“I’m just like anyone else, Sean. Well, except for the shapeshifting thing.”
“You are nothing like anyone else, Dae Anderson, even without the shapeshifting thing. You’re one of the finest men I’ve ever known. You proved that last night at the clinic.”
Dae felt his cheeks grow hot and covered his embarrassment with a smile, retreating into the bathroom to take his shower.
DAE HAD been correct in his prediction. Sean found nothing in the pantry besides a box of stale saltine crackers and a jar of half-eaten peanut butter. A quick search of the refrigerator yielded even less, with a half-empty carton of milk that sounded disgustingly solid when Sean shook it, and a single, withered grapefruit.
“When was the last time you shopped, Dae?” Sean called from the door to the bathroom. “That milk in your fridge is older than I am!”
“I told you so!” Dae called back.
“I’m going to drive over to the diner and get us something for breakfast that won’t kill us both,” Sean informed Dae, opening the bathroom door and sticking his head inside the steamy room. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Anything you buy from that diner will kill us eventually. They deep-fry everything over there, even the cornflakes. I can feel my arteries hardening already.”
“Fine, no deep-fried cornflakes for you. Got it.” Sean laughed, jiggling his car keys in his hand. “I’ll stop by my apartment on the way. I have a few things I need to do: check my mail, pick up a few things, including some clean clothes…. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, okay? I’m trusting you.”
“Will you stop worrying? I’m fine,” Dae said, sliding open the shower door and sticking his head out to frown at Sean. “You’re the one who needs to be careful, Sean. Jack is out there somewhere.”
“Dae, Jack is crazy, but he isn’t an idiot. He’s probably a million miles away from here by now. Don’t worry about me. And close that shower door! You’re getting water all over the floor,” Sean chided. He threw Dae another smile, then stepped outside the bathroom.
Sean left Dae’s apartment and ran down the stairs. He got into his Volkswagen, pulled out of the space, and headed downtown in the direction of his apartment and the diner.
He didn’t notice the man who slid into Mr. Peterson’s ancient Chevy or see him bend over and fiddle with something under the dashboard.
The engine sputtered to life, and the old Chevy pulled out of the lot, following the bright yellow VW at a distance.
Chapter Nine
TWO HOURS passed, and midafternoon found Dae sitting at the kitchen table, drumming his fingers nervously on the Formica tabletop. Each time a car passed the apartment building, he’d look out through the window hoping to see Sean’s bright yellow VW bug pulling into the lot, and each time he was disappointed.
He’d picked up his cell phone several times to call Sean, and yet each time had set it back down on the tabletop without dialing. The last thing he wanted was to sound like a possessive mother hen. Sean was an adult, and Dae had no right to question his whereabouts.
But still he worried.
When yet another hour had passed and Sean had still not returned, Dae gave in to temptation and dialed his cell number. The call rang out, and then went to Sean’s voice mail.
“Sean, it’s Dae. I’m getting kind of hungry here, kid. I thought you were bringing back deep-fried cornflakes or something else horribly unhealthy. I guess I’ll talk to you when you get here,” he finished a bit lamely. He pressed the End button and replaced the phone on the table, staring at it as if he expected it to jump up and bite him.
The phone remained ominously silent, and Dae’s nerves continued to fray. Although he told himself it was the events of the past few days that had him so jumpy and paranoid, Dae couldn’t help worrying about Sean’s absence. Dae was certain that if Sean hadn’t wanted to return to Dae’s apartment, he would have told Dae he wasn’t coming back. Sean wasn’t the type to make up excuses. That was more Jack’s speed.
By four thirty, when the sun began to sink low enough in the sky to cast an orange glow across the parking lot, which reminded Dae uncomfortably of the fire the day before, he tried calling Sean again. Again, he was only able to reach Sean’s voice mail.
Now Dae was convinced something was wrong. If nothing else, Sean would have returned Dae’s call by now if all was well. He debated calling the police but realized he’d have nothing substantial to claim, only a feeling of foreboding. Dae knew the police’s response would be that Sean was an adult and had every right to disappear if that’s what he wanted.
