by C. T. Adams
Finally, Lucas laughed. “Yeah, well, some nights it sucks being the top dog. And I’d love to say I was going to be getting sleep any time soon. I’d be lying, though. But—” and a sly smile turned his lips, “I wasn’t hit by a truck yesterday, either, so I could get by on a few hours.”
David and Tommy chuckled lightly while Adam felt his face burn. “Yeah… well fuck you all. So, how many days do I have to get things together?”
“Oh, you and Tommy’s family are going now. I’d suggest going and talking to your captain in the next hour or so. By the time I get to headquarters, Vanessa should already have the tickets. She was marked for death, too, by the way, and is still a little panicked about it. She’s sticking close to people she can trust—i.e., others on the list. She’s a good secretary, but if you want her to go down, too, it might not be a bad idea. She’s a low-level alpha and probably wouldn’t mind being out of ranking battles for a time. But no… with things heating up down there, I want you and Tommy where you’ll do the most good. And I want the girls guarded until we can track down everybody involved in this scheme. If Cara hasn’t told her pack yet, then do it together. You are the Alpha Male of Texas, as of now. At least, until you hear otherwise.”
“And if it doesn’t work? What then?” Adam knew the answer really didn’t matter. He would be expected to make it work. So, Lucas’s response came as a surprise.
“Then you’ll come back here and Tommy will be the Alpha down there. Your personalities are nearly opposites. If one doesn’t work, the other just might. And I don’t deny that the pack here will follow you and… well, Cara, too—if it turns out you’re mated. I’m going to have my work cut out for me trying to find a replacement up here. There might be some more shuffling from other packs eventually. We’ll just have to see.”
If you’re mated. Uffda. What if he was? Worse still, what if Cara was alpha enough that some of the others from Minnesota mated to her as well? If she went into heat… he closed his eyes, trying not to think about what might happen. The fluttering in his stomach told him that even if he wasn’t mated to her, he was getting way too attached.
Chapter 22
THE WINDSHIELD WIPERS smeared the dusty rain into a chalky coating that would take a scrubber to get off. Cara stared into the distance almost hypnotically, watching for some sign of an approaching vehicle, pausing every few minutes to squirt another stream of cleaner with a flick of her finger. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel in time to Clint Black’s latest on the radio and wondered again whether to put the truck in gear and head toward town instead of sitting here at the entrance to the back road to Rosa’s house.
They said ten o’clock. Didn’t they say ten? Her eyes flicked to her arm, only to remember her watch was still missing, so she checked the dashboard instead. Ten fifteen—but the rain might have slowed them down. The clouds looked darker in the distance and the roads always got horribly slick in the first rain after a long dry spell. All that oil in the roadbase was great in the winter… kept the roads free of ice, but a film built up in the summer that was every bit as treacherous as black ice.
She couldn’t believe she was allowing this to happen. A known killer was on his way here and she was going to waltz him into her sister’s house to interview a child. Although, in reality, Ziri was turning out to be far from a child. She was very much a woman in her own culture. And wow, was Rosa loving having her stay with them! Ziri was an amazing cook… good enough that Rosa struggled a little to keep up, but was taking down recipes as fast as she could write. Gloria had taken to the Mayan girl like a long-lost sister. Of course, it helped that Ziri was massively creative, and had a helpful, sunny personality that more than made up for her lack of Spanish and English. She was teaching Gloria how to braid tiny strands of rope with beads into sandals, and had offered to make an authentic waxed flower headdress for the Quince. Apparently, the name of the celebration crossed languages and cultures. Once she showed her skill at dipping fresh flowers in paraffin, Gloria decided on it over the rhinestone tiara. “Omigawd, Tia Cara!” she remembered the girl saying last night, holding up a drawing of the planned crown of blooms, “Isn’t this gorgeous? Mary is going to be absolutely green!”
Headlights in the distance brought her out of her mulling. Yep, it was Adam’s black truck all right. She took a deep breath, turned off the radio, and waited as it approached. It was a day later than planned, but even the Weather Channel hadn’t predicted this storm system would be so violent. The airports had been shut down for a whole day. Even this morning, flash floods in several surrounding counties had closed roads. It was lucky they’d made it here at all.
