Fox Chance in Hell (Misfit Shifters Book 3)

by Rae Foxx

  Just when I thought my Poetry surprises were over…

  She never did let me down.

  “It’s too early for this bullshit,” Evan grumbled from behind me, and I laughed. Poetry was in her bed, aka, the nest of scarves and frilly hippie fabric, clinging to a dominatrix dummy all done up in belts and his little leather shorts. She had on a sheer lacy gown and shot up to a sitting position at our abrupt entrance.

  Forgetting that Evan and I too were in a state of undress, I said, “Poetry, you need to tell me everything you know about the people next door. Why didn’t you tell me they were from Puritan Village? That would’ve been some pertinent information.”

  I jerked as Poetry’s sleepy gaze pierced me, her neck jerking like a chicken. Her pupils filled up almost the entirety of her irises as her voice came out all monotone and weird, consumed with a ‘vision’.

  “The pale blue pill in the corner...it will make the leaves of the penis tree shiver in fear.”

  God dammit.

  “Christ Almighty, Scarlet. Let’s wait until the morning. Clearly she’s not going to say anything coherent, not that she’s all that coherent during the day but da-yum.”

  I put my hand up and waved him off. “I have to know now.”

  Walking over to Poetry, I ignored the dom boyfriend of hers and put my hands on her shoulders. “Poetry, what happened with the explosion all those years ago?”

  My aunt was wavering back and forth like she was the one with the penis leaves. Her mouth was half-open and her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. I snapped in front of her, trying to make her come out of whatever trance or high she was in.

  “She’s high as a fucking kite, Scarlet. Let’s just leave it and talk to her when she’s not floating in the fucking…” Evan griped behind me.

  Poetry began to say something in a whisper before getting louder and louder as the words spewed out. “I should’ve known he sent them. People in Puritan Village don’t have a life. They have to bring it all behind.”

  “Told you. Fucking…” Evan whistled like Poetry had gone to another planet.

  Maybe she had.

  “Hey!” I snapped again and then switched to clapping in her face. What I really wanted to do was backhand her to bring her out of whatever funk she was in, but since I’d just pushed her into a wall of glass shelves the day before, I decided against it. “Come on, Poetry. Wake the hell up!”

  Her voice had lowered to a whisper again, but then her eyes grew wide and targeted me. “I’m next. I always knew I would be. Should’ve listened to Jessica. He’s after me next.”

  She whirled her head to the left as though someone were speaking to her from the other side of the room and grasped my wrist tightly, shaking it. “The brothers are in the shadows, each standing in a different light. Light will be bright.” Next she gasped and grabbed her lacy nightgown right over her heart. “Light will burn.”

  As she said the last sentence, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed onto the bed in a lump, her arms flailing around like one of those inflatable smiling tubes in front of car dealerships.

  I blew out a breath and looked at Evan. His eyes bulged out of his head while he shook it. He ran his fingers along his scalp tearing at the roots of his dark brown hair, “I swear to God, Scarlet, she’s two eggs short of a dozen.”

  “Her elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor.” I laughed and elbowed him in the ribs. His Owen was showing.

  “Wheel is spinning but the hamster is dead.” He cracked up and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

  “The cord doesn’t quite reach the outlet.”

  He snorted. “I’m all out. Owen would have more.”

  “He would,” I agreed with a nod. “Let’s try to get some sleep. Maybe you’re right. It’s all dead ends. She might make one ounce of sense when she wakes up.”

  “Yep. Time for sleep, kitten.” We were making our way up the stairs when I saw Travis at the top, hands on his hips, looking like he’d just lost his puppy.

  Or his fox.

  He bounded down the steps and in seconds, had me in a hold, telling me how glad he was that I was alive and okay.

  “Dude, chill. We went to get evidence. You know, ninja Scarlet sleuth and all.”

