by Holley Trent
Putting on the sunglasses, she assessed herself in the dirty mirror, and grunted.
“It’ll do, I guess.”
It was actually one of several of her go-to disguises. Dana encouraged the Shrews to obscure their appearances when sussing out new clients, and Sarah liked to keep a few in rotation.
She slowly pulled the bathroom door open and found that the lot was as empty as before. As she strode out, she put a slump in her shoulders that belied her health.
“Now, where to go?” She clucked her tongue and tried to remember her earlier reconnaissance. She hadn’t had much time as she’d driven past on her way to the parking lot. All she knew was that on this side of the fence, there were trailers in which the troupe ostensibly lived.
“Eenie-meenie-minie-moe,” she muttered, pointing left and right.
She went right. At worst, she’d walk in a big circle and have someone tell her she shouldn’t be back there.
As she walked, she discreetly observed the lot’s staging and sought out exit routes. She could probably climb that six-foot fence without breaking a sweat, but if there was an open gate nearby, she’d much rather run through it.
After a minute of walking, she spied a man bent at the waist over the side of a large, blue, wooden box.
She could keep walking aimlessly, or she could work smart.
She picked smart.
Slumping a bit more for extra dram, she gripped her purse over her belly and cleared her throat.
The man jerked, bumping his head on the box lid, and swearing an oath under his breath.
When his rheumy eyes tracked up to her, he quickly forced the box’s lid down.
Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all.
There had to be something that was either illegal or a trade secret in there. Sarah hoped it was the latter. She didn’t have time for that citizen’s arrest shit.
Before some accusation could escape his thin lips, she sent out a torrent of calming thoughts and hoped she’d gotten the hang of it. Maria was far better at putting people at artificial ease. She was a balm. Sarah was more like a wham-bam narcotic.
“Maybe you could help me. Running late tonight.” She performed a dramatic inhalation of breath, followed by a raspy exhale behind her mask. “Sorry. Get winded so easily. Was supposed to meet friends for the show. They had arranged to get our programs signed”—she dug into her much-lighter purse for the booklet and held it out triumphantly—“Ah! By the Castillos.”
He gave her the long blink treatment, and stared for several long seconds.
She blinked a few times, too, and rapidly. She knew it’d make her look, if not innocent, mostly harmless.
His shoulders relaxed a tick. “Show’s already started, lady.”
Instinctively, her muscles tensed—ready for her to attack, though she hadn’t sent that signal to her brain. Something about the man was raising red flags in her subconscious mind.
What is it?
She let out a nervous laugh for his benefit as she assessed him.
His voice? Not his face.
There didn’t seem to be anything particularly unique about him, beyond his slightly muddled accent. Eastern European like Tamara’s, but heavier.
Brown hair. Brown eyes. His face wasn’t particularly memorable. He could have been like hundreds of other men she’d encountered in the past.
She shrugged up the niggling sense of déjà vu and tried to smile at him with her eyes. “I know it’s started. Maybe I could wait in their trailer. I hear they’re both single.”
His laugh came out as a chesty bark and he doubled over at the waist. “Both of ’em, honey? You into kink?”
You’ll never find out.
“Not sure you could keep up with those two.” Although he passed a wrench from hand to hand like some kind of weapon, the wheezing chuckle still erupting from his broad chest said he was benign…at least, for the moment.
He was just like all the others. Most men underestimated the Shrews.
Always a mistake.
Her teeth clenched, and the fingers of her free hand itched for the familiar comfort of the Glock handle inside her waistband, but instead of reaching for it, she squeezed the purse strap hard and giggled.
It was the same giggle she’d used in that strip club all those nights she’d served cocktails.
Waiting.
Watching.
The same giggle that’d earned her bigger tips than the chicks wagging their tits on-stage. Even when she’d wanted to punch the smarmy motherfuckers she served right in their smug mouths, she’d accepted the cash, and walked off grumbling under her breath.
She could hedge, but this guy wanted her to be into kink. So be it.
“Two is…rarely enough,” she said, punctuating her tease with a phony cough.
He laughed that barking laugh again. “If you say so, sweetness.”
Her lips peeled away from her teeth into a sneer, but he couldn’t see it through the mask.
“Haven’t seen Felipe in a couple, three days. Fabian should be in his trailer. Thought I saw the light on when I walked past.” He crooked a thumb in the direction of one dusty lane.
She offered the man a nod and strode toward the row.
“Hey!” He called back.
She stopped and asked, “Yes?” without turning, her eyes darting left and right in search, again, of an escape route just in case.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere? You look mighty familiar.”
Shit.
Maybe this guy wasn’t just some anonymous slob, but wouldn’t she have pegged him by now? Shitty sense of direction or not, she was the best tracker the Shrews had. If anyone would remember a face, it would be her.
But, maybe he was just another guy who’d seen her on television in one of her numerous interviews. Maybe she stood out in spite of the disguise. She didn’t want to give him a chance to work it out, so she started walking again.
“Nah. I probably just have one of those faces.”
“Maybe, what I can see of it.” Again, he laughed. “You let me know if two ain’t enough for you. I got a pair of hands I can add to the mix.”
