by Josie Hunter
She walked down a side street toward the park, past a little real estate called Catamount Cottages and Condos. What a stupid name. What if someone wanted an actual house?
She glided into the park. Lucas Park. Esteban had told her all about the holier-than-thou Lucas pride. Her orders were to avoid anyone connected with the Lucases, including Esteban’s daughter, and, if she had no other choice, to engage them with caution, leaving minimal evidence. Medea would avoid them, but only if they stayed out of her way. It should be easy enough to avoid them if she did her job well. Which she always did.
She blended into the shadows like a dark nightmare. Once she went into what she called “kill mode,” she knew, even if someone were to look in her direction, they’d see nothing beyond a shadow form, some sort of ghostly movement at the edge of their vision. They’d feel nothing but an unease shivering down their spines, smell nothing but the cool, crisp scent of pure water. She’d honed her skills so she could hide easily in the absence of light, meshing with the air or water around her and becoming part of her surroundings. She could glide through the stygian blackness the way she glided through water—swiftly, easily, with intent they would never understand, never forgive. She didn’t give a fuck what they understood or forgave. She lived for darkness and shadows. She avoided sun and daytime like the plague. It made her skin hurt when she was in human form. It made her feathers ruffle in annoyance when she was her swan.
Her avoidance of the sun made her job difficult at times. So many shifters were diurnal, living in the safety of light, avoiding the night. She’d had to endure the pain and annoyance many times to accomplish her task, and blending in was much harder in the day because of her black skin. But, this time, her target was apparently a wolf. Hopefully he was a normal wolf. So many weren’t these days. They spent their days doing trivial, vacuous jobs, living trivial, vacuous lives. They’d long since given up the thrill of the hunt, the exhilaration of capturing the prey. The magic of the darkness.
But this man had been through hell. That much was clear from his photos. A man who’d been to hell and back usually survived on his instincts. If he did, he could prove to be a fun nocturnal challenge. She loved the chase.
She knew nothing about him beyond that, and she wanted to know nothing. Names, occupations, birthplaces, even ages, became meaningless once in kill mode. Once she’d done her job, all of that ceased to matter anyway. With death, with decay, came anonymity. She didn’t care about the before, only the after.
The trouble was she had no scent to guide her to this man. She had nothing but several photographs, and that idiot Garcia had taken them when the man was as near to death as a man could get. Beyond a wild nest of brown hair, she could barely make out any aspect of his appearance. The nose had been broken. The lips were split open. The eyes were puffy, so swollen shut Medea couldn’t even verify the color. Garcia, the prick, didn’t even know what color except they weren’t brown. Brown he remembered because it involved no imagination, no desire to see anything beyond expectation.
In the photograph, the man’s ashen face was covered in bruises and cuts and bumps. The man had definitely been through the wringer. She didn’t give a fuck about that either, but it was hard to hand someone the right corpse if she couldn’t pick out the right man to kill. The body was so emaciated she doubted she could possibly recognize it once the man found food. Those scars though…Would they be permanent? Some shifters had a marvelous ability to quickly regenerate tissue and heal wounds. It seemed to be a recessive gene that showed up in certain generations, but it wasn’t guaranteed. She could heal small wounds, but she preferred to avoid getting damaged at all, just to be safe. So this target might be scarred, but he might also be healed. The chemical compound he’d been given affected his shifting ability but didn’t impact every part of his genetic makeup. So the possible scarring wasn’t a given in her search.
She also supposed she couldn’t just walk up to a man in the cheery little world of Catamount and say, “Let me see your chest.”
“Or maybe I can.” She smiled, thinking about killing a man expecting a fuck. Now wouldn’t that be a surprise for him and an interesting diversion for her?
She was tired of incompetent men playing havoc with her life. Well, if she had to take out a few innocents as she tried to find the right target, so be it. She didn’t give a fuck about that either.
