FROST SECURITY: Richard

by Glenna Sinclair

  The world darkened, faded away like all things do in the end. This was it, I thought. This was what my life had come to. I heard Eli and Wallach both begin to bark, heard Eli growl.

  The garage, and Karen, seemed to tilt on their side as the world went entirely black, and I slipped away into unconsciousness.

  Just before the whole world disappeared, though, I heard Karen scream, and I heard Eli yelp painfully.

  God, I should have known this getaway cabin was too good to be true.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Richard

  As soon as I jumped out of the Jeep, the strangest of smells hit my nose. I knew I recognized it from somewhere, but it was so faint I couldn’t precisely place it. Where did I know it from? It was just on the tip of my nose, like a word you say everyday of your life, but you forget how to precisely choose it from your mental dictionary. I shook my head, trying to shake that feeling of how important it was.

  In the meantime, though, I spotted Sheila’s little Lexus and stomped over to where she was sitting on the driver side with her the door open, her legs swung out so both feet were planted on the broken pavement.

  “Where is she?” I asked as I approached. “Where’s Jessica?”

  Sheila looked up at me, the dried remains of tears streaking her face.

  “I-I-I don’t know,” she said. “She was here one minute, then I came back out to grab my wallet, and she was gone when I came back out.” As she finished speaking, though, a pensive look came over her face, a look as if she’d just swallowed a bug.

  “What is it, Sheila?” Jake asked as he came up beside me. “Spit it out, lady.”

  She shook her head, groaning. She twisted around awkwardly in her seat, reached back into her car. “When I came back out because I forgot my wallet, I asked her to grab it for me.” She turned back around as she spoke, a disposable cell phone in her hand. She held it up for us, her watery eyes fixated on it. “She must have seen this and freaked out.”

  Frank and I both rocked back on our heels. “You’ve been making the calls?”

  “What?” she gasped, her eyes flickering up to meet ours, danced between them. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, not all of them. Just the one earlier today.”

  “The one just after we left your house, then?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Why?” I growled. “To muddy the water for someone else? So you could bring the bikers up there? This isn’t some fucking game, Sheila!”

  Her shoulder slumped and she sunk into the driver seat. “Think I don’t know that?” she muttered. “Look,” she said, raising her eyes back to mine, “I’ve been doing the accounting at the Curious Turtle. When I pushed Jess to take Wyatt’s deal? Yeah, that was for a fucking reason. I told Jessica the business is failing, because it really is. He was offering a fucking king’s ransom for that place, a better deal than she’d ever get otherwise, and I knew it. She knew it, too, but she didn’t want to listen to reason.”

  “So you moseyed on down to the store and grabbed you a phone?” Frank asked, nodding along. “Then made the call, figuring you could maybe nudge things along, huh?”

  She nodded with a wince. “I wanted her to take it,” she said. “Not because I want her to leave town, but because I knew no bank would ever invest any money in the gallery or give her a loan for it. Financially, she’ll be screwed if she doesn’t find another investor and find a way to turn the business around. But, who’s going to take a chance on it?”

  Frank looked to me, shaking his head. “Makes sense.”

  I nodded, my arms crossed. “Yeah, a stupid kind of sense.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You know Jessica’s more hard headed than anyone. How long did it take for you to get her up to the safe house?”

  “Good point,” I said. “But, that still doesn’t explain how you got wrapped up in the whole thing with the Skull and Bones, and how you ended up as a hostage. What about that?”

  “Want to know the truth?” she asked, sighing and shaking her head again. “Because it’s going to make me sound like a fucking idiot.”

  “Shoot,” Frank said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Try us.”

  “I thought, in one of my bright moments of genius, that you all had to be wrong about them, about those bikers, that Wyatt just really wanted the gallery as a piece of his uncle’s legacy. I was so wrong, though. So, so, wrong. I was just trying to talk to him about it, see what he said, then he got a call about Lacy and they dragged me along because they knew I knew you because of my asking questions about the gallery.”

