Tiger in the Hot Zone (Shifter Agents Book 4)

by Lauren Esker

  She had been subconsciously expecting Noah's dad to be heavyset, gray-haired, and ... well ... old. She'd been right about the gray hair, though it was more like salt and pepper, but otherwise he moved with the sure, swift grace of a man twenty years younger. His body under the well-cut, charcoal-colored suit didn't have an ounce of spare fat on it. Curtis Easton was one of those people favored by age. He had probably been handsome even when he was younger—his bone structure was similar to Noah's—but he'd aged into his face rather than out of it, the creases around his eyes and mouth deepening to set off the planes of the whole.

  And he had the most striking eyes she'd ever seen on anyone. Noah's eyes were dark, but Curtis's were lighter, a blend of gray and dark green and hazel. Agate eyes, except the color was the only thing stonelike about them; they were expressive and not at all cold.

  That was the other thing that didn't quite fit. From the respectful way Noah talked about his dad, she'd been expecting someone proud, stern, and distant. Director Easton's eyes danced with warm humor.

  Maybe, she thought, you never could see your parents clearly; to some part of you, they would always be the all-seeing and all-knowing, infinitely strong and capable giants of early childhood.

  And that thought gave her the courage to move out of Noah's shadow and hold out her hand, which was immediately engulfed in Director Easton's large, strong one. "Mr. and Mrs. Easton," she said. "I'm Peri Moreland."

  "It's actually Mr. Easton and Dr. Easton," Noah's dad said, tipping his head respectfully at his wife.

  "But if you call me Dr. Easton, I'll be very hurt." Rather than shaking Peri's hand, Noah's mother clasped it in both of hers. "You need to call me Clio, as long as I can call you Peri."

  "Of course," Peri said, dazed. The thought began to dawn on her that even if she wasn't close to the family who were related to her by blood, it was possible to have more than one family.

  Noah held out his hand to shake his dad's and looked startled when he was pulled into a quick, rough hug. His mother followed suit enthusiastically, crushing him to her chest. "We would have been here sooner," she said into his hair, "except I was at a conference in Beijing and someone, by which I mean your father, didn't tell me."

  "You were the keynote speaker at a prestigious symposium, love. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—"

  "—which I would have turned down in a heartbeat if I'd known our son's life was in danger, Curtis."

  "I didn't know," Director Easton protested. He couldn't quite seem to meet either his son's or his wife's eyes. "Not the extent of it, anyway. Son, I would've been here in a minute if I'd realized the danger you were in."

  "It wasn't any worse than having the flu," Noah protested.

  "Was that before or after you got in a fight with a grizzly bear?" his mother inquired with a sharp note in her voice.

  "The point is, I didn't expect either of you to drop what you were doing and fly out to take care of me."

  "We would have." His mother kissed his cheek. "Please don't think that just because we have our own lives, we won't be there for you. And that goes for you too, Peri," she said, squeezing Peri's shoulder.

  "Tolya and Sasha send their love," his father added. "I've also got a box from Feodora—"

  "Cookies," his mother confided. "We ate half of them on the flight."

  "—and Mark and Katya sent you a care package as well, which is back in our rental car."

  "Who are Tolya and Sasha?" Peri whispered to Noah as they all sat down. "And ... those other people he mentioned."

  "My Russian godparents. Er, godfamily is more like it. I'm sure you'll meet them eventually. In fact, once they find out I have a girlfriend, the hard part is going to be keeping them from showing up whether we want them to or not."

  Girlfriend. She put out her hand under the table, and Noah clasped his bigger hand over it, closing his fingers around hers. Peri wondered if it looked to other people like she was glowing, or if it was only noticeable to her.

  From the way Noah's parents kept smiling at them, she was pretty sure the answer was the first one.

  She'd never been in a serious enough relationship to meet the parents before, but her nervousness eased slowly. She liked Noah's parents; they were friendly and warm toward her, and obviously still very much in love with each other.

  I can imagine myself being part of this family, she thought, amazed to realize how true it was.

