Shapeshifter: 1

by J. F. Gonzalez

  They were both silent for a moment. Outside the sun was up, casting morning light across the park ing lot and through the closed curtains. Already the sound of trucks rolling across the motel's blacktop parking lot could be heard from outside. Mark sighed again and looked at Carol, trying not to let his grief show. He was going to lose her, he knew it. His throat constricted. "It looks like he's won, though. He's driven me from my home, he'll be after me, he'll get the police after me. But the most tragic thing is that he's turned you away from me."

  "No, Mark-"

  "If I hadn't told you the truth you would have left me anyway," Mark said, not paying heed to her denial. "You would have justifiably left me. I lied to you, I wasn't completely honest, so of course I wouldn't blame you if you left." He wiped a tear that threatened to spill from his left eye. "But Christ, I didn't want to lose you. You mean everything to me. I didn't want to lose you."

  And then suddenly Carol was in his arms. "You're not going to lose me, Mark. You're not going to lose me."

  Mark held her, breathing in her scent. He held her tight, as if he was afraid that she was going to be torn away from him. She held him just as tightly and a blossom of hope erupted in the pit of his belly. At first he tried to deny it, but it burned fiercely, igniting stronger until it suddenly flamed higher. She was telling him the truth. She wasn't going to leave him. Whether she believed him or not, that was for later debate.

  She kissed him and looked into his eyes. What he saw there made him smile and feel good again. It was the face of the best friend he had ever had; she would never leave him. "I believe you," she said. "I don't understand it, but I believe you."

  And for now, that was all Mark Wiseman needed in his life. For somebody to believe him and be on his side.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Bernard Roberts's black Mercedes purred contentedly as it chewed up asphalt on Interstate 5 heading north.

  He hadn't packed much for the trip; an overnight bag with a few days' change of clothes, toiletries, and not much else. The important stuff was in the leather case sitting on the seat beside him.

  Along with the Beretta he had also packed a highpowered .32 Colt rifle. He had shot it before on target ranges and had become quite good at it. The rifle had to be assembled, but where he was going it would be safe to assume that he could assemble the rifle and keep it assembled for some time. After all, he was going hunting.

  Also in the briefcase were ten cases of .32 shells, with one of them specially made. They had been melted down from the silver his mother had given him and Olivia when they had gotten married. Olivia had wanted the silver in the divorce settlement, but Bernard had fought stubbornly for it. He didn't know why, but at the time he wanted that silver set if it was the last thing he got out. He had won that particular battle and two months later he had no idea why he had fought so vigorously for it. After all, they were just a bunch of plates and silverware for Christsakes. In hindsight, he felt glad that he fought so hard for them.

  They had melted down and made quite nice silver bullets.

  The only stupid thing he had done was head to Mark Wiseman's apartment. He had been seething mad and was determined to kill the lying bastard the minute he opened the door. But Mark hadn't answered his repeated knocks and it confirmed Bernard's suspicions. Mark had split for places unknown with his prize, Carol Emrich. He had driven by Carol's condominium, but repeated calls to her went unanswered. There was nowhere else to go but follow his hunches and those were telling him that the two had run off together.

  So he had gone home and cooled his anger off with a couple of drinks. The bourbon had calmed his nerves and he was actually able to sleep. When he woke up the next day it was with a new perspective and a fresh revelation. Suddenly inspired, he had checked on some things to confirm his hunch, then packed hurriedly and exited the house just as the morning rush-hour traffic was gaining full steam.

  He had dressed casually for the trip and spent two hours that morning having breakfast and reading the morning paper at a Denny's in Whittier. By the time he hit the road again it was after ten and the freeway had cleared up considerably, but it was still stop-and-go in some parts. He didn't reach the Los Angeles County limits until after twelve. By the time he reached Bakersfield he was hungry again, so he pulled over at a roadside diner filled with eighteenwheel semi tractor-trailers. For the first time in seven years-since making the presidency of Free State Insurance-he felt anonymous.

  He got back on the road a little after two-thirty and continued north. He estimated that he should reach his destination in a little under three hours. It would be dark by the time he arrived and his first order of business was to drive by the place he felt Carol and Mark were going to be hiding. If it appeared that the coast was clear, then he would implement phase two of his hastily arranged plan.

  Thanks to Carol at least he had a plan.

  It never failed for Carol to make some feeble attempt at conversation whenever they got together. She had never gotten it through her thick skull that Bernard wasn't interested in her as a friend, or somebody to talk to. The only thing he had been interested in was fucking her. Plain and simple. It didn't matter where they were-his home, her condominium, his office, their hotel room at whatever vacation resort he took her to. The first things that he had noticed when he ushered her into his office for her interview were her spectacular tits (36D, and all natural), then her legs ending in a shapely, perfect ass, and then her face, framed by gorgeous, shimmering blonde hair. True, she hadn't been as airheaded as he was expecting, and that was good for business, but it also proved to be a hindrance in their relationship. They had started off casually, with a few lunch dates being the scope of their working relationship. That had quickly accelerated to Carol staying late at the office to take dictation from him for board meetings, to helping him out at his place on the weekends for some function or another. All perfectly legit business. It wasn't until one night, six months into their working relationship as they were finishing work that things heated up.

