“Charlie,” he finally said, after rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “You guys are here. Good. We have a problem.”
Chapter 27
Charlie’s coyote was still incredibly close to the surface when he walked into the never-before-used meeting room where he’d once caught Makya talking to Maggie. He could feel the tension of everyone around him, and it kicked his own anxiety up to the point of becoming a distraction.
He wasn’t used to feeling so much. For nearly two years he’d cut himself off from his coyote. It hadn’t been a conscious effort in the beginning. After he’d been injured, his coyote knew he didn’t have the strength to pull through the transformation, so he’d receded, leaving Human Charlie to heal in peace. But there was never any peace in Charlie’s life. He began to purposefully keep his coyote at bay. He’d grown used to Human Charlie’s muted emotions, and he couldn’t handle the way his coyote cried out in grief and anger over the loss of his brother. So he pushed it back down into the closed-off part of his soul where it had hidden during his recovery. And he kept it there so long he didn’t know how to let it out when he found himself in Monarch City Park, desperate to break free and be the coyote again.
Thank God for Maggie.
She was poised on the edge of one of the big, heavy leather chairs. He’d always known she was beautiful, but he hadn’t realized how her beauty was the kind that would punch you in the gut, leaving you breathless. He’d admired her smile and laughter before, but he didn’t know how it could make him feel all warm and snuggly on the inside. She was kind and talented, and after seeing the way she’d grown up, he knew her spirit was made of the strongest stuff on earth to have accomplished everything she had without turning bitter. She was amazing, and for God knew what reason, she wanted to be with him.
He would happily take the burdens of the coyote if it meant getting to feel all the feels Maggie gave him.
“Where is Scout?” Jase asked, plopping himself into the seat across from Charlie and throwing his feet up on the table. Other than the Alpha Female, he was the last one to make an appearance. The rest of the Alpha Pack was all sitting and waiting, most of them studying the patterns on the textured ceiling. No one had said a single word up until that point, the gravity of whatever this situation was weighing on all of them.
Jase had little time or patience for weighing situations.
“She’s trying to force Angel to sit down and watch television instead of joining us.” Liam got that far-away look in his eyes that said he was trying to connect to her through their mate bond. “It’s not going well.”
“Why exactly is the munchkin here?” Charlie asked. “I mean, I love the kid and all, but if we’ve got something going on, maybe this isn’t the best place for her.”
Jase tilted the chair back as far as it would go. “For the love of God, do not let Scout hear you say that.”
“Gus… Do you remember Gus?” Liam asked.
“Seer who talks to dead people? Hated Makya on sight?”
Liam nodded. “Gus’s sister had a vision of the Donovan’s house burning to the ground.”
The rage was like a literal punch to his stomach. Threatening the Alpha Pack was one thing, but going after innocent humans like Uncle Dustin, Aunt Rebecca, and Angel? That crossed a line. A line with a pissed off Shifter looking for revenge on the other side.
Once Charlie could catch his breath again he asked, “Was it a this-is-going-to-happen vision, or a maybe-possibly-or-perhaps-just-a-metaphorical-vision vision?”
“Does it matter?” Jase asked, the muscles in his jaw jumping as he ground his teeth together.
Of course it didn’t matter. Any threat to the Donovans was unacceptable.
If the homicidal look in Liam’s eyes was anything to go by, the Alpha Male agreed. “Scout convinced her family to come back with us as a precautionary measure.”
“And she already regrets it.” Scout walked through the room and to her rightful spot next to Liam with all the regality of a queen. It almost made Charlie overlook her unbrushed hair and the giant mustard stain on her shirt. “I swear, whoever decided cute teenage boys should be allowed to have their voice auto-tuned and recorded should be shot. Repeatedly. In the ears.” Even though the arms on the chairs made it difficult, her hand intertwined itself with Liam’s. “So…,” she said, looking around the table. “This is everybody?”
“Everybody over eighteen and under eighty,” Marie said, and Charlie wondered at what could have caused them to fly in the Minnesota contingent of the Alpha Pack on such a short notice.
Scout glanced at Charlie’s side of the table and met his eyes. She held the stare a few seconds longer than was comfortable and then a slow smile curled up the corners of her mouth. “Hey there, Chuck. Glad to have you back.”
He dipped his head, acknowledging she was referring to more than his physical presence in the room.
Robby Hagan leaned forward onto his elbows. “While I’m enjoying this hi-how-are-y’all-doing business, I really wish we’d just get on to whatever it is you made us all haul ass here for. I had to cancel a weekend getaway with my girlfriend at the last minute, and it’s left me kinda cranky.”
Charlie didn’t miss the “pity that” Marie’s sister Michelle muttered under her breath or the way Robby’s body tensed up when she said it. If he wasn’t as eager to find out what was going on as Robby was, he might have asked them what that was all about.
“Mandel is dead,” Liam said, cutting straight to the point.
Jase sat up, the legs of his chair thudding down onto the carpet. “Which is a good thing, yes?”
“Not so much,” Scout said. “It appears he committed suicide… more than three months ago.”