She opened her window as the truck pulled alongside her. Bobby’s smile was a pleasure to see again. It had been a long time, but he still looked the same—a narrow, angular face, short kinky hair and that ever-present row of brilliant white teeth, ready to appear at a moment’s notice. A bright citrus scent burst into her nose when he opened his window and she heard both men laughing.
“Well, Cara Salinas! Look at you—sheriff of the whole county and you managed to make it into Wolven, too!”
She smiled and met his eyes. Well, actually she met his contacts, because his natural eyes were red with slitted pupils. She always wondered what he’d done before colored contacts were invented. She knew he was old, even in Sazi terms. Maybe she’d ask him one day.
“Good to see you again, Agent Mbutu. This your partner?” She couldn’t keep her voice from flattening, but the other man in the truck’s cab didn’t seem to mind. He smiled at her and she realized he was actually quite handsome, in a guy-next-door sort of way. But the intelligence that flowed through his blue eyes was what took her by surprise. This was no brutish thug, which made him ail the more dangerous.
“Yep, although he’s not really my partner—he’s actually my replacement. Tony Giambrocco, say hello to Cara Salinas.”
He nodded politely and spoke in a medium baritone with no particular accent. “A pleasure, Sheriff. Nice county you’ve got here. Texas isn’t at all what I expected. There are a lot more trees, and the wild flowers are amazing. It looked like a damn jungle when we landed in San Antonio. I’d always heard it was flat and sandy here, more like a desert.”
She acknowledged that with a pleased nod. Most every newcomer thought that the whole state looked like the panhandle. “Parts are. But this is the hill country, which is a lot more fertile. Glad you like it.” A short silence followed, where the only sound was the flipping wiper blades on the trucks. Shrugging her shoulders, she turned off the switch and heard her voice go flat and sad. “So anyway, we might as well get this over with, huh?”
Bobby laughed. “Don’t play the dirge tune yet, Cara. Really, there’s nothing to it. You probably won’t even notice it happening. Tony’s getting pretty good at this.”
The other man rolled his eyes and held up gloved hands. “Sheer self-defense. If I didn’t get a handle on it pretty quick, my gift was going to send me and Sue to the nuthouse.”
Bobby motioned to his friend with the fingers resting on the wheel, keeping his eyes toward Cara. “Tony’s double-mated to a full human. Weirdest damned thing—she sees what he sees unless he blocks her out.”
“And some of the shit I see in this job, I wouldn’t inflict on an enemy, much less my wife.”
He was mated —married to a human who shared his magic? “Wow! That’s… well, that’s pretty amazing. I’ve never heard of that.”
Tony laughed, and it softened his whole face. Despite her better judgment, she was finding him almost… charming, not at all what she expected from Adam’s description. “That’s me—one of a kind. But yeah, let’s get moving. I’d really like to find a bathroom pretty soon. This maniac behind the wheel must have a five quart bladder. We haven’t stopped the damn truck since we left the airport lot.”
“Okay, let me turn around and then you can follow me.” She paused and then looked at them both, willing them to understand—despite whatever
orders they had. “But, even though my niece and nephew are in school right now, please remember that my sister is human and so is the girl.”
Tony looked at her seriously with what seemed to border on compassion. She actually had to take a sniff to believe it. “I understand, and you don’t have to worry. I come from a long line of humans. I’m an attack victim, Sheriff. I do okay in this world, but it hasn’t been so long yet that I don’t remember how to play with real people.”
Cara had to pick up her dropped jaw. She’d never met an attack victim before. She’d heard of it happening certainly… it was one the reasons why Wolven existed. But very few survived the first change. “Oh. I… I didn’t know. Sorry.”
He shrugged. “Like I said, I get by. Fortunately, I’ve had some people help me get through it—even if they do have five quart bladders.” The words came out deadpan, which made Cara laugh that much louder.
Bobby let out a low chuckle and threw up his hands. “Okay, okay, I get the point. Lead the way, Agent Salinas. Let’s find Tony a bathroom and then we’ll see what we can do about tracking down your flock of birds.”
