She set the chair up for Alec and then took her place at the computer to log in.
She scanned her email briefly to make sure she wasn’t missing anything important and then switched to the master program for all the medical examiner reports she had access to. She had memorized the case numbers for both Ellis’s and Bob’s reports and entered Ellis’s first.
“Damn,” she muttered as a message outlined in a red square flashed on the screen.
“What?” Alec asked from behind her. He leaned in to look over her shoulder, and even with her nose-deafness she caught a brief whiff of a very nice smell.
She shifted with discomfort. This office really was small. “Uh, well, Ellis’s coroner report has been processed through the system. Shit, that was fast; Gretchen must see stars in her future if she’s expediting like this.”
“Okay?” Alec shrugged. “And?”
Natalie retyped the case number and got the same message. She sighed. “Once a case processes out of the medical examiner’s office and into the system as a whole, lower-level employees in the ME’s office are locked out of the report.”
Alec blinked. “Why?”
“To prevent us from doing exactly what you and I want to do: alter information that could affect a case. Though they assume that it would be accidental, and we want to do it totally and illegally on purpose.”
“Is there any other way to get access?” Alec pressed.
Natalie shook her head. “Only Gretchen can give me access once it clears. If I ask her for it, she’s going to play twenty questions with me about why.”
“And you are a crappy liar,” Alec offered.
She glared up at him. “Thanks.”
“It’s true.” He shrugged. “Actually, it’s kind of refreshing.”
Natalie blinked and then refocused. “Shit. I was hoping we’d catch it before the case cleared, even if only to review the details. Hmmm . . . But Blob’s info might still be available, since it was more recent.”
She keyed in the number and waited, but after a few seconds of processing, the same message popped onto the screen.
“Wow,” she breathed. “They must have classified Blob’s death as a suicide or accident and closed the case out really fast.”
Alec opened his mouth like he was going to say something and then shut it. He shook his head and then said, “So you can’t access the reports for either?”
She let out a low sigh. “I guess not.”
He reached over her and grabbed her keyboard. “Here, let me try.”
She wrinkled her brow, but stood up to give him space and paced across to the door. She glanced around in the hallway and closed it to give them some privacy.
Natalie stared at the back of Alec’s head as he leaned over the keyboard, his fingers flying. He needed a haircut. But then, he always needed a haircut.
“Did you . . . did you sleep with Kai?” she asked before she even had time to consider what she was asking.
Alec froze and slowly looked over his shoulder at her. “What?” he asked, then returned to his work.
“Kai,” she repeated, mostly because now that she had started this line of questioning, she couldn’t think of a way out of it. “I mean, you sort of showed up with her that morning after Ellis died, and I thought maybe you . . . were there with her at her apartment when she got my text. In the middle of the night. Sleeping with her.”
He glanced at her again, but his face was unreadable. “Would that bug you, Natalie?”
She shifted. That was twice he’d asked about jealousy, and this time it was a question she didn’t exactly know the answer to. Or want to face.
The truth was, yeah, the idea of him sleeping with Kai did kind of bug her.
“What?” she asked instead of answering.
He laughed. “See, bad liar. I asked you if I’d slept with Kai, would it make you jealous?”
His fingers continued to fly over the keyboard without hesitation, even though he and Natalie were having the most awkward conversation on the planet. Especially since they were faking being cousins. And since they were going to be roommates. Maybe. If he hadn’t changed his mind.
“No,” she burst out as she sank into the folding chair he had abandoned in exchange for her more comfortable computer chair. “Of course not.”
“Not even a little?” He chuckled when she didn’t respond. “Well, either way, we didn’t sleep together. Kai called me at my apartment that morning to come meet you two. I don’t know why, since I don’t think she really believes you need a babysitter.” He leaned forward. “Hey, here you go!”
“What?”
“I got in.”
Natalie shook off lingering questions and emotions related to their conversation about . . . “us” and looked over his shoulder to see what he was talking about. She staggered back as she stared at the screen. The New York Police Department seal was at the top of the site he was in. And it wasn’t the public site anyone could access, either.
“Holy shit, you’re inside the NYPD system! I thought you were trying to access Gretchen’s files, but this is . . . this is so illegal.”
He glanced at her. “All of it is illegal, sweetheart, it’s just how many more years you get in the clink. But that’s only if we get caught. And I’m not going to get caught. I have the police reports, autopsy, and everything else for both Ellis’s and Blob’s deaths.”
He pulled Ellis’s information up first and they scanned it together.
“See, this is just like Ellis’s H. G. Wells story,” Natalie said as she pointed to a couple of lines in the report. “A man claimed to have been attacked by the victim and was fleeing when he came upon a crowd. They turned on the victim and beat him until he died. There was a shovel left at the scene, but no one knows where it came from.”
“How do you know that’s from Ellis’s story?” Alec asked, though he sounded impressed. “I thought you just looked up mode of death, but this is more than just that.”
