High Moon (A F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation Book 4)

by Jennifer Harlow

  My stomach clenches. “I don’t—”

  “The F.R.E.A.K.S. really should make their agents take acting lessons before putting them in the field,” she says, the grin slowly dropping. “Perhaps they wouldn’t have such a high mortality rate then. But let’s cut the shit, shall we?” She plops down into her chair with a sigh. “You’ve caught me. Intentionally or not. Not judging from that stupefied expression on your face when you walked in and your lack of back-up, which more or less puts us on an even playing field as my boys are absent also. It gives us each a sporting chance, which, as you’ve seen firsthand, I am largely in favor of.”

  She’s also in favor of toying with her prey before devouring it judging from that speech and the fact she hasn’t tried to kill me yet. “Is that what you gave to Imelda? And Jackson and Enrique, and countless others? A sporting chance?”

  “They had the time it took us to change to flee as far as they could get. Some even made it to the ranger’s station.”

  “Where your husband turned a blind eye to their screams,” I finish for her.

  “Son. Adrian is my son. Everyone just assumes we’re married, and it’s easier to let them go on thinking that. Second best age remedy besides vampirism, lycanthropy. Adrian was five when I accepted the gift. Guess how old I am. Really guess,” she insists.

  “You don’t look a day over fifty,” I say with a cruel grin.

  “I look thirty,” she says with a sneer.

  I suppress a scoff. “Of course you do. Gals who look thirty often have to resort to lust potions to keep the boys interested.”

  Her sneer blooms into a full blown scowl. “Women have only two weapons in their arsenal when dealing with men: a keener mind and what’s between their legs. Any one of my boys could easily win against me in physical battle, which in the patriarchal misogynistic lycanthrope world is all that matters. I have established that need not be the case. In fact, I believe my little experiment has proven what history has shown already. Matriarchal societies thrive better than male dominated paradigm. There has never been a female Alpha with a pack before me, little girl, and mine is thriving. My boys all have college degrees, they give back to the community, and are gainfully employed. To achieve that, to lift them to reach their fullest potential, to guide them, one does what one must.”

  So she’s basically roofieing boys and murdering innocent people to strike a blow for the feminist movement. It has nothing to do with the fact she wants to bang hot guys to feel young and desirable again, and the fact she likes killing? Please.

  “And what? Your last victim dissed Gloria Steinem so you decided to eat him? Or maybe he just decided he didn’t like being your sex toy anymore and was leaving the Mason Family pack?”

  “Loyalty and trust are paramount to the functionality of any society or even the smallest of social groups. Lars questioned my leadership. I gave him the most precious of gifts, vitality and strength while connecting with any animal’s basic animal instinct, not to mention entrance to my body whenever he desired it. And what did I receive in return? He spread discord through my pack. He even threatened to inform the Eastern Pack of our existence. I did only what was necessary to protect me and mine as any good leader would.”

  Yeah, he was so dumping her and she couldn’t just go the Hagen Daas and crying during a Jane Austen marathon like a normal gal. “Well, it didn’t protect you, did it? Your son’s being arrested as I speak, and Jason Dahl’s been begging for all your heads for his trophy case. You surrender, come quietly, I can personally guarantee the physical safety of your pack. If you care about them, truly care, all you can do is—”

  As fast as quicksilver, Patsy raises her finger up at me. “Excessum!”

  Base survival instinct twirls my body sideways into the hallway to use the door as cover. The door frame where I stood a millisecond ago scorches black as if hit by a blowtorch. The power of a magical curse. Jesus Christ. I take one second to let my brain catch up with my body. She just tried to kill me. Guess playtime’s over. I remove my gun, take a deep breath, and peek around the corner.

  “Excessum!”

  I take cover again. There isn’t time to aim. Fine, two can play at this, beyotch. Ready…set… I poke my head around the corner, and her mouth opens. “Excess—”

  Never bring a curse to a psychokinesis fight. Before she can get the third syllable out, the bitch lifts off her feet, flying backwards. Unfortunately, even after a year of training, I still have little control over my strength and aim. To both our horrors, Patsy shoots straight through the big bay window, glass shattering around her, and falls out of sight. Her scream cuts short a moment later after a thud. Oh crap.

