by Kelly Goode
‘Were the bones stripped like last time?’
‘No.’
‘But you still think this is somehow linked to Sage’s murder.’
‘I do. You were adamant that the bite marks on Sage’s father’s bones didn’t belong to an animal. Whoever killed our latest victim was messy, but there are clear bite marks to the flesh. I thought you would be able to determine whether they came from the same source.’
‘I can do that.’
‘Great, see you soon. I’ll have the coffee waiting and if you don’t fancy lunch, how about dinner?’
Carson laughed. ‘I’m going to have to regrettably decline that offer.’
‘He’s a lucky guy,’ David replied.
‘Who is?’
‘Whoever you keep blowing me out for.’
She didn’t think Blake was lucky. She wasn’t an easy woman to love.
‘Maybe you’re the lucky one. I’m trouble.’
‘I like trouble.’
She thought about the detective’s neat hair and spotless clothes. He looked like someone who ironed his socks. She doubted he actively sought out danger like she did.
‘I don’t think you do, DI Raider. See you in five. And don’t forget my coffee.’
24
Lydia slid her key into the lock, but didn’t twist the door handle. She rested her head against the front door and sighed instead. Her kids were inside, shouting and screaming as usual, which exuberated her headache to the point where she wanted to turn and run away. She was a bad mother and a bad wife too. She hadn’t spoken to Don for days. She wasn’t even upset that he was having an affair. If anything, she felt guilty. Guilty over her unexpected feelings for Jonah. Her husband was screwing the neighbour, but suddenly the escape she’d only dreamed about seemed possible. If Don left her, she was free to pursue someone else.
Lydia groaned. Maybe it was just a chemical reaction to Jonah saving her – a hero worship complex - or maybe it was a side-effect of the bite, but she wanted to see him again. Have him touch her again. He’d returned her handbag and she’d checked her phone every few minutes over the course of the day, expecting him to call like he said he would.
She couldn’t concentrate on her work and had stayed locked in one of the small offices in case the temptation to morph into an alien-hybrid and eat Adam became too much to resist. He’d banged and crashed around the laboratory like a toddler that had lost his favourite toy. That metaphorical toy being Hetti.
Knowing she couldn’t put off going inside any longer, Lydia opened the door and stepped into the hallway. She shrugged off her coat and hung it up. The banging and crashing was coming from the living room, so she entered tentatively, anticipating a war zone. The pressure behind her eyes increased when she saw Freya and Billy chasing each other around the room.
‘He took my phone,’ Freya wailed. ‘Tell him to give it back.’
‘She deleted my game,’ Billy thundered in response. ‘I lost everything.’
Lydia’s sinuses felt as if they were going to pop at any second. She’d conducted an experiment with a balloon once, pumping it full of water until it exploded. That was what she imagined was going to happen to her head. Gruesome images of her brain splattered against the wall behind her made her feel like vomiting. Her children continued to bicker, oblivious to her distress or just too damn selfish to care.
‘I don’t care about your stupid game,’ Freya said, making a swipe for her brother’s throat. ‘Give me my phone back. Mum, tell him.’
‘Mum, tell her first.’
‘Give my phone back.’
‘No. Tell her to let go of me, mum.’
‘Not until you give me my phone.’
They proceeded to pull and push each other around the living room, knocking several books from the bookshelf. Billy grabbed a fistful of Freya’s hair and she slapped him around the face, causing him to wail. The pain inside Lydia’s head reached its crescendo and her control snapped like a twig beneath someone’s boot. She leapt into the middle of the room with more agility than she’d ever possessed and roared.
‘SHUT THE FUCK UP.’
Her children fell silent, like two toy robots whose batteries had suddenly died mid-sentence.
‘Freya, clean up this mess right now.’
‘Yes, mum,’ her daughter said, her already pale face looking ashen as she scooped up the discarded books and returned them to their rightful place on the shelf.
‘And Billy, give her back her damn phone.’
He held out the phone with a slight tremble and Freya snatched it from him.
‘Now go to your rooms. I don’t want to see or hear from either one of you for the rest of the night.’
Billy ran from the room first. His face was red and there were tears in his eyes. Even Freya, whose usual attitude to life rivalled a sloth, disappeared without further argument.
Losing her temper had soothed the torture inside Lydia’s head, but shame quickly took its place. Her children had been pushing the boundaries for too long, but she felt bad pushing back so hard like that.
‘This is my house,’ she said to the empty room, pleased Don was not there to tell her any different. ‘My house. My rules. I deserve respect.’
Billy’s teary face popped into her head and remorse immediately tugged at her heart. He’d looked so scared when he’d run away. Maybe she shouldn’t have shouted so loudly.
As she turned to leave the living room, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and gasped. No wonder her kids had looked petrified.
Her eyes were glowing golden.
25
Carson spotted Raider as soon as she crossed the road and tried her best to make it look as if she’d come from a different direction. She didn’t want him to know how close he was to her place of work. Even with the chaos of the crime scene behind him, he still looked as if he belonged on the cover of a magazine. His grey three piece suit was perfectly pressed and his dark hair was slicked back from his tanned face. It seemed as if he was trying to direct a young woman somewhere, but as he was holding a take-away coffee cup in each hand, his mobility was hindered.
