His eyes had gotten dark as he listened to me and he leaned forward. “And so here you are in Denver, at the scene of another murder, another person you knew now dead.”
I felt the physical blow of those words. I narrowed my eyes at him and he leaned back in his chair, flipped open the file and pulled out a picture of the murder scene, the ball back in his court. Tammy had been gutted. Her stomach was ripped open and her intestines pulled partially out, her rib cage broken and her heart and lungs looked like someone had been gnawing at them. But that wasn’t what had killed her. Cats traditionally attack the neck, going for the main artery there. Tammy’s neck had been sliced open three times giving her a second, third and fourth smile, almost as if it were a set of claws. She’d have bled out almost instantly. It would have been quick, but definitely not painless. I covered my mouth, my mind connecting the smells from the room to this visual. I tried real hard not to throw up. He just watched me.
“Why would they do this to her?”
I looked at him for a long moment. “I don’t know.” I looked down again, but couldn’t keep my eyes on Tammy’s photograph.
“What would make a human being do something like this?” He laid out the other pictures of the room, the blood, pictures of the autopsy, and then added to the pile. I watched him lay out pictures of other women around my age, my build, my hair color. I watched him lay out their crime scenes and I couldn’t look away. I was numb. “The victims were all approached by someone they did not find threatening. It was the only way he could have gotten close. This woman here was about to get into her car.” He pulled a photo closer to me, trying to get me to look at it. I would have stood up if I hadn’t been cuffed to the table. I tried anyway. I managed a hunchback sort of look, like a cat arching its back to make itself look bigger against an attacker.
He immediately rose and put his hand to his hip. Other officers were suddenly in the room. I worked real hard on counting to ten in every language that I knew. The cat in me was getting cornered and nervous and pacing inside my head. She wanted out, away from these men to the dark, where she could crouch down and hide. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood and it seemed to bring me back to myself enough so that I could glare at those around me.
“The other victims…”
“I don’t care about them.”
“What do you care about then, Aislyn? What would bring you back to that room?” His hand was still on his gun. Jesus, did he really think I was the killer? You had thought you were too until a few hours ago, a voice whispered in the back of my head. It sounded suspiciously familiar and I stomped on it, hard.
I spat out my rehearsed explanation. “The newspapers described the other victims. I look like them. He’s the Ghost Cat Killer. Cat kills, physiology, medical texts, superstitions, anything that might be related I looked up. I wanted to find out about that kind of stuff. Can’t defend yourself against it if you don’t know anything about it.” The lights hummed and Rodriguez didn’t look like he was buying my answers. He was just looking at me. I started to get as nervous as the cat in my head and just started blurting things out. “I can’t remember where I was for all of the murders. What if the killer had been following me? What if I lead the Ghost Cat to these women and I didn’t even know it? What if one of these women was supposed to be me?” I realized with a start that I was telling the truth.
Dear God, those poor women. They couldn’t have defended themselves, not like I could have. Did the Ghost Cat know that? Did the Ghost Cat know my secret? “Ghost Cat took Tammy instead of me. The killer took Tammy because she was in my room and I wasn’t.” My gorge rose and I banged the table with my fists so hard it left dents. I would not cry anymore. This guy would not get any more tears from me. “I don’t know what Ghost Cat looks like. I don’t know why he picked me.” I lied and it tasted bitter in my mouth, but I couldn’t tell them the truth. Ghost Cat couldn’t resist hunting a hunter.
I kicked my chair back so hard that it splintered when it hit the wall behind me. “My friend is dead! I took off for a break and she dies! I see it on the news! On some level I must have know the killer was hunting me.” I felt the cat in my head cringe and realized that she had known I was being stalked. I was too angry to be around people, but they wouldn’t let me go. I ripped a photo of one of the women.
“My height!” I screamed as much at the cat in my head as at the men in the room. I grabbed another picture. “My hair!” Another picture shredded as the men just watched. “My face!” I threw the pieces at Rodriguez and screamed, gripping the table. I screamed again, doubling over from the force of it tearing out of me. And the cat in my head was finally afraid of what I was going to do to it instead of the other way around.
The men in the room just stared. Most had their hands on the weapons. A few had them drawn but pointed at the floor. A crying woman they could have handled. A shaken, frightened woman they were ready for. A woman professing innocence and begging was what they had hoped for, but one just so unbelievably pissed off was nowhere on their man radar. They couldn’t comfort me, couldn’t arrest me, and couldn’t beat me into confession. I’d effectively shocked some of the most jaded men on the planet and couldn’t even take any pleasure in that.
The screaming was done. I was still doubled over, looking up through my hair at the men surrounding me, watching to see if they would make a move towards hurting me. The only sound in the room was harsh, grating against my ears until I realized it was my breathing. I winced as the air I sucked in rasped against my raw throat, but the cat thought that was good. That it focused me.
“What were you doing in the room?” Rodriguez looked at me with wide eyes. I think he just asked because he had no idea what else to say. I pulled myself up a bit.
