Thirsty, I slipped out of her bed, careful not to wake her and made my way back to the kitchen. I had to rummage through a couple of cupboards before I found a glass. Filling it, I drank it down and then, still thirsty, filled it again. I walked back out into the living room and looked around as I drank the water, curious about this woman I felt so connected to.
Her apartment was very spartanly furnished. Couch, chair, loveseat, and a small stand with a TV on it. Other than that, there were no frills. No artwork on the walls, no real personal touches – no trace of the fiery personality I'd gotten to know. It was all very stark and seemed – temporary.
That was the word that flashed through my mind as I looked around her place – temporary. It was like she wasn't putting down roots. As if this was a crash pad and nothing more. Which made me a little more curious about her.
A light coming through a crack in the partially opened door caught my attention. When we'd been in such a rush to get to the bedroom, Olivia had directed me to the room on the right. But now, I saw that the light was on in the room on the left and the door was partway open. Office maybe?
I walked over and pushed the door inward. Stepping inside, I wasn't quite sure what I was seeing. Setting the glass of water down on a small table beside the door, I stood in the center of the room, confusion sweeping through me.
On one wall was a computer station. Sticky notes and papers had been taped to the desk and to the wall all around the desk. But it was the wall opposite the computer station that drew my attention. On the wall were pictures – some of them connected by bits of string, as if the people in the photos were somehow connected.
My eyes widened when I saw a group of pictures off to the side though – they were all shifters. The ones who'd gone missing. And there were more than six – I counted a dozen different photos. Some of them I recognized, others I didn't. Maybe the ones I didn't recognize were rogues – I didn't know at that moment.
Other photos – they looked like surveillance photos taken from a distance -- were of people in black fatigues carrying unusual weaponry. They were candid shots and the targets obviously didn't know they were being photographed. There were five different men in the photos and it sent the warning bells off in my head – five men, one woman. My mind raced with a million different questions and I felt the tension rising within me.
Could Olivia be one of the abductors?
At the center of the shrine, or display, or whatever it was I was looking at, was the photograph of a young woman. She had red hair, eyes the color of jade, and bore far more than a passing resemblance to the woman sleeping in the next room. Below the photograph was a name printed on a small card – Emily. Obviously, Emily was Olivia's sister.
I didn't think the placement of the photograph in this display was coincidence or random – it was there for a reason. But I didn't know why Emily was at the center of the display. Who was she? Why was she caught between the men in black and the shifters?
Which all made me wonder – who was Olivia really?
I'd been so caught up in looking at the shrine on the wall that I never heard her behind me. Not until I heard the telltale click of a weapon being cocked. I spun around and saw Olivia standing there, a grim, cold expression on her face and a gun pointed straight at me.
“Olivia, I –”
I heard a soft thump and a split second later, felt the sting of a needle burying itself into my flesh. I quickly ripped the dart out of my skin and threw it aside, opening my mouth to speak. To explain to her what I was doing there. But dizziness washed over me right away and darkness began to creep in at the edges of my vision.
I fell to my knees as I began to grow groggy. Tired. I felt like I hadn't slept in days. Weeks. And in that moment, the only thing that sounded good to me was sleep. A lot of sleep. I looked up at Olivia, who was standing over me, the same cold expression on her face. It was like looking at her from below water – the picture before me rippled and swayed.
“I really wish you hadn't come in here,” she said, her voice sounding like it was coming from the end of a long tunnel.
I opened my mouth again, but no sound came out. Darkness pressed close all around me and as I fell to the carpet, all I could think about was the girl in the photograph – Emily. She was somehow the key to everything – that's why she was in the center of Olivia's display.
But then darkness took me under and I knew no more.
Chapter Twelve
Olivia
“Shit,” I muttered to myself. “Shit, shit, shit.”
I paced the living room, the gun in my hand, nervously checking the locks on the doors and out the windows every couple of minutes. The man in the other room – Luca – who was he? Did he work for McCoy? Did he work for John? Was he a shifter? Was he there to kill me?
I'd been stupid to let my guard down. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I was basically on assignment and when I was on assignment, I never did things like that. I never went home with anybody and certainly never brought anybody back to the place I was staying.
When I was on a job, I wanted as few complications as possible. As few entanglements. The less connected I was to anybody, the better. It allowed me to focus on the job and also prevented any blind spots from forming.
Well, I'd let a big blind spot form by bringing Luca – if that was even his real name – home with me. Now, he not only knew what I was doing there, but was probably going to kill me if I hadn't dropped him first.
I just needed to find out who'd sent him after me.
I checked the time and saw that it was after eleven. I'd given him a relatively low dose dart, so the tranq should be wearing off. And when I stepped to the door and pushed it inward, I found that he was sitting in the chair I'd shackled him to, staring balefully at me.
“What the hell, Olivia?” he snapped.
“You don't get to ask any questions,” I said, brandishing the gun in my hand – which wasn't a tranquilizer gun this time. “I ask the questions. Got it?”