  "I've been hearing some truly impressive things about your work on this case, son," Director Easton was saying to Noah. "Have you ever thought about going overseas? We're expanding our interagency work with other organizations, especially Interpol. In five years or so, you might be on track to head up your own branch of the agency."

  "Curtis," his wife said, giving his arm a reproving smack. "Stop pressuring the boy."

  "Actually, Dad, that brings up something I've been wanting to talk to you about." Noah paused and raised his eyes to meet Peri's for a brief instant. In that moment, she knew exactly what he was going to say, as clearly as if telepathy had briefly linked them, and she offered him a supportive smile. Do it, she tried to say with her eyes, with her face. I'm behind you all the way.

  "Noah, don't let your father push you into an assignment you don't want. If you're happy at the Seattle office, you should stay there."

  "Actually, that's what I wanted to talk about." Noah straightened his back and met his father's curious, intent stare. "I don't think I want to stay with the SCB, Dad. I'm sorry. I know how much it means to you. But I've given a lot of thought to this, and I think ... when we get back to Seattle, I'm going to turn in my notice. It's not you," he went on quickly. His father hadn't said anything, his face barely changing. "And it's not the agency. It's me. Completely, a hundred percent me. This just isn't what I want to do with my life. I'm thinking about maybe going to law school after all, I don't know—it's something Peri and I have to talk about. We haven't even talked about this yet. And," he went on with a nervous laugh, "I think I'm babbling, and no one is saying anything—come on, Dad, could you please ... say something?"

  "How can I, when I can't get a word in?" But then Curtis's mouth worked for a moment, before he burst out, "Why am I just now hearing of this? Noah, how long have you felt this way?"

  Noah dropped his gaze and cleared his throat. "Pretty much ... since the beginning."

  "You've worked for the agency since you got out of college."

  Noah nodded without speaking.

  "Why didn't you say something?" his father demanded in exasperation.

  "How dense can you possibly be, Curtis?" Noah's mother's voice cracked at the end. She leaned over to close her long, elegant hand over Noah's. Peri couldn't help noticing how alike their hands were—long-fingered and beautiful. Noah favored his father more visibly, but there was a lot of his mother in him, too. "Noah, nothing you do could ever disappoint us. We want you to be happy. That's all we've ever wanted for you. Curtis," she added, "if you don't say something supportive to the boy, you're going to go keep Aunt Feodora's cookies company in the car for a while."

  "I'm sorry, Dad," Noah said.

  "No. No." Curtis spread his hands. "Noah, I work with people for a living. I've built this agency from the ground up, and I've made it work because I'm good at recognizing people's talents and placing them in positions that best utilize those talents."

  "Your best quality aside from your extreme humbleness, of course," his wife murmured.

  "It's my job to notice if someone's doing something they don't want to because they feel they have to. And doubly so when it comes to my own son."

  "Dad, if you didn't notice, it's because I didn't want you to."

  Curtis shook his head fiercely. "Don't take this on yourself. The signs were there. I should have known when you stopped going on field assignments. It's my damned job, as your boss and as your father, to notice that my son chose his entire career to please me. The only real question, I think, is whether you can forgive me."


  Noah huffed out a breath in something that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. "I'm an adult, Dad. I made my own choices. As far as I'm concerned, the important question is ... do you think you can get me some references for law school?"

  "Son," Curtis said flatly, "you will have the most impressive damned application package in the history of the Yale law program."

  "I'm not sure if I'm going back to Yale—"

  "Harvard, then. Or Pawtucket Community College, I don't care. Do what makes you happy, Noah. Your mother and I are behind you a hundred and ten percent."

  ***

  By the time they were cleared to leave the SCB facility, Peri was getting tired of cycling through the three T-shirts she'd brought, and heartily sick of her one pair of jeans. Although she wasn't normally much of a shopper, she leaped at the chance to explore downtown Tucson, with an eye toward buying something to wear that she hadn't been living in for weeks. Trish and Delgado came with them to show them around (and, Peri suspected, as a security escort, though everyone seemed to be politely not mentioning that part).