  He pulled back, putting me down on the stairs. “What do you mean? You have to leave this investigation to me, Scarlet. You don’t…”

  I held up my hand. This dude was going nuts. “Travis, it’s fine. You should be proud. We found one big motherfucking clue. The family from next door, the ones in the explosion, were from Puritan Village. Their last name was Santos. There were two kids that survived! One went to state custody, but the other disappeared. That’s a big fucking deal.”

  I was so excited about sharing my clue that I practically bounced up and down on the stairs with it. But there was no excitement in Travis’ expression as I told the story. In fact, I watched his face drain of all color like blood running down the drain of a sink but the drain was his neck. He stumbled back until he fell backwards to sit on one of the steps but caught himself last second. Evan held my hand as Travis scrubbed his hands over his face and targeted me with his steely gaze.

  “Scarlet, I’m that baby. I’ve never been able to find my brother. He is probably dead just like my parents.”

  9

  “What?” The question came out more like a scream, echoing off the walls that surrounded the stairs. I had to take a step back, like his revelation had slapped me in the face. Travis didn’t seem fazed by the volume but held onto the railings.

  “The family that was killed in the explosion next door were my parents, my siblings. I was the baby that was put into state custody.”

  Him repeating shit did nothing for the shock.

  “But you have a different last name,” I said, trying to make some sense of the chaos going on in my head.

  “Phoquin is the name of the family that took me in as a foster care case but eventually adopted me later on. My real last name, the name on my birth certificate is Santos.”

  Evan leaned against the railings and crossed his arms over his chest, just taking in the whole thing while I put pieces together, only to find that things still weren’t fitting.

  As usual, I had questions. Tons of them.

  “How old were you?” I asked, trying not to use my usual stabbing sleuth tone. This wasn’t some murder suspect. This was my mate, and clearly telling me this was causing him a great deal of pain. “Do you remember anything about that day?”

  “I was about three, according to the stories and my adoptive parents. I remember playing with my cousin in the backyard. I think it was a weekend and my dad was cooking inside while my mother took care of my sisters.” He shook his head and sat down on one of the stairs. “We had been playing hide and seek and I remember being so hot. Across the way, back by the field, my dad had rigged up a hammock between two trees so my cousin and I went to take a nap over there. But he said something to me on the way. I can’t remember what for the life of me. Whatever it was, he decided to go back to the house and I fell asleep in the hammock. That’s all I remember until I was woken up by that horrible sound. It made my ears ring, and for a second I was in that spot between sleep and being awake, just questioning what the hell was going on. I jumped from the hammock and that’s when I heard the screaming. It was someone in the town screaming because of the explosion.”

  I stepped up one step to be closer to him but he waved me off. “Travis, what happened to your cousin? Was he in the house too?” I was whispering now.

  “I don’t know.” He wiped his palms on his thighs as though it aggravated him to revisit all of this stuff, but I had to know. “I don’t know if he came to nap with me and then left, or if he never came back at all. I guess I’ll never know.”

  Evan blew out a breath and looked at me with wide eyes. This was huge. “Why were your parents here? Why were they sent to Cummings Cove?”

  Travis cleared his throat of what I imagined was
a boulder of emotion. “I was little. I remember some things. They were banished by the new Alpha. I don’t remember them talking about why. I just knew that we moved to a new town and Mama tried to make it like a big, fun adventure. We had a new house in a new town where everyone was nice to us, and even our cousin had come with us. For a kid, in my point of view, it was the adventure Mama made it out to be. It was perfect.”

  “And what happened after the explosion?”

  He looked at me like I shouldn't be asking, but my gut said that Travis’ story held clues not even he knew about. “I remember crying and trying to get into the building to find my parents and my sisters. My hands were black with soot and I could recognize some things that belonged to us that were now in pieces. There was a shard of our kitchen table still on fire in the backyard and I tried to blow it out. That’s when two arms wrapped around me and pulled me away from the scene.”