Still, he couldn’t sit there any longer. Tucking his cell phone into his pocket, he wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table, in case Sean came back. Leaving his door unlocked, Dae headed toward Sean’s apartment on foot.
EVEN WITH Dae running at a steady pace, the orange glow of the sun had darkened to a ruby red and the sky was beginning to deepen into purple by the time Dae reached Sean’s apartment house. Sean’s VW Bug was parked in the lot, the driver’s door standing ajar. Sprinting over to the car, Dae looked inside.
Sean’s keys were in the ignition.
Dae ripped the keys out, pocketing them. Hurrying up the three flights of stairs, he pounded on the door of Sean’s darkened apartment, calling Sean’s name. After several minutes without an answer, Dae turned on his heel and ran back down the stairs, convinced now that something had happened. He stripped off his shirt as he ran, tossing it into the Volkswagen. The rest of his clothes followed it as he slammed the door shut and shifted into his wolf-form. He couldn’t have cared less at that point if he was being watched by the entire neighborhood. His only thought was that Sean was in trouble.
Sniffing at the pavement around the car, Dae quickly caught Sean’s musky scent. Other odors intermingled with it, one in particular that raised the hackles on Dae’s neck and started a growl low in his chest. He was far too familiar with that smell not to place it immediately.
Jack.
He caught yet another odor on the breeze, one that made his fur bristle and his heart pound.
Blood.
Dae took off at a trot, his nose low to the ground, following Sean’s scent. It led him around the side of the apartment building, to the rear of the property, and through a jagged hole in the chain link fence, into the wooded area that surrounded the building.
The ground softened as Dae approached a small stream that cut through the trees. The water made tracking more difficult, and he lost the trail several times. Dae doggedly kept at it, splashing back and forth across the stream, repeatedly sniffing the air and the ground, refusing to give up until he caught Sean’s scent again. Eventually the trail led him away from the stream and deeper into the woods.
The scent grew stronger, closer. Dae slowed his pace, careful to keep his step silent as he made his way through the underbrush.
The wind shifted direction, and suddenly Dae could smell Sean as clearly as if Sean was standing right next to him. Forcing himself to remain calm, Dae lowered himself to his belly and crept into the bushes, peering through the brush into a small clearing.
Sean was lying on his side, his hands and feet bound. Jack was hunkered down next to him, his once-handsome face twisted into an ugly leer.
Chapter Ten
A FOOT connecting with his side awakened Sean. “Wake up, pretty boy, you’ve slept long enough. That’s it. Open those big brown eyes for me. You were always such a pathetic little mouse. You hero-worshiping Dae was enough to make me gag! When did you grow the balls to make a move on him?” Jack asked as he stood up. “Was it after our little disagreement? You should have known better. I’ve left him plenty of times before, but he’s always taken me back. This time, though, I came back and found you trying to take my place.” Jack gave Sean another swift kick in his side with the toe of a muddied snakeskin boot. “You pissed me off, mouse-boy.”
Sean groaned in pain, blinking up at Jack. A trickle of blood traced his cheek from a na
sty gash near his hairline. “You’re crazy, Jack!” He looked into Jack’s red-rimmed, wild eyes and saw that the man was either stoned or drunk, or both. Panic fluttered in Sean’s gut as he realized there would be no reasoning with Jack in this state. Frantically, Sean pulled at the ropes that held his hands and feet bound, but to no avail.
Jack snorted. “Sticks and stones, sweetheart. Sticks and stones. You know, it didn’t need to come down to this. All you needed to do was back down when I came home. You can’t possibly compete with me anyway. Besides, I need Dae a hell of a lot more than you do. I’ve got some big problems, mouse-boy. Some very big problems with even bigger guns, and those problems have very long memories. The insurance money from the fire will go a long way toward helping me solve them.”
“You’re not going to get away with this. Someone will find me, and they’ll come after you,” Sean hissed. His right eye burned as blood from a cut on his forehead oozed into it. Sean’s lip had been split as well, and he spat blood into the dirt at Jack’s feet.
