by Renee George
“Maybe.” He stared out at the road.
Judge Holt was signing a warrant for us to search the compound tomorrow, but we were afraid if the preppers found out, they would move things before we could find whatever they might be hiding. So, here we sat, watching for suspicious vehicles going in and out of the compound while we waited for dark so we could illegally sneak around the wall, gain entrance somehow, and have a quiet look around. It went against my training as an FBI agent, but it played right into my strengths as a sneak. Raccoons were naturally curious, and our animal’s nature had a habit of getting us into situations that most people would avoid. Like trespassing on property that was occupied by, most likely, well-armed paranoid therians with severe trust issues.
And even though I had agreed to not tell my dad or anyone else, Dominic still acted mad at me. “What is going on with you?”
“Nothing,” he said. He took a double twist glazed donut from a box that had Sunny’s Outlook written on the side then took a sip of his coffee.
“You’ve hardly said a word to me all day.”
“I just said a word before you said that. And there, I just said a bunch more.” He took another bite, his jaw flexing as he chewed.
“Just tell me why you’re mad, so I can apologize already.”
He stopped chewing and looked at me. “You’re the new agent, Nicole, not me. So when your dad dismisses me from an interview as if I’m nothing more than an errand boy, it irritates me. You, however, have nothing to apologize for. I’m not mad at you.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I grumbled.
Dom’s brow wrinkled with irritation. He put the half-eaten donut back into the box, rubbed his hands together, releasing sugary crumbs onto his jeans. God, he had thickly muscled thighs the size of tree trunks. Tree trunks I wanted to straddle. I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Keep looking at me like that, partner, and it’s going to be impossible to keep this professional.”
His glib reply knocked the lusty thoughts right out of me. “Look, buddy. Raccoons might have a reputation for being promiscuous and indiscriminate, but if you think I’m going to have quick, meaningless sex with you, you are mistaken.”
“I never said anything about the sex being meaningless.” He stretched. “And it definitely wouldn’t be quick.”
There was no way to respond to his claim that wouldn’t fall into the realm of foreplay. Instead, I took a deep breath and dragged my fingertips across my jeans. The texture against my skin helped calm my nerves and my hormones. “Do you think Lieberman is in there? Behind the wall somewhere on that compound?”
“Maybe.” He sat up straight. “Okay, Doctor Taylor. You’ve had a chance to meet several people we believe have ties to our killer. So, if we were playing the suspect game, who makes the list and who doesn’t?”
Shop talk I could do. “Brandon Messer, our suspect in custody, is low on my list.”
“Because he’s an old friend?”
“No, because he’s a hot mess. He is clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s disorganized. Did you see his trailer? That is not a guy who is giving much thought to his next shower, let alone his next kill. No. If it turned out to be Brandon, I’d turn in my badge and move back in with my parents.”
“Okay. Next person. Do you think Lloyd Evans could have been the killer and somebody got him before we could? Meting out a little therian justice before we get a chance?”
I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. “Lloyd had enough rage to kill. I believe that, but he’s impulsive. The way he kicked the chair across the floor. No. I think our killer is cool, calm and collected. I don’t think Lloyd was a serial killer, but I’m not discounting that his death could be related to our investigation.”
“Andy Lark.”
“Oh, I like that guy for a killer. He definitely has the confidence, the intellect, the lack of empathy, and he’s organized. The way he breezed in today and sabotaged our interrogation with Brandon was calculated. However, he’s a lawyer.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Personality can dictate occupation, and often does. And as I’ve said before, psychopaths lack empathy, they are goal oriented, high organized planners, and these characteristics that make hard to catch killers also makes skilled lawyers, big business CEOs, and politicians. It’s easy to be ruthless and cutthroat when you don’t care.” I held up a finger. “I’ll amend that, when you can’t care, at least not about other people.”
“So, he could be our guy.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Or he could just be a royal ass. Not all psychopaths are murderers. Some are just morally ambiguous jerks.”
