by Renee George
"That's just dumb. How can anybody believe we killed Luke then set ourselves up by placing his body and us in the one place Cal isn't allowed?"
Cal squeezed my hand. "They could say we staged it to throw suspicion off us to mislead the investigation."
I scoffed so hard it hurt my throat. "That's ridiculous."
"I agree," Doc said. "But I've seen a lot of unbelievably boneheaded criminals over the years. This wouldn't be the craziest plan in the bunch. Close, but not quite."
"Have you asked Matt Connors about his ketamine supply at his clinic?" I asked.
"He's looking in to it." Doc's suspicious gaze landed on me.
I tried not to shrink under his scrutiny. "Ketamine is an animal tranquilizer. It's not hard to think Doctor Connor is the logical choice for supplying the drug."
"Uh huh," Doc said, tipping up the bottle and sucking up the contents into his syringe. "You have anything to add, Cal?"
"Nope."
Doctor Smith frowned. "Fine, but if you two are getting any ideas about trying to find Luke's killer, I would caution you against it." He flicked his gaze to me. "You know that we have your back. Your parents, Chav and Me, Sunny and Babe, and Willy Boden. We are all working hard to make sure this doesn't come down on you."
"I'm not worried about me," I said. I'd never even considered I might be a real suspect. "But Cal..."
"So, are you two a thing now?" Doc asked.
"I don't know what we are," I said honestly, "But I do know we're not murderers."
Doc frowned at Cal. "We'll talk about this later." The way he said it made my heart hurt. Would he and Chav, as the leaders of the werewolves forbid Cal from seeing me? Could he do that?
"Anything you have to say to Cal, you can say with me in the room," I said.
Doc raised his brow at Cal. "Hold her ankle still for me."
When Cal did, he plunged the needle into my ankle and depressed the plunger. It burned as if he'd pumped me full of rubbing alcohol, but only for a few seconds. By the time he withdrew the needle, the pain was only a dull ache.
"What is that miracle in a bottle?" I asked as I wiggled my toes. "Oh, it's spit, right? Lycan mouth juju as Sunny calls it."
"It's been sterilized and combined with lidocaine and a steroid for rapid relief. Even so, take it easy for a few days," Doc said. "You can walk on it as long as it's wrapped but no running or jumping."
He took a bandage from a shelf under the counter and wrapped my foot. "You both better get down to the Sheriff's to give your statements. Better to arrive on your own than in custody. And then maybe you both should lay low until Cal has been cleared of wrong doing. Chav said there was a lot of grumbling at Sunny's Outlook this morning, and Babel has had his share of phoned in complaints. If people see the two of you together, it will fuel the bigotry. Don't give them a reason to make things worse."
It made me angry, but I nodded. I had no intention of laying low, but it wouldn't serve any purpose to argue with him.
When the doc got ready to leave the room, I asked, "Do you know how Luke died?"
"I think so, but I need a few more tests to confirm my theory."
"Was it from a shifter attack? His face..."
"The wounds," Doc said, "happened after he died."
Chapter Thirteen
Cal took me back to Jo Jo's so I could get my truck. The extra clothes I kept for Linus in the toolbox also had a pair of tennis shoes in there for him. Linus, for a little guy, had slightly bigger feet than me, but the shoes worked. Especially since my right ankle had swelled some. After, I followed Cal into town to the Sheriff's Department. I dreaded running into Tyler after the way he'd acted at the crime scene. I knew the way he acted came from a place of fear, not hate. Taylor had lived for surprises, always trying new adventures, but Tyler, he'd thrived on routine. He never wanted anything to change. Heck, he'd even had a go at Sunny when she'd first come to town. In some ways, I was a little like him. I liked routine as well. It was comforting knowing how the day was going to play out. But after spending even a short amount of time with Cal, I was beginning to see the appeal of exploring the unknown.
There were dozens of cars lining the street leading to the Sheriff's Department, and even more people, both men and women, standing out on the sidewalks. Jack Trevors, Ludlow Davis, easy to pick out because of his bright red hair, and Madison West stood near the parking lot entrance and when Cal pulled in, Ludlow smacked the hood of his truck. I laid on my horn hard enough to make the chassis vibrate.