As she strolled through the park, she saw a possible target sitting on a bench, having a cigarette himself. Brown hair, cut a bit shorter than the man’s in the photo, but of course, the target was back in civilization now with no need to look like a savage. The man looked to be the right age as the man in the photo, not too young, not too old, though honestly it had been hard to tell around the bruises and swelling.
She inhaled, trying to discern his species, but she couldn’t get a read on him. The injections Santos made her take to camouflage her DNA really played havoc with her senses. It might be days before she could get an accurate read of anyone. She didn’t have days.
She gave the guy a smile and said, “Good evening” as she passed him.
He returned the smile and said, “Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Such a nice guy. Stupid, too.
“Yes, it is,” she said as normally as she could. Her heart raced with excitement, though if anyone had looked at her—anyone who wasn’t about to be killed, that is—they wouldn’t have seen anything but a beautiful woman out for a walk.
Even though she couldn’t target his specific scent, she knew this man was a shifter. He might associate with shifters who held their animals on such leashes that instincts became stifled, but a shifter was a shifter, and though she couldn’t scent his species, she knew he was a possible mark.
As she spun around, he realized the threat too late. He tried to shift. She caught a glimpse of a faint golden shimmer, but she was quicker. She wrapped her hands around his head and twisting viciously. She heard a satisfying crack. She could have allowed him to shift. That would have certainly determined if he were a wolf, but it was best to work on autopilot, and a shifted wolf made a kill a bit more difficult. Even if she’d determined he was an innocent, it would have left a witness. She couldn’t have that.
She dropped the dead man onto the park bench and picked up the cigarette the man had dropped. She took a few puffs then scrunched it under her boot. She pulled a phone from her pocket. She took several pictures of his face. It was a nice face on a nice guy, but of course, she had no way of knowing if it was the right one until she sent the pictures to Garcia.
She pressed Share and typed in his address. After she’d hit Send, she unbuttoned the man’s shirt and studied his chest. No markings of any kind. Oh well…Better safe than sorry. She snapped a few photos of his flesh and sent those as well.
“Let this be a lesson to you.” She chuckled as she slid the phone back in her pocket and continued down the path. “Don’t talk to strangers.”
Chapter 7
As Stephanie was walking from the community parking lot, she noticed lights flashing at the edge of Lucas Park. Since cars weren’t generally allowed in the downtown area, seeing red and blue flashing lights didn’t bode well. Something really bad must have happened. She hurried down Sandalwood Street, teetering on her heels, the bags in her hand hitting against her bare leg. As she reached the office, several more police cars arrived at the edge of the park, lights flashing, sirens blaring.
She yanked open the door, saying, “What’s happening in the park?”
And was met by two pairs of glaring eyes. There should have been three.
“Where’s Dylan?”
“Not my turn to watch him,” Rusty said. “We’ve been calling you all morning. Where the fuck have you been?”
She twisted her arm to check her watch. It was only nine thirty.
“Running errands.” She lamely held up the bag from the uniform supply company and the bag filled with sausage muffins and an egg plate for Rusty. She tried to set the bags on the desk, but the
straps had wound around her wrist, nearly cutting off the circulation. She managed to untangle herself and dropped them on the desk, shaking her arm. When the pins and needles had subsided, she rummaged in her purse and extracted her phone. “I didn’t get any calls. I would have…”
Dead. She’d gotten so involved talking to her mother the night before, she’d never thought to check it. She pulled open her drawer, got out the charger, and started searching for a plug.
“On the right,” Rusty said in disgust. “If you’d have done any of the work around here, you’d know that.”
Stephanie leaned over to find the plug.
“Your other right, Steph,” Talon said. “What’s wrong with you today?”
“Nothing,” she snapped as she shoved the plug into the socket.
“It doesn’t look like nothing from where we’re standing,” Talon said. “In fact, you’ve been acting weird since you stopped wearing your agent costume.”
“My costume?”
“You could sell it in a Halloween catalogue under FBI Agent,” Rusty said.
“So,” Talon said, “what’s been—”
“I brought breakfast,” she said, gesturing to the bags. She’d do anything to stop that conversation from happening now. “Now what’s going on in the park? Is that why you were calling me?”
