Holy crap! Stan’s wife. I screeched into the bright morning air. The poor man. What he must be going through right now.
Why’d he call me?
Did it matter?
Not at all. But he had a whole brotherhood of police officers, male and female, to draw on. Why wasn’t someone there to support him?
By the time I’d landed on the precinct’s roof top, red hot anger raged inside my bird body on Stan’s behalf. I shifted quickly, threw on my stashed clothes—baggy VPD sweats and a matching long-sleeved shirt—and marched into the building.
Stan’s floor was empty, aside from the office clerk, manning the front desk. Officer Gallows had deep set Slavic features and large bags under his eyes. I’d met him a number of times, usually with him sitting behind a desk. When he looked up and took in my appearance, he didn’t look surprised. The creases around his eyes smoothed out, and he sighed. “Glad you’re here.”
“Where is everyone?” I barked.
The officer jumped in his seat. “Looking for Loretta’s killer.”
“Everyone?”
He nodded.
“Is that why Stan’s alone right now?”
He nodded, again. “He wanted to be alone. Yelled at us to leave him and find the killer. Told the therapist to go fuck himself. Everyone’s out trying to do something.”
“Oh.” My anger dissipated, and I mentally slapped myself for being such a jerk.
“No one knows what to do, so we’re doing everything we can to find out what happened. We’re…we’ve lost members of our force before. We all know it’s a risk of the job, but for the perp to take one of our family members…this shit’s fucked up. Everyone’s on edge, and we all want to find out who did this.”
I nodded, totally getting it. Stan wouldn’t let them comfort him, so they were out doing the one thing for him they knew they could do—police work.
“He still in the staffroom?”
The officer nodded. “Just Tony outside the door. Pops his head in every now and then to…you know…make sure Stan doesn’t hurt himself.”
Without speaking, I walked around the desk, through the secured area and made my way to the staffroom at the back of the building. A cop with a solemn expression and soft eyes, probably Tony, stood outside the staffroom. After a brief nod in his direction, I took a deep breath and pushed open the door. Stan sat at an empty table in a plastic fold out chair, elbows down and his hands cradling his head. He swayed back and forth in his seat, constantly pushing his face down to run his fingers through his sparse, but messy hair.
“Stan,” I said. My voice broke.
He froze and lifted his head. Blood shot eyes, stark white complexion, dried lips. The room stank of his misery; hot metal, stiff in the air as if an invisible weight compressed everything.
I swallowed.
Stan pushed back from the table to stand. Without a word, I walked over to him, and pulled him close for a hug. With his head bent at my chest, he cried. His shoulders shook. His whole body racked with sobs, and my shirt became damp as his tears soaked through the material.
I held him tightly and whispered “shhh” into his ear. But I didn’t tell him it would be okay. That was a lie. It wouldn’t be. He’d lost his life partner. His mate. Norms might not have mate bonds like some of the supernatural, but that didn’t mean their loss was any less significant. I’d seen Weres lose their mates. It wasn’t pretty. It looked, smelled, and felt exactly like this.
I rubbed his back and kept shushing into his hair.
“They killed her,” he whispered. “They killed her because of me.”
Chapter Eight
“Grief is the price we pay for love.”
~Queen Elizabeth II
An icy chill vibrated up my spine as his words echoed in my head. “What do you mean?”
Stan pushed away from me, swiped his nose with his sleeve and looked at his feet. “The local news ran a story about KK and named me as the lead investigator. When I got off my shift, I went home to find her…” He squeezed his eyes shut. Then his shoulders straightened, his body tensed, and he opened his blood shot eyes to fix me with his intense gaze. Cop mode switched on. “No money or jewellery was taken and a vial of KK was found on the scene. Lab results aren’t back yet, but preliminary inspection… They don’t think KK was in Loretta’s system. Whoever shot her, did it to send me a message.”
It took my brain a full minute to digest Stan’s words. How do I respond to that? “We’ll get them.”