Ludlow looked over his shoulder at me and gave me the middle finger. As I approached the parking lot. He sneered, his face full of contempt. He smacked my hood as well. "Traitor!" he bellowed.
"Traitor," Madison West joined in. Soon, a few more voices joined the chant.
I rolled down my window as I passed by. "Screw you, Ludlow! Screw all of you!"
I pulled into a parking space next to Cal, and Eldin Farraday was waiting for us near the back. He waved to me, but before Cal and I could join him, someone hit me in the back with something hard. I whipped around and saw a cracked egg on the ground near my feet.
"Traitor!" I heard again, but I'd gone slightly numb. I grew up with these people and one of them had just egged me.
Cal roared, but he didn't get a chance to act, because, seemingly out of nowhere, my mom appeared. She shook a rolling pin in Ludlow's face. I think I blanched as much as Ludlow did. Madison and Jack must have seen my mom coming because they had both moved far enough away from the meathead that I couldn't see them anymore.
"I swear to all that is merciful I will make your life a living hell if you don't back off, Ludlow Davis." My mom snapped her non-rolling pin fingers in his face. "Right now!" Then she turned on the crowd and shook her kitchen weapon at them. "All of you! You should be plum ashamed of yourselves. This is not how we behave in Peculiar. Get home before you not only shame yourselves, but you put shame on your families." Willy Boden had joined Mom in her uniform with her hand on her weapon, and she stood behind her ready to back whatever play her bestie Ruth wanted to make.
"Your daughter is the one who should be ashamed," someone shouted.
Mom held the rolling pin up higher. "Who said that?" When no one claimed responsibility, Mom shouted. "Cowards! The lot of you. Now get your asses home!"
Several gasps went out among the mob. I gasped as well. Mom rarely uttered a curse word, so you knew she meant serious business when it happened. These folks were fixin' to get an old-fashioned butt whooping if they didn't do as they were told.
And they knew it, because within seconds, the sidewalks were cleared and vehicles were driving away. Mom stalked over to me and started dusting my back, picking small bits of egg shell off my shirt. "Are you okay, baby?"
"I'm okay." Tears threatened to spill over, and I gave her a firm hug.
She held me for a moment, and said, "Be brave." She gave me a motherly swat with the rolling pin on the heinie. "Go in and get it over with. I'll make sure no one messes with you all while you're here."
"Are you going to sit on the front steps and chase people away?" I asked, wiping my eyes.
"If I have to." She smacked the pin against her open palm, and Heaven help the jerk who tries to come after my girl."
Cal stepped up next to me. "Hello, Mrs. Thompson," he said. "That was a pretty bad ass move you made back there."
She adjusted her hair. "I don't suffer fools easily," she said.
"I can see that," he told her.
Eldin joined us. "Man, Ruth, Sheriff Taylor needs to hire you for riot control. You and that rolling pin are a better deterrent than tasers and fire hoses."
Mom gave him an accusing look. "If you all had been doing your job I wouldn't have been put in that situation in the first place."
"Are you going to take the rolling pin to Eldin, now, Mom?" Since she was completely riled up, I kept my tone neutral. "Remember, he's on our side. And it's not his fault some people are stupid."
Mom blinked
, her large brown eyes looking a little bewildered and lost. "I'm sorry, Eldin. You come over later, and I'll make it up to you with some apple pie."
"All is forgiven, Ruth." He glanced at me and Cal. "I better get these two inside."
Mom gave me another quick hug. "I love you," she said.
I teared up again. "I love you, too, Mom."
As we walked away from her, Cal leaned in close. "I've got to get me some of this famous pie."
I nudged him with my shoulder. "If you play your cards right."
Inside the police station, John Connelly took me to his desk, and Eldin took Cal to his. I was never so glad my brother Tyler had the day off.
"Here you go, Dakota," John said. "Fill out this witness statement form. The sheriff wants to talk with you and Rivers when you're finished." He gave me a sympathetic glance. "Take your time and try to be as accurate as possible."