“For some reason,” Rusty said, “we thought you might want to know about the dead body.”
“The what?” Stephanie raced to the window and peered out.
“Body,” Rusty said, “as in dead. They won’t tell us much more than that. I tried dropping your name to get information, but apparently that’s not good enough. They want to talk with you in person.”
“Who is they?”
“Tyler Lucas,” Rusty said.
“Gabe Laughton,” Talon said.
“Marcus Gallagher,” Rusty said. “And the police chief.” He glanced at a card on the edge of his desk. “Name of Joshua Hennessey. Another wolf-shifter. Right up your alley, wolf lover.”
“Crap, crap, and double crap.” Stephanie glanced around the room. “Anyone make coffee?”
Rusty rolled his eyes and went to the break room.
Stephanie shoved her arm in the food bag and tore apart the wrapper on a sandwich. She’d shoved half of it into her mouth and had gobbled most of it by the time Rusty returned with a steaming mug of coffee. She stuffed another huge bite of the sandwich into her mouth.
“Ha lan go?”
“Repeat that,” Rusty said.
Stephanie swallowed. “How long ago? When were they here?”
“They showed up right after I walked in the door,” Talon said. “So that would make it around eight. Gotta be on time, right? Your rule. Though it seems to apply to only me and Rusty.”
“You guys always get here on time?” She felt bad. She never arrived on time. She took a swig of coffee, nearly burning her mouth. “Well, I had a good reason for being late. Look in the bag.”
Talon opened the bag and pulled out two light-blue jumpsuits. The name embroidered on the pockets was Barry.
“Ah, how sweet,” Rusty said. “And just your color.”
“Can it, rabbit,” Talon grumbled. He’d ripped off his jacket and was stripping off his tie when the door opened.
A man wearing a crisp police uniform strode into the office. Like most wolf shifters, he was a big son of a bitch. Not bad looking either. Nice wavy brown hair, stern blue eyes. But Stephanie couldn’t see much beyond the uniform and the shining badge on his chest. She nearly choked on her coffee, and her hand hung halfway to her mouth. The scent of sausage taunted her.
“Agent Cooper?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry to interrupt your”—his gaze traveled over the food bag, the coffee mug, the half-eaten sandwich and settled on her mouth—“breakfast.” The tone implied he’d had breakfast some time before she’d even rolled out of bed.
As he continued to stare at her mouth, Stephanie finally put the mug down and searched the bag for a napkin. She scrubbed it over her face. Someone plucked the sausage sandwich out of her hand, and she turned. Dylan gave her a smile and popped the final huge bite into his mouth. Dressed in an impeccable gray suit with his hair swept back from his face, he looked like a consummate professional.
Damn, he looks good.
She marched toward the officer with as much dignity as she could muster and held out her hand. As she did, she realized her fingers were greasy. She wiped them on her dress.
“Chief Hennessey?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Glad to meet you.”
He obviously had more important things on his mind than pleasantries. He looked dubiously at her outstretched hand and then decided to ignore it. He gestured toward the door. “If you could come with me, the alpha would like your input on a crime scene.”
“Certainly.” She started to grab her purse but realized she wouldn’t need it. Her phone wasn’t even working. She cast a glance to her cohorts. Both were staring at her with amusement, probably waiting to see what else she could do to get off on the wrong foot with the chief. Dylan, however, walked toward the chief and held out his hand. Hennessey shook it.
“Special Agent Dylan Winston. I’ll be aiding Special Agent Cooper in the investigation.” He gestured toward the door. “Lead the way, ma’am.”
Stephanie straightened up, wishing she hadn’t chosen to wear a pretty yellow sheath dress. She felt like the cheerleader again. The high-heeled slides weren’t going to be the best shoes for a crime scene in the park. It was so much easier being Dana Scully.
