So Marcus set in the Sheriff’s Department waiting anxiously for the phone call.
Instead, Augustus West and his two lackeys appeared in the doorway. Marcus had sensed their approach. There was no mistaking the wolf Shifter’s distinctive scent.
“What do you want, West?” Marcus growled. He leaned back in his chair and did his best to look uninterested, sliding the report he’d made towards the other Shifter. West came over to the table and sat down, ignoring it entirely. The other two agents stood by the door, keeping an eye on the situation. A bad feeling began growing in the pit of Marcus’s stomach.
“My superiors are more than interested in you, Marcus,” West began immediately. Marcus grimaced. At least the man didn’t beat around the bush.
“And that’s because of what you’ve told them, I take it?”
West shrugged and said, “Death seems to follow you, Marcus.” He held out his hand and one of his agents handed him a manila envelope which West laid out on the table and opened. “You got your wife killed,” he said, grabbing the first paper with a picture paper-clipped to it. He lifted it up, assessing it, and said, “Pretty little thing. A damn shame.” He put it on the table and spun it around so his wife’s face was facing him. Marcus’s blood was pumping so loudly that he could barely hear anything. He physically had to grab the chair to stop himself from leaping across the desk and trying to rip the man limb from limb. He thought he could do it before the other agents intervened.
“Most people have no idea she was your wife,” he continued. “What would they think around here if they knew you killed their golden child?”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“You can’t lie to me, Marcus,” West said, tapping his nose. “I’m a Shifter.”
“Get to the point.”
West smiled, that slimy smile Marcus hated so much. “Then there’s Miss Campbell’s assistant. She was a cute girl, too. Erica, I think her name was? She’s dead.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“It happened under your watch, Marcus. Of course, you somehow stopped Angie Campbell from dying. But you couldn’t stop Dean Copeland from being murdered and you threw the Mayor from the window from what your reports said.”
“He was the one killing those people and trying to kill everyone else!” Marcus roared, slamming his hands down on the table. “What did you expect me to do? He was going to kill Angie and I had to stop him!”
“And now there are two men murdered out at your house. How do you explain that?”
“I don’t know,” Marcus responded. It was a low growl, a warning to the others to back off. He couldn’t tell them about the kidnappings – not yet. He didn’t entirely trust them. “But they came after us, and I stopped them.”
“But no one knows why, and that’s a problem. But the bigger problem is this. Who’s next?”
“What do you want me to say?”
In response, West held out his hand and his lackey brought him another folder.
“I know you’re not going to like this, Marcus,” West said, though he was grinning. “But we’re here to strip your badge.”
“The hell if you are.”
“Read it if you need to,” he said, tossing the folder on the desk and crossing his arms, a satisfied look on his face.
Marcus grabbed the manila folder and tore into it. With every line he read, his heart fell that much more.
“We’ll need your badge, your sidearm, the keys to the department, and the car,” West told him. “We’ll need the uniforms, too, but that can wait. Don’t want to have to make you walk home without any clothes. We wouldn’t do that.”
There was no mistaking the intent of the letter. He was under federal investigation and his duties as the sheriff were stripped until further notice.
He was numb. He’d never known anything else – being the Sheriff had been the only thing that had kept him going through the dark years in his life. Without it…
He undid his badge and set it lightly on the table, watching it glint in the light. Then he grabbed his keys out of his pocket. Without a word, he stood up, barely seeing the men in front of him.
“Your weapon, too, if you please.”
“This is my personal sidearm,” Marcus said, voice quiet. “From my father.”
West got up and shrugged, saying, “Rules are rules, Marcus,” and with that, he came close to Marcus. Marcus undid the belt and held it out with one hand. West took it from him, then took the revolver and tossed the belt on the desk. He tested its weight, nodded, and said, “Thanks.”
The other two men stepped out of his way as Marcus exited the police station. The sun was bright overhead, so strong that it almost blinded him. Marcus raised a hand to try to block out the sunlight but it was impossible. It bored into him, burned him, and he stumbled away past the borrowed police car.
It’s over. And I’m never coming back.
He knew in his heart that the wheels had been in motion a long time, from someone much higher up than Marcus. He’d been singled out and there was nothing he could do. If anyone had wanted, they would see he had done all of the right things as a sheriff – but it didn’t matter now.
He took one final look back at the Sheriff’s Department and the police car. Truth be told, he hadn’t cared much for either – but he had cared for what they represented. They had meant that he was the Sheriff of Charming, the person that could keep them safe, solve their problems, and be there for the town.
And it was all gone.
He walked, unsure of really where he was going, and wound up at Angie’s little coffee shop. He looked in the open window and saw Angie inside, talking with Jonathan Hall, his assistant watching from another booth. If anything, Marcus felt his mood collapse even further.
Finding a bench on the opposite side of the street, Marcus collapsed on it, still unbelievably numb to what had just happened.
He sat there for the better part of an hour, barely thinking, registering what had happened, and there was someone approaching him. Marcus glanced up and saw Angie standing above him, concern etched in her face.
“Marcus?” she asked. “What happened?”
