She’d started to tell Graham the secret inside her heart when the man with the callused fingers had snatched away her phone.
They were going to do whatever they wanted with her, and Misty would die. She was scared, but at least Paul had gotten away, and Graham’s voice had given her strength to face what she had to.
Not that she’d give up without a fight. Go down swinging, her dad had liked to say. He should know; he’d had to fight for everything his entire life.
The men in her store—five of them—were armed, carrying pieces stuffed into back holsters, knives in boots and on belts. Misty had nothing but her fists and her flowers.
“Cops’re coming,” one of the men by the door said.
Misty heard sirens. Probably Pedro at the convenience store across the lot had seen the break-in and called the police. But Misty knew better than to relax and be thankful the police were on their way. There would be a standoff, probably a gun battle, and someone would be shot. Most likely Misty.
She struggled to get away. Flores punched her twice in the face. Misty’s head snapped back, and blood flowed from her mouth.
Flores clamped his hand over her throat, cutting off her breath. He squeezed, not enough to choke her, but blocking off enough air to make Misty dizzy and sick.
He dragged her with him out the back door to the alley, the other four following. Two of the guys had motorcycles; the other two and the man who held Misty went for a pickup—a Ford 250, all shiny and new. Big enough to shove Misty down into the backsect, tossing a cigarette-smoke-infested tarp on top of her.
The truck rumbled under her as it started. Then the pickup jerked, tires squealing, as it headed down the alley that ran behind the strip mall. Another turn onto the street, and they were off, carrying Misty who-knew-where.
• • •
Misty’s pickup wasn’t in her carport. Graham killed the engine on his Harley, stepped away from the engine’s smell, and inhaled.
Every hackle he had went up, the wolf in him starting to snarl. Misty was gone—Graham could scent how she’d left the house through the back door not long ago, gotten into her truck, and driven away. All as normal. She’d have gone to her store, as early as it was, to do whatever it was she did before opening for the day.
Why hadn’t the woman told him where she was calling from? Graham’s cell phone had indicated what number had called him, but Misty had been on her cell, which meant she could be anywhere.
Graham scented no struggle here, no fear or worry. Just Misty’s fresh scent, overlaid with the flowers she worked with all the time. Graham couldn’t catch a whiff of roses these days or the strong odor of what she said were Asiatic lilies without thinking of Misty.
No, thinking of her wasn’t the right way to put it. The scents conjured up her sultry voice, her uninhibited laughter, her soft face, and brown eyes that went shiny when she looked at him sometimes.
The images, sounds, and scents of her woke up Graham’s needs too. He hadn’t touched the woman, but he dreamed almost every night about running his hand up the loose skirts she liked to wear, freeing her hair from the ponytail, licking between her breasts . . .
Misty had sounded terrified. Someone had been coming for her, and she was scared out of her mind.
Graham swung back onto his bike, started it, and roared down the street again. He saw the people who’d come out of houses to watch him, wondering what the hell a Shifter was doing in their nice corner of the city, but Graham didn’t care right now what they thought.
He turned out of the neighborhood and joined traffic on the 215 before he raced off on Flamingo, heading to the flower shop in this middle-class side of town. Shifters didn’t come here much, confining themselves to the north side of Las Vegas and the desert not far beyond. The big hotels on the Strip and downtown didn’t want Shifters scaring away tourists, so Shifters mostly stayed away, even though some Shifter women danced at nightclubs as the entertainment. Pissed Graham off, how Eric Warden, the Shiftertown leader, was all right with Shifter females doing exotic dancing for humans. One of the many reasons Eric was a dickhead.
Misty’s flower shop—Flamingo Flowers—was in a strip mall with other small retailers, which should have been quiet this early on a Saturday morning. Graham knew something was seriously wrong, even before he saw the smashed glass in Misty’s doorway and the cop cars all over the lot.
A couple of cops saw him, and Graham hesitated. He should get the hell out of there and have nothing to do with the city police, but if he left, he’d not be able to help Misty. She might be in there, and if she wasn’t, he needed to get inside and sniff around to figure out where she’d gone.
He decided to approach as though he had every right to be there. Shifters weren’t banned from every store in town, just most of them. But not this one. Misty had sense enough to know that Shifters were good customers.
Graham pulled his motorcycle next to one of the cop cars and dismounted. Next thing he knew, he was surrounded by five cops, who’d all pulled their weapons on him. One cop backed those up with a Taser.
Graham’s wolf fought to get out, wanting to go into a frenzy that would land the cops on the ground, their weapons broken. He clenched his fists, fighting the aggression he always had a hell of a time taming. When he’d lived in middle-of-nowhere Nevada, in a Shiftertown where his word had been law, Graham had never bothered damping down his wolf instincts. Now he was expected to live in a city of humans who treated him like he was some big scary animal that had escaped from the zoo.
He wanted to grab the guns from the cops and break them, just to scare them, but Graham dialed it back. He needed to find Misty.
He lifted his hands to show they were empty. “Hey, this is my friend’s store. I need to make sure she’s all right.”
“A human owns this store,” the cop closest to Graham said.
