by Josie Hunter
When they reached Gabe Laughton, who was on his way to the airport to pick up the package the Santiago brothers had sent them, he agreed with the brothers.
“I’d say he might just make a mistake now that you’ve made your accusations, but a man like that doesn’t make many mistakes. If you’re right about any of this, it’s been happening for decades.”
“So what do we do now?” Robb had asked.
“We’ll just have to sit tight,” Laughton said. “I can’t go to Justice or Homeland with any of this, and I certainly can’t go to the paranormal council. I’m hoping once we have the new satellite office up and running, we’ll have a few more bodies to put to the case.”
“Not very comforting,” Tyler said.
“It’s all we have for now,” Gabe said. “No matter what we think, it’s still all bureaucracy, and there are rules and proper channels to follow. We’re dealing with some formidable political power here. We can’t take on a man like Santos unless we’ve covered our asses. So far, the amount of real intel leaves our collective asses pretty much hanging in the wind.”
Toward noon, Robb was in the briefing room with the dayshift, updating them on the search for a new sorcerer, when his phone rang. He checked the caller ID, hoping it was Rosa, but it was Gabe Laughton again.
“I’ve got Winston,” Gabe said. “I’ll be back at Cattail within the hour to get him temporarily settled at the ranch. Better have Doc Bennett standing by. The guy’s in bad shape.”
“Before or after the extraction?” Robb asked.
“Both,” Gabe said. “Apparently there were bodies.”
“The Santiagos?”
“Winston has no idea. He said it was chaos.”
Robb tried to make a follow-up call to check on Javier and Cruz, but neither of them responded. He hoped his friends had made it out of Panama okay.
He had just hung up when Carly Lucas, dressed in a white tank top and sapphire yoga pants, stuck her head in the door of the security hut. All gazes turned toward the door, and every man and woman stood. She came over the threshold and smiled, waving them back to their seats.
“Mrs. Lucas, what can we do for you?”
“You can tell me what you did to Rosa last night,” Carly said quietly with a laugh.
Robb’s gaze shot to Steve then Marcus. Both men flushed red while several of the Tomcats in the front row of seats began to laugh.
“She didn’t have that much champagne,” Robb said.
“Maybe not, but she never made it to class this morning. We have pole dancing at ten, and she was nowhere to be found. I took the other girls out to breakfast, thinking she’d overslept, but when we returned to the studio, still no Rosa. I called her several times but no answer.” Her gaze searched the room until it lit on his cohorts in crime. “I did talk to Jake a bit last night when Cougar and I went to Clandestine, and he told me there were three of you involved. Did you wear her out?” Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Can’t say we didn’t,” Robb said with a smirk, “but she mentioned having class, and she planned to go right to bed. She left around two.”
“I know it’s only a couple blocks, but you didn’t walk her home?”
Suddenly feeling like the biggest bastard on the planet, Robb felt his face pull into a grimace. “Um, no. She wanted to walk home alone, and the three of us…well, being the selfish bastards that we apparently are, we went for a run.”
She laughed. “I can’t really fault you for that. I know that feeling. We do quite a bit of running at Cattail. Hmm…” Carly tapped her lip. “Maybe she had some plans this morning that ran over. I’ll try her cell a few more times before I worry.” She gave the group another smile. “I’m sorry I bothered you. Carry on.” She waved her hand in a flourish and was gone.
Robb frowned, staring after her. The alpha’s woman had come to the security shed. That never boded well. He checked over his notes and realized he’d covered everything important. Suddenly, no matter what he had written down, everything seemed insignificant.
“Dismissed,” he said. The Tomcats began to file out of the hut. “Danielle.” The woman turned around, her dark ponytail flying over her shoulder.
“Yes, sir?”
“Hang for a minute, okay?”
She nodded, and he moved toward Steve and Marcus, who stood in the back of the room. He’d already dialed Rosa’s number, and when it went to voice mail, he left a “call me” message and hung up.
“What the hell?” Steve said. “I know she wouldn’t have overslept.”
“Could she have had an appointment of some kind?” Marcus asked. “Doctor, dentist, anything?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Robb said, “and I don’t think she’d make them for morning anyway. She told me once she doesn’t function well until ten.”
“I think we should go check on her,” Marcus said.
“Good call.” Robb shoved his phone into his pocket, and Steve grabbed his cowboy hat from the wall peg. “Danielle, we’re heading into Catamount to check on Rosa Santos. Man the desk and, if Cougar calls, let him know what’s happening. But don’t mention anything unless he does. I’d rather not worry any of the pride before I have more answers.”
“Yes, sir. And Suzie, sir?”
“Have Claire shadow for a few hours this afternoon. She could use the experience.”
Danielle laughed. “Suzie runs roughshod over Claire. You know how those rabbit-shifters are. A bit timid ’til they get the lay of the land.”
“Then it’ll be good for her,” Robb said. “Hold down the fort.”