“YOU’RE REALLY MOVING to Texas? I mean, I know you put in your notice, but I always thought… urn, wow!” Reggie Marquez, his partner for over three years, stared incredulously at him from the chair next to Adam’s computer station while he cleaned out his desk. Lucas had been dead on the money, once again—even though he’d been a day late. Captain Larkin had received the report, but he took a day to verify the findings. God only knows how that was managed. But the report, whatever it said—and hopefully nobody would ever show it to him—released him from active duty. He was on medical leave for the rest of his time with the department. He just tried not to think about what the black mark on his record would do to his career. But it would let him travel to Texas again, as soon as Nessa could rebook the flights that the storm cancelled.
He’d still suited up in uniform for today, just in case the Wolven chief wound up wrong. Fat chance. He glanced at his partner as he sorted through a drawer. “It all happened pretty suddenly, Reg. It’s sort of hard for me to believe, too. But there was a position open, and it seems like a really good fit for me. Do you know I was there a whole day and the only siren I heard was the fire department testing the engines?”
“I guess I didn’t realize the pressure was getting to you here, amigo. I mean, I know that last neglect case really tore you up, but jeez—you’re good at this. Even the gang-bangers got respect for you. Are you sure you wanna leave it all behind?”
It was a good thing Reggie wasn’t Sazi. He couldn’t smell the lie that easily slid through his lips. “Not wanna, Reg. Gotta. I put it off as long as I could. But everything in Texas—” he paused, allowing his friend to see warm memories of Cara, and Santa Helena’s drowning deep starred sky, play across his face. “Man, it’s like nothing you can imagine down there. Like Mayberry RFD come to life, don’tcha know.”
Reggie pushed his cap farther back on his head and raised his brows. “Yah, well call me cynical, but I think there’s more to it than that. I think you met someone—a sweet little chica that makes you not care for nothing but her next smile.”
Close. Closer than he probably knew, but Adam shrugged it off with a wave of a picture frame bearing his mother’s photo, before stowing it away in the box. He still needed to stop by Mom’s house to bring her up-to-date about yesterday’s happenings. “I was only there for two days, Reg. Get real.”
The slender Latino snorted into his mustache. “Yeah, and I saw Inez for ten minutes in the fucking grocery store and knew.” He snapped his fingers, causing Charlie at the next desk to raise his eyes from his phone call. “Like that! I chased her all over the neighborhood for two weeks before she’d go out with me. But one look and I was a goner. You saw me, I was like a goddamned Romeo, singing outside her window with my guitar—even writing love songs to her.”
“Really bad love songs, if I remember. Nothing rhymes with orange, Reg… not even so rang, no matter how weird you say it. Hell, it didn’t even make sense!”
He tapped the gold band on his finger before handing Adam the white cardboard cover for the file box that was now stuffed full—full of a past he’d really believed in. Could he believe in anything this much again, down there?
“Love don’t make sense. That’s my point. Shit changes when you find the right one.” Reggie paused and said meaningfully, “Shit like becoming a fucking truant officer in backwater Texas after a whole life as a city cop, for example. That’s what a woman will do to you, amigo. Make your whole head change. Look at me. Three years ago when we partnered, would either of us have thunk I’d be about to sign a mortgage that would choke a racehorse and be spending my Saturdays shopping for baby strollers—and do you know how much those damned things cost!”
Adam wanted to say it had nothing to do with Cara. He wanted to tell Reggie that he was being forced to go down by a council of shapeshifters that didn’t give a damn what he wanted. But the truth was, even if he stayed… he’d asked her to come up. Didn’t that say everything? He sighed in resignation and sat down heavily. “Her name’s Carlotta—Cara Salinas. She’s the sheriff down there.”
Reggie held up one finger and shook it in victory. “Ah ha! I knew it!” Then he lowered his voice and winked. “She’s Latina, eh? Well, I always knew you had good taste. But you gotta watch out for them, amigo. They’re tough, and they’ve got tempers on ’em.”
“Fer sure. I already noticed that part.” A small smile pulled at his mouth.