  I sprint across the classroom, glass crackling under my heels, and peer out the window. Patsy lies unmoving on the sidewalk two stories down, blood already seeping from the dozen cuts covering her from head to toe. The worst of the blood pours from underneath her head where she must have hit it. Students already run toward the unconscious woman. Double crap.

  Running as fast as possible in heels, I dash out of the classroom and down the hall and stairwell. Halfway down, I pull out my cell phone. I have a voice message. No time. “Did you get—” Chandler begins.

  “I need back-up at Crawford College ASAP. Patsy Winsted just tried to kill me. Get here. Now!” Line still open, I slip the phone in my coat pocket and continue down the first floor hallway and out the door.

  I lose another second to gain my bearings, but veer left and continue around the building. The crowd’s grown larger, about ten people now stand around chattering, but the source of the commotion is gone. Glass, blood, bystanders, no evil werewolf. Crap. Crap! “Where’d she go?” I shout.

  A girl with purple hair points across the grassy commons. There’s only one figure running and pushing people out of her way. Damn she’s gotten far, about fifty yards. Flipping werewolves. Running. Why did it have to be running?

  I kick off my heels and start after her as fast as possible, which after almost two months of recovery from surgery and daytime television, isn’t that fast. The only thing I’ve got going for me is she’s limping and decades older. That almost evens the playing field. Almost. “In pursuit of suspect,” I huff into the phone, “toward the Admin building and south parking lot. Excuse me. Excuse me,” I say to the students I brush past. Okay, I all but body slam them which just slows me down further. Patsy glances back a few times, and must see me coming because she picks up her pace. I attempt to do the same, somehow getting a second wind. Soon the gap between us grows smaller and smaller, forty yards, twenty-five. I can even see her frightened, round bloody face as she glances back again. She should be scared. With a thought, I knock her aside onto the grass to slow her down. Of course once I reach her, I’m not sure what to do next. I could shoot her—boy do I want to shoot her—but I have silver bullets in here. It could kill her. I—

  Wham!

  It’s as if a freight train knocks into my back, sending me toppling sideways to the ground. The air is forced from my lungs at the same time my legs give out. Instantaneous pain begins in my still tender elbow before I even hit the grass. When I do, agony spreads to my knees, my other arm, for a second everywhere. When I realize what happened, that someone body slammed me, that same someone grabs my hair and flings me onto my back. My head hits the pavement so hard I blink back tears. Fudge. Tim Acker looms above me, panting as hard as I am. The fuzz just begins to clear as Tim bends down to pick something up. I don’t grasp that it’s my gun until the instant that steel weapon’s pointed right at my face. My genius body reacts again. As trained, I sweep his legs with my own. The boy falls onto the grass in front of me. He fires but the bullet hits inches from my head into the concrete. Damn, the ringing in my ears is downright agonizing, but I still manage to lift up my leg and bring it down as hard as possible against Tim’s stomach. He drops the gun and curls into a ball, twitching as he tries to draw breath. Down for the moment.

  When I sit up, the now familiar spins begin
, but I struggle through. Another damn concussion. Wonderful. I don’t attempt to stand—learned that from experience—and instead get on my knees and crawl toward Tim. He’s reaching for the gun, but I get it before him. “You’re under arrest for assault and accessory to multiple murders. You have—”

  His fist comes out of nowhere, smashing right into my ribs. I don’t hear a crack, damn tinnitus, but judging from the white hot searing pain, he’s broken at least one. I shrink in anguish and collapse in on myself into a heap. Tim leaps up, grimacing the whole time. I guess since fight didn’t work out for him so well last time, he chooses flight this go round. Still clutching his stomach, he staggers the way Patsy fled.

  Oh, hell no.

  With all the gawkers standing around, even recording this madness with their phones, I can’t shoot without risking hitting one of them. Option B it is. As best as I can, I focus on his head, his brain, imagining all the blood vessels snaking around those little gray cells. I squeeze one, a dozen, I don’t know, but it works. Tim howls in misery and stops his dash to grip the back of his head, even clawing at his hair and skull. Not good enough. I literally rip the vessels apart. The shriek the werewolf lets out is as inhuman as he is. The boy collapses in a faint. He’ll heal. Maybe.