“They took my badge.”
“They what? Who?” she was saying, sitting down next to him and grabbing his hands in her own. “Tell me what happened.”
“The FBI. West and his colleagues,” Marcus tried to explain, though it was hard. It hurt. “They took my badge. Stripped me of my rank. Took the keys, my gun, the car – I’m no longer Sheriff of Charming. I’m no longer Sheriff of anything.”
“Oh my god,” Angie said. “Why would they do something like that? After everything you’ve done? After everything you’ve been through? There has to be something we can do!”
“It’s pointless, Angie,” Marcus told her. He looked at her and tried to give her his best smile but knew he failed miserably. “Someone higher up doesn’t want me doing what I’m doing.”
“We’ll get this figured out, Marcus. We have to. It’s not right. It’s not fair!” Marcus just nodded. He could still hardly believe it.
“I’m sorry, Angie.”
“Don’t be. You did the best you could and that was more than enough for most people. I’ve always been proud of you, Marcus. You always did what you thought was right and that’s more than most people can say.”
“What’s going to happen, Angie?” Marcus asked. “To Charming, without me? With everything else going on, who is going to step up? Stop what’s going on? Stop the kidnappers? What do we do?”
“We’ll stop them, Marcus,” Angie told him, squeezing his hands. “Just because you’re not the Sheriff doesn’t mean that you can’t do something. It doesn’t mean that you don’t care about this town and the people in it. We’ll stop them. We have to. Because if we don’t, no one else will.”
“Yeah,” Marcus agreed, though in his heart he didn’t really feel it any longer. Charming had never cared about him – so why should he care about what happen
ed to it? He’d been branded a freak for his golden eyes for years but he had been Sheriff. Now what was he?
Maybe it’s time to move on. Sell the ranch, the cattle, the farm equipment in the shed. Grab a box of whatever belongings I care about and just go. Leave. Never look back. Grab Angie’s hand and leave this town. See the world.
But he looked over at Angie and knew they couldn’t do that. Not after last night. They’d agreed to settle down here, build a life together, grow old on the land and be happy. That’s what Angie wanted.
It broke Marcus’s heart knowing that it was something he no longer wanted. He wanted to leave. But he would never tell her that. He would do whatever made her happy, no matter what happened to him. It was something he had to do.
“Let’s go home, Marcus,” she said, and he nodded, his heart breaking even more.
* * *
Marcus was in rough shape. After they’d gotten home, he’d sulked around the house for hours, barely saying anything. Angie had done her best to comfort him but she knew it wasn’t helping.
The next morning, she’d gone through the motions of getting her rental car replaced. It had taken a lot of time, effort, and most of all money – but she’d done it. She’d briefly considered buying a new car outright but had decided against it. With everything else going on, buying a car and jumping through all of those hoops was just too much to handle.
Then, she’d gone to the bar.
Jonathan Hall was seated at the far end of the bar, a half drank beer in front of him. She didn’t see Butchie – the bartender – anywhere. He was alone, just like Angie had asked him to be.
“Where’s your assistant?” she asked, pulling up the bar stool.
He glanced at her and said, “Back at the motel. Just like you asked. What’s this about, Ange?”
She made sure her little handbag was right next to her. It only held one thing: her little pistol. She’d use it if she had to.
“I know what you’ve been doing in town, Jonathan.”
He raised an eyebrow and asked, “What have I been doing in town?”
Angie turned towards him and gave him a hard look.
“What’s going on? I thought we’d decided on our plan of action yesterday,” Jonathan said.
“That was before you cost Marcus his job.”
“What?”
“You just couldn’t let me go, could you?” Angie snapped. Together, her and Marcus had come up with a way to stop Jonathan from ever bothering her again. She was throwing that all out the window, today. Things had changed between her last meeting with Jonathan and today.
“Angie, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Why, Jonathan? Why couldn’t you just stay away? Just let me go? Why’d you have to get involved between Marcus and me?”
“Marcus, huh?” he asked, taking a sip of his beer. “What is it about that man that drives you so wild? Does he do something to you that I never could? What is it, Ange? What makes him so special?”
“You leave town, today, and Marcus won’t come after you for what you’ve done.”
“What have I done?” he exclaimed. Angie jumped in her seat. She’d known Jonathan would deny that it was he and his assistant that had kidnapped her and Cory Rivers. Jonathan was great at playing the long game – everything he’d ever done had been coldly calculated, even if it hadn’t appeared that way at the time.
“You’ve gone too far,” she whispered. “You kidnapped me.”
His look was incredulous. Angie didn’t buy it for a second; he’d always been a fantastic liar.
“Angie, are you serious? Why would I kidnap you?”
“You tell me, Jonathan,” Angie said, pulling the gun out of the little handbag and sitting it down on the bar-top, aiming it at him. “Are you even in trouble? Or is this all some kind of ploy to win me back? You show up out of the blue at my apartment and suddenly you’re halfway across the country looking for me. It all seems a little too convenient.”