“You sure do,” she said sweetly, happy to turn the corner, and mumbled, “Jerk,” under her breath.
There were five campers in the row nearest the fence. Only one had a light on, so she made a beeline for the one parked second from the end.
As she approached, though the window she saw a man pacing while scraping his fingers through shoulder-length blond hair.
Fabian.
Probably, anyway. He looked like either of the Castillo brothers in the circus program picture.
He must have caught a glimpse of her in the dark, because he froze and stared out the window with his fingers still entwined in his messy locks. Fear settled onto his handsome face for a moment, then something about Sarah must have registered with him, because his jaw relaxed, and he closed his mouth.
Sarah was at the door by the time he pulled it open.
“You are Dana?” came his heavily accented voice as she slipped in.
My, my. Deep voice for an acrobat.
She’d imagined the Castillo brothers would sound a bit like Mickey Mouse on helium, but that was before she’d learned that they were evi-fucking-dently over six feet tall. She couldn’t tell that from a picture. She’d assumed they were little guys.
She eyed him up and down.
Nope. Not little.
“Dana, yes?” he said as a nudge.
She mulled over a response.
He still stood in the doorway, likely waiting to either shut it or else flee. The moment she said No, he would probably be off like a bolt.
“Um.” She shut the small window over the kitchen table and closed the curtains. “Dana is my boss,” she said.
After a pause—perhaps to make sense of her words—he let out a breath, closed the door, and locked it.
“My name is Sarah Miller. Dana is tied up at the moment.”
His pale gray eyes narrowed. He cocked his head a bit sideways. “Tied up?”
“I guess Dana was right.” English obviously wasn’t his first language, or else he would have grasped that common idiom. “Busy,” Sarah explained. “Very busy with something equally important. She sent me in her place.” She lifted the sunglasses and propped them atop her hat so she could formally meet his gaze. She’d forgotten she had them on. They seemed like overkill now.
“And you are…good?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
The white tank top he wore did nothing to disguise the hard muscles of his torso, and left his cut arms bare. He was pretty buff to be an acrobat. She’d thought they were supposed to be lean, but then again, she’d also thought they were all midgets. If she had known the sights were so nice, she would have gone to the circus a long time ago.
Don’t get distracted.
She shifted her gaze to the trailer’s metal ceiling and cleared her throat.
“Listen, I’m damned good. I’m the best at what I do, but your brother is slippery. I’ve been poking around all day, and normally would have had a lead on a missing person by now.” She risked looking at him again, this time pushing her mask past her chin so he could see her lips moving.
Confusion marred his face again. Obviously, something wasn’t clicking.
Why wasn’t he fluent in English? She sifted through her memories and tried to pluck out the pertinent fact. Dana had told her where the troupe’s owner had originated.
She snapped her fingers. “Jacques is from France.”
Fabian nodded. “Parlez-vous Français?”
She cocked a brow up. “French? Shit, not even a little bit.”
“Español?”
She cringed. Once upon a time, she’d been fluent. Her mother was Puerto Rican, and from the time of Sarah’s birth, her mother had spoke Spanish exclusively at home. When Sarah entered school, it had been all English, all the time. She’d lost her grasp on the language.
She shifted her weight and gave him an assessing stare. Why was his English so rusty? The circus spent most weeks of the year in the United States.
With a sigh, she flipped a lever in her brain to switch on her Spanish, and wished herself luck.
He sat, and she took the seat across from him at the table. “Speak slowly,” she said in Spanish. “My Spanish is about as good as your English.”
He nodded. “Felipe and I always had a plan in case we had to escape, you know? We just thought it would be both of us at once.”
“But?”
“But…” He wrung his hands and cast his gaze to the ceiling, studying it a moment before continuing. “Something happened. We were in Louisiana, I think. Had been there for about a week. Had a good plan to run. Could have disappeared into the swamps for a while, you know?”
She nodded, although she wondered why they couldn’t just walk away. Certainly performing in a circus didn’t come with a life sentence.
“A little girl got hurt several weeks ago. She was new. I don’t know where she came from. Jacques was training her up to perform on horseback. Problem was, she was afraid of the animals. She was a very good gymnast, but combine terror with a moving horse and there’s the potential for disaster.”
“I could see that. But get to the point. I get the feeling there’s a point.”
He grinned and Sarah didn’t like it one bit. It wasn’t the typical smarmy leer, though. It was an I see you kind of grin. She hated those. She drummed her fingers on the laminate tabletop and cocked up an eyebrow.
“Yes, well, you can probably guess she fell. Probably broke her neck, but Jacques wouldn’t call an ambulance. He and Felipe fought about it and both made some threats. The medic did what he could, but while the scuffle ensued, the girl died. Someone called the police. It should have just been an accident, you know? But the truth was, like most of us, that girl shouldn’t have been here. I don’t know if she was stolen or an orphan or what, but either way she was here illegally. He had no papers for her. Felipe saw this as a chance to shut the circus down, but before he could get the words out, Jacques told the police Felipe scared the horse. Told them he was jealous of the girl because she could steal our spotlight.”