Natalie shrugged. “Once he was killed, I started doing more research on all the stories for everyone. It took me a while to get through everybody, but I wanted to be able to recognize the details if there were more attacks.”
Alec swiveled her chair to look at her. “Nice, Natalie. Good thinking. Does that mean you researched my story, too?”
She blushed. Why did that question seem so personal? “Yeah. All of your stories. And there are a lot. Werewolves have been very popular in culture for decades, centuries, even.”
“Including Teen Wolf?” he teased.
She laughed. “The original movie, the sequel, and that new series. You don’t die in those movies, though, dude. You get the girl and everything.”
“Wow, I’m impressed.” He glanced back at the screen. “Okay, well, what about Blob?”
With a click of the mouse, he switched to the report for Blob. Although it was missing the detail about Blob being locked in the freezer, since Alec had taken the lock with him when he left, it did include something else that made Natalie’s heart sink and her stomach hurt.
“In the original movie, the Blob was pushed into a freezer by townspeople using fire extinguishers as sort of a herding mechanism,” she said. “And it looks like the responding officers noticed a few freezer burns on his arms and neck that might match the kind of intense CO2 a fire extinguisher might contain. Still, they classified it as an accidental death.”
Alec frowned, and any teasing they had shared earlier was long gone.
“This is bad,” he finally said softly.
She nodded. “Yeah. These things . . . they can’t be coincidences. Not with so many matching details.”
“I don’t think even Kai can claim that after this,” he agreed.
She shook her head. “Look, as much as I’d like to go home right now, I have to finish my shift. You should go back to the apartment and let the others know. That is . . . if you are actually going to live with me.”
His brow wrinkled. “Um, yeah. That’s wh
at we talked about, right? Unless you changed your mind.”
She shifted. She shouldn’t be so happy he’d said yes. She didn’t really want him there.
Not much.
“No, of course not,” she said with what she hoped was a nonchalant shrug. “I need a roomie to make rent and you need someone to keep you from running wild when you werewolf out. It’s just that you never came back to my apartment to bring any of your stuff after work last night. So I thought maybe you changed your mind.”
Now it was him who shifted, and he looked a little guilty for second. “I was beat after last night. Being so close to the full moon does that to me. I run ragged, then collapse. I crashed when I got back to the old apartment. But I will stop by my old place when I leave here and get my stuff.”
Natalie smiled, though she had no idea why this inconvenience was making her so happy. “Excellent. I mean, fine. Whatever. Then, uh, you should get to that. And I’ll be home soon.”
Alec looked at her for a long moment and she girded herself for some kind of string of arguments. Instead, he nodded.
“Okay.”
She blinked. “Okay. Good.”
He stood up and moved toward the door, but he didn’t leave. “Nat, are you okay?”
She slid back into her own chair and looked up at him with a weak smile. “Well, I haven’t been burned to death on a pyre. Yet. So I guess I have to be okay.”
He hesitated, and she felt like he wanted to say something else, but then he shook his head. “I’ll see you at home.”
“Yup,” she said as she pretended to go back to work. “See you later.”
But as he left her alone, she knew that the one thing this situation was not was okay. And no matter how much she lied, it wasn’t going to be.
The night shift dragged on and the eight hours felt like twenty by the time Natalie got off the train and trudged up to her street and finally to her apartment. Her whole body ached from holding it so stiff all night. Her cheeks hurt from faking smiles.
She reached for the doorknob, and for the second time in as many nights it opened before she could turn it. This time, however, there was no angry Whitney waiting for her. It was Alec, and from behind him she smelled eggs, bacon, and other breakfast delights that made her mouth water.
“Hey,” he said as he motioned her in. “Come sit down.”
She blinked as she saw her little round kitchen table set and ready for breakfast for two. “What is this?”
“You seemed bummed when I left you last night,” he explained. “And what can fix anything quicker than bacon?”
Natalie was going to argue, but at that moment it seemed like the best logic she’d ever heard. He handed her a plate and she took it, digging in before he even started.
“So did you talk to the others?” she asked between bites.
He handed her orange juice and nodded. “Yeah, to Kai. And she’s on board now. She gets this is serious, no more denials.”
Relief flooded Natalie. “Great! Then we just have to meet up at the church and see what everyone else found out. And come up with a plan of some kind. Not that it’s going to be easy, but—”
Alec’s lips pursed and he gave her a worried glance that cut her rambling off instantly.
Her heart sank. “What?”
He shrugged. “There’s some other news. The church, um, kicked us out.”
Natalie had been lifting a forkful of eggs to her lips, but she hesitated now. Her appetite wavered and she set the fork down.
“What do you mean, they kicked us out?”
He shifted. “Apparently Kai was the last one to leave our meeting and the priest stopped her. He told her that Blob was the only reason they were allowing us to meet there. And now he’s dead. They said we’re too . . . too . . . odd and they don’t feel comfortable with us there anymore.”
Natalie shut her eyes as she thought back to the women cleaning the pews. The way they’d looked at her was so familiar. So horrifying when she thought of the consequences of it.
