Waking Hearts

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Ollie glanced across the car, taking in the button-down shirt and light brown pants his friend was wearing, then down at his old jeans and black concert tee. “I don’t own any chinos, Biff.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You keep everyone busy. I’ll ask Simon a few questions. He might need to leave before the aromatherapy.”

  “Bad karma, man. Interrupting a man’s aromatherapy.”

  “What can I say? I live dangerously.”

  THE spa didn’t have a sign in front. It did have very high walls and lush plantings that screened it from the regular mortals who drove by on the highway. From the front, you’d think it was an estate. Ollie turned in the service entrance, knowing the Bronco would raise too many eyebrows with the valet. He parked behind a pool house and hopped out, taking a moment to gauge the scents and sounds of the place.

  Quiet. The grounds smelled of eucalyptus and sage.

  “Do we know where he is?” Ollie asked.

  “I called my friend. Massage cabanas are by the pool.”

  Ollie lifted his chin and headed toward the smell of chlorine. Walking along the shaded paths, he passed a few attendants who gave him curious glances, but no one spoke. This wasn’t the type of place where you chatted with the clientele. He saw the blue shimmer of the pool through the trees along with two other men who stood silently nearby.

  He caught Alex’s eye and paused behind a screen of bamboo.

  “This is not the guy who searched her house,” he said in a low voice. “A grunt does not warrant two guards.”

  “Maybe one of the guards?”

  Ollie peered through the bamboo. It was possible. He couldn’t remember the faces, but he’d remember the scents. The pool was isolated, and the man in the cabana was the only guest in sight. Quiet harp music drifted through the air, and Ollie couldn’t hear any attendants nearby.

  “I need to get closer if I’m going to figure out who might have been at Allie’s.”

  Alex shrugged, a calculating glint in his eye. “Or we could just grab whoever’s sitting on that massage table and get curious.”

  The bear in Ollie liked that idea a lot. He nodded and walked around the screen, heading toward the isolated group with Alex at his back. The first guard tried to stop him, putting up a hand that barely reached Ollie’s chest.

  Why did they always assume he would stop when they did that? He didn’t.

  “Sir, this is a private—”

  Ollie took a deep breath, but this man’s scent wasn’t familiar. He lifted an elbow to the guard’s face, slamming it into his cheek. A stunned breath escaped the dark-suited man, then he crumpled under the force of the blow. The other guard came running, his hand already on a weapon as Alex cut around the lawn and toward the back of the cabana.

  Well trained. The other guard had been listening for his partner, but he wasn’t expecting two men.

  The bear took another sniff and rumbled in satisfaction.

  Oh yeah. This was one of them. The guard didn’t draw fast enough. Ollie’s lip curled up and he rushed him, his long legs eating up the gravel path between them before the man could get out a shout. He reached for the guard’s gun first, twisting it away from the man before he grabbed the guard in a breath-stealing headlock.

  “You and me,” he murmured. “We’re going to have a conversation while my friend talks to your boss.”

  The guard tried to twist around to see the man on the table, but Ollie held him in place, his elbow cutting off the man’s voice. Ollie glanced over at Alex to see his friend holding a vicious-looking knife to the neck of the half-naked man. He was pale and soft. Hell, maybe he really was an accountant.

  Slowly, the man rose, and Alex tossed a sage-green robe toward him. He put it on and slid into the soft slippers the spa provided.

  “I hear voices,” Ollie said.

  “Me too. Let’s get these two to the car.”

  The pale man put on his glasses and brushed his sandy-brown hair away from his forgettable features. Ollie was a professional observer of humans and their interactions, but he didn’t think he’d ever met a man as purposefully forgettable as this one. If he’d been coming into the Cave for a month, Ollie wouldn’t have noticed him.

  “I do hope you know who I am.” He had a slight accent Ollie thought might be British. Or possibly Australian. “Even if you don’t,” he continued, “this is extremely foolish.”

  “Yeah?” Ollie said, keeping his arm firm around the guard’s neck. “It’s also foolish to attract my attention.”

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  Ollie found no reason not to tell him. It wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be able to guess from a general description. “The name’s Oliver Campbell.”