“Damn fucking straight we will.” Stan’s jaw clenched, so hard his jaw would probably ache later. His body swayed.
“Should you be here?” I asked.
“Don’t tell me where to go, Andy.” He swiped at his running nose and sniffed. “I’ll return the favour.”
I held my hands up. “Stan, I’m here for you. We’ll do whatever you want. I don’t have to follow the rules like your fellow officers. Let’s get these fucktards.” Technically, as a “transfer” I did have to follow the rules like any other cop, regardless of the whereabouts of my paperwork. But I’d break the rules for Stan.
“You’ll take care of it?” Stan’s red-rimmed gaze remained locked on mine. Understanding smacked my brain. He wanted me here as his assassin friend. As the woman who could take out anyone, at least in his eyes.
“I’ll take care of it, or I’ll turn the other way if you want to do it yourself.” I didn’t hesitate in my answer. If anyone understood the need to mete out justice animal-style regardless of human laws, it was a Were or Shifter. No one messed with our mates without paying for it. Painfully.
Stan nodded and finally looked away. “Can you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Can you go to my home…”
“And sniff it out?”
He nodded again.
“You bet.”
Stan’s body relaxed a little, and he went to the mini kitchen to fiddle with the coffee maker. “You have clearance for the crime scene, you don’t have to wait for them to finish. I’ve already told them not to gun down any wild animals that come on the scene.”
“I don’t know where you live,” I said.
He prattled off his address and then turned his back to me. He wanted more time alone, despite asking me to come here. A steadfast career cop, manly-man like himself would hate that I’d seen him break down. But a part of my heart softened knowing he’d trusted me to see him like that.
“We’ll get them,” I said again before walking out.
****
Stan lived just across the bridge from downtown Vancouver, and the flight to his house took less than five minutes once I launched into the air. Nestled into a cozy community cul-de-sac, his home stood two stories with a white picket fence. Stan had never mentioned children, and I always assumed he didn’t have any. They’d be grown and out of the house anyway. I couldn’t see Stan housing a thirty-year-old unemployed son in his basement without mentioning it at least once during our B&B sessions.
Cop cruisers took up the entire street and police tape surrounded the property. A number of cops milled around and a few sat on the curb with their heads in their hands. One of their own had been targeted. Every single one would be thinking, “What if?” What if it had been their wife, their home? It wasn’t a question enforcement officers could spend much time asking. They couldn’t afford the hesitation.
With the house swarming with officers, I decided to land and shift in the park down the block behind a patch of bushes. No need for more people to witness multiple changes. Quickly shifting into my mountain lion form, I padded down the street and approached the crime scene cautiously. Just because Stan cleared me and warned his coworkers I might show up, didn’t mean they wouldn’t unload a clip of bullets into my ass before they realized their mistake. The presence of a cougar tended to have that effect on people.
My ears pinged forward at every sound, and I wound around the first cruiser.
“Holy shit!” an officer
exclaimed. A rustle of his uniform and the tell-tale swish sound told me he’d drawn his firearm. It took every ounce of control not to whirl and attack. Instead, I plunked my fat cat ass down and purred, as loudly as possible.
“Wait!” a female officer called out. “That’s Stan’s friend.”
“Thought she was a wolf?” the officer shouted back.
“Nah, that was someone else,” she replied and walked up to me. She had thick brown hair and kind eyes. “Look at her. She’s just sitting and purring. Not feral or wild. He told us to expect a mountain lion, didn’t he?”
“Dude’s got connections.”
“That’s Stevens for you.”
The officer without the drawn gun approached me slowly with her hand out. I nuzzled her hand like a fucking house cat, and her muscles relaxed. “See?” she said.
The other officer behind me sighed and holstered his firearm. Then, and only then, I turned to him. The Asian man tensed at my approach, but copied the other officer’s lead and held out his hand. His name tag read, “Chong.”