  “Who was it, Travis?” I moved to sit next to him so that our thighs touched. Although I didn’t think he wanted me to coddle him any more than that. “Who was it that took you from the scene?”

  “It was Poetry. She brought me here and made me take a bath to clean up. Then I remember her making me dinner.” He let out a huff through his nose and looked down into the store. “She kept me for a while. Two, maybe three weeks. One day she packed up my stuff and said I couldn’t stay here anymore. Said that it was dangerous. I remember crying and begging her to let me stay, but she seemed so callous about the whole thing, like I was just another piece of product she was moving around.”

  The pain in his voice was palpable and seemed to stick to every word.

  Again, I felt like I had been gut-punched with not only the information, but the depth of secrets around here. Poetry had kept Travis as a boy and his family was in the explosion, but no one thought that maybe I should know about that?

  “We get along fine now, I simply don’t trust her. She’s not the woman I once knew.”

  Unable to contain my anger I seethed, “Why didn’t anyone in this place think to tell me some of this shit? This shit really pisses me off.”

  Travis leaned back and planted his elbows on the stair above us while Evan shifted from one foot to the other with a ‘what the fuck’ look on his face.

  “I doubt she even remembers, Scarlet. I’m not sure what has happened to Poetry over the years but it was like she changed into what she is now little by little while no one was looking.”

  Every word he spoke pierced me. I wasn’t just some new person in town that he didn’t want to rehash his secrets to. I was his mate. There was an unspoken understanding there. And fucking trust for God’s sake.

  “You could’ve told me this before, Travis.” I tried like hell not to push my pain into my tone, but it was no use. At this point I felt like my chest had been cracked open and I just couldn’t get it to shut again.

  “Scarlet, I didn’t think it was important, and honestly it’s not my favorite thing to talk about.”

  I scoffed at his weak argument. Pain between mates equaled trust.

  “Well, think about it as a cop. There could’ve been clues in your story to help us with all of these murders.”

  He shrugged and tried to put his arm around me, but I scooted away. “My history and how my parents were murdered has nothing to do with the murders that are happening now, Scarlet. There is no connection.”

  I whirled on him in an instant. History was repeating itself right under his nose and he didn’t even know it.

  “Travis, your parents received a box with body parts in it the night before the explosion. No connection my fox ass!” I screamed and fully expected Poetry to burst onto the scene any second, but she never did.

  “What? What do you mean they received a box? I’ve read the fucking records, Scarlet. There was no box reported, or for that matter a dismemberment before it. Trust me, I’ve scoured the records from that entire year. How could you possibly have found that out?”

  Evan decided that was the right moment to chime in and sat down on one of the stairs, still at a distance.

  “Travis, we found some missing microfiche in the library. They detailed the explosion and the events before it. Your parents received a box with body parts the night before and told a few people they thought it was an omen. We also found Kent’s book, but the damned thing is empty.” As though Evan realized there was a thick film of distrust in the air, he took the book from behind his back and flipped through it, revealing the blank pages.

  Travis slowly stood. “Can I see that, Evan?”

  Travis extended his hand for the book, and as soon as the leather touched his fingertips, he sucked in a breath and turned ghost white. His eyes widened and his mouth stayed agape while his hand shook, holding the book.

  “Scarlet, where in the fuck did you get this?” His voice was all robotic and monotone.

  Not knowing what in the hell was going on, I recapped all the places we had it. “Becky’s first, then I stole it, then she stole it back. Then we found it with the microfiche in the library under the floorboards.” Fuck, I sounded like the board game now. “Why? What the fuck is going on, Travis?”

  With no warning whatsoever, Travis took off at a sprint down the stairs, two at a time. We followed him and watched on, completely stricken as to what to do. He slammed the book down on the counter next to the kettle and he flipped the switch on the thing.

  “Travis, what the fuck? Tell me what’s going on!”

  He paced a little, his gaze ticking to the kettle every three seconds while he held out his hand, not answering me.