He rattled the shackles I'd bound his wrists behind his back with and grimaced, hissing in pain as the silver bit into his skin. Which answered one big question for me. I set the weapon down on the desk and picked up a silver collar, quickly stepping forward and clasping it around his neck. Luca struggled and growled as the silver seared his skin – but at least I knew he wasn't going to be able to shift.
Picking up my weapon again, I stood before him. “Who sent you?”
He looked at me, wincing with pain. “What are you talking about.”
“It's a straight-forward question,” I said. “Who sent you?”
He shook his head. “Nobody sent me. I have no idea what you're talking about, Olivia.”
“Oh, so you just happened to be in a bar that I was in? It's all a coincidence?”
He looked at me, disbelief coloring his features. “Are you serious right now?”
Pressing the barrel of my sidearm against his forehead, I looked him square in the eye. “Serious as the proverbial goddamn heart attack.”
He smirked and shook his head. “First of all,” he said. “Can you get the gun out of my face?”
I left it pressed against his forehead a moment longer, but then stepped back, keeping the weapon at my side.
“Thank you,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now, if you remember correctly, I was in Walt's before you were. I'd been there for an hour before you ever showed up. So, unless you think I have some kind of mind reading powers and was somehow able to divine your movements an hour before you showed up, then yeah, I'd say it's a pretty big goddamn coincidence.”
I looked at him, looked into his eyes and saw nothing but sincerity. And as I thought back to the previous night, I tried to recall the events. I'd gone into the bar and had put on the song for Emily before sitting down and having Walt hand me a beer.
I replayed everything in my mind, recalled everything I'd seen, and let it play like a video through my head. I tried to recall the faces I saw – the ba
r wasn't that full, so there weren't many of them. And as I scanned my memories, I paused. Shit. Luca had been there before me. He was seated at the end of the bar, beer in hand, watching a game.
I'd been so caught up in my own fear and paranoia that I'd let my emotions drive out the logic. Had let them take control of me and make my thinking completely muddy. And because of it I'd let my emotions get the best of me, I was now in a whole world of shit.
He'd been there before me. And given the fact that my decision to go to Walt's had been a last minute, spur of the moment thing, there was no way Luca could have been stalking me. And logically speaking, there was no way McCoy or John could have sent him. Which left only one viable conclusion – he was telling the truth.
I looked into his eyes again and found that not all of my paranoia had evaporated. Turning and leaving the room, I went through and checked the locks on the front door and then checked all of the windows again – nothing. Nobody was out there watching. Nobody was out there getting ready to storm my place and kill me. Everything was – normal. As it should be.
Still – he was a shifter. And given my involvement with McCoy's group, I had to tread lightly. My paranoia wasn't completely illogical – in fact, it's what had kept me alive more times than I could count between Afghanistan and doing my job as a journalist.
Walking back into the room where I'd tied him up, I glanced at the picture of Emily – the picture he'd been looking at when I found him in there. Coming to the conclusion that Luca hadn't been stalking me left me in a really bad and awkward position. On the one hand, I'd tranquilized him and tied him up – accused him of stalking me. Of being a spy for human soldiers and trying to kill me.
And on the other hand, he was a shifter and quite obviously knew – if his deductive reasoning skills were worth anything – that I was somehow involved with a group that was abducting his kind.
Heads, you land in shit. Tails, you land in shit. There was no easy way out of this. This wasn't one of those things I could laugh off and say, “just kidding” about and have everything go back to normal.
That was on the practical level. On the personal level, I was kicking myself the hardest. Luca and I had shared some sort of connection last night. Some sort of bond. It was something I'd shared with a man all too infrequently in my life – and hadn't felt at all in a very long time. I'd enjoyed my evening with Luca – all of it. From bantering at the bar and calling each other out on our musical tastes, to everything that happened when we'd gotten back to my place. It was honestly, the best night I'd had in ages. Maybe even the best night I'd ever had with a man.
And now, even that was ruined.
As he glowered at me, I wondered how I was going to get out of this mess – and how I was going to get out of it alive. I knew that when I took the shackles off of him, he was going to tear my head off. And I couldn't blame him for it. Not really.
“Look, Luca,” I said. “Would it help if I said that I was sorry? That I'd made a mistake?”
He grimaced, the silver obviously still bothering him. But I couldn't afford to release him just yet. Not until I figured a way to keep my head attached to my shoulders when I did.
“It might be a good start,” he said through gritted teeth. “A better start would be getting this goddamn silver off me.”
“I will,” I said. “I just – I just need your word that you're not going to kill me when I do.”
He cocked his head and looked at me. “Why would I kill you, Olivia,” he asked, seemingly genuinely shocked that I'd even suggest such a thing. “I like you. And I thought you liked me too.”
“Why would you kill me? Well, I did tranq you and bind you with silver.”
He nodded. “You did,” he said. “But I can see in your face that you're terrified of something. I don't know what that something is, but we can talk about it. Maybe I can help you.”
“Y – you'd help me?” I asked. “Even after –”
“Even after this,” he finished my statement. “Like I said, I like you, Olivia. I felt a certain connection to you last night. And I'm pretty sure you felt it too.”
I nodded, feeling the heat rising in my cheeks. “I did,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“Good,” he said. “Then get these things off me and let's see if we can figure out how to solve your problem.”