“Not until spring, they won’t,” Jack snarled. “The first snowstorm of the season will be coming in soon enough. It’ll cover your ass and my tracks. By spring my problems will be solved. I’ll have Dae on an island somewhere, sipping coconut drinks and fucking me to the beat of calypso music. There’s nothing to keep him here anymore, remember? No clinic and no little mouse-boy with big brown eyes. Best of all, he’ll have all that nice insurance money to spend on me.”
“Dae would never take you back! He knows you set the fire!”
“The hell he won’t! Grief is a funny thing, Sean. It can make your worst enemy look like your best friend. Between the fire at the clinic and your desertion in his time of need, Dae will be aching for a little comfort from someone, even me. They’re going to find a note, you see, written in your own handwriting. You’re going to write it in just a few minutes, even if I have to break both of your legs to get you to do it.
“Poor Dae,” Jack sighed dramatically, throwing his arm across his forehead. “His new lover was two-timing him. Even worse, you’re going to confess in that note that you and your phantom boyfriend were the ones who stole Dae’s truck and set the fire. Worse, you tried to set me up to take the fall for it! You wanted the insurance money, you nasty thing. You were going to wait until the check came in and then empty Dae’s accounts. It would have been so easy! After all, as his office manager you had access to them. But, being as spineless as you are, you chickened out and ran.
“Dae will be devastated, but I’ll be there to hold his hand. Your car will be gone, of course. I’ll sell it to a chop shop, and the police will never find it. Not in one piece, anyway. By the time anyone figures out what actually happened, Dae and I will be long gone.”
“I take it back. You’re not just crazy. You’re a fucking psychopath!” Sean hissed, renewing his struggles against the ropes that held him firm.
“Now, I’d be hurt if I actually gave a rat’s ass what you thought.” Jack laughed. He pulled a Bowie knife from his pocket, grinning as he held it up in front of Sean’s wide eyes and twisted it so that the wickedly sharp edge of the blade flashed red in the last dying rays of the sun.
Setting the knife to the side, he pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil from the same pocket. Placing the writing implements on the ground near Sean’s side within easy reach, he picked up the knife again and pulled Sean up into a sitting position. Jack quickly sliced through the ropes that bound Sean’s hands, then just as quickly pressed the flat of the blade against the young man’s throat.
“Pick up the pencil, Sean,” he ordered, pressing the knife into the tender skin of Sean’s throat hard enough to indent the flesh. “Pick it up and start writing, or I’ll cut your fucking throat!”
CIRCLING AROUND the small clearing, holding his body low and his bushy tail straight out behind him as he readied himself to attack, Dae crept cautiously through the underbrush until he was close enough to look into Sean’s frightened eyes.
As Jack pressed the knife to Sean’s throat, Dae’s gut twisted with fear and rage, and he abandoned stealth. With a savage snarl, he leaped through the screen of brush into the clearing.
Jack swore and scrambled to his feet as Dae burst through the bushes, his knife nicking Sean’s throat in the process.
The sight and smell of the blood beading up under Sean’s jaw sent Dae into a frenzy as he attacked, leaping up against Jack’s chest, knocking the man to the ground.
Jack’s scream pierced the air as the enormous wolf tackled him. He plunged the Bowie knife deeply into the wolf’s shoulder, then thrust his hands into the thick fur of the wolf’s neck, frantically trying to push the animal’s snapping jaws away from his exposed throat.
Locking eyes with Jack, Dae shifted. His teeth were still bared in his wolf-form’s deadly grin as he watched first disbelief and then recognition flicker within the depths of the fear and panic that shone in Jack’s eyes. Shifting back into his wolf-form again, Dae’s jaws snapped closed around Jack’s throat. He ended his former lover’s life in a gush of hot blood, which coated his muzzle and chest in gouts of dark red.
Sitting back on his haunches, unmindful of his most recent injury, Dae looked up at the newly rising moon and howled.
Chapter Eleven
JACK HAD been right about one thing. The following day a snowstorm did indeed sweep in from over the mountains, covering everything with two feet of pristine white powder.