He laughed, and it was dry and sardonic: so devoid of mirth she wondered when the last time he really laughed was. Or if he was even capable of happy laugher.
The thought that he might not be saddened her.
“Of course, the police believed Jacques and none of the other witnesses would support Felipe because they were too afraid. The police in Louisiana told Felipe to stay in the area while they conducted their investigation, but the circus packed up that same night and we left. We haven’t performed since and the police down in Louisiana haven’t cared enough to follow. I suspect Jacques paid them off. That happens a lot.”
“So, what, now you’re peons to this Jacques guy? ’Cause he paid off the police?”
Fabian shrugged. “We always owe for something. It’s the worst kind of indenture; the kind that never ends. We owed him fifteen years for taking us in as children. Then another year for paying my hospital bills when I broke my leg. Then another year for this, another six months for that. It’s never-ending.”
“Sounds like it came to a head for Felipe.”
“Yes. A few days ago, and I don’t know why, but Jacques was about to pad some more time onto our contract.” Fabian made air quotes with his fingers when mentioning the word contract. “Felipe flipped out. They fought again. This time, Jacques told him if he didn’t straighten up, he’d tell the police in all those little towns we’d been in about all those performers who’d died. Said he’d blame Felipe.”
“But why would Felipe run and leave you? Sounds cowardly.”
Anger flashed in Fabian’s gray eyes as he leaned back in his chair.
Sarah was unfazed. She’d survived a suicide bomb attack. Pissy acrobat? No problem.
“You don’t know him,” he said.
“You’re absolutely right. I don’t. But, how do you know Jacques wouldn’t throw both of you under the bus should the police get involved? Or even us Shrews?”
“That’s very simple, Sarah. We know something Jacques doesn’t know we know. I may be here like human collateral, fretting about my brother, but we always have a backup plan or two, even if we don’t share them with each other. I never told Felipe what I knew, because if he did know, he would have killed Jacques a long time ago. Then where would we be? I personally prefer we let the law do its job. Felipe wouldn’t agree.”
“What is it that you know, exactly, Fabian?”
“The reason we, Felipe and I, are in this circus, and orphaned, is because Jacques made it so. He is why our parents are dead. He hates me and Felipe and people like us because we’re a threat. He polishes us up and puts us in display, and yet no one in the audience knows what they’re really looking at. Freaks of nature. Genetic accidents. Some of us have supernatural abilities that would shock even a woman such as you, Sarah. I suspect you have seen a lot in your years.”
That grin spanned his face once more, and this time it gave her pause.
“Do I frighten you, Miss Miller?”
She shifted in her seat and put a hand inside her jacket, rubbing the heel of her gun meditatively as she met his serious gray gaze. He wanted her to be shocked, and maybe she was a bit, but not for the reasons he thought.
The skin over her face tightened, pulled, as the bones beneath stretched. She ground her teeth through the pain.
It would only be a moment. She could endure it.
She closed her eyes and took deep breaths as the plates in her skull slipped into place. She opened her eyes and didn’t need a mirror to know she looked different.
Fabian’s expression confirmed that.
She rolled the bottom of her hat up and pushed her hair back from her forehead. “No, Mr. Castillo. You don’t frighten me. You may have been born the way you are, but I was made to be this way. I’m more worried about people
who have a problem with that.”
He stared at her while her bones slipped back into their natural configuration.
It felt a relief, her bones being where they belonged.
“That must come in handy,” he said reverently.
“I work undercover a lot, so yeah. I can only do it with my face, though, and I’d rather not. It hurts, and if I’m not careful it starts reverting on its own. I haven’t practiced with it much, and my doctor prefers I keep it that way. Now, tell me how to find Felipe. We’re wasting time, and I’ve got Were-mountain lion problem to check in on.”
His eyes went wide. “Were-mountain lion? You mean, like, shapeshifting cougars?”
“That surprises you?”
“No, I just never called them that. We’ve got a couple of those now. With the circus, I mean. Jacques brought them here about a day after we arrived in North Carolina. Two young women. He’s been forcing them to shift. Hasn’t trotted them out yet, though.”
Two young women? The Were-cat leader, Billy, had missing granddaughters.
“Shit.”
Sarah reached for her phone.
CHAPTER THREE
Felipe moved from property to property until he finally found a place far enough from the view of passing cars and pedestrians to rest. He didn’t want to be spotted—to be remembered—and even if people didn’t recognize him as one of the circus’s performers, they’d remember his face, probably. His long hair. The slight curve of his nose from a break he’d earned as a teen. He and Fabian had collided midair during a time before they’d mastered instant phasing to invisible. As adults, they were masters, but that didn’t mean the shifting required no effort.
Although he practiced being in his invisible form as often as he could, as did Fabian, phasing was a physically and mentally taxing ordeal. The hardest part about being one with the air was calling all the bits and pieces home when he was ready to retake his physical shape. The longer he remained shapeless, the harder it was for him to coalesce. If pressed, he could go invisible for a couple of hours at a time, but this wasn’t the time to start that countdown. He needed to conserve his energy, as he didn’t know where the days ahead would put him.