  A flicker in his eyes and a glance at the guard told Ollie that the pale man knew exactly why they’d been taken.

  “And I’m gonna assume you’re Simon Ashford,” Alex said. “Nice to meet you, Simon. My friend and I have some questions for you.”

  Holding the knife at Ashford’s back, Alex escorted him down the path as Ollie brought up the rear, his arm still around the shorter guard’s neck. He kicked the fallen guard into the bushes as they passed him. He’d be fine, though he’d have a hell of a shiner.

  A groundkeeper stepped into their path, eyes wide and holding a ladder and a rake. Without a word, the man turned and ran.

  “Time to go,” Alex said. “Luckily, there’s more than enough room in the back of the car.”

  Ashford piped up. “I hope you know—”

  Alex clocked him on the back of the head. The man went down and Alex hoisted him over one shoulder, carrying him in a fireman’s hold. “It’s not your turn to talk yet.”

  The frantic legs of the guard bounced off Ollie’s shins.

  “That’s right,” he said to the scrambling guard. “You get to talk first.”

  The man fell still.

  “You get up to anything interesting lately?” Ollie growled as they reached the Bronco.

  No reaction from the guard.

  “Meet any bears?”

  The scent of urine filled the air. Then Ollie slugged the man and tossed him in the back of the Bronco with his unconscious boss.

  It was time to find a quiet place and get some answers. Ollie knew just where to go.

  BOTH men were groggy but awake when they reached the abandoned gas station near Thermal. The guard was muttering nervously. Simon Ashford was utterly silent, watching Alex and Ollie with preternatural calm and calculating eyes.

  Ollie kept Ashford in the corner of his vision but focused his attention on the guard, whose scent had been all over Allie’s property. He was younger, midtwenties at most, but had deep, pitted acne scars that aged him and sharp black eyes that had given up years ago. He was Latino, and his accent said LA or Orange County.

  Ollie placed a sturdy wooden chair in the center of the room and tied the guard to it with the zip ties he always left in the truck. The man’s face was relatively unscathed, though there was a large knot swelling at the back of his head.

  Ollie stood in front of him and kept his voice low. “What’s your name?”

  The guard said nothing. His eyes kept returning to the frighteningly silent man in the corner with Alex.

  It was one situation where Ollie knew keeping silent wasn’t going to work. He bent down and spoke directly into the guard’s ear.

  “You afraid he’s gonna hurt you?”

  An almost imperceptible nod.

  “Alex.” He turned to his friend. “Take Mr. Ashford out to the car, will you?”

  “Sure thing.” Alex nudged Ashford with the edge of hunting knife.

  Then Ollie and the guard were alone.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “I don’t think… I shouldn’t—”

  “They pay you to think or follow orders?”

  The response was so quick Ollie was sure he’d answered the question more than once.

  “Follow orders,”
he said.

  “Well, your boss is gone, so now you’re following mine.”

  Still keeping silent. Clearly he hadn’t scared the man enough.

  Ollie bent down, grabbed the man’s hair and yanked back, almost strangling him with the sudden angle. “Does that hurt?”

  A strangled sound that resembled yes.

  “See, man, you’re afraid of Ashford hurting you, but I think you’re forgetting something.”

  The guard froze.

  “I already hurt you,” Ollie murmured. “And I’m gonna hurt you more unless you tell me why you were in my girl’s house, tearing up her stuff.”

  The odor of adrenaline and urine colored the air.

  “You get me?” Ollie asked.

  The man whispered, “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Adrian.”

  “Adrian, did you break into my girl’s house?”

  “Yes.”

  “You been warned about coming into our town?”

  A pause. “Everyone knows not to go out there.”

  “But you did anyway.”

  Another pause.

  “Did Lobo tell you to do that?”

  “No.”

  “Did Ashford?”

  Nothing.

  Ollie let Adrian’s hair go, stepped back, and contemplated what he’d seen of the two men. Adrian was clearly a follower, but though Ashford appeared to be an employee of this Lobo character, there was nothing of the follower in the man’s demeanor. Ollie could smell the cold calculation on Ashford from a mile away. The man might look like an accountant, but he was far more than that.