  I shook my head again. “Yeah, you’re right. But, fuck, mistakes happen.”

  “That’s all, as they say,” Frank drawled, “water under the bridge now. More importantly, we need to know what the hell happened with Jess. And now.” He sniffed the air, then, wrinkled his nose. “You smell that, buddy?”

  I nodded. “Smelled it when we first walked up.”

  “Smells like something rotting, don’t it?”

  Then, it clicked. I did know that smell. Rotting turtle. No, rotting tortoise. I huffed deeply, realizing I could smell Jessica, too, could smell my mate. I turned and grabbed Frank by the shoulder. “The package! The fucking package, Frank! Her stalker was here! Whoever it is, she climbed into the car with them.”

  Sheila jumped up from the seat in her car. “She went with them? Willingly? So it’s someone she knows, then.”

  I nodded. “Frank, we’ve gotta find her. And soon, before it’s too late.”

  We were off at a run to the Jeep, abandoning Sheila in the gas station parking lot. “Reckon you can smell her the whole way?” Frank called as we approached the Wrangler.

  “Not in this form,” I said, throwing him the keys to my car, “But, I bet I can in my wolf.”

  “Do it, buddy,” he said, running to open the passenger side for me as I began to strip out of my clothes. Once I was in my wolf form, the whole world and all its smells seemed to come truly alive. It was like I could see Jessica’s smell covering the whole place, the trail she had left as she’d left in the car with her stalker. Her smell, and the smell of that rot, seemed to brain together, to become as distinct as a bright pink strip of paint down a golf fairway.

  I gathered up my human clothes and bound into the passenger seat, panting heavily as I dropped the unkempt bundle into the passenger side foot well.

  “Can you smell her?” Frank asked.

  I nodded, whimpered. I could smell her.

  “Let’s go, then,” he said, knowing perfectly well what I was trying to say. He was part wolf, after all.

  As we pulled out of the gas station and turned left onto the highway, something deep inside me whispered that we needed to hurry. We didn’t have much time to find her. Or her stalker.

  Chapter Fifty

  Jessica

  I came to a little while later, Karen roughly slapping my face. I tried to twist away from her, to avoid the next blow, but I couldn’t. I was bound, my arms tight at my sides, and her hand smacked right across my cheek.

  I screamed in pain, kept trying to twist away.

  Karen was right in front of me, bent over with her hands on her thighs so we were eye-level. A bloodied bandage was wrapped around her right forearm. “There she is,” she cooed. “There’s my sweet little Jessica, darling of my best friend Sheila. Feeling a little better after your nap?”

  “Nap?” I asked groggily. “You drugged me, you bitch.”

  She slapped me again, harder than before, her hand fast as a cobra.

  I cried out once more as tears immediately sprang to my eyes. I could taste blood in my mouth, and my lips felt like they were on fire. “Jesus, Karen, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Me?” she asked. “I’m just having a little fun, hon. What? You don’t want to spend any quality time with me?” She faked a pout, sticking out her glossy lower lip so far she could sweep the floor with it.

  I shook my head
. “Not like this, I don’t. Why? Why are you doing this?”

  She straightened up, the pout now gone, and put a finger to her lips. “Maybe, I’m doing it because some little cunt from high school came home and stole my best friend Sheila?” She cocked her head to the side. “I wonder if that could be it?”

  Really? That’s what this was all about? “You think I stole Sheila? So you’ve been threatening me for weeks? Why didn’t you just fucking say something, you crazy bitch?”

  Her face twisted with rage, becoming something inhuman and deranged as she got up in my face.

  It somehow was even more awful than the transformation I’d witness Richard perform earlier. That was just from man to beast. This was something else, I realized, recoiling in horror.

  “Crazy bitch?” she screamed, sprayed spittle over my lips and chin. “You think I’m being a fucking crazy bitch for wanting my friend back?”

  “I didn’t steal Sheila, Karen. All I did was move back home.”