* * * *
She didn’t answer the apartment door, and the door to the studio was locked up tight. Then he remembered the balcony. He led the other two men around to the back and saw the kitchen door was open. They stormed up the stairs and rushed into the kitchen. The kitchen light was on, and the kettle was full of water on the stove. The sounds of the TV filtered in from the living room. He pushed open the swinging door and found it turned to an old movie channel. Her shoes had been kicked off near the door, and her dress lay in a puddle near the window, along with a bracelet and earrings. Several of the throw pillows looked like they’d be moved around a bit, but other than that, everything looked pretty much okay. He saw no signs of a struggle.
Just to be sure, he checked the other rooms. None of the beds had been disturbed, but he did notice the pretty flowered robe she’d worn with him the morning after their first sexual encounter was missing from the bathroom door where she’d kept it.
“Anything?” he asked the other guys when he stepped back into the kitchen.
Marcus held up a pillow, the stuffing spilling from two rips in the silk. “Found this is the trash can. It’s damp, like it’s been pumped full of fluid.”
Robb gave it a sniff. “That’s pretty common with serpent-shifters. My ex used to build up venom during sex. She’d have to release it, and she liked to do it before she shifted. Katharine used small rodents she kept in a cage in our family room. A little sex, a little snack. Her idea of fun.”
“Gross,” Marcus said.
“Only one of the many reasons we’re no longer married,” Robb said. He ran his finger along the edge of the rip. “These look like they’ve been created by actual serpent fangs. I found Rosa’s dress in the living room. It looks like she shifted when she got home.”
“Any way to tell if she shifted back?” Steve asked.
“Not that I can see,” Robb said, looking around, “though if I had to guess, I’d say she shifted when she arrived, released the poison then later went to the kitchen to have tea. That buildup of venom is pretty powerful. One orgasm, not such a big deal. Maybe she could handle even two without much trouble. But with the three of us…”
“Okay,” Marcus said, “so we assume she opened the door on her own for whatever reason. There’s no sign of forced entry. But why would she have left the house at all?”
Robb stepped out the door and stood on the balcony.
He took in the view, seeing the backs of several other businesses, the alleyway, and Lucas Park across from her building. If Rosa had been standing in her kitchen, what might she have seen?
He saw her waving in his mind’s eye. He’d glanced out the window that morning to see that squirrely dude in the wheelchair rolling across the grass of the park at 6:00 a.m. Would Rosa have left her house in the middle of the night if she saw…what was his name? Larry. His name had been Larry. Maybe Larry had been in distress, maybe acting like a lunatic, maybe he’d even had an accident.
They crossed the alley to the park. Robb caught a strong whiff of alcohol—beer in fact—throughout the park, but it was especially strong in the area across from Rosa’s studio. When he scoured the ground, he saw several tracks that could have been made by the tires of a wheelchair, though in a public park, they’d been trampled pretty thoroughly by both small and large feet, so it was impossible to get a sense of direction.
“It was Larry,” Robb said. “The dude in the wheelchair. That’s why she left. She must have thought he was in trouble of some kind.”
“I smell beer,” Marcus said. “Maybe he was drunk and fell out of his chair.”
“Know anything else about him?” Steve asked.
“He’s a bit on the strange side, possibly even a bit crazy. But he’s also a veteran, so chances are someone knows him. Besides, how many people are confined to wheelchairs in this town?”
“Maybe three or four,” Steve said.
“Let’s start with the veterans’ center.”
* * * *
Rosa blinked several times. Her eyelids felt heavy, almost as if they’d been weighted down. She finally managed to open them fully and found herself in almost complete darkness. The only light came from a small dingy window near the ceiling. The location of the window, and the cool, humid air, as well as the musty, dank smell—a combination of muddy, stagnant water, mildew, and mold—seemed to indicate an underground chamber of some sort. So, she assumed she was in a basement, though where that basement might be she had no idea. All in all, it was a very unpleasant environment, and she was cold.
She realized she was lying on her back on a very hard surface, probably concrete judging by the cold dampness penetrating her thin robe and bare legs. Every bone in her body ached, and she had a pounding headache. She was also having trouble drawing a deep breath. She suspected the horrible air quality had something to do with that. Whether it was the gloom or the lingering effects of having been unconscious, she felt like she had cobwebs covering her eyes. She lifted her hands to wipe them, and her left arm was brought up short by some sort of restraint.
She turned her head, slowly because her neck hurt something awful. Though she knew her wrist was cuffed, she was unable to see much. She rolled over and reached out, feeling around almost blindly and running her hand up and down a metal cylinder that disappeared into the wall. She yanked on it, but there was only the slightest bit of give. She figured it was a drainpipe, and that pipe disappeared into a small rough-cut hole in the wall. Her fingers found cold, grainy, foul-smelling metallic particles encrusted around the edge of the pipe and the hole. They also found a considerable amount of dank, stinky muck. She wiped her hand on the brick wall as best she could because she didn’t want the ick on her robe. She realized if she were attached to a pipe, there was probably latitude for movement. She scooted a bit and hauled herself into a seated position, her back against the cold and damp brick, but at least it was warmer than the concrete floor.
She peered around her small prison, seeing nothing but deeper pockets of shadow in the gloom and dancing dust motes drifting in front of the dirty window that seemed so very high up. Then she noticed a tiny sliver of light on the opposite wall. The door to freedom.