And it had been around three months since Charlie’s Humvee was violated. “I’m still not seeing the bad part,” he said. “Guy does some bad shit, feels guilty, and offs himself. Personally, I feel like justice is served. Day over. Let’s go get some pie.”
This time, Joshua answered. And since it was Joshua, the lights dimmed and an image flashed up on a screen Charlie hadn’t noticed before. The picture was of a corpse mostly covered in leaves. From the way most of the flesh was missing, it had been there a while. “In the Mandel Pack, the wife of the Pack Leader is expected to lay flowers on the grave of the first Pack Leader to hold that territory on holidays. Lucinda Mandel went to the small cemetery yesterday and discovered her husband’s body at the base of the former Pack Leader’s gravestone. She immediately called the Alphas.” Joshua punched something into his phone and the image on the screen changed. Now there was the picture of the corpse on the left side of the screen, and on the right side was a picture of Abram Mandel at the hustings where he’d asked Scout to force Imogen into marrying another Shifter. “I’ve done some preliminary tests, and I think it’s safe to say Mandel hasn’t been seen since he left the hustings because he immediately drove back to Mississippi, found himself a nice, quiet spot, and shot himself in the head.”
“But you can’t be sure?”
“No,” Liam said, “we can’t. And we might be inclined to believe he’d arranged for the murder of Barros and the attempt on you and Maggie back in September with the contacts he had, but then we came home.”
The screen changed again. This time the picture was of the wall in the gym where the Painting of Death resided. Since Charlie had last seen it there had been an update. The word “soon” was painted across the canvas.
“Is that blood?” Maggie asked in a strangled voice. Taking a cue from his Alphas, Charlie reached over and placed her hand in his.
“Horse, not human,” Scout answered. “We found the body of one of our thoroughbreds behind the gym. He’d been…” She swallowed so hard even Maggie, whose hearing was at a normal human’s level, had to have heard it. “He was posed.” Her eyes flicked up to the screen. “There are no pictures. It seemed disrespectful, and I’m pretty sure I would vomit if I had to see it again.”
One disadvant
age to letting the coyote have so much control was at times like this it was hard to focus enough to think things through logically. Rage, disgust, and fear created a red haze he had trouble fighting through long enough to ask, “How? How in the hell did someone get to our horses? We have the best security system in the world, a vet who freaking lives twenty feet from the barns, and the house is inhabited by Shifters. This place is more protected than Fort Knox, and yet someone has slipped by us again? Long enough to kill a four hundred thousand dollar horse, drain his blood, have a little arts and crafts time, and then get all freaky with the dead body? Are you serious?”
Liam scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know. It shouldn’t have happened. We had two Shifters on the property, plus the vet last night. The vet woke up this morning with no idea what had happened over the past twelve hours. I caught the scent of a drug in his coffee cup. And the Shifters Changed back over halfway to Lexington. They called as soon as they could grab clothes and a phone. Turns out, someone started shooting at them last night, and their animal completely took eover and ran.”
“And the security system we spent half a fortune on?”
“We’re looking into it,” Joshua said. “It looks like it was turned off for a few hours last night.”
“That’s not all.” Scout nodded at Joshua, and the image on the screen changed to a blurry picture of a black sedan. “Early this morning this car started following us somewhere near the Versailles exit on the Bluegrass Parkway. Once we got off the parkway, it tried to run us off the road.”
Jase leaned forward, eyes squinting. “License plate number?”
“Didn’t have one.”
“Did you get a look at the driver?”
“Wearing a mask.”
Jase turned to his sister. “Like a ski mask?”
“Like a Pennywise the Clown mask.”
All the color drained from Jase’s face. “That’s not funny.”
“No,” Scout agreed, “for once, it was not funny.”
Charlie slowly became aware of a gentle caress against the base of his thumb and a softly whispered “it’s okay.” That was when he realized he was growling. It shouldn’t have been surprising to anyone. They were just one night past the full moon, and everyone’s animal was riding them hard. But a quick glance around the table assured Charlie everyone had noticed his reaction and was definitely surprised. Michelle’s jaw was literally hanging open, Jase was staring with raised eyebrows, and Talley was smiling at him like he just announced there would be an extra Christmas this year.
Liam’s expression didn’t change much, but Charlie knew him well enough to realize he was on the Talley end of the reaction spectrum. “Maggie, Joshua told me what you did.” Her eyes fell to the table as a blush spread across her cheeks. “The Alpha Pack is forever in your debt. Anything you should ever need, all you have to do is ask.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Maggie said, not looking up, “so you don’t owe me anything. But I appreciate the offer all the same.”
If he didn’t think it would embarrass her, Charlie would have pulled her out of her seat and kissed her until neither of them could breathe. Instead, he said, “We can start by finding a way to eliminate this threat to her.”
“What I don’t get,” Talley said, “is why they did nothing for so long and then came out with guns blazing now. Do you think they knew the body would get discovered this weekend?”
“Maybe they have day jobs and needed a four-day weekend to do their extracurricular creepy murdering stuff,” Jase guessed.