‘Let me help by taking one of those,’ Carson said, as she stole one of the cups and lifted it to her lips. It was the perfect temperature and the caffeine hit the required spot.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Raider replied. ‘You probably know the area better than me. Can you direct this young lady towards the market?’
Carson gestured in the opposite direction. ‘Market is back that way.’
The woman mumbled something and with one last, lingering look at Raider, she walked away. It seemed her swaying hips and short skirt was lost on both of them.
‘I couldn’t get rid of her,’ Raider said, taking a swig of his coffee. ‘She kept asking me questions.’
Carson smiled. ‘For an attractive man, you’re pretty dumb.’
‘Hold on a minute, I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class. Secured promotion faster than anyone else and…’
‘And she was flirting with you,’ Carson finished for him.
Raider frowned and stared at the retreating figure of the woman. ‘She was?’
‘Yes.’
He smiled sheepishly and the corners of his eyes crinkled. ‘She did ask me whether the other coffee was for my girlfriend. Maybe I should have given it to her.’
‘If you’d given her my promised coffee, I’d have hurt you. Slowly.’
Carson drained her cup and threw it into a nearby recycling bin.
‘Bad day?’ Raider asked, and there was genuine concern in his dark eyes.
‘Every day is a bad day, but I think it’s going to get a lot worse,’ she replied, nodding at the crime scene tape stretched across the alleyway. ‘Thank you for the coffee.’
‘You’re welcome, but don’t think I missed that you called me attractive a minute ago.’
Carson smiled. ‘Come on, you already know you’re attractive.’
‘Jus
t not to you.’
He didn’t wait for her response, which was good as she didn’t have one. He finished his coffee and disposed of his cup, before gesturing her towards the officer that was controlling admittance to the scene. Carson provided her fake animal control badge and signed the log. She put the required plastic shoe coveralls on and then followed Raider into the darkened space. The walls were wet and grimy, but the unmistaken tang of blood, trumped all that.
‘We’ve collected as much trace evidence as we can,’ Raider said, ‘but there’s a lot of contamination.’
‘Where’s the body?’
‘Over here.’
She followed him towards another smaller sectioned off area.
‘Hey, Mick,’ Raider said. ‘Can I see the body again?’
‘We’re almost done here,’ was the terse reply from the small man covered head to toe in white plastic. ‘Can’t it wait?’
‘Afraid not; animal control want to check the victim’s injuries to compare with a previous case.’
Mick looked up from his examination and stared at Carson as if she was an annoying fly that he wanted to swat.
‘If an animal did this, it’s long gone,’ he mumbled from behind his mask.
‘That’s why I need to determine what breed we’re dealing with,’ Carson replied.
‘I’m working on a hunch,’ Raider added, his tone switching from easy-going to authoritative. ‘Show her the body.’
Mick sighed and lifted the cover from the mound he was kneeling beside. Carson’s eyes widened at the state of the human remains, but that was the only reaction she allowed. She’d seen many forms of death and this young man had suffered.
‘Think a stray is really capable of this?’ Raider asked. ‘Mick already confirmed initial cause of death was a broken neck. Animals don’t break human’s necks, do they?’
Carson shook her head. It wasn’t a desquamater attack. The alien would’ve taken great care not to tear the skin.
Something else had done this.
‘It wasn’t a desquamater.’
‘A what?’
Carson froze – shit – she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
‘It wasn’t a Doberman.’
‘You said desquamater. What breed is that?’
‘I meant Doberman,’ she repeated. ‘They’re known to be aggressive. Maybe the victim needed a fix and looked for an easy target, but the owner’s dog took him down.’
‘And broke his neck?’ Mick added sceptically. ‘I doubt even the stupidest mugger would single out someone walking their Doberman.’
‘Seen enough?’ Raider asked and she nodded.
Carson’s stomach sloshed uneasily, the coffee threatening to come back up if she wasn’t careful. She allowed Raider to lead her away from the body and out onto the street.
‘It definitely wasn’t the same perpetrator as Sage’s father, was it?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘What am I dealing with, Carson? You told me to look into murders disguised as animal killings. This one fits the bill, but it’s not like the other cases. What am I missing here?’
‘There are things I want to tell you, things that might help you understand what you’re dealing with, but I’m not allowed.’
‘Who says?’
‘My boss.’
Raider pushed his hands through his hair in frustration, causing one strand to fall across his forehead. Carson couldn’t help but reach out to smooth it back into place, but he intercepted her before she could reach her target. His eyes darkened as he held onto her hand.
‘I know you’re hiding something from me, Carson.’
‘Even if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me.
‘I get the feeling you don’t trust many people, but you can trust me.’
Carson looked into his eyes, and the compulsion to tell him everything about the alien invasion, the murders, and the missing little girls was hard to contain. She only stopped at the sound of approaching footsteps.
‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’
26
Blake had anticipated an icy welcome, but even he was shocked by the sheer fury in Carson’s blue eyes when she turned to face him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she said, her hands settling on her slim hips in a stance that mirrored his.