“Point that gun somewhere else,” he hissed. His eyes were bulging, his teeth together in a feral grin. “You’ve lost your damn mind. Hanging around with that golden eyed freak!”
Angie raised the pistol and pointed it at Jonathan’s chest.
“What do you want to hear? That I came back here to win you back? Okay, here it is! I came back here because I wanted you back in my life, Ange.”
“So blackmailing and kidnapping is how you decided to do it, then?”
He didn’t say anything. His eyes blazed with anger.
“Here’s how it’s going to be now, Jonathan,” Angie told him. “You leave town. Tonight. You never come back in my life again. I never hear of you, see of you – anything. You disappear. If you do, you live. And if not, you’ll regret it.”
“You’d never shoot me,” he said, then he glanced at the gun and got to his feet. He paused. “You know, I really did love you, Angie. I came all of this way to show you that. To remind you of how good we were together. But Marcus was in the way. You’ll find out that he’s not everything you want, soon. And when you do, don’t come crawling back to me.”
Angie turned completely around, the pistol still in her lap – and suddenly Jonathan lashed out. His hand was faster than she’d expected. It hit the pistol out of her hand, which fell to the floor with a clatter. Angie let out a yelp of surprise, then his hand came up and smacked her across the face.
She fell backwards off the bar stool, trying to keep her footing against the bar, but she went down just the same. The bar stool went flying and then she was on her back and Jonathan was over her, wide eyed and ravenous.
His hands came down around her throat and he squeezed. Angie coughed, bringing her hands up to try to loosen his grip – but it was impossible. She squirmed under his grip, kicking and scratching.
“I loved you, Angie! I loved you. More than life itself. I came here to show you! To prove it! To prove that you still loved me! And that bastard had to get in the way! Had to get between us! But I’ll show him! He can’t have you!”
Angie’s vision began to dim. Black splotches were appearing across her vision. Her grip was loosening on his hands.
Marcus… Marcus… Mar…
There was a loud noise – maybe a scream – and suddenly Angie could breathe again. She took a few harsh breaths that burned her throat, her vision slowly swimming back into focus, and she scrambled up.
There was the sound of a gun going off and another scream and Angie jumped. She looked around to see Jonathan, clutching his arm, making towards the door. At her side was Butchie who was holding her pistol and aiming it towards the door.
“You alright?” he asked, kneeling down. She nodded and he said, “I gotta tell the Sheriff!”
Angie didn’t have the heart to tell him that Marcus was no longer the Sheriff. Instead, she shakily got to her feet and went around the bar, getting herself a glass of water. Then she took a few tentative sips and collapsed in one of the booths to wait.
* * *
She didn’t have to wait long before the law showed up – only it was the FBI agent, Augustus West. He looked just as shady as he’d ever been. When his eyes saw Angie sitting alone in the booth, his eyes lit up with predatory glee.
He made small talk with Butchie for a few moments and then made his way to Angie. He lowered himself in the booth across from her and took off his sunglasses, his eyes glinting in the darkness.
“You know what I am?” he asked. She nodded. “Good. You’d be surprised how hard it is to get a decent eyewitness story out of someone when they won’t stop staring at your eyes.”
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Angie said. “The less I have to talk to you, the better.”
He leaned across the table and whispered, “It’s not my fault, you know. Your man seems to attract trouble wherever he goes. It’s really not my fault. I simply did my job and reported it.”
“You railroaded him,” Angie hissed. “You know he was innocent. He wasn’t at fault for
anything that happened!”
“Tell me what happened here,” West cut in. He took a little pad of paper and pen out of his pocket.
“It’s my ex-boyfriend, Jonathan Hall,” she began. West raised an unctuous eyebrow but kept quiet. “He came here under the pretenses of working with me. Wanted to use our past relationship as a sort of jumping off point.
“But that wasn’t the only reason he was here. He kidnapped me.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” the wolf said. “Why’s that?”
“My kidnapper – Jonathan – said not to tell anyone.”
“Hmmm,” West said. “You should have come to us. Like us or not, that’s what we’re here for.”
Angie almost said, I know, but she kept her mouth shut. She would never admit that this man was right.
“What did he want?”
“He wanted me. He wanted Marcus out of the picture.”
“Has he ever shown anything like this before? Has he ever been involved in other illegal activities?”
Embezzlement, Angie thought, but shook her head no.
“He was obsessed with me, though,” she offered. “Years ago. I never thought it would come to this.”
“So he comes to Charming. Says he’s here to work – but kidnaps you and attempts to manipulate you into rekindling your relationship with him. Let me guess, he’s in love, thinks you’re in love, the whole nine yards?”
Angie felt herself nodding, a bit perplexed.
West must have noticed because he said, “We see this kind of sick stuff all of the time. You’d be surprised how many wackos are out there. We’ll get him. Do you know where he’s staying? The Great Southern, I presume?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Angie said, feeling guilty. She didn’t care one bit about what was going to happen to Jonathan Hall – he’d come all of this way to kidnap her, threaten her life, and almost kill her. But she felt guilty for talking to this man. After what he’d done to Marcus, and here she was, cooperating with him…
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