“Well, no shit. Her name’s Misty—Melissa Granger. She called me, scared. She in there? Is she all right?”
Maybe watching Eric deal with humans for the last eight months had taught Graham something. The cops still eyed him warily but believed his worried tone.
“No one’s inside,” the lead cop said. He had black hair buzzed short, a flat face with acne scars, and a big nose. He held his Beretta steadily, still pointing it at Graham. “Place is torn up.”
“But her truck’s here.” Graham pointed at the black pickup sitting quietly in a space a little way from the cops. “She was here. Where is she now?” His fears mounted as he spoke. He couldn’t stop the growl in his throat, couldn’t stop the sparks on his Collar.
“This is a crime scene,” the lead cop said. “You don’t need to be here, Shifter.”
“No? This store belongs to my friend. My friend might be in trouble. I don’t see you doing anything about it.”
The pistol didn’t waver. “Why don’t you go back to Shiftertown so we can do our jobs?”
“Why don’t I go on in there so I can look around? Maybe figure out where she is?”
“Turano, call Shifter Division,” the lead cop said. “We need to contain one.”
Graham stared at him and then moved his gaze to the one called Turano, who was reaching for his radio.
“Aw, screw this shit.”
The cops tensed, expecting him to charge through them, but Graham turned his back and walked away, making for his motorcycle. He made a show of starting his bike, giving the cops a collective dirty look, before he pulled out of the parking lot.
Graham rode down the street and around the corner, then took the delivery entrance into the alley behind the shops. There was one cop car back there, and one cop. Graham roared up, dismounted his bike, and headed for the back door.
“Hey!”
When Graham didn’t stop, the cop drew. Graham whirled around and had the pistol out of the man’s hand and broken into two pieces before the man could
react.
When the cop opened his mouth to yell, Graham punched him, once in the face, then once in the temple. The cop folded up, and Graham lowered him gently to rest against the wall.
“Sweet dreams.” Graham stepped around the cop and through the door, which led to the back office and storage.
The thick steel door hadn’t been forced, which meant it had been opened from the inside. Probably by whoever had broken in taking the back way out. A glance into the shop revealed a mess: flowers, glass, and water all over the place. A dripper that ran constantly inside the refrigerated section had broken open, turning the refrigerator into a lake. The water wasn’t gushing anymore, which meant someone had been smart enough to turn it off.
Graham stayed out of sight of the cops picking their way through the scene at the front door. He didn’t have to go all the way into the shop though. He smelled Misty’s blood, along with the scents of four—no, five—humans. Humans who smoked heavily, hadn’t bathed in a couple of days, and one who’d been partaking of weed.
Graham got all that from a few long sniffs. He also scented that they’d taken Misty out back and loaded her into a vehicle. He growled, his blood heating with rage, and went back outside.
The day was already warm, August in southern Nevada. Heat made scents brighter. Graham smelled motorcycles and a car or truck, and these had taken Misty away. Too bad scent couldn’t tell him the make and models of the vehicles and where they’d been heading. Graham only knew they’d taken Misty.
He stepped over the unconscious cop, started up his bike, and rode out. A mile down the road, he pulled into another empty parking lot, took out his cell phone, and made a call.
“Hey,” he said to the Shifter who answered. “I’m gonna need some backup.”
CHAPTER TWO
Misty half woke when she was carried from the truck and into a house. Outside it was bright and hot, the day warming to its usual late summer temps. The men hadn’t bothered to blindfold her, but Misty had no idea where she was. Somewhere in Las Vegas, but it was a big city. Her vision was still blurry from the blows to her face and from the long, hot ride stuffed in the back of the truck’s cab, and looking around at the generic buildings didn’t tell her much.
The house was cooler than outside, though it smelled of damp garbage. Stale cigarette smells overlaid those scents, ashtrays overflowing.
The man who carried Misty dumped her on a couch that was strewn with clothes. The couch’s springs were broken, the cushions made of scratchy material, stuffing coming out the edges.
The leader sat down beside her. “Do you know who I am, Misty?”
“Sam Flores.” The words stuck on her tongue. She needed water.
“That’s right. Do you know why I’m looking for your brother?”
Misty licked her lips, tasting salt and dryness. “You were with him in prison.”
“Right again. And he screwed me royally. I just want to see him. To have a little talk.”
“To kill him, you mean.”
“Maybe.”
Misty drew a breath, trying not to gag on the living room’s odors. “He could have reported you. You’d still be in there if he had, maybe even in maximum security.”
“Oh, yeah, Paul was a little angel.” Flores put his face close to Misty’s. “But I had a good thing going, until he screwed it up for me. He didn’t think I’d get my parole, did he? Well, I have a good lawyer, who does what I want.”
Probably in exchange for the money Flores got for coke. Misty didn’t know the whole story, because Paul still wasn’t coherent about it, but apparently Sam had been good at drug dealing inside prison. Paul, whether he’d meant to or not, had helped an even meaner drug guy take away Sam’s business. Paul hadn’t explained very carefully, only that he’d had to choose between two evils. The second guy had promised to keep Flores away from Paul—Flores and his boys had beaten Paul every day before that.