  Peri had liked Flagstaff. As a small mountain city, it wasn't that different from the mountain towns she'd grown up around. But she fell in love with Tucson. Everywhere she turned, there was something new to look at. Accustomed to the Pacific Northwest as she was, it seemed to her that the Southwest was filled with light and color, and Tucson's El Presidio historic district was a particular treat for the senses—whitewashed walls and red tile roofs, businesses in adobe buildings painted bright primary colors, cactus and palm trees and alien-looking desert plants in xericulture gardens.

  The heat was brutal. Trish and Delgado, in their role as tour guides and local experts, insisted on hydration and frequent stops to get out of the sun. Peri was starting to think that if she stayed in Tucson too long, she'd never do anything except drink water all the time.

  "They're forecasting a storm this afternoon, and that ought to knock the heat down a little," Trish remarked. "We're getting into monsoon season. Dang, I missed those crazy storms they get down here."

  "Are you planning to stay here?" Noah asked her.

  "I don't know. Cat hasn't ever been to Seattle, so she might want to try it up there for awhile. Hard to say." She looked up at the bright facades of the buildings and the deep blue sky above their tiled roofs. "It's nice to be back, though. The Pacific Northwest is pretty, but I miss the sun and all this wide-open space to stretch my hooves. By the way, Noah, what's this rumor that you're leaving the agency?"

  "I knew I couldn't keep secrets in this place," Noah said, lacing his fingers through Peri's. "It won't be right away, but I don't think my future is with the SCB. I just haven't figured out what I'm going to do afterward yet."

  "Well, it's not as if anyone could possibly blame you for quitting," Delgado said. "Not after what you've been through lately."

  "It's nothing to do with that. Not really. This just isn't what I want to do with my life, and ..." He looked down at Peri, who flashed him a quick though somewhat distracted smile. "I think I've finally made peace with that."

  "What are you looking at?" Trish asked Peri.

  She'd hoped no one would notice the way she kept looking around. "I'm just not used to the crowds, I guess."

  "Julius is dead," Noah told her, putting an arm around her. "He's never going to hurt anyone ever again."

  "I know that."

  "And it doesn't help as much as you'd hope, does it?" Trish asked, her voice soft. "Yeah. I get it."

  There was a quiet moment, all four of them lost in their own thoughts.

  "Say, did they ever figure out what kind of bear he was?" Delgado asked. "We only got blurry glimpses on the eagle-cam, but it had the biologists in the lab going out of their minds."

  Noah winced and touched his free hand to his shoulder, where the pale scars of mostly-healed claw marks peeked out from under his T-shirt. "A freaking huge one, is all I know."

  "I heard an interesting theory from my aunt," Trish said. "She thinks he might be some sort of extinct bear. There were really huge bears back in the Pleistocene, maybe not as big as what you're describing, but shifter animals are often bigger than their wild counterparts. Those markings on his face weren't like any living bear. It's even possible he's not really a bear at all, but some sort of extinct animal that resembles a bear to us. That's her working theory, anyhow."

  Peri looked up at Noah. "You guys can shift into extinct animals?"

  "Not that I knew of."

  "I didn't either, but who knows?" Delgado's quiet smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. "There are a lot of interesting variants out there. Like my family, for example."

  "Or whatever the heck Caine is," Trish said. "Come on, Noah, nothing about that fight at the mine adds up properly. Everybody's saying you and Caine went out with the first response car, except I know you were in quarantine lockdown with me. How did you get out there so fast?"

  "Honestly, I was running such a high fever at the time, I couldn't tell you," Noah said, prompting Peri to give him another look. "Whole thing's a giant blur to me now."

  "Things always go a little sideways when Caine gets involved in a case," Delgado said. "The official reports never quite fit with the witness statements. People seem to turn up in places they couldn't possibly be. You sure you two didn't see anything you want to talk about?"

  Peri and Noah shared a quick glance. "Not really," Peri said. "It was all a blur to me, too. I thought I was going to die, and then ..." She squeezed Noah's waist. "Noah came and rescued me."

  "While running a hundred and four degree fever," Trish remarked. "Now that's true love."

