she asked.
“I realized that I wanted more,” he said.
Piper looked at him in confusion. He smiled down at her.
“More from life,” he explained. “See, the thing about the LAPD, yeah, it’s rewarding and there is a great path for advancement and all that. But it’s more than just a job. You are the job. You know what I mean? I guess I decided life is for living, not for working. I didn’t want to give up law enforcement altogether, though, and so here I am.”
“It makes sense,” Piper said. “But what on earth do you do with all of the time you suddenly have on your hands?”
They both laughed.
“Yeah, it’s a bit of a shock to the system to actually clock out at five, isn’t it?” Chief Carter smiled.
“Just a bit,” Piper laughed.
“You know, if you’re really bored…” the chief started.
Piper felt her stomach whirling. Was he going to ask her out? She waited for him to finish the sentence. He grinned at her.
“I could always call a reporter or two, tip them off that the infamous Piper Lee is here in Bethany Beach,” he laughed.
Piper cursed herself out in her head for being disappointed. Of course he wasn’t going to ask her out. And even if he did, she didn’t date cops. It never worked out; they would always be on opposite sides and that wasn’t a healthy way to have a relationship.
“Oh God, I’m not that bored,” she laughed back.
They reached the interview room and Chief Carter smiled down at Piper, his eyes on hers for a moment. While they looked at each other, Piper could have sworn the air around them became charged. If Chief Carter noticed, he did a good job of hiding it. A better job than Piper thought she was doing of it.
“Showtime,” Chief Carter said.
He opened the door to the interview room and gestured for Piper to enter. Nancy looked up as they entered.
“I was starting to think you’d skipped town, Levi. You know, the embarrassment of such a huge fuck-up like this too much for your fragile little ego,” Nancy grinned.
“The only problem with that is I’m not the one who has fucked up. And it’s Chief Carter in here,” Levi said.
“Whatever,” Nancy shrugged as Piper sat back down beside her at the table.
Piper decided she quite liked Nancy. She was feisty but in control of herself. And she could definitely see this woman standing in front of a room full of teenagers and commanding their attention.
Levi moved to the video recorder. He hit record and a little red light flashed on. Piper felt like it was watching her as it blinked slowly once and then glowed steadily. Levi took his seat at the table.
“Right. Let’s start over, shall we? For the record, please state your name.”
Piper nodded at Nancy.
“Nancy Jane Maynard,” she said.
“And do you understand why you’re here?”
“Yes. Because you made a mistake and you’re too damned stubborn to admit it,” Nancy said.
Piper bit her lip to keep from smiling. Levi ignored the barb and carried on.
“You’re here because we have reason to believe you have been dealing heroin. Would you like to make this whole process easier and admit to the charges?”
“Hell, no,” Nancy said. “I’m not about to admit to something I haven’t done, Chief.”
“My client is a respected member of this community, Chief Carter,” Piper put in. “And the raid you conducted on her property showed no evidence of anything illegal. Perhaps you could share your reasoning for arresting her based on that.”
“Obviously she’s cleverer than we gave her credit for. She doesn’t keep her stash at home,” Chief Carter said. “Where do you keep it, Nancy?”
“Why don’t you tell me, seeing as you’re the only person in this room, hell, in this town, that actually believes I have anything to stash anywhere,” Nancy said.
“Let’s skip the flirting,” Chief Carter said, causing Nancy to frown. “Two of your students were caught with heroin on their person and when asked where they had gotten it from, they gave me a description of you. What do you have to say about that?”
Piper jumped in before Nancy could respond.
“You really think addicts are going to happily hand over their dealer? That sounds like a good way into an early grave. And if I think of that, do you really think they haven’t?” Piper said.
“They were happy to cooperate once they learned the consequences of not doing so,” Levi replied.
“So let me get this straight. You offer two kids a deal—give up your dealer and you won’t do time. So what? These kids name one of their teachers and that doesn’t strike you as somewhat false? Never mind unoriginal.”
“These kids, as you refer to them, Ms. Lee, gave me a description of their dealer.” Levi flicked through some papers in front of him. “Early forties, white female, black hair.”
“That’s what you’re basing this off?” Piper asked, incredulous. “That describes millions of people.”
“I agree,” Levi said calmly. “But none of those other millions of people were then found returning to the drop-off point this morning.”
“I didn’t know it was a crime to sit for a moment beside the fountain outside of the library,” Nancy said.
“You seem to know the drop-off point well, though,” Levi said.
“I know where I was arrested,” Nancy said.