  Carol had commented that her shoulders were aching. Bernard had stepped behind her as she sat at his glass dining room table in front of the laptop computer and began massaging her shoulders. She had moaned sensuously, tilting her head back. The vibes floating between them seemed appropriate, so Bernard had leaned forward and kissed her neck. She turned her face toward him and they came together in a lip-locking kiss that had melted him like candle wax. That had been the beginning of a ninemonth affair that, for Bernard, was rooted in sex.

  The first few weeks of the affair Carol was all the nymphomaniac. She had been demanding and hungry in bed. She had been a physically satisfying lover, one whose energy was boundless. She was good at playing instigator as well, and was easily equally the aggressor as Bernard.

  Except one night in mid-spring during the time he began doing all that work at the office late at night, burning the midnight oil, she had stayed to help him out on a particular project. Most of the brown-nosers in the office had already gone home and he was taking her out to dinner; then they were going to meet up at his place. Bernard was sitting at Carol's desk, waiting for her to make adjustments to her makeup in the bathroom when out of curiosity he'd opened her desk drawer and begun sifting through it. Nothing too unusual in the top drawer; just assorted pens, pencils, paper clips, rubber bands, keys to an overhead bin, a nail file, a pack of chewing gum. Usual mishmash of personal and office items. He closed the drawer and opened the next one. More of the same, as well as storage space for mailing labels and envelopes. He opened the bottom drawer, which was deeper. Aside from the space at the rear of the drawer where she most likely kept her purse, the front contained half a dozen files. He flipped through them. All of them were empty. Except one.

  He had pulled the file out and opened it. Glossy travel brochures rested within. He fingered through them, pausing to examine one that had been written in her familiar script. The name of a motel had been circled in red ink, along with a date-July 1
7-29. Those were the days that coincided with the two weeks' vacation she'd put in for and which she'd later taken, a vacation she hadn't revealed too much about. All she would say was that she'd taken off somewhere up north for some much needed rest and relaxation. He looked at the brochure and at first the name of the little town didn't register with him. All he remembered about it later was that it had the word 'Three' in it-Three Lakes, Three Rivers, Three Streams, something to that effect-and that it was near Sequoia National Park.

  So when it became apparent that Carol had skipped town with Mark Wiseman, Bernard had quickly put two and two together. The question was, where did they go?

  He had wracked his brain trying to think. With the money he had paid out to Mark, they could have gone anywhere. They could have boarded a flight out of the country. Carol could easily get out of the country, but Bernard wasn't sure if Mark had a passport. If he didn't, that meant they would have to lay low for a few days until they could get one. And where would they go to hide out for a few days?

  He had spent all last night thinking about this when it had suddenly hit him. His mind reflected back on the brochures he had found in Carol's desk. He had gone into his office and consulted a California travel book until he found a listing for Sequoia National Park. He had scanned the list of hotels in the area and his heart skipped a beat when he found it, everything dovetailing perfectly in his mind.

  Three Rivers, California.

  And there was even a Three Rivers Lodge!

  It was obvious that Three Rivers was Carol's own little private retreat, a place she liked to keep secret. No wonder she hadn't told him much about her vacation.

  Destination: Three Rivers, California.

  Bernard grinned. The road ran before him like a long, black tongue. The land all around him was farmland. Once he was past it he would begin to ascend some more hilly country until he was in the foothills. By then it would be closing in on darkness. It had been cold outside when he had stopped for lunch, and it would no doubt be snowy weather in Three Rivers. There would be some gas stations up ahead where he could pull over and buy tire chains, then it was back on the road. It would be dark by the time he began ascending the mountain range into Three Rivers. Then it was a quick check-in at the first hotel he came across. Weather permitting, a quick trip to the Three Rivers Lodge to see if the parking lot contained a white Camaro was next on the agenda. Depending on the outcome, the evening could go in one of several different ways.

  One, the Camaro might not be there. Which could mean that either Carol and Mark weren't there, or they were smarter than he thought they were and they had switched cars at some point. But Bernard didn't believe that to be the case. He was fairly confident that Carol and Mark falsely believed that they had conducted their affair under the unsuspecting noses of everybody at Free State. That was partly true. What they hadn't counted on was Bernard figuring out what they were up to. No doubt Mark was the kind of fuckwad to fall for Carol's "talking" bullshit and would have been more than willing to agree to head up to Three Rivers to hide out. They could hole up there and "talk" all they wanted. Or at least until Bernard found out where they were and blew them both to hell.

  The second scenario was that the Camaro was in the parking lot. If it was, then Bernard would creep down and make sure it was the right vehicle. If it was, surveillance was needed to find out what room they were hiding out in. Once that information was gained, Bernard would burst into the room that evening quickly and-bam bam!-one dead bitch and one dead werewolf.

  The third scenario was that Carol and Mark weren't even at the Three Rivers Lodge. Which meant he would worry about that if it happened.