‘Do I need a reason to check in with my partner?’
‘Yes.’
The man standing beside Carson tried to disguise a snigger and Blake fixed him with his most intimidating stare. The man, to his credit, met the challenge head on and even had the audacity to smile. Carson noticed them squaring up to each other and muttered something about not having time to referee. She waved her hands between the two men as an introduction.
‘Blake, this is Detective Inspector David Raider. Raider, this is my partner at animal control, Blake Holloway.’
Raider held out his hand, but Blake didn’t shake it. It was petty, but he wasn’t in the mood to play nice.
‘It’s nice to meet you,’ Raider said, his hand eventually falling back to his side. ‘I must say, you look better suited to wrestling strays than Carson.’
‘Carson measures up just fine.’
‘Yes, she does.’
Carson stepped forward and poked Blake in the chest, thankfully avoiding the healing gunshot wound.
‘What are you doing here?’ she repeated.
Her cheekbones were tinged red and her short, dark hair stuck out at impossible angles from where it had been singed with grenades on previous a mission.
‘We didn’t get a chance to finish our conversation the other day. I spoke with the chief and he told me you’d left the office so I tracked you here.’
‘How did you track her?’ Raider asked. ‘Is she chipped like a dog?’
Blake’s biceps bunched as he fantasised swinging repeatedly at the man’s head until it exploded like a watermelon. Carson noticed the tension and took Blake’s hand in hers.
‘Excuse us for a moment,’ she said, practically dragging him across the street in the opposite direction to the crime scene. Someone had died in that alleyway. Blake could scent the blood, but more alarmingly, he could scent a jaktten – a familiar one - and he wanted to know what it had to do with Carson.
‘You had plenty of time to call me yesterday,’ she said, once they were far enough away from Raider’s earshot. ‘So I don’t appreciate you coming here now and starting a pissing contest.’
‘Blame your new friend for that.’
‘Raider is the detective I met at Sage’s crime scene. He called me here.’
‘Wait a second, he called you? How did he call you?’
‘I gave him my number.’
Blake growled at the thought of Carson swapping numbers with another man.
‘You’re such a caveman,’ she said, knocking him on the arm. ‘I gave him my animal control cover story and he called me to take a look at a body they found with signs of animal interference.’
‘How much does he know?’
‘About me?’
Blake nodded.
‘Just the cover story,’ she said.
‘And what about ISCU and the aliens?’
Carson hesitated and Blake repeated the question.
‘What does he know, Carson?’
‘Nothing. He doesn’t have a clue what I really do or what perpetrator he should be hunting.’
‘But you want to tell him, don’t you?’
‘Yes. He’s one of the good guys, Blake. He cares about his job. He wants to bring Sage’s murderers to justice as much as I do.’
‘And you like him.’
‘Don’t start,’ she warned. ‘He’s just a friend.’
‘If he’s a friend then you need to be careful. You know about collateral damage as much as I do. Look at what happened to Ted.’
Carson’s face fell slightly. ‘I don’t want him to get hurt.’
‘That’s why you can’t tell him the truth.’
&
nbsp; Carson looked over her shoulder and Blake followed her line of sight to where Raider was watching them intently.
‘Fine,’ she sighed. ‘I won’t tell him.’
He cupped her under the chin and kissed her lightly on the lips.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said once he’d pulled away. ‘I’ve been a lousy partner and an even shoddier boyfriend.’
‘Who said you were my boyfriend?’ she countered with just the right amount of sass that made him want to bend her over his knee and slap her arse.
‘I did.’
He pulled her closer and kissed her again, forcefully this time. She resisted at first, but then relaxed against his chest and opened her mouth, allowing his tongue to sweep inside. Her hands reached up and tugged at his long, blond hair and he moaned when she pressed her breasts against his chest.
‘I’m coming over tonight to finish this,’ he said breathlessly.
‘We’ll finish this once you’ve told me the truth about how you got that gunshot wound.’
‘That’s blackmail.’
‘That’s my terms. I want the truth.’
Blake nodded. ‘You’ll get it.’
She manoeuvred out of his embrace and tried to flatten her tufty hair.
‘Bring food,’ she ordered, as she jogged away from him.
Blake’s stomach tightened as he realised tonight was make or break for them.
‘So that’s the reason you won’t have dinner with me,’ Blake heard Raider say to Carson once she’d re-joined him.
‘He’s my partner,’ she replied with a dismissive shake of her head.
‘And my competition,’ Raider countered and Blake smiled. There was no competition for Carson’s affections. She loved him. He knew that. He just hoped she still loved him once she found out he was a jaktten.
27
Lydia poured herself a second glass of wine, as she stared out of the kitchen window at the darkening sky. She hadn’t heard a sound since she’d sent her children upstairs. She wanted to go and apologise, but didn’t trust herself to be around them while she was in such a volatile mood. She still couldn’t get over the fact that her eyes had changed colour. How long did she have left before she sprouted fur and claws too? She wished Jonah was there to tell her how to handle the situation, but he hadn’t called her and that hurt more than it should.