Reggie leaned forward and clapped him on the shoulder with a low chuckle. It pressed the patch on his sleeve into his arm, reminding Adam again it was the last time he’d feel that slap, or hear his partner’s donkeylike laugh when they rolled up on something so completely absurd that nobody would believe it if it was in a novel. “Well, tell you what—we’ll go have lunch and I’ll tell you some things that will melt her down into a puddle. Then… oh, then amigo, you can find out the sort of lava that’s underneath that tough outer crust.”
Chapter 23
CARA STOOD OFF in the corner of the living room, near the kitchen. Ziri’s back was toward her and Tony was sitting on the couch next to the girl, casually sipping a soda. Bobby had taken up residence in Paco’s easy chair and was trying to talk to Rosa who sat watching Tony suspiciously in her floral covered rocker.
I shouldn’t have warned her. She hadn’t told Rosa everything, just that she was a little concerned. But when her sister was restless, she got very controlling. There was nothing to make her as restless as closing the restaurant for a week, even if it was a well-deserved vacation. So now Rosa was playing the mother hen and Bobby was starting to get annoyed. Cara turned her eyes imperatively to the cross over the mantel and said a small prayer this would go well. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Faith was harder than it should be lately.
“Really, Mrs. Ruiz. There’s nothing to it at all. Tony’s done it to me before and I hardly noticed. He’s a seer… he doesn’t interact with anything but the past.”
“But she forgot! That’s the important part. She forgot because it was bad things she saw. Why take her through it again?”
Bobby let out a heaving sigh while Tony remained coldly neutral. Cara could see that it really didn’t matter to him either way. Suddenly, she could see what Adam saw-that it would be just as easy for him to put a bullet into all their brains as sip that soda. The scent of his fur was all that reached her nose. No emotions at all bled from him. Bobby finally turned his head toward her and gave her a look. She’d seen it before, on other people. It said, Step in now or I’m going to finish this.
“Rosa.” She said the word softly but with force and her sister looked up with flashing eyes. “Enough. They said it won’t hurt her. Watch if you want, but stay out of it. This is business.”
Ziri didn’t seem at all concerned, but probably because she couldn’t follow the conversation well enough to understand. She was still braiding and
knotting white strips of twine into an intricate pattern that resembled tatting, looking up occasionally when she’d recognize a word. Rosa pressed her lips into a harsh line but nodded. No doubt she’d have something to say about it later, though.
With a relieved relaxing of his shoulders, Bobby nodded to Tony. With casual ease, Tony removed his gloves, putting them nearby on the couch and then smiled at the girl next to him. “Ziri?”
She looked up and matched the smile. Tony spoke slowly and carefully, keeping his voice concerned and pleasant. “Do you remember driving here—to the rocks where she found you?” He pointed right at Cara, and Ziri turned to beam a smile at her. She nodded to Tony. “Yes… sf.”
“Those men who brought you… did they hurt you?”
Her face changed. It was subtle, but it was obvious she understood what he was asking. Rosa opened her mouth but Cara raised her hand to stop her. Her sister crossed angry arms over her chest, but kept silent.
Ziri couldn’t keep her eyes on Tony. She ignored the question and returned to her braiding, her fingers now moving faster and with more purpose. Her scent revealed her increasing agitation.
Tony paused and watched her for a moment, taking in every aspect of Ziri’s actions. His voice turned into a soothing warmth that brimmed with gentle concern. Cara hadn’t thought he was capable of such delicate emotions. “You’re mad at them. Waa’lay? They lied to your naa. Lied about why they were bringing you here, didn’t they?”
Was he speaking Mayan? Several of the words sounded like those Lucas had used, and they were having an impact on Ziri. Her hands started to stutter, the fluidity gone, and her jaw set tightly. Had he really prepared for this interview to that extent?
Then he changed tactics. He pointed at the work in her lap and smiled again. “That’s pretty. May I look?” He reached out his hand, palm up and she shrugged. She reached across the short distance and placed it in his hand. But at the second their hands contacted, he closed his fingers around hers. Everything changed in that moment. She went still, as though frozen—held by magic, except there was no magic in the room. Bobby nodded with a small smile while Rosa looked on with curiosity plain on her face.