  Bernard gripped the steering wheel tightly as he drove. Static wafted softly through the radio and he hit the remote scan until he found Bruce Springsteen singing about Atlantic City. He turned it up and grinned. If he knew Carol, she would be in Three Rivers. That much was evident. Mark would have gone crying to her the minute Bernard got off the phone with him last night and if she didn't already know about the board murders, she would know by now. Knowing Carol the way he knew her, she wouldn't be the least bit repulsed by Mark's story of murder, nor of Bernard's involvement of it. In fact, she would probably expect Bernard's involvement if she hadn't suspected it already. Bernard doubted Mark would tell Carol about his ability to sprout fur, claws, and fangs during the full moon, but he would tell her the rest. And the reason Carol wouldn't be afraid of Mark's admission to murder was because he had been honest with her and had "talked" to her. That would turn her on.

  Bernard laughed. Mark Wiseman and Carol Emrich may have been sneaking around behind his back, but if Mark had "talked" to her, he was going to get more pussy from that innocent act than Bernard had gotten from her in the nine months he had been fucking her.

  No problem, Bernard thought as he drove on. He can have that bitch. I hope he has as much fun fucking her as I did.

  The speedometer read sixty-five miles per hour; he had three-quarters of a tank. That would be more than enough to get him to his destination. Prince replaced the Boss, followed by Rod Stewart. Nice, but not what Bernard wanted. He scanned more stations, passing country, rock, disco, rap, gospel, and talk radio. Nothing. Then he saw a tape lying in the side dish that Carol had left there one evening after they had returned from a record store. Bernard fingered it, one eye on the road. He grinned. It was a Metallica tape, the cover showing a hammer with the silhouette of a hand gripping it, blood staining the white surface. The title of the album was Kill 'Em All. Bernard laughed. What a fitting title!

  He extracted the tape and inserted it in his tape deck. The heaviest heavy metal he had ever heard cranked the speakers and Bernard turned it up. The music thundered and pumped the Mercedes's interior. The song currently blaring forth was another fitting title: "Seek and Destroy."

  Seek and Destroy, indeed.

  Bernard drove the remainder of the one hundred and eighteen miles to Three Rivers with Metallica's Kill 'Em All blaring from the speakers. By the time he reached the city limits he was thoroughly pumped to see this mission to its conclusion.

  Seek and Destroy.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  He didn't remember ever seeing them before, but the two men standing in George Fielding's private hospital room assured him that they had spoken before, although only briefly. "You probably don't remember much of it," a tall, stocky man who identified himself as Allen Frey said. "You were pretty out of it."

  "I should say," George said. He was in bed, the backrest up to a comfortable reclining position. His throat was still sore from the breathing tube they had stuck down his windpipe. His left arm was hooked up to an IV, his right index finger connected to a pulse monitor. An automatic blood pressure gauge was wrapped around his right bicep. When the anesthetic began to wear off late last night the sound of its timely inflation had scared the shit out of him. Now it merely served as background noise, along with the constant stream of oxygen coursing through the tubes in his nose. At least he could speak.

  "You look good," the second man said. He had identified himself as Detective Peter Coverdale from the Las Vegas Police Department. George didn't remember meeting him last night, either. "Considering what you've been through."

  "Thank you," George said. "You said that we were going to be joined by an FBI agent. Where is he?"

  "Agent Strong should be here any minute," Detective Coverdale said. "The local field office is routing him in from John Wayne in Irvine."

  "Hmmpphh." George picked up a cup of Sprite that the nurse had poured for him and took a sip. It helped his throat. "Feels better. Despite the extent of my other injuries, it's the goddamn breathing tube they stick down your throat to provide you with oxygen during surgery that hurts like a sonofabitch when you come out of it."

  Detective Coverdale and Allen Frey, the private detective, nodded. Whether they had ever been under the knife before was of no concern to George Fielding. The fact that he had been under the knife for approxim
ately four hours Saturday night, and another two hours Monday morning, meant a great deal to George. All told, he had suffered a broken skull, a broken nose, a broken right wrist, numerous gashes requiring stitches, and one mother of a gash that ran from his lower right neck, to his shoulder. It might be safe to say that a whole chunk of meat had been torn from that section of his body. There was also the massive blood loss that had resulted from this injury; they'd had to run three blood transfusions on him during surgery.

  "So what did you want to see me about?"

  "We were hoping to talk to you more about the man that attacked you," Detective Coverdale said.

  "Ah, yes. Of course."

  Allen Frey extracted a photograph from a manila folder and held it up for George to see. George took the photograph and squinted. He motioned toward the nightstand. "Can you hand me my glasses, please?"

  Allen handed him his glasses and George put them on, blinking. He took another look at the photograph and tried to stifle the surprised gasp. He wasn't aware of it, but his heart monitor accelerated slightly. "That's him."

  Frey and Coverdale traded glances. "You're sure about that?" Detective Coverdale asked.

  "Positive." Fielding handed the photo back. "I recognized him instantly even though he was all fucked up."