“A day job… or a busy school schedule.” Maggie worried her bottom lip as she thought it over. “Barros’s murder and the stuff with Charlie’s car happened early in the semester. No one had too much going on then, but when all the exams and stuff started, everything went quiet. But now it’s Thanksgiving Break, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not doing anything school related.”
“So… another art student,” Charlie said. “Either an independent study or grad student. Someone with access to Rosa Hall.” He swallowed down another growl. How many times had Maggie been in danger just by being in that building? How many times might he have walked right past the killer and not known?
“Maybe, but who? You’re the only drawing student. Everyone else is into 3D stuff. And I have a painting class with most of those guys. None of them are capable of what is hanging in the gym.”
“Students aren’t the only people on campus.” Joshua leaned up onto his elbows. “Sanders boasts some of the nation’s best artists on its staff. I’m assuming they all have access to Rosa Hall?”
Maggie nodded, seemingly too shocked by the thought of one her professors being behind all this to speak.
Charlie started a suspect list in his head, but stopped on one name. “Stroud.”
It made sense. A recluse with a reputation for a volatile temper. Charlie’s interactions with him had been minimal. He didn’t have him as a regular teacher, and Stroud had asked for everything to be sent back and forth digitally instead of face-to-face. They were only a month into the school year when Charlie started relying exclusively on Maggie for feedback. Charlie hadn’t thought much about it before, but what if there was a reason Stroud didn’t want someone with super-senses around? And why had he even offered the independent study position to Charlie in the first place? Charlie had been proud enough to believe it was because he was talented, but what if it was to keep an eye on him? What if he’d had Charlie and the rest of the Alpha Pack in his sights way before Charlie walked into his office?
“The painting isn’t his normal style, but he has the skill to do it,” Maggie said. “But do you think he’s really capable of something like this?”
Jase snorted. “I’ve read Midnight of the Mighty, and I’m telling you, that guy is screwed up. I definitely think he could have done it.”
Some other names were tossed around, but everyone kept coming back to Stroud. After about ten minutes of discussion, Charlie was ready to storm out into the night and hold the guy accountable, but Liam held him back.
“We’re not making the same mistake we did before and focus on one suspect,” he said when Charlie suggested an interrogation team pay the good professor a little visit. “We’ll take our time, and gather evidence. We’ll look at other options. And then, when we’re convinced of who is behind this, they will find out that this Alpha Pack isn’t as weak as everyone believes us to be.”
Chapter 28
“It’s perfect.”
Maggie leaned back against Charlie’s chest, enjoying the weight of his arms wrapped around her waist. The vase sat on the table in front of them, fresh from the final firing.
“I did it,” she giggled. She knew eventually she would look at it with a critical eye and see things she could have done better, but at this moment she was reveling in the giddiness of having it finished. She’d spent so much time and exerted so much energy creating the piece she’d been too nervous to even open the kiln. Seeing her panic, Charlie made her leave the room. When she came back in, it was sitting on the table, a light positioned directly above it. Even from the door she was able to see the pattern clearly on the outside.
“I say we celebrate,” she said, spinning in his arms so she could reach his lips. Even though she’d had open access to his perfect mouth for a week now, she still marveled over the way he let her touch him, and the way he responded. She thought the growls and pawing would fade with the moon in the sky, but if anything, Charlie was getting more… interactive as time went on. Not that Maggie was complaining. No, the only complaint Maggie currently had was the studio didn’t have a couch where they could make themselves more comfortable.
Well, maybe not so much comfortable as lateral since Maggie didn’t feel truly comfortable anywhere on campus anymore. Liam called in some more Shifters from the Den in Romania to help with the investigation. Every night they had a meeting to discuss their findings, and every night more names got put up on the suspect board. E
veryone was getting freaked out, including Scout, which was enough for Maggie to get freaked out all over again.
Charlie’s mouth left hers to travel to her earlobe and all thoughts about murder suspects and Scout scattered at the onslaught of full-body tingles running from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.
“Good grief, you two. Get a room.”
Maggie jerked back at the sound of Reid’s voice, but Charlie didn’t seem to care about how the situation looked. He allowed Maggie to put some distance between their faces, but he kept her body pressed tight against his.
“We have a room,” Charlie said. “And we’d like to have it back. Good-bye, Reid.”
“Ha ha. You’re a funny, funny guy,” she deadpanned as she walked over to the table where the vase was. “Ooooh. Pretty.” She reached for it, and all the oxygen in Maggie’s lungs disappeared. But before Reid could make contact, Charlie’s hand clamped onto her wrist.
“No touching. It’s fra-gee-lay.”
“Wait a minute,” Maggie said, smacking Charlie’s hand away from Reid. She knew it was ridiculous, but she didn’t like seeing him touch her. “I’m African, Chinese, and Scottish. Not Italian.”
They both giggled at their own cheesy cleverness while Reid looked between the two of them, her forehead folded in confusion.
“Is there a chance you two were possessed by pod people over Thanksgiving? Maybe you body swapped with some really happy, touchy-feely people?”
“Hey. I’ve always been happy.”
Reid smiled at Maggie indulgently. “Of course you have, sweetie. Those little lines around your mouth probably were from bad moisturizer.”
Fragile Brilliance (Shifters & Seers) Page 23