Dom’s mouth twitched. “You’re pretty smart.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Not at all.” He rotated at the waist to face me. His broad shoulders blocked the light coming in from the afternoon sun. It made him appear as if he had a halo outlining his head. “What do you see when you look at me?”
“You are competent, intelligent, and driven.”
“Come on, Nic. You can do better than that.”
It was hard to concentrate when his pale green eyes staring at me. “You have a flirtatious personality. Playful. You approach flirting with someone else as a game. If the person responds, you win. You know you’re handsome. You know you have a pleasing physique. You’ve probably had women throwing themselves at you since puberty, but you enjoy the chase. You are confident, but you have commitment issues. I think you enjoy the pursuit more than the catch. Divorced parents. Lots of moving around when you were growing up. It can make it hard to trust anyone.”
Dom’s expression darkened. His head tilted to the side. His low voice had a growly undercurrent. “Is that really how you see me?”
“I don’t know.” I gulped. “Maybe.”
His mouth thinned for a moment then he grinned. “You think I’m handsome and have a pleasing physique. Good to know.”
“Of course, those are the two things you latched onto.”
He shrugged, a smug look on his face. “It was the only two accurate things you said.” He winked. “Except the chase part. I do like a good chase.”
Time to change the subject. “I wish we knew more about what motivates our unsub.”
“Well, we know, thanks to you, that all the victims were integrators. That ties in the TSS connection. Those guys definitely see humans as the enemies and integrators as traitors.”
“There could be someone on that compound that we haven’t met yet who has Lieberman locked up down his basement. It might not be anyone we’ve come across yet.”
Dom put his hand out to quiet me. “I hear a vehicle coming.”
The road was gravel and full of potholes, which made it impossible to go more than twenty or thirty miles an hour. Not if you didn’t want holes in your exhaust or oil pan. When I saw the burgundy truck and the bearded man behind the wheel, my pulse kicked up a notch.
“This isn’t going to be good.”
“What?” Dom asked. “Who was that?”
“That was Homer Halliver. I have a bad feeling someone leaked the news that his wife and Darrel Tolliver have been seeing each other naked.”
“Craptastic.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “Shit. I bet you dollars to donuts we’re about to get overrun with Sheriff vehicles.”
Fifteen minutes later, a parade of lights and sirens screamed passed us.
“Should we join them?”
I was in jeans, a black T-shirt, and a fuzzy lined black hoodie, and damn it, I wanted to search the compound. “If Dad calls we’ll go. If he doesn’t, I say we use my dad and his deputies as a distraction and sneak in now.”
Dom had a glint in his eye when he looked at me. “Nicole Taylor, I like the way you think.”
We got out of the car and headed off into the woods, casting a wide path around the enclosed compound. I’d found out about a stream that crossed the property, and we walked until we ran into it and followe
d it up toward the compound. Crap. The culvert had a wire grate in place at the bottom to keep woodland critters out. The gray afternoon sky made the woods shadowy. It made it difficult to distinguish one dark area from the other. I stopped, and Dom raised a questioning brow.
“The stream,” I said quietly. We approached slowly ready to bolt if we activated any motion sensors. I pointed at the grate. “I know there’s a grate there, but I want to check if there’s a weak spot. It could be our way in.”
“That water has to be freezing,” he protested.
I stuck my finger in. “I’d say it’s about forty-eight degrees. Not freezing.”
“Cold enough.”
“Wait here and hibernate. I’m going to check it out.” The moving water flowed away from the compound. Good. It meant there wouldn’t be a lot of debris on this side of the screen. The idea of touching every squishy, nasty rotting branch, leaves, insects, or small dead animals didn’t excite me one bit. So, the flow worked in my favor.
I took off my jacket, my boots, and socks, rolled up my jeans to my knees, and prepared to get wet.
“You’re not really going down there, are you?” Dom’s low voice, even in a whisper, carried.