  I somehow rise to my feet and stagger toward the unconscious undergrad. Blood pours from his nose and ears as he stares up at me with vacant, bloodshot eyes, but he’s breathing. Well, one down. I gaze up where Patsy was but of course she’s gone. Ran to save her own butt. So much for loyalty. With a sigh, okay more a pant than a sigh, I sit beside the boy, shaking my head. Looks like she wasn’t worth it, kid. But nothing and no one is ever worth your soul.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Emergency Care

  “…discharging of weapon in a crowd, use of ability in public, not properly identifying yourself as an FBI agent, and let’s not forget failing to wait for back-up, oh, and letting the suspect get away! Could you have created more of a clusterfuck?”

  “Paul, enough!” Will snaps at his friend.

  “No, you are done, done protecting her, Will,” Chandler snaps back. “I swear to Christ you both have literally fucked each other’s brains out.”

  I suppose I should care I’m being berated by my boss, huh, that sounds funny “being berated by my boss,” but yeah, pain killers are awesome. And I suppose I should care I have a broken rib, mild concussion, and scraped everything, not to mention I’m in the hospital. Again. But…Demerol. I love you. And I love this man holding my hand so damn much. He smells great. And he’s defending me even though he shouldn’t be. And he really, really shouldn’t be.

  “Don’t you speak to us that way, Paul or so help me—”

  “No, he’s right,” I chime in. “Not about, you know, f-ing my brains out because that’s like physically impossible or whatever, but…yeah. I messed up a little. But I mean, we got here, we got the bad guys eventually, right?”

  “What have we got? Patricia Winsted is still in the wind with at least one other murderous werewolf, if not a dozen more. And we don’t know because you didn’t do your damn job. You should have spent more than five minutes interviewing Adrian Winsted and the other rangers. You should have noticed Tim Acker lives at the same address as Patricia Winsted. It’s right there on his current driver’s license and transcript. You should have interviewed his alibi witnesses, most of whom were students of Winsted, including her former TA Lars Tinning, our latest victim, who by the way, also has the same address as Patricia Winsted! Or maybe if you had just answered your damn phone, or listened to your voice mail, you would have known we were about to apprehend Adrian Winsted and wouldn’t have walked right up to his mother and almost gotten yourself killed!”

  Will places his open hand on Chandler’s chest and lightly pushes him back. “I’m serious, man, back the hell off her right now,” my boyfriend snaps. “She admitted she messed up. It’s done. All we can do now is move forward.”

  “Don’t you ever put your hands on me, Will,” Chandler growls right in Will’s face.

  “Or what?” Will growls right back.

  For whatever reason—drugs!—I start giggling. “You two look like you’re gonna kiss.” Both men glance at me. “Don’t-Don’t let me stop you.”

  Chandler rolls his eyes and takes a step back. “Adrian Winsted has pneumonia and will remain here at least overnight until he’s out of the woods, then we’ll take him to mobile command. Not that he’s talking. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with Acker, so they’re working on his discharge papers. Dahl’s with him now. She’s,” Chandler says nodding at me, “in no fit state to help anyone, can we agree on that at least?”

  “Absotootly,” I say.

  Chandler rolls his eyes again. “We’ll have them sedate the hell out of Acker, and you can transport him and her back to mobile command. You have a problem with that, Agent Price?”

  “I think we can handle that, Agent Chandler,” Will replies with the same snooty tone.

  “Me too,” I say.

  “Fine.” Chandler throws open the curtain and with equal frustration closes it. Thank God he’s gone. He was totally harshing my buzz. And making my head ache with his anger, though that could just be the concussion.

  “Asshole,” Will mutters. “He’s acting as if you were the only one working the case. He didn’t notice any of that shit either. None of us did.”

  “But I should have. It was right in front of me, all of it, but I just didn’t notice. And people could have died. Heck, I could have died. Like two times today.”

  “I know,” Will says quietly.

  “And I fought with April, and I let a psycho get away, and I’m in the hospital again, and I lost my shoes, and I guess it’s a good thing we had sex last night because it looks like we won’t be for a super long time because I suck so bad, and everyone thinks so, and they’re right, and…I’m sorry.”