“Well, at least a door,” she murmured. She wiggled her arm and heard the clank of the chain. “Not that I can reach it.”
But if she could shift… She would never be able to climb vertically up the wall to the window, but would she fit in that hole? It had been small, but if she squeezed herself through it, it might widen out beyond the brick. She had no idea where it went, but it had to offer better chances than being locked in this place.
She concentrated through the haze still lingering in her mind, trying desperately to find her inner serpent. She called and called, pleaded and begged, but the animal was nowhere to be found. It was as though it had disappeared entirely, and tears welled in her eyes. Despite every effort she made, every thought and feeling she could evoke, she remained in human form. She’d had control over her inner animal and had been shifting with a mere thought since she was four years old.
“What is wrong with me?”
She choked back a sob and tried to hold on to her self-control. Panicking wouldn’t help her now.
She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. She thought back to her last memories. Shifting. Releasing her venom. Making tea…no, starting to make tea. She’d been distracted by something…someone outside her window. She remembered being in the park. A glimmer of metal in the grass. Then turning and seeing…
“Larry,” she spat. “Son of a bitch.”
So Larry had kidnapped her. Did that mean he’d never been confined to that wheelchair at all, or had he had help? Had he done it for personal reasons or for reasons she couldn’t even fathom? More importantly, was he responsible for why she couldn’t shift?
If only she could get warm, she’d be able to think better. She ran her free hand up her icy arm and paused.
She brought her arm up as high as she could and saw something white against the shadow of her arm. When she picked at it with her free hand, it peeled away in her fingers. She realized it was a bandage when she smelled the coppery aroma of blood.
“Father,” she ground out. “That bastard took my blood.”
Wincing against the pounding in her head and the agony spearing through her limbs, she rose to her feet, the cuff sliding up the metal drainpipe.
“Let me out of here, you fucks!” she screamed.
There was only a moment silence before someone answered. “No can do, little lady,” came a voice from beyond the sliver of light. “Got mighty big plans for you, precious.”
“Goddamn it, Larry, open the fucking door!”
“Don’t rile yourself there, honey. Isn’t good for your system with all those drugs in there.”
Drugs. Oh, God, he’s drugged me.
“What have—” Her voice croaked, and she lost it entirely for a moment. She swallowed thickly, trying to find any moisture to wet her parched throat, and tried again. “What have you done to me?”
“Can’t hear you very well, darlin’.”
Larry’s voice sounded very faint, as though he stood beyond a very solid steel door. She tried to move closer, but the cuffs only allowed her to move a foot or so from the drainpipe. She tried hard to raise her voice, but it hurt to scream so loudly.
“Please, Larry…What have they given me?”
“Now, little lady, how the fuck would I know? Did I look like a chemist to you?” She heard him cackle beyond the door. “Just keep cool, and it’ll be over before you know it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Rosa said, slumping down to the floor again.
Chapter 11
During the next twenty-four hours, with the help of the alpha and his pride and Marcus and Steve, Robb investigated everything they could in regards to Larry and came up empty. No one at the veterans’ center knew him, though several members had seen the man wheeling around town. Most had deliberately avoided him because they suspected he wasn’t “quite all there,” as one old guy had said. The woman who’d rented the furnished apartment to him—an ugly little woman who looked more like a troll than the aardvark-shifter she was—said he’d arrived with a wheelchair and one duffel bag, paid cash for a month’s rent, and had spent most of his time watching TV. She knew because he kept the volume on high constantly for at least twenty hours a day. She said she’d seen him
come and go a few times but had no idea where he went. Most often when he returned, he was carrying bags of takeout food and six-packs of beer. They’d barely said more than a dozen words to one another in the time he’d been there. They checked with several fast-food establishments and stores that sold beer and, yes, many of the employees said they’d served him at one time or another but knew nothing about him.
They searched every business and every residence in Catamount. Everyone was more than cooperative. Still, they turned up no sign of Rosa.
Desperate by Friday morning, they brought in a bloodhound-shifter from San Antonio, a man named Walt Dennison, who’d been one of Ben Lucas’s friends from the old days. The guy was beyond ancient but still at the top of his game. Unfortunately, the game ended at the parking lot.
With no need to shift—“My nose is as strong as they come, even as a man,”—he tracked Rosa to the park as they’d suspected and smelled her scent.
“Really nice-smellin’ girl, that one,” he said. He looked the group over, and his gaze settled on Robb then drifted over Steve and Marcus. “Smell a couple of you fellers combined with that pretty scent too.” He chuckled then blushed a deep red, looking at the ground in embarrassment. “Damn, I shouldn’t a said that. Not my place and highly inappropriate under the circumstances. I’m truly sorry.”
He hunkered down and got back to work.
He also scented the beer near the edge of the park and had seen the tire tracks. After analyzing the scene, he pronounced there’d been another man involved in the abduction, a man who could walk. Walt said he couldn’t be positive, but he suspected some sort of bird-shifter because the tracks just appeared under the large cottonwood tree out of nowhere and moved toward the parking lot, along with the somewhat primitive smell of feathers, a couple types actually, but one more prevalent than the other.