“Hush now.” I stepped into the chilly stream, the water shocking my warm toes. “The point is to sneak in. Or are you hoping for an invitation into the backdoor?”
He quirked his upper lip. “I’ve charmed my way into a few backdoors.”
I snarled. “Ew. I don’t want to hear about your conquests. It’s gross.” My feet adjusted to the cold as I waded in deeper.
“Now, Nic,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Whatever. Just keep a lookout. The grate goes down several feet. I’ll explore it for an entry point.”
Dom moved closer to me and the culvert. “If you find it, do you honestly expect me to go through there? One, it’s cold. I told you, bears don’t like the cold. And second, I am not a small man, if you haven’t noticed, so why you may be able to squeeze your skinny, albeit cute, butt through there, it will be impossible for me to do so.”
We needed to get inside. The razor wire and motion-activated security lights made sneaking over the wall impossible, and this stream was our best bet on getting in unseen. “I’ll go in without you.”
“Bullshit. You know the drill. FBI protocol requires us to stay together. Agents who go, cowboy, get killed. Besides that, I’m the senior agent, and you’re the trainee, which you are fond of forgetting. This is a no-go, Agent Taylor.”
Ugh. I was eager to get going, maybe too eager. Impatience had cost me in the past—just ask my parents. I wanted to talk Dom into letting me go alone, but the expression on his face took the air out of my sails.
“Nicole.” Dom’s voice softened, and his gaze was one of concern. “It’s not just FBI regs. I don’t want you in there alone. Those TSS people are heavily armed if that gun crate is any indication. They could shoot first, ask questions never.”
“I get that you’re worried about me.” The water was up to my thighs now, and my jeans were soaking it up like a sponge. I dragged my fingertips across the surface. It was really flippin’ cold, but also amazing. “Let me at least see if the way in is big enough for you. Meanwhile, you need to get your mind wrapped around getting wet.”
“You better find a big, damn hole then.”
I squatted down. The freezing temperature stole my breath for a moment, and I giggled. Crap. I wanted to be seen as hardcore, not giggly. I worked my hands over the grate, running my fingers from one square wire section to the next. At the bottom right, I poked my palm on a broken prong. Bingo. Weak spot.
I must have projected my excitement because Dom said, “What? What did you find?”
The lifted tine left a smallish hole about six inches wide and three inches tall. Not big enough for Dom or me, not even as a raccoon, and his bear would need something much larger. I tugged at the broken section, and it came loose in my hands. I held up the rusty tine. There was some fur, and slimy skin stuck to the end of the prong. Most likely a rodent. Yuck.
“I think I just found our way in.” I threw the tine on the ground. “With a little work.”
Chapter Fourteen
I dug through the soil and rocks trapping the grate in the ground and used the wire cutters on my multi-tool to cut the more rusted parts. The tool wasn’t strong enough for the tines that were still in good shape. But finally, I managed to get the base free in that corner. I tried pulling up on the grate to make a hole of us, but it didn’t budge. This kind of moment was the only time I wished I’d been born a bigger predator. While therianthropes were slightly stronger than humans, we did not possess superhuman strength. But the larger animals, like the coyotes, big cats, and bears, became exponentially stronger when partially shifted. Which meant...
I put the tool back in the pack and craned my neck up to look at Dom. “I’m going to need your help here.”
A minute later, Dominic, with his shoes, socks, and jacket off, was knee deep in the water next to me grumbling under his breath. “Jesus, this is unpleasant.”
“Ah,” I shrugged, “It’s not too horrible.” Even though I was in my human form, I reaped the benefits of my animal’s underlayer of extra fur and fat even if it couldn’t be seen.
“You’re nuts,” Dominic said. He shook his head. “I’m in now, so what do you want me to do?”
I took his hand. It was super warm. He had lines of calluses across his fingers. Automatically, I touched the tips. “You play guitar?”