They didn’t talk about what had happened. Dae washed himself off in the stream as best he could, and the two men staggered wearily back to Sean’s apartment, each lost in his own thoughts. Wrapping the Bowie knife and pieces of rope in sheets of newspaper along with the note and pencil, they tossed them into the dumpster behind the apartment building. The evidence would be buried deep within a landfill well before Jack’s body would be found the following spring, the victim of a savage animal attack.
Under the cover of darkness, they crept to Sean’s car and drove back to Dae’s apartment, a heavy silence between them. They took turns treating each other’s injuries. Sean stitched the newest wound in Dae’s shoulder closed with a needle and thread and bandaged it, and Dae did the same with the gash over Sean’s right eye. Falling into bed, sleep—restless and disturbed by dreams—claimed them both shortly afterward.
SITTING INSIDE Dae’s apartment, side by side on the sofa, Dae and Sean looked out of the window and watched thick, fat, white snowflakes silently fall.
“What will you do now, Dae?” Sean asked softly, not taking his eyes from the silent winter scene outside the windowpane. “Will you rebuild the Blue Moon?”
“Someday, maybe,” Dae answered in a flat voice. “But not now. I can’t think about the future yet. I can barely think about what I’m going to do in the next ten minutes.”
“You saved my life last night,” Sean said simply, finally broaching the subject that they had both been avoiding.
Dae turned his head away, his eyes screwing tightly shut, his forehead creasing deeply.
“I murdered Jack. I tore his fucking throat out, Sean. I’m surprised you’re still sitting here with me. I’m a monster,” Dae replied, his voice no more than a whisper.
“No, Dae. You’re wrong. The monster is dead. I’d be the one lying under the snow if you hadn’t acted when you did.”
Dae sighed, sagging back against the couch like a deflated balloon. “What about you?” he asked, changing the subject. “What are you going to do now? I can write you a recommendation, make a few phone calls to other vets….”
“Why? Am I fired?”
“Usually an assistant needs a place to assist in, Sean. In case you’ve forgotten, we no longer have one,” Dae said wryly. “You’re going to need another job.”
“Nah, I’ll be fine for a while. Don’t tell my boss, but he’s been overpaying me for years.” Sean smiled, nudging Dae playfully, but gently. He lifted Dae’s arm and snuggled in, resting his head against Dae’s chest. “Face it, Dae
. You’re stuck with me.”
Dae’s lips finally turned up in a small smile. “Four years of waiting and three days of absolute torment and yet you’re still here, still trying to comfort me. I’m a lucky man, Sean,” he said. While leaning over to kiss Sean, Dae hesitated. “You aren’t going to tell me I have to rest again, are you?”
Sean’s smile grew wider as he shook his head and leaned forward into Dae’s kiss.
Dae kept his promise to Sean. This time their lovemaking was slow and sweet.
TWO WEEKS later Dae received a telephone call from Detective Baker. He’d been expecting it, and yet Dae’s hand trembled over the receiver when the police station’s telephone number flashed on his caller ID.
“Dr. Anderson?”
“Yes, Detective. Do you have any news?” Dae asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound overly eager, or worse, guilty.
“The fire inspector finished his investigation. I have his report on my desk. The fire at your clinic was, in fact, arson. The flash point proved to be an area near the rear of the building. Evidently, the perpetrator walked through the building from the front door, splashing gasoline over everything in sight. He set the blaze at the rear doors. In your statement, you said that your former boyfriend had the keys to your office, didn’t you?” Baker asked.
“Yes, he did. They were on the ring with my truck keys.”
“The fingerprints on the gas cans we found in your truck didn’t match yours or Mr. Phillips’s, Dr. Anderson,” Detective Baker said, almost reluctantly. “The prints did match the ones we lifted from Mr. Peterson’s stolen Chevy, though. Whoever set the fire at the clinic also stole the car. Since we have an eyewitness, Mr. Peterson, who claims to have seen Jack Hemmings driving away in your truck at the time you said he had stolen it, it’s likely that the prints on the gas cans in your truck and in Mr. Peterson’s car belong to him. Your statement that he had keys to the building explains why the inspector found no sign of a forced entry.”
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