  “It-It’s okay,” he says. Yeah, so don’t believe him. “I’m going to work on getting us out of here. You rest, okay?”

  Will kisses my forehead before leaving. Oh, I do so love him to bits and bobs and turtle nobs. I lie back down on the gurney, wincing the whole time down. Even with my eyes closed the world spins. Yeah, I think I need to lay off the drugs from here on. I’ve messed up enough. Time to make up for it. And there’s a lot of work to do now. While I was gabbing with April, I missed a call from Will. Adrian Winsted’s work schedule matched the dates the victims disappeared. They were arresting him and beginning the search of the house when I called for help. He was the only one at home, but there’s an APB out for Jamal Greene, the African American man I saw with Patsy. Everyone in three states are looking for her too. They can’t get far. At least I hope not. She may have prepared for this contingency and could be halfway to Mexico with her lover by now for all I know. This may have not been the first time she’s had to move on quickly. At least now we have her name and photos. Some other werewolf is bound to recognize her. We should probably put their photos out to the press too.

  The police and campus security descended on Tim and me within a minute, and I was in no fit state to control the scene. All I could do was keep him unconscious and insist on being in the same ambulance as him to continue that job. It would have been better if I’d have dragged him back to mobile command. Another Alexander screw-up. I’m useless. And exhausted.

  She was within my grasp. I had her. She was right there, and I lost her. Heck, I had her days ago if I’d only pulled my head from the clouds. If only I’d answered when Will called today. If only…if only. No more. My mess, my job to clean it up. Just after a little nap.

  “Babe?”

  I jerk awake, wrenching my torso in the process. Fuc-udge that hurts. Will stands by my side. “Huh?”

  “You fell asleep,” Will says, helping me slowly sit up. “It’s time to go.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  Since some co-ed stole my heels after I discarded them, Will slips a donated pair of flip flops o
nto my feet before aiding me off the gurney into a wheelchair. Even that hurts. Heck, drawing breath hurts. A broken rib will do that. And the hits keep coming. Jason Dahl waits by the front entrance along with two police officers and a drooling Tim Acker in a matching wheelchair. They still have my silver cuffs on him though. I’m gonna need those back. Dahl wheels Tim outside into the frozen night toward the awaiting SUV with us trailing behind.

  “Sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Dahl asks.

  “No,” Will replies. “Stay here and guard the son in case they try to spring him.”

  “Is that wise? If she does come, Patsy could put the sex whammy on him,” I point out.

  “It’s just for an hour or two until Oliver wakes,” Will explains. “He’ll take over then.”

  “Shouldn’t he go to the other parks Winsted worked to find more bodies?” I suggest.

  “That can wait. We’re stretched too thin as it is.” Will opens the passenger door as Dahl lifts Acker into the back of the car like a bride. “And it’s certainly not something for you to worry about right now.”

  Though it aches like a mother, I somehow stand and climb into the SUV. Damn, even fastening the seatbelt hurts. Yeah, lots of desk work in my future. So not complaining. Will shuts my car door, says something to Dahl, then gets into the driver’s seat. If I never see the inside of a hospital again, it will be too soon.

  I keep watch on Acker in the rearview mirror as we pull into traffic then the lonesome four-lane road to mobile command. Lying back there, now literally drooling on his seatbelt, he seems so docile. Like a skinny, floppy haired dweeb not a killing machine. Still. One false move and he gets another brain aneurysm. He didn’t set off my psychopath radar at all. Maybe because he’s only a few years younger than me. Twenty and his life is over just because he fell in with the wrong crowd. He may have tried to kill me a few hours ago, but I still feel a twinge of sympathy for him.

  I can imagine how it all played out. Patsy spots him in her class, this cute weakling with a penchant for domineering females, and has to have him for her harem. She pays him special attention in class, maybe even inviting him over for dinner and “special tutoring.” She’s an attractive, sensual, experienced woman who probably banged him the first chance she got. What man could resist? Especially when she also offers him preternatural strength, power, acceptance, sex, hell she probably threw in an X-Box as well. She turns him and to prove his loyalty, his fidelity to his new one and only, he kills the girl he loved when she asks. Welcome to the family, Tim.