“Yeah.” He stared down at me. The pulses in his hand thudded under my touch. “Since I was eight.”
“Cool.” God, I sounded like a nerd. I tugged his hand into the water. “I’ll guide you where the grate is the weakest. I need you to yank it free there.”
“So, you only want me for my muscles.”
“I’ve got the brains, so someone has to have the brawn,” I teased.
“Can’t I have both?”
“That would be unfair to the rest of the world.” Oh, no. I was flirting. Someone stop me!
“I think the water just warmed up a degree.” We submerged his hand down to his shoulder. He shivered. “Okay. Maybe not.”
“There,” I said. “Do you feel it?”
“I’m feeling a whole lot. Oh. Yep. There. I got it.”
“Great.” I let go of his hand. “Try not to make a lot of noise when you pry it up.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Dom’s shoulder drew up and the veins in his neck bulged under the strain of his effort. He eased his muscles and closed his eyes for a moment. In seconds, his arms were covered in a fine black fur, and his shirt buttons gapped as his increased body mass stretched his clothes to their limit. He cracked his neck and stared down at me, his gray-green eyes shining with something between animal and human. In this half-form, Dominic was stunning and powerful, and that fact that he could achieve this anthropomorphic form so easily surprised me, and damn, if it didn’t make me even more attracted to him.
I bit my lower lip then nodded. “Get us in, big fella.”
His chest rumbled as he pulled once more on the grate. I felt the vibrations under the water as the earth gave way beneath the metal obstacle. Soon, Dom’s elbows were up out of the water and debris from the other side of the culvert flowed past my legs.
“Yes!” I went up on my toes and excitement ran like a thread through me from toe to head. Impulsively, I threw my arms around Dom and kissed him. His arms wrapped around me, and I felt the hair recede on his chin and cheeks, before immediately scrambling backward, tripping over a boulder behind me, and completely submerging my whole self underwater.
Two powerful hands hauled me up. Dom’s fur had receded, and so had his extra size. He gave me a weird look that I couldn’t decipher, and usually, I was pretty good at reading expressions. “I think it’s big enough for us to go through.”
My own impulsive actions had left me unable to speak in complete sentences, or even s
imple words, for that matter. So I nodded and said, “Uh-huh.”
“This water’s not getting any warmer.”
“Yep.” I snapped myself out of the hormone-induced daze. “Let’s get inside.” Hopefully, the preppers would still be busy with the police and the jilted Homer Halliver.
It didn’t matter that I was wet from head to toe. Dom hadn’t been able to get the grate high enough to prevent us from having to crawl through under water. He went first, which was a good thing, because at one point his pants snagged on the broken lattice of heavy wire, and I had to work quickly to unhook him before he drowned. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t have drowned, but he did seem a little panicked when his head finally bobbed up on the other side.
I ducked down under and easily followed him through. I’d always been a good swimmer. I liked it so much, I took classes for open water diving my senior year of my undergrad. My boyfriend at the time had been advanced open water certified and had promised to take me to the Caribbean if I got mine. I did, but we broke up before he could make good on his end of the bargain. I don’t know why that memory had popped up at that moment, but I shook it from my brain. I’d analyze myself later.
I swam through and came up next to Dom. I’d been in the water long enough now that the cooler temperature was starting to feel uncomfortable. “Let’s get the hell on dry land.”
“After last night’s rainstorm, I’m not sure that’s possible,” Dom said. “But I know what you mean.”
I regretted leaving my coat behind, but it would have just gotten soaked along with the rest of me.
The culvert didn’t open up right away. There were about twenty feet of galvanized aluminum. When we reached the open end, we found ourselves on the downside of a five-foot ditch that the stream poured into. We crawled up the side and peeked our head up over the edge. In the distance, I could see red and blue cop lights flashing. We didn't hear any shouting going on, so the fight, if there had been any, was over. “Let’s go before people start getting back to their posts or whatever.”