  “Travis!” Evan shouted, trying to make him stop, but there was no use. He and the kettle and this book had something going on and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the fuck it was.

  The kettle whistled, and Travis grabbed the thing from its spot and poured the scalding water all over the book, making both Evan and I scream. That was our fucking evidence and this asshole was trying to make tea out of it.

  Travis picked up the thing and juggled it from hand to hand, because...hot water, and then slammed it on the counter in front of us, sending droplets of now warm water everywhere. With no gentle motion, he opened the front cover and pointed to the name inscribed on the page.

  Armando Santos

  “My father’s name,” Travis said, his tone stoic and flat.

  I sucked in a breath but there were no words to be said. Shock had finally claimed me as a victim.

  “Clearly there is something more going on here.” He started to pace again, and this time I didn’t make any move to stop him. “Becky and Stacey have to be in on it. That’s for damned sure. And are we sure Poetry is innocent because now I’m questioning every damned thing in the history of this fucking goddamned town!”

  “I…” Didn’t know what to say and Evan chuckled at me a little and shrugged.

  “I mean, she knew about the box that my parents received and didn’t say jack shit.”

  “Fuck, there are too many secrets in Cummings Cove. It’s like a new one every three seconds,” Evan mused, leaning over to rest his elbows on the counter.

  Travis picked up the journal and flipped through it. He turned it this way and that as the twins had done when they were looking at the Harem book all those weeks ago. He gasped and pressed the book back down to the counter to show us.

  “Lym...my uncle?”

  A pulse of terror ripped through me at hearing the name. “Lym? As in the Alpha of Puritan Village? As in the dude that Poetry was in love with as a girl?”

  “Shit, I don’t know, Scarlet. Wait, there’s something else appearing.”

  I waited for him to read but he was turning it again. “Travis what about your cousin? Was he related to Lym? I mean on what side of the family did he belong to?”

  Travis shrugged and moved the book a little closer to his face like that would help. “I don’t know. I just know he was a cousin and his parents couldn’t take care of him. Oh...shit. Look at this.”
/>
  He slammed the book down on the flat surface again and pointed to different pockets of information. Things about taking out different businesses and how to make it happen so that no one really picked up on what they are doing. It read step-by-step, like a damned instruction manual. But as we read, the text became darker, more nefarious by the line. Things about ‘If he finds you, you must end him’ and as I skimmed there was even more.

  Took out the loose ends before the fox interferes.

  The dragon will talk if no one stops him. Make him the next target.

  Everyone looked up at the same time with matching confused as fuck looks on their faces. In perfect Cummings Cove style, we’d just read a bunch of shit that made no sense.

  Hold the damned phone. “When we were with Quinton, he said something to me. He said I was following the wrong clues. The boxes were somehow involved. Fuck me, the silver hoarder was right. The same person that killed your family is the same one who killed Eddie and Kent. That motherfucker is the one who has Owen and Dawn.”

  “We have to see Quinton,” Evan demanded.

  10

  After backtracking to the apartment to get clothes, since Evan and I were still naked from shifting, we made our way to Quinton’s, following right behind Travis.

  The cop being a little displeased about us following him was the fucking understatement of the year. He stomped the entire way and kept looking over his shoulder as though I was going to scurry off like a good little female fox.

  Not an icicle’s chance in hell, asshole. This was as much my investigation now as it was his.

  We all stopped dead at the entrance to the place. Even though it had been in disrepair the last time we were there, it was now worse. So much worse. This was clearly not the work of neglect, but something more sinister.

  Someone had already paid Quinton Johnson a visit.

  “On a scale from one to ten, one being you’re so compliant that I almost faint, and ten being you kick and scream and well, act like Scarlet, where are we? Maybe you two are staying outside? Or better yet, going back to the bookstore and questioning Poetry?” Travis didn’t have the balls to turn around and face me while asking the asinine question he probably already knew the answer to. It was like he didn’t know me at all.