“That’s enough,” Piper said. “My client won’t be answering any more of your questions. This whole thing is based on nothing more than a description that could be one of a million people and the coincidence that she happened to sit down in the wrong spot for a moment. You know as well as I do this would be laughed out of court in an instant. Hell, it wouldn’t even get past the CPS. So unless you have something more solid to base this on, my client and I will be leaving.”
Levi shrugged casually, but Piper thought the casual nature of the shrug was fake. Levi looked a little disconcerted for a moment and Piper felt gratified. Yeah, you might
be ex-LAPD, but I’m a New Yorker and we don’t take shit from anyone, she thought to herself.
It seemed to Piper that Levi had gotten too used to small-town lawyers with no idea of how things really worked. Levi stood up and turned the tape off. Nancy looked at Piper questioningly as Piper stood up and nodded for Nancy to do the same.
“Don’t leave the town, Ms. Maynard. We’ll find the evidence we need, and when we do, your fancy lawyer here won’t be able to save you,” Levi said.
“Go on out,” Piper said to Nancy, ignoring Levi for the moment. “My car is the red Mercedes near the entrance. I’ll be out in just a moment.”
Piper waited until she was sure Nancy was out of earshot and then she rounded on Levi.
“What’s this really about?” she asked.
“I think we’ve established that, Ms. Lee,” he said.
“Yeah? Well, I don’t. You have absolutely nothing to go on here and I think deep down, you know you made a mistake but you’re too stubborn to admit to it,” Piper said.
“And I think you know there’s at least a possibility your client did this but you don’t want to admit it to yourself. You’re one of those, aren’t you? One of those bleeding-heart liberals that thinks everyone is innocent and the world is filled with unicorns and rainbows.”
“And you’re one of those cops who doesn’t give a fuck if they have the right person or not, just as long as they can make the charges stick and improve their stats. Good day, Chief.”
Piper turned and walked away before Levi could respond, but even without looking back, she knew he was smirking.
4
Levi watched Piper walking away. He watched the way her hips moved from side to side and he watched her perfect little ass—a perfect little ass that he wanted to grab and bite. He could still see her in his mind’s eye long after she had walked away.
His thoughts then lingered on her blonde hair, cut in a bob that was longer in the front than it was in the back. It hung over Piper’s face sometimes, clearly annoying her, judging from the way she had kept angrily tucking it behind her ears during Nancy’s interview. Levi had felt himself wanting to reach out and gently brush it away from her face himself. It didn’t seem right that something so beautiful should be brushed aside so roughly. He had caught himself before he actually did it, of course.
He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining Piper’s eyes. It had taken Levi several attempts to identify their color. Finally, he had settled on blue, although they were so pale that they were almost white. He had never seen eyes like hers and they mesmerized him in a way that made his bear start to stir inside of him. Even now, just at the memory of those eyes on his, his bear was trying to burst forth and claim Piper as his own.
He opened his eyes, trying and failing to stop thinking about Piper for even a second. This wasn’t the first time he had seen her. She had been on TV and all over the papers a few months back, but the cameras hadn’t done her justice. They hadn’t shown her fighting spirit and her keen sense of justice. And looking at her on the screen or in print hadn’t made his cock tingle the way it was now. That was down to her very strong and confident presence.
Levi moved to the video camera and skipped back to the footage of the interview. He smiled to himself as he saw Piper getting more irate. She sensed the injustice of this, and she would be out there right now trying to find something to prove Nancy’s innocence, he knew. He pressed a button on the video recorder and wiped the footage, sad that he wouldn’t get to watch it again.
He left the station a short time later and drove home, telling the desk sergeant he was going to follow up on a lead on one of his cases and to call his cell phone if she needed him for anything.
He arrived home with ten minutes to spare before the meeting of his pack. The pack soon arrived and Levi stood up, looking around at the small pack gathered on his couch, armchairs, and the floor. Seven of them, his brothers and sisters.
“I’m going to kick this off. Firstly, I don’t appreciate being made to look older. The gray took ages to wash out of my roots,” Nancy said. “And the so-called case you have against me is pathetic, Levi. Surely you could have thrown in something slightly more incriminating.”
“We’ve been over this,” Levi said patiently. “There’s just enough circumstantial evidence for it to look plausible that we suspect you. But if there was anything really substantial, then Piper wouldn’t feel so much righteous anger, and she wouldn’t be going off on a wild goose chase trying to catch the real dealer. This has to take up enough of her time to keep her out of harm’s way and somewhere we can keep an eye on her until we work out if any of the hunters really are coming.”
“They’re coming,” Ria put in. “I feel it, Levi. We all do.”
“I think at least one is already here. I was talking to Bob earlier in the convenience store and he mentioned a stranger in town,” Mal added.