Considering I didn't remember much from the time we were drugged until the time I woke up on the Hackenstraw property with a dead body, the form wasn't going to take me much time at all. I watched Eldin interact with Cal for a few seconds. He smiled as he handed Cal the form. Shook his head. Both of them even chuckled once. Maybe Cal would get a fair shake, at least with law enforcement. Doctor Smith most likely faxed over the preliminary reports, at least on our blood work, so they'd be nuts to think Cal had been with it enough to kill Luke. At the very least it would give a strong case for reasonable doubt.
I noticed their white board, where they registered arrests and complaints was covered with a black sheet. I kept looking up at it as I filled in all the questions, dotted my i's, crossed my t's. There must be something of interest under there or the sheriff wouldn't have bothered to throw something over it before we came in.
I leaned over to Connelly. "Hey, John, what's up with the cloth?"
"Not allowed to say." His eyes danced to the board and back to me. "Sheriff's orders."
"So, you don't know?"
"I know. I'm just not allowed to say." He shook his head. "Don't try to bait me, Dakota. I live with the toughest interrogator in town. If Selena can't get it out of me, you have no shot."
Wow. He hadn't even told his wife. It had to be relevant to the case, then. John Connelly was a squirrel shifter, and his wife Selena was a bear shifter. They were one of the predator-prey exceptions. They had two children now, and I wondered how they managed to make it work. Especially on the full moon.
"Do you and Selena ever have any issues?"
He frowned. "Like what?"
"You know, with her being a bear and you being a squirrel."
"Nope."
I cocked my head sideways. "Do you still run on the Hackenstraw property?"
"Full moons, yes."
"So, not together."
"Nope."
"Do you ever worry she might attack you or the kids on a full moon?" His kids were squirrel shifters like him.
"This conversation is making me uncomfortable," John said. He adjusted the height of his chair and swiveled back and forth as if testing it.
"Oh." I sat back. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be rude." I glanced over at Cal who looked up at me from his clipboard, smiled, and gave me a finger wave. I smiled back.
"I get it," John said. "You're worried what it means if you date someone like Rivers over there."
I wagged my fingers at him to shush him. "Keep your voice down," I whispered. "Lycanthropes have super good hearing."
"I'm no expert, but I will tell you, Selena and I were late for a full moon one month and we both turned in the house. This was before the kids, of course, but nothing happened. I mean, the furniture was trashed, and Selena had dug all the food out of the fridge during the night, but we woke up next to each other without a single scratch or bite mark. The only reason we haven't tried it again, is because of the kids. Not because I think she would hurt them, but because one of the other shifters might. I think there is an instinct even when we go into our animal's natural state that tells us when we're around the people we care about. Love. I don't know if it's like that with the lycanthropes, but you shouldn't be afraid to find out."
I rapidly blinked, reassessing everything I'd ever thought about John Connelly. Because he was a squirrel shifter, he was the butt of a lot of nut jokes, and sometimes it could be hard to take him seriously, especially since his wife, while nice, was the biggest gossip in town. Even so, his still waters ran deep. "Thank you, John. I appreciate your candor." This also meant, that maybe Cal and I running together on a full moon had not been a fluke. We knew each other, even when we didn’t.
He nodded. "You about finished?"
I printed my named, dated the form, then signed on the line below. "Finished," I said.
"I'll let the sheriff know."
Chapter Fourteen
I'm not sure what I expected but being placed in a small white room, with a white table, two chairs on one side and single one on the other, was not it. I was surprised they hadn't separated Cal and me. "Do you think they put us together hoping we would say something incriminating to each other?"
"Probably," he said. He pointed to a camera in the corner of the ceiling.
I stared at it for a second then turned my attention to a closed manila envelope sitting in the center of the table. "What do you think that is?"
"More smoke and mirrors," Cal said. "It's a ploy to make us think they have incriminating evidence. You know, to rattle us."
"It's working." I was rattled as all get out.
Cal slid his palm into mine and interlaced our fingers. "We didn't do anything wrong."