  “You took the only thing that hadn’t just been given to me on a silver platter, you little bitch. You took my only real friend. What would you do in my shoes? Just let her go?”

  “I don’t know what I’d do,” I said, shaking my head, “but it probably wouldn’t be this.”

  She drew back again, turned and walked away, disappeared into the kitchen. She pulled a door open, silverware rattling around as she searched.

  As soon as she was out of sight, I tested my bonds, began to struggle against them. Maybe, I thought, I could get free.

  Off, somewhere in the house, I could hear Eli and Wallach whimpering pathetically. I dimly remembered hearing Eli yelp when she’d come at me in the garage. All I could do was hope that he was okay, though.

  The more I struggled, the more the ropes rubbed into my wrists, burning my skin. I tugged at the fibers again, but I knew it wasn’t any use.

  As I slumped down in the chair, I looked around for the first time, realized my chair was positioned on a stretch of plastic tarpaulin, the kind that painters put down when they’re working on an interior. Back in the kitchen, there was the distinctive hiss of a chef’s knife coming free of its covering.

  I realized then what she was doing. My God.

  How had I never seen her madness before tonight? How could I have been so blind to something so clear?

  “Now, now, hon,” Karen said in a sing-song voice from the kitchen. “Don’t worry. You’ve got a little longer left to live. Gonna be honest, though, it won’t be pleasant. You see, I’ve always been open to once in a lifetime experiences. And an opportunity like this is one you don’t ever get a chance to buy.”

  She came back in, knife in one hand and a kitchen torch in the other. “Well,” she said, hefting the kitchen torch, “you can, but you have to go to Eastern Europe.”

  I couldn’t help it. One look at her and I screamed.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Richard

  I heard Jess’s scream like it was an air raid siren. I got Frank’s attention, directed him further down the highway, to one of the cabins on the right. As we pulled in, moments later, I shifted back to my human form and quickly tugged my clothes back on.

  Before Frank could even stop the Jeep, my bare feet were on the front lawn, my legs propelling me forward as I sprinted across the pine needles and stabbing rocks. Goddamn, if this bastard had done anything to her, had hurt a hair on her head, had injured her in anyway, I was going to savor their blood as it dripped down my throat.

  I didn’t bother to knock. I hit the door at a sprint, my legs propelling me forward, my shoulder hitting right at the frame and slamming it open, sending splinters exploding inwards as I barreled into the cabin, gun already drawn.

  “Richard?” Jessica screamed from just ahead.

  A blonde woman turned, knife raised in one hand, a hissing blowtorch in the other. “Who the fuck are you?” she bawled.

  Karen? I leveled my pistol. “Don’t move a fucking muscle, Karen!”

  She didn’t listen. She ran straight at me, knife raised, bloody murder in her eyes.

  “Freeze, Karen!”

  She kept coming, even as Frank came running up behind me

  I pulled the trigger, the gun leaping and roaring in my hand, once, twice, three times.

  Blood sprayed the plastic covered couch, the plastic covered chairs, and she fell to the plastic covered floor, screaming in pain. A pool of blood began to form around her as the knife dropped from her grip and the blowtorch fell, the flame going out as soon as the trigger was released.

  “Jessica!” I yelled, bounding over the screaming, crying blonde psycho. I ran to her side, began to untie her bonds. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”

  “Sooner?” she asked. “I’m sorry I ran from you earlier.”

  The knots on her bindings untied, I pulled her into my arms.

  My mate melted into my arms, her legs nearly failing her as I held her up.

  I kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should’ve told you sooner. I didn’t mean to lie to you.”

  She pulled back, looked into my eyes. “Would I have believed you even if you had told me?”

  I grinned down at her, her green eyes shining like polished emeralds. I brushed a lock of dark hair from her face. “Probably not.”

  She stood on tip-toes, kissed me. “I love you,” she whispered. “I don’t know why, but I love you.”

  “Because you’re my mate,” I whispered back. We kissed again.

  She smiled. “I am, aren’t I?”