I looked at him, my fear and paranoia rising up within me once more. But as I looked into his eyes, I saw the soul of the man and knew – shifter or not – he was a man of his word. A man with integrity. And a man with a good heart. I'd seen it the night before, and looking into his eyes in that moment only underscored my original impression.
I knew I was running a terrible risk – he could be the world's greatest actor and I could be horribly wrong. Releasing him could end horribly for me. But my instinct told me that I could trust him – which was good enough for me. I stepped forward and unlocked his shackles and neck collar, letting them all fall to the floor with a clank. Luca stood up and loomed over me – he had a good six inches and a hundred pounds on me. If he wanted to break my neck, he could have done it without breaking a sweat.
Instead though, he surprised me. He pulled me into a tight embrace and kissed the top of my head. It wasn't anything close to what I'd expected. Maybe, his kindness – his compassion – were even a lot more than I deserved. I let myself melt into his big, strong body, burying my face in his shoulder. And in that moment, all of the emotion I'd kept pent up within me came loose and unraveled.
I sobbed uncontrollably into Luca's shoulder. I shook and trembled, wailing away, and through it all, Luca simply held me, stroked my hair, and whispered that everything was going to be okay into my ear over and over again.
Eventually, I was able to compose myself again. I stepped back and looked into Luca's eyes – and saw nothing but care and genuine concern for me. He wiped away the tears that stained my cheeks and gave me a small smile before leaning forward and planting a kiss on my forehead.
“Now,” he said. “We have some things to talk about. Let's see if we can figure this all out.”
Chapter Thirteen
Luca
She touched my wrists, marveling that the burns the silver had left on them were already healed and gone. I looked at her and gave her a small smile.
“We heal very rapidly,” I said.
“I can see that.”
We sat at our usual table near the back of Annie's. I was ravenous and couldn't wait for Diana to bring out my heaping plate of food. I intended to eat every last bite of it.
“Coffee for the both of you,” Diana said with a smile as she set two mugs down on the table.
“Thank you,” Olivia said.
“Don't believe I've seen you in here before,” Diana said, giving Olivia a warm smile.
She laughed. “I usually don't get out a whole lot,” she said. “My – job – keeps me busy.”
Diana nodded as if she understood. “Well, I'll let you in on a little secret, honey,” she said and pointed to me. “You got yourself one of the good ones here. If I were you, I'd grab hold tight and not let go. Hell, if I were twenty years younger, I would!”
I felt the color flaring in my cheeks. All I could do was laugh, shake my head, and avoid Olivia's gaze.
“Diana thinks setting me up with a pretty girl is going to get her into heaven,” I said.
“I figure it couldn't hurt. But when have you ever come in here with a pretty girl?” she laughed. “You only ever come in here alone or with Asher. And sorry, but Asher's already spoken for.”
“I feel the size of your tip getting smaller,” I said.
Diana looked at me and smiled. “You know, in all the years I've known you, I've never, ever known you to blush or look embarrassed,” she said and then looked over at Olivia. “You are having quite the effect on this boy.”
Olivia smiled. “I think it might be a mutual thing.”
“That's good. He needs himself a good woman,” Diana said.
“I already know what this lug wants, so what can I get you, hon?”
Olivia hadn't even looked at the menu yet, but shrugged. “I'll just have what he's having.”
Diana eyed her skeptically. “You sure about that?”
Olivia nodded. “Yeah, why not?” she said brightly. “A little mystery breakfast sounds fun.”
“You got it, hon.”
Diana laughed and walked back to the kitchen to put our orders in.
“Why is she laughing?” Olivia asked.
“Well, as you know, I'm a shifter,” I said. “And we tend to burn more calories than humans, which means we tend to – eat more. So, you'll be getting quite a feast.”
“Good,” she said. “I'm hungry.”
I laughed and took a sip of my coffee. After a few moments, Olivia put her hand on mine, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“I'm sorry, Luca,” she said. “For darting and silvering you.”
I shook my head. “It's okay,” I said. “No harm done. But, I want to help you. I gather from what I saw, that picture is of your sister?”
She nodded. “Emily.”
“What happened?”
She sighed. “My sister went to school at the University of Washington,” she said. “She was going to be a doctor. About six months ago, she started seeing somebody – a boy named Eric, I think. A little while after she started seeing him, her behavior began to change. She got moody. Distant. She just didn't seem like the same girl anymore.
At first, I thought maybe she was being abused. Or maybe she was on drugs. I didn't know. But then about a month ago, she dropped off the face of the Earth entirely. No calls, no emails – nothing. It was like she just disappeared without a trace.”
I nodded – the story sounded very familiar. “So, how did you end up with the group of people abducting shifters?”
She took a drink of her coffee and set her mug down. “Obviously, I was worried,” she said. “After leaving the Corps, I became an investigative journalist. I infiltrated some of the most notorious, violent crime rings in the country. So, when it became clear to me that Emily had gotten caught up in a human trafficking ring, I used those skills to get into the group I believe is responsible for her disappearance.”
Saved by a Bear (Legends of Black Salmon Falls Book 2) Page 8