I nuzzled his hand, too, before walking forward and arching my back. Bless the man, he scratched me. Maybe acting like a house cat wasn’t so bad after all.
“Cindy will never believe this,” he said to the other cop, the one with the kind eyes. Must be referring to his wife.
Both cops grinned and stood in front of me. I sat and waited.
“Can you understand us?” Kind Eyes asked.
I slowly nodded my head up and down.
“Good,” Officer Chong said. “Follow us. We’ll take you in and make sure no one else draws on you.”
A man after my own heart.
With minimal yelling, a few tense moments, and one twitchy police officer, we wound our way through Stan’s house to the master bedroom. The whole place was a bouquet of sweet memories. Raw emotions had a way of embedding in the walls like cigarette smoke. Stan’s house smelled of love and laughter. Mountain lions couldn’t cry, but my eyes stung as I padded through layers and layers of fresh cut grass, which indicated happiness. When the air turned sour, I knew we approached the location where Loretta died. The smell of Stan’s apprehension rose thick, like a wall of smog, and then, once I stepped across the bedroom threshold, the power of the scents bombarded my nose and made me stagger.
I hadn’t smelled the lightning strike of heartbreak since I broke it off with Wick. This was stronger. Along with tears and anger, the canned ham odour floating in waves marked despair. Underneath it all was blood and death. Stan’s wife had a distinct aroma; like Stan, she smelled of soap and leather, but with a more feminine edge, as if the soap contained roses instead of an Irish spring. I’d become acquainted with it as we moved through the house.
Now at the location where she’d lost her life, the smell of her body and blood, though removed hours ago, intensified, but with a sour twist. Other scents swirled around the room. The hot metal of pain, the fierce lemon and pepper bouquet of shock, a little smoke for confusion and a lot of rust and cobwebs for regret. She’d seen her death coming, and her sadness painted the room with its aroma.
But the sour twist to her body odour and the guilt smelled wrong. Misplaced. Death never came across like a handful of daisies, but this was different. The sourness clawed at my skin. When I nosed around some more, I realized it came from the broken vial near the body outline, and blood-spattered carpet. I sniffed it again. Sour, burnt plastic, kind of like oven cleaner. This must be King’s Krank.
One mystery solved.
If only the crime scene could solve who committed the murder. The room packed an olfactory punch, but the absence of the killer’s scent rankled. Not the first time a Witch anti-scent charm had been used to aid an offense. The faint sweetness of the charm almost got lost, laden under all the other smells. Whomever killed Loretta wanted his or her tracks covered. The murderer’s identity would have to wait.
Only one mystery remained at the scene to sleuth out.
I padded around the room, delicately avoiding the taped outline where her body had lain, where only a patch of dried blood remained, and sniffed her side of the bed. Guilt? Why would Stan’s wife smell guilty? Her house reeked of happiness, love and Stan, no other man. She hadn’t cheated, or at least not here and not in a way that she’d carry the other man’s stench back.
Did I mess up?
Weres and Shifters tended not to outright lie about anything. We’d all smell it. Being upfront and taking an “as is” mentality tended to be a trait for both supernatural groups. It also meant I didn’t often smell guilt.
I sniffed again. Parmesan cheese and musk oil, definitely guilt.
Now the question remained: what did Loretta Stevens hide from her husband that she felt guilty about?
Chapter Nine
“Give me my sin again.”
~William Shakespeare
The big wooden double doors of Tristan’s house stared back at me. The scent of citrus and sunshine curled around my body, and the warmth of the day slipped away as I stood and waited for someone to answer the door.
Feradea, please don’t let it be Angie.
After the day I’d had, I just wanted to curl up on Tristan’s lap for a cuddle. My usual daily quota for sass and snark, aside from my own, was tapped out.
Nelson opened the door, and his eyes widened. “Andy!”
“Hey big guy, can I come in? Tristan’s expecting me.”
The Wereleopard bobbed his head and stepped back to allow me entry.
I wanted to bottle this home and the smells wafting down the hallway.