  And then Frank cleared his throat. “Little help, guys?” he asked, breaking us from our soul gaze. He pointed to Karen, who happened to be still bleeding on the plastic tarped floor. “Crazy woman bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds?”

  I pulled out my phone and gave it to Jess before stripping off my belt and going to help Karen. “Call 911. Make sure Sheriff Peak comes with the ambulance, too.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Peter Frost

  “That’s Mary Waynescott, huh?” Peter, cold beer already in hand, asked Deacon.

  Deacon nodded at the lone teen girl sitting on the swing hanging from the undersized swing set in the Portage backyard, her head down, her blonde hair hanging around her head like a curtain. “Yep. Think you can talk to her?”

  Peter sniffed, smelled the shifter blood in her from all the way over here. He didn’t say anything to Deacon, though, just nodded and stepped off the porch.

  At first the girl swung lazily hung there in the swing’s seat, one foot tracking little circles in the dirt below her. She looked up, though, as Peter approached, her nose sniffing a little.

  The two locked eyes, both well aware of who the other was. What they both were. “Mind if I sit?” Peter asked as he came to a stop in front of her.

  Mary looked up at him, nodded.

  He slid into the too-small swing, barely fitting his wide frame into the rubber seat, the chains and the overhead back creaking beneath his weight like the whole play set was about to go on strike. “You know what I am, right?” Peter asked.

  She didn’t look at him. She just nodded.

  “Ever meet anyone like me before?”

  Mary nodded again.

  “Were your parents like you and me? Your brothers, sisters?”

  She nodded to parents, shook her head to the siblings.

  He licked his lips, took another drink of beer. “Do you know who hurt them? Any idea?”

  She looked over at him, her dark eyes full of more pain than Peter could ever imagine having again. Mary shook her head again, looked back down to dirt between her legs.

  “Do you want to?”

  Mary didn’t react.

  “I have a pack, Mary,” he said. “We’d be happy to have you join it, if you don’t have anyone else. And since you’re here with Deacon and his family, I don’t think you do.”

  She looked back to him, her lip trembling.

  “In Colorado. You
can go to school there, and we can take care of you. Most importantly,” he growled, “we can keep you safe. I promise.”

  Mary got up shakily from the swing. She was tall for her age, he could tell, but still had the baby face of immaturity. Sixteen or not, she was still a child, through and through. But, things like this, they made children grow up fast. If they didn’t, they didn’t survive them. She looked him straight in the eye, those dark eyes searching his, checking to see if he was lying.

  “You know I’m telling the truth,” he said. “There’ll be forests, other shifters to run with.”

  At first, he wasn’t sure if she’d take him up on the offer. Maybe she was done with her own kind. Maybe she wasn’t. He didn’t know for sure.

  Until, of course, she surprised him by throwing her arms around his neck and hugging me tight. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear.

  At first he stiffened up, unsure of how to react, of how Deacon would react to it all. But, then he wrapped an arm around her, returned the embrace. Eventually, she broke away and took her spot back on the swing.

  They didn’t talk for the rest of the ten or fifteen minutes on the swings. Well, Mary Waynescott didn’t. But Peter did. When he’d said everything he could, he went back up to the porch, to see Deacon’s confused face coming back out of the house.

  “Get through to her?” Deacon asked.

  Peter nodded solemnly. “There’s going to be a woman coming down,” he said, tomorrow or the next day. “It’s her great aunt, on her mother’s side, a little red-haired older woman that goes by Gen. She’ll be signing the paperwork to take custody of her, and have all the documentation ready.”

  A look of shock came over the police supervisor’s face. “Her great aunt? How did you . . .” He trailed off as he realized what Peter was actually telling him, before nodding. “Think you can help her, then? Give her a family?”

  Peter looked back at the lonesome girl on the Portage family’s swing set. The poor shifter who’d lost her family, lost her pack. He nodded as he took a drink of beer. “We’re going to try, Deacon. We’re going to try.”