“Right. So let’s just stick with the plan for now, then. Nancy, keep playing the role of the poor, innocent schoolteacher who gets accused of a crime. And less of the making me out to be a moron,” Levi said.
“Call that payback for the gray hair,” Nancy grinned.
“It kind of suited you. You should maybe think about making it permanent,” Violet laughed.
Levi shook his head, although he was laughing too, more at Nancy’s indignant expression than Violet’s suggestion.
“Okay, Vidal Sassoon,” he grinned. “You, Mal, and Ria keep looking for any signs of a hunter. And I want something more substantial than a tourist being in town. Federico, Justin, Marley, keep an eye on Piper. She’s going to be mainly in her office or scoping out the site in front of the library.”
“Can I say something?” Federico said.
“Sure,” Levi said.
He already knew what was coming and he was tempted to just deny Federico’s request to speak, but that wasn’t the kind of alpha he wanted to be, or the kind of alpha he had been since he had taken over running the pack around eighty years ago.
“I think this is madness. Why don’t we just make Piper’s life so damned unbearable that she leaves town? She’s too high-profile, Levi. You said it yourself—she’s going to attract hunters. And if hunters start coming after her, do you really think they’re not going to do a little digging while they’re here?”
“He’s right,” Violet put in. “We’re risking our secret not being a secret anymore. And I don’t get why you’re so insistent that we all put our lives on the line for this chick. I mean, she’s a total stranger.”
“We don’t turn our backs on one of our own just because helping them would be dangerous, Violet. You know that,” Levi said.
“I do know it. And I would put my life on the line any day for any one of you. But she isn’t one of our own. She’s not a member of our pack.”
“She’s still a bear. That makes her one of us. I know you guys don’t like it, but it’s the right thing to do. And deep down, you all know it. Does anyone else have any objections to that?”
They all looked down at the ground or out of the windows, anywhere but at Levi as they grunted out unconvincing nos.
“You know, I was dead set against this. It seemed like we were inviting trouble onto ourselves for no reason,” Nancy said. “But then I met Piper and she’s a nice girl. She cares about people. She doesn’t know me from Adam, but she spoke up for me when any of the lawyers in this town would have been trying to convince me to admit to something I hadn’t done and just plead out. Piper got me out of there and told me she would prove my innocence. I guess after that, I can’t just think of her as expendable.”
“But you’re not actually in any real danger of going to prison, Nancy. This is all a setup, remember?” Justin said.
“I know that. But Piper doesn’t. And she’s willing to put herself on the line for me. I guess I’m just saying that maybe we could all learn something from that. We’re kind of losing sight of the true enemy here. Piper isn’t the enemy. The hunters are
the enemy. And throwing her to the hunters won’t make us any safer. It’ll just make us assholes,” Nancy said with conviction.
Levi was glad she had spoken up. She had worded it much more eloquently than he could have and the pack were at least hearing her out. When it came from him, it was an order. When it came from Nancy, it was a plea, and somehow, the plea got through to them in a way that Levi’s orders never could. They would do as he said, but hearing it this way, they would want to help, want to do the right thing.
“Fine,” Federico said. “We’ll do it.”
“Yeah. You’re right, Nancy. I guess we have to look out for her,” Violet added.
“Any questions, anyone?” Levi asked.
This time, everyone said no with a little more enthusiasm, and Levi felt like he had at the very least bought them a little time to establish if any hunters would come. If one or two came first and were dealt with, Levi knew the others would go off looking for easier targets and they could relax a little bit again. And there was always the possibility that any hunters who had seen the news didn’t believe Piper was anything supernatural. Or that they wouldn’t be able to track her down.
“I have to get back to the station. Call me if you need anything or if you have anything to report,” Levi said.
The pack took it as their cue to leave, and within seconds, Levi was heading out to his car to go back to the station.
5
Piper sat inside the library, looking out of the window at the fountain. From here, she could see the only bench beside the fountain, and if that was the spot Nancy had been sitting in when she was arrested, that was the spot she knew she had to watch.
She had been in the library since it had opened at eight-thirty that morning and it was now almost lunch time. She had brought her laptop, which she had open in front of her, not wanting to look too suspicious to the librarians. If either of them questioned her, she would just tell them the truth, but she was hopeful it wouldn’t come to that.
She wasn’t the only person who had been in the library for a while. There was an old man who had come in just after her, who picked up a book from one of the shelves, sat down on a comfy-looking leather couch, and began to read. Another woman sat using a computer, typing frantically like her life depended on it. And a constant stream of people had come and gone, working, borrowing books, or just coming inside to get out of the sun for a moment. Piper didn’t think she would stand out enough to draw too much attention to herself.