  "You didn't shift into an antelope and come running to find me," Delgado complained.

  "You weren't in the clutches of a Valeria bear shifter. Oh!" Trish jumped and took her phone out of her pocket. "I just got a weather alert for flooding. Guess we're getting a storm after all."

  "Yeah." Delgado pointed toward the mountains. "Check it out, tourists. One Arizona monsoon for your viewing pleasure."

  When Trish had mentioned a storm, Peri hadn't pictured something this dramatic. Thunderheads reared above the mountains, towering into the sky, glinting gold and purple in the sun. Below the clouds, what looked like a curtain descended to the ground. It was maybe a couple of miles wide at most, but looked solid enough to touch, and blocked the view behind it.

  "Please tell me that's not a tornado," Peri said faintly.

  "It's rain," Delgado reassured her. "Just rain."

  Just rain—rain so heavy it looked solid. In Seattle, rain was a groan-inducing nuisance; here it was fresh, strange, and magical. Peri took out her new phone, acquired at a Verizon store up the street, to snap a picture.

  A sudden gust of wind hit them, knocking her backward and lifting the shopping bags dangling from her arm. It kicked up enough dust to make her cough.

  "A lot of these storms push dust clouds in front of them," Delgado said. "First we'll choke, then we're going to get deluged, so I suggest we find somewhere to hole up."

  Although she was getting tired and her leg was starting to hurt, Peri planted her feet firmly. "This is my first Arizona storm and I want to experience it."

  "Having experienced plenty of them," Trish said, "why don't Cat and I go scout for a bar that's not too trendy or noisy. You two can join us when you get tired of touristing."

  With that, they split up. The wind was picking up, but the heat hadn't eased—if anything, it had grown more heavy and oppressive—so Peri and Noah found a bench in the shade with a good view of the mountains. The curtain of rain was closer now, and lightning flickered on the clouds' towering heights. Peri leaned her head on Noah's shoulder. "This is so different from the Pacific Northwest. It's like being on an alien planet."

  He put his arm around her. "You know, we could move down here. The whole world is open to us right now."

  "I don't know. I think I might like to go somewhere I've never been. I've seen so little of the w
orld yet." Peri squinted against another sudden gust of dust-laden wind, shading her eyes with her hand. The awning above them snapped in the wind with a loud crack. All along the pedestrian walkway, business owners were taking in outdoor sign stands and covering flowerpots.

  Noah gave a sudden, soft laugh. "Look at me, talking about moving to a new city together. It's been a such crazy few weeks. Feels like we're on overdrive. If this is too much too soon, and you want to just slow down for awhile, I completely understand."

  "No, that's the weird thing." She turned her head for a kiss. "I don't," she said, looking up at him after they broke apart. His arm was a loose circle around her, a circle of safety and warmth—actually more like sticky heat at the moment, but she didn't mind. "I don't care if anybody thinks we're moving too fast. I don't think so. Noah, I would love to get out of that crappy one-bedroom apartment. The first day we're back in Seattle, I just want to get my stuff and move in with you. I don't think I can sleep there after the Valeria broke in. I'll never feel safe there again. And yes, I know Julius is dead—"

  "No, Trish was right." His voice was gentle and sincere. "I forget sometimes that it really is very different to be thrown into a situation like this when you aren't prepared for it. I was never in the field much, but I am a trained agent, and I'm still struggling with it. I can't imagine what you're going through."

  "I'm doing all right. Really, I am. Mostly I just want to move forward and put it behind me. And that includes getting out of that old apartment, figuring out what to do about my website, and just ... moving on, I guess."

  "Have you thought about doing what we talked about, switching up your blog?"

  She nodded. "I have. I like that idea. I want to be a real journalist. I want to hunt down stories and tell people the truth."

  "Knowing about shifters," Noah said quietly, "means having to lie."

  "I know that. I'll deal. But I'm done writing clickbait headlines about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster." As Noah started to open his mouth, she touched her fingertip to his lips. "Oh, please don't tell me the Loch Ness Monster is real."