* * * *
The grass in Lucas Park was healthy and lush, which was great for the town but unfortunate for Stephanie. The grass made it damn near impossible for her to keep up with the tall, burly police chief in her slides. He was seemingly miles ahead of her when she finally just pulled off her shoes and carried them. Even then she couldn’t quite keep up. She stared at his rigid, perfectly professional back as he took giant strides in his very no-nonsense and professional shoes. She glanced down at her bare feet, at her pink-polished toenails.
Barefoot in the Park.
Wonderful name for a movie, but not so wonderful when you’re a Homeland Security agent.
Fuck. I have got to get my act back together. I knew wearing pink couldn’t be good for me. Now I’m in yellow, for fuck’s sake, running around barefoot like my two-year-old.
She lifted her face and pushed her glasses back up then wished she hadn’t. She saw the group of men watching her arrival. It could not have gotten worse had she decided to sabotage her own day on purpose. They all nodded. Luckily the crowd was smaller than she’d anticipated. She didn’t see Gabe. Only Marcus Gallagher gave her a smile. She nodded back as she tried to slip her shoes back on without falling on her ass.
Marcus finally took pity on her and put his hand under her elbow. There was something to be said for being on a mission with a guy. Sometimes they treated her like shit—Rusty and Talon were very good at that—but sometimes they treated her like gold. Marcus appreciated her skills, and they saw eye to eye on most things. Two peas in a pod.
Then why did she feel suddenly like an alone, and very lonely, pea right now as every man stared at her?
Marcus—not Marcus here, but Tomcat 8—stepped away to talk with several of the police officers. She wasn’t surprised to see him there. She knew he had been involved in the analysis of several incidents involving Carly Lucas. Tyler Lucas trusted him implicitly.
“Nice of you to join us, Agent Cooper,” Tyler said. He sounded none too pleased with her as he turned and walked toward the park bench and tree surrounded by yellow crime tape.
The tape matches my dress. This is so not my day.
Since he didn’t bother to stick to the paths, she followed after him as fast as she could, maneuvering around little dips and over little mounds in the ground. The other men trailed behind her, shortening their strides so they wouldn’t knock her over. When Marcus pu
lled abreast of her, she whispered, “I’m up shit creek here.”
“Don’t worry about it. Everyone’s just a bit tense. We have our share of problems in Catamount, but murder isn’t usually one of them. We haven’t had this level of trouble since Viper tried to kill Carly Lucas last spring.”
Stephanie paused, hopping on one foot to pull some leaves out of her shoe. Marcus quickly left her in the proverbial dust as she tried to get her shoe back on. “Which is why I wanted on this case. I can smell Santos all over this.”
“You haven’t even seen the body yet, Steph.”
Surprised by the sound of his voice, she straightened to meet Dylan’s eyes. “Steph? So we’re already back on a first-name basis? I don’t think I’m quite ready for that if you don’t mind, Dylan. I think we’ll stick with agent for the time being.”
He shrugged. “Your game, your rules. Okay, Agent Cooper, I caution you about making generalizations concerning this case when you haven’t even viewed the body. It seems foolhardy to jump to the conclusion that Esteban Santos is involved.”
“And I think it’s foolhardy for you to dismiss it out of hand when you don’t know all the details of our Santos investigation.”
“Stephanie, despite events in my recent past, Gabe Laughton wouldn’t have sent me to you without a proper briefing. Though I’m an experienced agent, of what use would I be to you without adequate knowledge of the case?”
She’d noticed the use of her name again, but she decided to let it slide. Temporarily. She tugged on her dress.
“I’m unsure of your use even with the knowledge,” she mumbled. She lifted her face and stared at him. “So you know everything there is to know about our investigation and you don’t agree this could involve Santos?”
“Hell yes, I agree, but the evidence will tell us more.”
The sound of a throat clearing caught her attention. Each man in the circle was staring at her and Dylan, still yards from the site. Tyler lifted the tape and stepped under it. She ran the few steps between them, and when Dylan lifted the tape, she ducked under it. Her tight dress hiked up as she bent over. She felt the air on her thighs, and behind her, she heard Dylan chuckle. She wanted to slug him. Thankfully the other men had moved to either side of the bench.