Hyde, an Urban Fantasy

by Lauren Stewart

  She grimaced and peered over the lid of the Styrofoam box that held his lunch. “What is that?”

  He swallowed and looked down, really seeing it for the first time. “Uh, let’s see.” He pulled it apart. “It’s got bread, a couple sad-looking vegetables, and this has a slight resemblance to meat. So I’m going with ‘it’s a burger’.”

  “I would have pegged you for more of a granola-eating, slave-to-the-gym kind of guy.”

  “Why would you think that? You’ve been to my house.”

  Her gaze traveled rapidly across his chest to his bicep then to his face as a blush planted itself firmly onto her cheeks. Damn it, it made her even more attractive.

  “I didn’t look in your refrigerator,” she said.

  “Why would you? Your panties weren’t in there.”

  She caught her flinch quickly and looked straight into his eyes. “Do you always push away people who come to you for help?”

  How could she get under his skin so easily? What the hell was he doing? Playful banter was one thing—playful banter with someone you’d almost lost yourself to was something too stupid for words.

  Alright, little girl, get ready for the real me. “Of course not. I’d never be able to make a living. I only push away those people I’ve stuck my dick into.” He felt a grin lift the corners of his mouth as her embarrassment grew.

  “Wow. You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?” She tossed her head, her hair falling around her shoulders, her eyes narrowing. “Too bad I was asleep through the entire ordeal. Does that happen with a lot of your bedmates?”

  “Oh, so that was you sleeping, huh? Is that why you were such a shitty lay?” As he watched her eyes get three times larger, he thought how she’d been the most incredible lover he’d ever had. And that connection he’d felt . . .

  She stepped backwards and blinked rapidly, tears beginning to pool.

  Damn it, another thing he didn’t do—regret his words. “Ugh, stop.” He leaned back in his chair and tossed his napkin onto the desk. “Do you really expect me to believe you were sleepwalking? The whole time?”

  The tears went away. “No. I don’t expect you to believe anything. But I was.”

  How did I get messed up in this? “Here.” He grabbed a yellow post-it note, flipped through his address file, wrote down a name and number and handed it to her. “Try her.”

  She took it from the edge as if she was afraid to let their skin touch. “Who is she?”

  “She’s a psychiatrist. I don’t do that sort of thing.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Well,” he said, popping both eyebrows excitedly, “normally, on Mondays, I serve ice cream to orphans. Wednesdays are my ‘Come in for some quick hypnosis’ days. And the rest of the week”—he dropped the silly act—“I tell people to get off their fucking asses and do whatever the hell it is they want to do.” Mitch dragged his eyes away from her and tried to focus on one of the files lying in front of him. “For $300 an hour. You can pay up front.”

  “But you didn’t do anything for me.”

  “You are taking up my time and a small amount of space in my office. Tell you what, I won’t charge you for the whole hour.”

  “Well, if I’m paying, I’m staying.” She plopped down into a chair and glared at him.

  “Suit yourself.” He went back to pretending to work, fighting back his smile—the proof that he wanted her around. Stay away from her, man. You don’t need this kind of complication.

  He shuffled paper and she fidgeted in her seat for ten excruciatingly long minutes.

  Thankfully, she broke first. “You’re really not going to help me?”

  “Aside from the fact that I’m not the kind of help you need, I’ve worked very hard to get to the point at which I can choose which clients I take on. I do not choose you.”

  She stood up, her stance wide. “Fine. Then I’m not paying.” She stormed out of the office and slammed the door in the exact same way she’d left his bedroom.

  Was she actually going to pay for the fifteen minutes she was here? Mitch picked up his cold burger then dropped it, laughing to himself. Oh, the games people play.

  Ten minutes later, a tall, mean-looking SOB walked through the door with Jolie a few steps behind him.

  Gotta get that fucking intercom fixed.

  “You’re a busy man, Mitch. I couldn’t get an appointment.” He walked into the office as if he owned the place, and Mitch was confident enough in his manhood to admit that the guy took up more space than most. He made Jolie look like someone who’d shop in the kid’s department at the mall. Dark eyes matched his hair, which was not much more than a crew cut.

  Mitch didn’t stand. “It’s Mitchell, or Turner, or Mr. Turner. Hell, I’ll even take Señor Turner. But not Mitch.” Only two people had ever gotten away with calling him Mitch, and they were both in the ground now. “And you are . . . ?” Not a client. Which made him either a telephone repairman or the new cop on his sister’s case. Not a tough guess.

  Great. As if his day hadn’t been dramatic enough already.

  Jolie stayed close to the man and mouthed, “He’s the cop.” Her eyes darted between the two men, her expression changing from a silent apology at Mitch and a lustful gaping at the cop. Good thing Mitch couldn’t care less. Although she really should be doing it on her own time.

  “Detective Landon. I’m here to talk about your sister’s murder.”

  “You have a card, Detective?” Mitch motioned to the chair that the little sleepwalker had just vacated.