“Oh my God,” she groaned.
“Natalie,” Alec said, his tone a warning. “Don’t freak out about this.”
“Don’t freak out?” she asked as she stared at him. “How can I not freak out? This is always how it starts. First you’re odd, then you’re dangerous, then you’re a monster and everyone has pitchforks and—”
She could have continued on like that for the whole day, but to her surprise, Alec reached over, cupped the back of her neck, and pulled her against him for a kiss. For a moment she could hardly even register what was happening, but then it really sank in.
Alec’s lips were full and soft against hers, with just the right amount of pressure. Although his strength was apparent in the way he cupped her neck, he didn’t use it against her.
She hadn’t been close to anyone like this very often in her life. Her scars, her past, her identity kept her from letting anyone near her. But Alec knew all that stuff, and when his mouth parted over hers, she found herself responding in kind and letting him deepen the kiss.
But then her logical mind kicked in. She was kissing Alec, werewolf playboy who always had an angle. And that meant what was happening here had an angle.
With a gasp, she pulled away and jumped to her feet. He stayed just where he was, looking up at her with a hooded expression that didn’t reveal anything about what he thought about what had just happened.
“I should—should call Kai and help her figure out where to meet tonight. Thanks for”—she cut herself off and blushed—“breakfast.”
He arched a brow as she left the room, and she heard his voice quietly behind her. “Any time, Nat. Any time.”
9
Natalie had never really figured out exactly how Jekyll and Hyde made their money. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, because she sometimes imagined it had to do with jewel heists, extortion, the mob, and probably there was some murder involved.
However they’d done it, they clearly had a ton, because as she and Alec walked up to the huge, posh building on Park Avenue, she couldn’t help but stare up and up . . . and up.
The building was older and when it had been renovated, it had retained its early New York charm through its intricate brickwork, keystones, and borders. There were even gargoyles staring down from the corners on each floor, wincing and grimacing their protection like little baby monsters.
“Holy shit,” she muttered.
“Um, yeah,” Alec agreed.
“So much nicer than any apartment I’ve ever dreamed of,” she finished.
Alec shrugged. “Your apartment is great. This place is pretentious. But then, that’s Jekyll and Hyde.”
As she laughed, a doorman opened the door for them and they entered the lobby to the building. But it wasn’t any ordinary lobby. This was more like a high-security office or even a government building. A guard sat at a high, U-shaped desk near the back of the lobby and as they entered he stood up, revealing a holstered Glock just like the ones cops carried.
In addition to the safety his presence provided, there was a glass partition in front of the bank of elevators next to him. On it a warning had been etched: THIS GLASS IS BULLETPROOF. ALL PROJECTILES WILL RICOCHET.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Natalie muttered under her breath as they took the long walk toward the guard station.
“Once,” Alec said. “In Halle Berry’s building.”
Natalie stopped walking and turned to stare at him. “You were in Halle Berry’s building?”
He shrugged. “Long story. Doesn’t matter now.”
Natalie opened her mouth to protest that statement, but the guard at the back of the room interrupted.
“May I help you?”
Natalie glared at Alec, who was looking around, all innocence, though she knew he was enjoying her confusion and curiosity (and perhaps a little jealousy) about the Halle Berry story.
“Miss?” the guard said, emphasizing the word with an arch
ed brow.
“Yes, sorry,” she said. “Distracted, I’ve never been in an apartment building like this.”
The guard gave a thin smile. “Nothing but the best for our residents. Your name, please.”
Natalie swallowed. Right. Her name. He kept asking for it and she could see the fact that she hadn’t given it yet was starting to annoy him. And this was how people got shot.
“Sorry. I’m Natalie Gray, this is Alec Dunham. We’re here to see Dr. Je—”
She broke off the sentence. Jekyll didn’t go by his real name, did he? Too obvious, drew too much attention. But what did he go by? Shit, she should have thought about this earlier.
“We’re here to see Dr. Henry,” Alec supplied with a friendly smile. “He should be expecting us.”
The guard gave them a long, appraising stare and then leaned over to grab a list from the desk. He scanned over it and his eyes went wide with surprise. “You are on here. I’ll just need to see some ID and I’ll let you up.”
Natalie dug into her purse for her wallet. Dr. Henry, that was right. Thank goodness for Alec. It wasn’t very creative to go by his first name as his last, but it solved a lot of problems for Jekyll.
As he handed back their IDs and checked their names off his list, the guard depressed a button under the ledge of the desk. Slowly, the glass partition slid away with a whoosh of hidden hydraulics.
“Dr. Henry is located in Penthouse A. Press P on the elevator. By the time you’ve reached the top floor, Dr. Henry will have been notified of your arrival,” he said with a tight smile. “Have a good day.”
Alec saluted him and Natalie rolled her eyes and hauled him toward the elevator. On second thought, he was why people got shot.
“Did you forget Jekyll’s first name?” Alec whispered as they reached the elevator. The doors were already open and waiting for them, so they stepped inside and selected the P button.
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