“Andy.” Tristan walked into the foyer with his arms wide. I walked straight into them and wrapped myself around his hard torso. His arms enclosed me, and I inhaled his citrus and sunshine. The bouquet of honeysuckles coiled around me.
My mountain lion stopped pacing, and the world slowed down for the first time today.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Tristan mumbled into my hair.
I shook my head.
“Let me put you to bed then.”
My heart rate increased, and my mountain lion purred.
“For sleep, you wicked thing. You look positively exhausted.” He nuzzled my neck and gave it a little nip. “But if you’re a good girl, I could arrange a midnight wake-up.”
“Mmmhmm.”
Before I had a chance to make him promise, a snort echoed down the hall. I looked up to see emotions cross Angie’s face, too quick to decipher, but there was no mistaking the disgusted curl of her upper lip or the jealous scent of cat urine floating in the air.
I turned back to Tristan and mumbled into his lips. “I think I just got my second wind.” I squeezed his rock-solid ass to emphasize my point.
Tristan’s chest rumbled. “Staking your claim?”
“Maybe.”
“Unnecessary, but I approve.”
He grabbed my hand and hauled me through his beautiful home. The smells of his pride brushed passed me, like a flicker-tape movie; emotions, identities and hierarchies packed an olfactory punch. Two things stood out to me as Tristan guided me up the stairs with no seduction, and all urgency.
One, absolute loyalty. Tristan’s pride loved and trusted him unconditionally. And two, Angie’s particular brand of stench was everywhere. Embedded with lust and jealousy. Tristan’s constant scent remained ambivalent throughout the house, so although Angie’s desire for Tristan concerned me and meant I’d have to watch my back, at least I didn’t have to worry about Tristan returning her feelings.
My mouth opened as I planned to question Tristan, but he flung me into a large master bedroom and slammed the door closed. I had little time to take in the room. A king-sized bed with reclaimed wood stained a natural blue-gray as a headboard, and a white duvet stuffed with a fluffy comforter.
“Tristan—”
His mouth on mine gave me little chance to breathe, let alone talk. He moved forward until the backs of my legs hit the elevated bed. With a glint in his gaze, he pulled ba
ck and gave me a little shove. I fell back and bounced on the pillow-top mattress a bit before coming to rest on the soft duvet and goose down comforter. Typical cat surrounding himself with bird feathers. My mountain lion purred her approval. Tristan’s scent coated the entire room with his own unique spin to the leopard signature, the hint of honeysuckles on a warm day.
Plus, no Angie stench.
Something else familiar clung to the sheets, though. My eyebrows scrunched up, and I reach behind me to search under the pillows. I pulled out some clothing and brought it to my nose. My tank-top. He’d sniped my top so his bed would smell of me. I continued to hold my shirt to my face, and met Tristan’s piercing gaze over the supple white material.
“It keeps my leopard calm,” he said.
My mountain lion purred and preened as I re-tucked the clothing under his pillows.
Tristan remained at the foot of the bed, studying me. The familiarity of the moment triggered memories from our night together. Images flooded my mind of our naked bodies in a sweaty tangle of limbs.
Tristan’s gaze twinkled as if following my mind down its dirty path. His black hair slightly mussed, contrasted sharply with his almost glowing porcelain skin. When I’d first met him, I mentally described him as angelic and had to wipe the drool off my face. Now, I knew he wasn’t an angel, but the beauty of his contrasting features still struck me silly and sent heat to pool in my leopard-print panties.
Something soft replaced Tristan’s wicked look.
“Speechless?” I asked.
He hesitated before saying, “I’d ‘as soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.’”
I recognized the words of William Shakespeare, but the meaning of what Tristan said saw the return of the indescribable warmth, the one that came whenever I thought of Tristan, the one making my brain go fuzzy, quelling all my concerns and worries. I cleared my throat. “You’re a poet, now?”
Shift Work (Carus #4) Page 6