  The cop handed him a business card of cheap, thin stock and terrible lettering.

  “What happened to the other detective, Nick?”

  The man tilted his head at the use of his first name and claimed the chair, stretching out his long legs in front of him. Jolie took the other seat.

  “He retired unexpectedly. I got some of his more colorful cases.” He nodded at Mitch. “Such as yours.”

  “You mean, my sister’s. Or am I still a suspect?”

  “You have an alibi, don’t you?” His smile was more like a sneer. “However, I like to start fresh.”

  “Fresh away,” he invited. Mitch usually welcomed a challenge, but he sensed that Landon was a worthier adversary than anyone else he’d crossed. Not to mention that Mitch was, in fact, probably guilty and needed to be careful.

  The detective checked his notes. “Your assistant, Jolie Cabot, who I believe is you”—he glanced at Jolie—“stated that you were together the night your sister was killed. Is that statement something you’re sticking to?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He was with me, but we’re no longer seeing each other.” She leaned forward, flashing the cop a shot of her cleavage.

  Mitch could have caught a swarm of bees in his mouth with the way it dropped open. Why’d she have to offer that last bit of info? Unless . . . He saw the way she was watching the cop, practically licking her lips. Oh shit, this was getting even more convoluted.

  “We went back to his house in the morning and found her body,” she said.

  Landon’s eyes went back to Mitch, waiting for his agreement perhaps.

  So Mitch gave it to him. “We found her, I flipped out, tried to . . . I don’t know . . . bring her back to life.” He felt his lip start to tremble at the memory and rubbed his jaw to stop it. “But she was already dead.”

  “And that’s why you had so much blood on you? Because you tried to resuscitate her?” His questions weren’t really questions, more like statements of facts he didn’t quite believe.

  Mitch cleared his throat. “Yes.” Blood, yes, there had been heaps of that. Shelly’s blood covering him. He’d wanted it to be his own. Would have given anything to trade places with her.

  “Was your sister visiting a common occurrence? At that time of night? Time of death was between, what, three and five?”

  “Early riser, and she practically lived there. It didn’t matter what time it was, she’d stop by whenever. She had a key,”
Jolie answered for him. Which was good, because at the moment, Mitch was still there on the doorstep, at Shelly’s side.

  He’d woken up confused in the upstairs hallway, Jolie’s arm around him, helping him walk. The chains he’d gone to sleep wearing were broken, the door of his cage wide open. There were lines of blood on his chest, almost as if they’d been painted on. Jolie’s panicked voice telling him Shelly was dead. That Hyde had gotten free. He’d shaken her until she told him where Shelly was and then stumbled down the stairs in a fog to find her body. Even as he’d tried to start his sister’s heart again, he’d known that she was gone.

  Landon flipped through a few pages in his notebook. “They found the key on her body. Was the house broken into? Anything taken?”

  Mitch shook his head. “No.”

  “But you told the officers on the scene that you believed it was a robbery attempt.”

  “What else could it have been?” Jolie said.

  Landon shrugged. “You tell me.” When no one responded, he continued. “Is there anyone who wanted to do you or your sister harm?”

  “I piss off a lot of people. But would anyone want me dead? Doubt it. Want her dead? No way.” She’d been a saint to his Lucifer, living the kind of normal life he’d never have. It was almost as if she was doing it for the both of them.

  “What about—” Jolie started. Her eyes widened as the two men focused on her. Then she seemed to relax, enjoying their attention as if they were at a bar discussing which of them she’d go home with instead of talking about death. “What about Leanne Tate? She might have wanted you dead.”

  “Who’s Leanne Tate? Did you tell the other detective about her?” He flipped through his notebook again.

  Mitch tried to catch Jolie’s eye, cursing her for bringing an innocent into the situation. But she was looking at the cop.

  “Leanne is one of Mitchell’s previous clients. She has”—Jolie gave him the international look for ‘whacked’—“issues. She was absolutely obsessed with him for a long time.”

  “But I haven’t seen her for a few months, Jolie.” Fuck, why’d she have to bring Leanne into it at all? Liars were liars, the guilty were guilty, and innocents should stay the hell away from all of them. Though truthfully, he imagined Leanne was part of the first and second groups most of the time.

  “Was she ever violent toward you?”

  Shit, the detective would find out eventually. “Yes. A few months ago she attacked me in the parking garage. But it was no big deal.”

  “Mitchell, it was a big deal.” She looked at Landon. “I was at my car and saw the whole thing. She wanted to hurt him.”

  “Did you file a report?”

  “Jolie did, but . . .” He shook his head.

  “You don’t think it was her.”

  “No, I don’t.” Mitch was really struggling here. He wanted the police to figure it out without getting anyone else in trouble. Not sure how that was possible since Jolie had stuck her nose and her questionable integrity into the whole thing. What if it had been someone else? Could Leanne have done it? Probably not. But he hadn’t been human at the time, nor had he had any flashbacks of the actual murder. The only thing he knew for sure was what had happened after he’d come back to himself, found himself naked and bloody, Jolie panicking next to him.