Ghost Cat had taken away the little piece of my life I had managed to get back. I met every single pair of eyes in the room, waited until I saw their natures bubbling through, until I saw the hunter in each of them, because make no mistake, there is a hunter in every cop breathing. Then I looked back at Rodriguez. “I was looking for something to nail the son of a bitch.”
Chapter Eleven: Jackson
Jackson pulled into the parking lot of Tammy’s Bar and tried to figure out what his first move would be. The news had been broadcasting reports of the latest Ghost Cat victim and he knew this was the scene of a crime, that she’d be here. Tammy had been someone important to her. Someone she was willing to go out of her way for. Someone she was upset over losing and she’d lost a lot of someones in her life. This was going to be the last one.
The fact that strange thoughts like that flitted through his head disturbed him at first. He had grown up hating anything that wasn’t human, been trained by the best of the family to hunt down and kill them. He’d taken on his first Shifter solo when he was thirteen. He still wore the scar on his stomach from the claws and could hear every syllable from his father’s tirade after they stitched him up. He hated Shifters, witches, demons and everything paranormal. They weren’t part of the natural scheme of things and shouldn’t be here.
Somehow, Aislyn had changed that outlook, radically. He knew it was a spell of some kind. Knew that the witch had done something to him that made him see the Shifter as a little more human than what she really was. But it felt so real. Her loss and pain at Tammy’s death couldn’t be faked. Shifters were historically callous and bloodthirsty, not guilt-ridden and remorseful. Shifters were violent and self-centered, not going into burning buildings and picking up stupid, unconscious men. It was almost as if she were regaining some of her humanity. He was confused about that and what it meant. He’d hated for so long he really didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.
Truth be told, he’d liked the bar owner as well. She’d been a little crazy, bordering on witchcraft herself, but she’d seemed to genuinely care about the people who walked into her place. That was a rare thing in this world. He was sad to have lost the opportunity to get to know her better. She would have been a good friend and
he didn’t have many of those. She might have even been able to handle the truth about the others, the group of family that had raised him and what they really did. What he really was. He wanted to help Aislyn solve this murder, to bring the right person to justice, if nothing else.
He was about to get out of his car when he spotted a man coming out of the building with Aislyn, her arms behind her back. Jackson gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. Aislyn was placed in the back of a unmarked police car, a hand gently guiding her head so she didn’t bump it. The man buckled her in tenderly when she didn’t move. He put a coat around her when she began to shake and he absently wiped away some of the rain from her face. She didn’t fight or even look up. Then the man got into the car and started it up. He turned to check on the woman in his back seat once, as if to say something to her then shook his head and pulled out into the light traffic. Jackson started up his truck and followed.
The cop took her back to the police station. Jackson drove past and wondered what his next move should be. He pulled into a gas station to think. A mother and her daughter looked at him curiously, and he absently stared back at the bunny costumes. He’d almost forgotten it was Halloween tonight.
He couldn’t just waltz in there and grab her. She was likely pulled in to be questioned about the murders, at least why she was at the scene of the last one. She didn’t look like she’d been thinking all too clearly. Since she had been up in the mountains with him around the time the murder took place, he knew she should be able to talk her way out of this.
But she’d been docile, just letting the cop put her in the back of the car, not fighting, not looking for an escape route, nothing. What had happened to the ferocity that Shifters were known for? Would she even offer them up an alibi? Would they bother to check?
He had to go in there and give them one. Hope that she would play along with what he had planned. He turned over the engine and drove back, parked outside in the visitor’s space and walked up the steps. He passed a kid with sunglasses trying to look cool on a bench outside and shook his head. Had he ever been that young and stupid?
He went straight to the desk sergeant and asked to speak to someone about the woman they’d just brought in. The one who had worked at Tammy’s Bar. The desk sergeant jerked in his chair as if he’d been shot, then led him to his own little cell. The sergeant said that someone would be with him in a moment. He had no doubt that was true.
Chapter Twelve: Aislyn
I waited while the entire room got real focused on what I’d just said. Rodriguez looked me up and down, but there was no hostility. It was as if he was seeing a different layer to me all of a sudden.
“Where did you go, Aislyn? Why weren’t you in that room?” The room was still filled with tension, testosterone and weapons. I had to defuse it or I wasn’t going to leave.
“I went up into the mountains for a ride, to blow off some steam. I just finished working a double. I get grabbed all the time. I was on edge and thinking I was paranoid. The papers said it would have been either last night or tonight for the next murder to happen. I just wanted out of the city until it was over with. I left. I didn’t want to be around anyone in case I was right, the Ghost Cat was following me and I wasn’t paranoid.” Rodriguez nodded; checking his facts in his notebook then he took his pen back up and added more notes.
“How did you know Tammy had been killed?”
“News. You looked good on camera, by the way.” I was starting to loosen up and my mouth was starting to show it. He didn’t look up but he smiled.
“Why didn’t you contact the police?”