"Said every wrongful conviction," I retorted. I squeezed his hand. "You see stuff like this on TV, but you can't know how nerve-racking it is until you're in the hot seat."
"I get the idea that the last thing anyone in this town wants to do is find you guilty, of anything. You have a lot of folks around here on your side."
"What makes you say that?"
"I've been around this town long enough to hear things. Chavvah asked your mom about having nine children a few weeks ago, and your mom told her that if she didn't have you, she probably would have been put in a mental institution for tired moms years ago."
"I do what I can to help."
"Jo Jo told me you're a great mechanic, as good as your dad. And I've seen the way everyone treats you. You don't get that kind of respect because you're unreliable." Cal rubbed the back of my hand with his free one. "I've even heard some refer to you as perfect."
"I don't want to be perfect," I confessed. "Doing the right thing all the time is a lot of work."
"If it was easy, everyone would do it." He nudged me with his shoulder and smiled.
"You know I'm not perfect, right? Because, if that's why you want to date me, we should probably just end things now."
He took his hand out of mine. "Well, shoot, I feel like I've been sold a bill of goods."
"Har har." I grabbed his hand back. "You're in this now with me whether you like it or not."
"Then it's a good thing I like it."
Sheriff Taylor entered the room. He put his phone down on the table and pushed a red record button displayed on the screen. "Sheriff Sydney Taylor entering room at four p.m. on March twenty-second. Callum David Rivers and Dakota Augusta Thompson are both seated in the room."
Cal raised a brow at me and mouthed the word, "Augusta?"
I crossed my eyes at him. "It's a family name."
"Are you two done playing footsy?" Sheriff Taylor asked using his most official and scary tone.
Cal's foot, which had been up against mine, moved an inch or two away. However, he kept a hold of my hand. "Good afternoon, Sheriff," he said respectfully. "What can we do for you?"
"I've done some digging on you, Mr. Rivers. You were in the army for four years, and a member of the military police corps for the last two years of service. After you were discharged, you signed up for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Academy, then spent the next several years in law en
forcement." The sheriff settled himself back in a chair across from us. He tapped the envelope expectantly.
"All that is true," Cal replied. "You got me. I was a law-abiding citizen."
"Until," the sheriff continued, "three years ago when you, suddenly quit your job, without notice I might add. The very same night a wanted fugitive was mauled to death by a wild animal." The sheriff opened the envelope and pulled out a photo of a scruffy man with graying hair who had deep slashes across his face and chest, also with a good portion of his throat torn.
I let go of Cal's hand and pressed my palm into my roiling stomach. "I..." I vomited across the table and the photo.
The sheriff and Cal both jumped up to avoid splatter of mostly bile as I puked again. The sheriff pressed a red button on the wall, and Connelly rushed inside the door, his gun drawn, with Farraday on his tail, taser at the ready.
"Sorry, sorry," I muttered when the wave of nausea passed. "It just hit me."
Eldin made a face when he saw the sick all over the table surface. "I'll go get some cleaning supplies.
Cal's expression hardened. "I think she needs some water."
"I'm fine," I said feeling much better than I had moments before. "It passed."
Sheriff Taylor rose to his feet and shook his head. "We're not staying in this room."
The sharp stench of stomach acids burned my nostrils. "I'm sorry," I said again.
"The pictures were disturbing, Dakota." The sheriff managed to look contrite. "I'm sorry you had to see them."
I nodded. Only, it wasn't the pictures that had made me sick. "I think it's a side effect of being drugged I told him. I feel okay now."
Cal stood up and moved to put himself between me and Connelly, who still had his gun drawn. "Can you put that away?"
The sheriff nodded at his deputy. "It's all right, John. I think we're going to take this to my office to finish."
Once Connelly holstered his pistol and departed, Cal said, "Wait." He pulled his shirt off, and while I wasn't opposed to the gun show, his sudden exhibitionism confused me.
Until he pointed at the round scar on his shoulder, then another that he hadn't shown me at the apex of his stomach, and another on his hip. When he turned, there were two more scars near his mid-back. "I didn't know Rick O'Brien was a wanted fugitive when I pulled him over."