  “Leanne Tate. I’ll check her out. Is there anyone else who might want to hurt you?” Landon looked at Mitch. After Mitch shook his head, the detective looked at Jolie.

  “What about the woman from earlier?” she asked. “What was her name? She looked kind of angry.”

  Mitch didn’t give a name. In fact, the faster they stopped talking about her, the better. For all sorts of reasons, among the most obvious was because, “I only met her about a week ago.” Had it been a week? Longer? Nah, he’d been grieving the six-month anniversary of Shelly’s death when he’d slept with the woman. And then more drama had ensued. “Not to mention, I don’t think she’d be capable anyway, she’s too . . . scared of her own shadow.”

  “Anyone else?”

  Mitch shook his head for what felt like the fortieth time, so Landon looked to Jolie for an answer. She shook her head too, possibly at a loss of who else she could falsely accuse.

  “Your sister was pregnant at the time of her death. Who was the father?”

  Mitch wished he would stop calling her his sister. It was making the situation even more painful by bringing back all the emotion he so carefully tried to tuck away. “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me she was pregnant. I only found out when the cops told me about her autopsy.” God, he hated that word being connected to the only person he’d ever loved.

  Landon asked more questions and somehow they were answered—some by him, others by Jolie. He couldn’t keep track. His mind was miles away.

  The week before Shelly had died, she’d been laughing, hobbling into her apartment, just back from the hospital. The leg she’d broken skiing wrapped in a white cast. That kind of shit happened to normal people. He’d carried bouquets of flowers from her friends and her bag since she hadn’t yet mastered walking with a cane. After working so hard to convince her to rest, the doctor had given up on the idea of crutches. She hated the cane too, but she used it. That clacking sound as she walked would be forever branded on his eardrums. He tried not to think of the sound the cane might have made each time it had struck her flesh. Before it—and probably he—killed her.

  “We’re done for now.” The detective stood and closed his notebook. “Thank you for your”—he hesitated—“honesty.”

  Jolie straightened her skirt as she stood, still beaming at the guy as if he cared about the caps on her teeth. “You’ll let us know if there’s anything else?”

  “Oh, there will be something else. A lot of something else’s. I feel like I should tell you that I believe about half of what just came out of your mouth.” His stare rested on Mitch.

  Mitch got the feeling the man ended every one of his interviews with that line. “Half? Is that about average?”

  Landon smirked, nodding his head in a way that said, touché. “Occupational hazard. I never believe anything anyone says. So, actually, half is pretty decent.”

  “Then I’ll be satisfied with it.”

  ”I couldn’t care less about your satisfaction. I’m more concerned with what happened to your sister. The whole truth.”

  “And nothing but the. Right?”

  “I’m not going away, Turner. I’ll be in touch,” Landon said, his jaw tight, “with each of you. Separately.”

  As Jolie followed the guy out into the waiting room like a puppy chasing a lion, Mitch called out, “Can’t wait!” She threw him a dirty look and shut the door behind her. Two minutes later, she returned, looking frustrated.

  Mitch stopped pretending to be able to focus on work. “Your flirting wasn’t as effective as it usually is.”

  She sighed and laid down on the sofa, crossing her legs at the ankle. “I know. Why is it that all the men I want seem to be the only ones incapable of seeing my charms?” She gave him a look.

  If she was waiting for a compliment, she’d be waiting a while. “Perhaps they can see through to your true intentions.”

  Why she put up with him, he’d never understand, but she leaned back against the arm of the couch and said, “Yeah, that could be it.”

  CHAPTER V

  A nudge against her thigh jolted Eden awake. A quick glance around let her know she was no longer in her apartment and that someone wearing dark gray slacks and black shoes was shoving his foot into her rear end.

  “Why are you here?” Same doorstep. His voice. His aggravated, impatient, gravelly-sounding voice.

  Eden looked up as he nudged her again. “Okay, enough. I’m awake.”

  “When you visited my office the other day, did I accidentally say I couldn’t wait to see you again? Because if so, I left out a word. I meant to say: I can’t wait to see you never again.”

  “I’m sorry.” Why here? Why him?
Couldn’t I have ended up somewhere else? Like—oh, I don’t know—my own bedroom? Something was drawing her here. For some reason she could fathom even less than why he was still kicking her. “Hey, I said enough! Believe me, this is the last place I’d want to wake up.”

  “Old excuse, get a new one. Don’t you have a home? Or a job?” He grabbed her by the arm and hauled her off the flagstone step.

  “I was a T.A.” As soon as she was upright, she tore out of his grip and dusted off her bottom.

  He glanced at where she had her hands, then at her chest, and smirked. “T and A, huh? Makes sense.”

  As repulsive as the idea was, she knew his sarcasm was all bravado. How she knew it was still a mystery, however. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you, but T.A. stands for ‘Teacher’s Assistant’.”