“I have trust issues with authority figures due to previous encounters.” I thought that sounded relatively politic given the circumstances.
“Why were you wearing handcuffs?” He eyed me for this. I flushed crimson. There was only one good lie I could think of and my virtue was going to suffer for it.
“Part of how I was unwinding.” I ducked my head and wished I hadn’t kicked the chair across the room. Rodriguez’s cuffs had me locked to the table and I desperately wanted to cross my arms to cover my chest. The cat in my head regarded me curiously, wondering why I was ashamed.
Rodriguez raised an eyebrow at me and the other men in the room took their hands off their guns and eyed me in a new light. A light that I didn’t particularly like being examined under. It quite clearly read “prospect” in flashing neon. Rodriguez waited patiently for me to elaborate, pen poised over his notebook, legs crossed professionally despite his casual attire. I stifled a growl of frustration and glared back. The lights hummed and someone shuffled their feet. A couple of eyes were brimming with a few unshed tears of mirth as they waited for their superior to get it. It stretched out too long and I huddled in on myself as much as possible, hating the corner I had painted myself into.
“Sex, okay? I picked up a random guy and I was gonna get laid, he even had a cheap set of cuffs. There, happy?” There were a few snickers in the room and Rodriguez glared them into silence.
“Do you like rough sex?” He sounded as if he were asking me to pass the sugar or would I like milk. I ground my teeth together.
“Do you want a demonstration?” I clenched my teeth. That got me even more snide looks and laughter. Rodriguez cleared the room then. I waited, standing since they weren’t going to give me another chair. Rodriguez took a little longer than just clearing a room should have taken, and I wondered if he were picking the coffee beans he was going to grind into blend before he filtered them into a hot cup. Something nagged at the back of my brain. The cat swished her tail at my stupidity.
Rodriguez entered, looking flushed and flustered. I resisted the urge to smirk. Had he been picturing me naked and chained to the bed the way he had been? Did he need a little alone time to get himself under control? Aww, poor baby.
They had nothing really to hold me on save for trespassing and fake IDs and I could probably worm my way out of it on the basis that they had a plausible excuse for most of my behavior, and I would willing give up my source of IDs. Rodriguez eyed me speculatively, and then slid the keys to the cuffs over.
“Can you describe your one-night stand?” He was stiff backed, arms crossed and not making eye contact. The sex talk was unnerving him. He sat and looked resolutely at his notebook’s blank page.
“You like dirty stories, Detective?” I rubbed my wrists. He was stalling, I could feel it.
“His or her appearance, any names you might have gotten, if you bothered with that much.” His tone was cavalier, but his eyes were watching me for my reaction from underneath his brows. I walked to the back of the room and leaned on the wall, crossing my arms.
“Jackson something or other. He was tallish, blondish, strongish, green eyes, nice ass, great kisser and his hands weren’t bad either. We’d left the TV on and when I heard about Tammy, I just split.” I had no idea about the truth of the name. It’s not like people gave their real names when they hooked up for a night anyway.
Rodriguez snapped his notebook closed. His lips were pressed tightly together and he narrowed his eyes. He did not look pleased at all.
“He’s here.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Handcuffs is out front. Seems he was worried about you when you took off in such a rush. Your stories corroborate each other, so technically I have to release you.” His tone made me think that he would like nothing better than to lock me up for no good reason, but he couldn’t because he was being watched by his superiors. Instead he rose and walked to the door, looking around at me and raised his eyebrows in polite query. I walked forward; unnerved at the courtesy he was showing me. Actually chivalry itself tended to unnerve me. I didn’t trust it. But if he was going to let me go then who was I to argue?
He opened the door for me. The cat paused in her pacing to regard the man. She crouched down in my head, wary, ready to pounce should he make the wrong move. I agreed. Rodriguez wasn’t a man who let things go easily. He leaned into my ea
r as I came up even with him and whispered.
“I don’t believe you are the killer.” I turned to look at him. “But you’re not telling me the whole story. You and the facts don’t add up, Aislyn.” I don’t think he intended for my name to slip out as a caress, but it did.
“What do you want from me?” I gazed up into his eyes. He leaned over me, forcing me to either back up against the now open door or let him into my personal space. He was trying to intimidate me where we wouldn’t be seen. I didn’t move and he moved so close I could kiss him.
“I want this killer off my streets, Aislyn.” I saw how he was haunted by the deaths. I glimpsed the man behind the shield. He protected what was his with a ferocity and dedication few could understand.
“I want that too. Let me know what I can do to help.” And I kissed him. Just a quick brush of lips, but he jumped back as if I’d struck him. He looked as if seeing me for the first time.
“You’re serious. And you’re not afraid of this guy? You fit his victims’ profile. He knows where you live. I should put you in protective custody just on principle.”
“But you have something else in mind, don’t you, Detective?” I leaned into his space now and he regarded me like a man holding the wrong end of a snake. I smiled and the cat in my head purred.
Even for Me Page 5