“You’ll probably need that lawyer again,” Misty said, her voice a croak.
“No, because no one’s going to find you for a very long time, or your brother either.” Flores held up a cell phone. “Now, I was so pissed off I crushed your phone before I thought about it, and now, I’m going to need Paul’s number. So tell me what it is without making a big deal, and I might go easy on you.”
“I’m not about to tell Paul to come running over here so you can kill him,” Misty said hotly. “He’s my brother. Would you do that to your brother?”
“Yeah.” Flores grinned. “My brother’s an asshole.” He leaned closer. “You have a choice, pretty thing. If you give me Paul’s phone number, I won’t hurt you so bad. If you don’t, I’ll just kill you now and take your body out to the desert. All right?”
Misty wet her lips again. She needed water, but thirst was the least of her worries. If Sam stabbed her or shot her, a dry mouth wouldn’t matter.
She decided to gamble. What did she have to lose? “All right,” she said in a near whisper. “But give him a chance to explain. He had no choice.”
“Everyone has a choice. Even you, sweetheart, and you made the right one. What is it?”
Misty closed her eyes, repeated the number, and started to pray. She heard the little beeps as Flores punched in the digits, then the phone rang on the other end. In a few seconds, a harsh voice said, “What?”
She opened her eyes as Flores jerked. “Who the hell is this? Where’s Paul?”
Silence. Then the voice said. “He’s in the bathroom. What do you want?”
“Tell him to get his ass on the phone.”
“Shit.” More silence. Then another voice. Not Paul, Misty knew, but one doing a close approximation of him. “Yeah?”
“If you want to see your sister again, you’ll get out to where I might give her back to you.” Flores gave directions down a highway then to a turnoff, way out of town, some remote place in the desert. “I’m not going to wait long.” He clicked off.
Misty said nothing. Sam might decide to go ahead and kill her, and Misty would have to fight for her life. She would probably lose. But she had hope.
She had no idea who the Shifter was who’d answered as Paul, and she had no idea what Sam would do when he lured them out to the desert. But she knew Graham would be coming.
• • •
Graham rode out on his motorcycle, his nephew, Dougal, following. North out of town, then east on a county road, north on another dirt road, out into vast desert with knifelike mountains. The only vegetation was the creosote, with its long, slender white limbs and tiny gray green leaves reaching to the white blue sky.
The Mojave was a land of stark beauty, but it was deadly. The tourists who came to Las Vegas by the bucketload flew safely over this desert every day, but those who lived permanently in town knew its dangers. A human could die of dehydration and heatstroke out here quicker than he knew what was happening, and it wasn’t much better for Shifters.
Misty had been smart to trick her abductors into calling Graham. He’d grabbed Dougal, who’d come out to help, and told him to pretend to be Misty’s brother. Dougal had convinced whoever was on the other end that he was Paul Granger, which didn’t feel right to Graham. The man who had Misty couldn’t be that stupid. Or else the guy wasn’t afraid of whoever would come to him out in the hole in the desert. So, either he was overconfident, or he had a nasty surprise waiting.
Either way, the man was dead. He’d taken Misty, and Graham was going to rip him open.
Shifters weren’t allowed to kill humans though. A Shifter killing a human would bring human wrath down upon all Shifters.
All right, so maybe Graham would control his instincts and not do any actual killing. Maiming though—maiming he could do. It’s what he would do, whether humans liked it or not.
The turnoff came up, and Graham swung his bike into it, Dougal close behind him. Graham wished he could have a lit
tle more backup than his messed-up nephew, but there hadn’t been time. It was early in Shiftertown, when all the Felines slept heaviest, bears couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed, and even the Lupines were sluggish. If he’d called Eric, who would have been the best backup, Graham would have had to waste a lot of time explaining. Eric loved explanations.
The rough dirt road narrowed with each mile and finally petered out. They were a long way from the paved county road now, even farther from the highway. The desert floor, Graham knew from long experience, wasn’t the most stable of places to ride. What looked like solid earth could prove to be a crust for a giant dry hole, and washes hidden by brush opened out without warning.
Graham’s and Dougal’s motorcycles were leaving a trail any simpleton could follow, but Graham didn’t have time for stealth. The men ahead knew they were coming, they’d be armed, and they had Misty. The whole thing smelled of a big fat trap, but Graham would trip it and to hell with it.
They reached the appointed spot, which was at the bottom of a mountain. Around here, mountains began abruptly, rising straight up from the earth. No miles of foothills or gradual change in elevation, just horizontal and vertical.
A mining shaft had pierced the earth here but had been filled in—a mound of debris and stones protruded around rotted wood framing. An old shack, left over from the early part of the last century, squatted about twenty yards from the shaft. The tiny building had been reroofed at some point with corrugated metal, which was now square pieces of rust.
Five human men stood around the shack, waiting, guns in hands. Graham stopped his motorcycle and got off, Dougal behind him.
The men ignored Graham and focused on Dougal, who was shorter and much lankier than Graham. When Dougal took off his helmet, giving them a good-natured and toothy wolf grin, the lead man shoved his gun into Graham’s face.
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