  “Who’s your boss?” Ollie asked Adrian.

  The man paused. “Lobo is.”

  “Who told you to search the woman’s house?”

  “Ashford.”

  Not Lobo.

  Interesting.

  Ollie asked, “Did you kill Joe Russell?”

  “No.” The answer was swift.

  “You know who did?”

  More silence.

  Ollie asked, “What were you looking for at her house?”

  “The money. Lobo wants it back.”

  “Says who? Ashford? Pinky said the game was a fair win. So why would your boss make Pinky look like a fool?”

  “Ashford says Lobo doesn’t care about—” The man cut off his own words, glancing at the closed door where Alex had led Simon Ashford.

  “Care about what, Adrian?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Lobo doesn’t care about making Pinky look like a fool? What about Bull Rusconi in the Di Stefano crew? Lobo care about him? Is this really coming from your boss, or is it coming from that pasty accountant you’re guarding?”

  The guard began to shake his head, his body trembling. “You’re killing me.”

  “Not yet. You keep talking, and we’ll see what happens.”

  “Killing me, man,” the guard repeated. “No way I’m leaving here alive.”

  “Who?” Ollie glanced at the door. “Ashford? My friend has him, and he’s not the kind of guy you mess with. You just worry about me right now.”

  “I can’t…” The guard looked at him. “I didn’t want to grab your woman or those kids. Tony Razio told everyone she was yours. But he’ll kill me.”

  “Who? Lobo?”

  “He’ll kill me, man!”

  Ollie asked, “What about Razio?”

  “You might put me in the hospital, but he’ll kill me without a second thought.”

  Ollie’s anger spiked. “Did you kill Tony Razio?”

  “No! That was Lobo’s boys on the inside. He’s got a whole gang of them in there.”

  “Who else was with you that night?”

  “Some guy.” Adrian shook his head. “New guy. I was supposed to… but then the bear.” Adrian glanced at Ollie. “I never seen a bear like that in real life. What kind of insane bitch keeps a guard bear?”

  Allison Smith, dickhead. She’s got a guard bear whether she likes it or not.

  “Where’s the other guy?”

  “Chepe? He freaked, man. Never saw him again. He started spouting off to Ashford about how there was creepy shit out there. How that wasn’t just a bear. Said he’d heard rumors… I didn’t believe him, you know?”

  The look on Adrian’s face told Ollie that the guard was starting to believe all sorts of things now.

  He felt his phone buzz in his pocket, but he ignored it. There was no noise from outside and no one ever came out to this old service station. It had been abandoned when his father had been a boy.

  “Who wants the money back, Adrian? Is it Lobo, or is it Ashford?”

  Adrian was almost crying. “I don’t know, man. I’ve never even met Lobo. I thought I was doing a job for the Di Stefanos, but when I got to the club where I was supposed to meet one of their boys, Ashford was there. He had a better offer. That’s all I know. That’s all I want to know.”

  His phone buzzed again, but Ollie ignored it. He was starting to wonder who was really the brains behind this new crew. Lobo was a mythical bogeyman, and so far, Simon Ashford seemed like the more dangerous player. He was also the kind who would have pegged Joe Russell as a desperate man from a mile away.

  Adrian’s shoulders were slumped. His head hung, and Ollie could see the sweat lining the man’s once-pristine collar.

  His phone pinged with a text. Ollie finally grabbed it.

  Three from Allie.

  Shit.

  Answer your phone.

  Please pick up.

  I don’t think Lobo’s a nickname.

  Just as he read the last, a car door slammed outside the building and Ollie heard Alex start to curse.

  “Oh hell no!” Adrian yelled, starting to pull on his wrists, which were zip-tied to the chair. “Let me go!”

  Alex shouted, “Ollie!”

  He strode out of the crumbling building, leaving Adrian tied to the chair. “What’s going on?”

  Alex was raging. “He fucking shifted.”

  “What?”

  “He shifted in front of me!”

  How?

  Who?

  A million questions shot into his mind, but Ollie’s eyes swung around the barren parking lot. “What is he?”

  “A damn snake. He slipped under the floorboards of your old wreck. I have no idea where he is. Just a pile of clothes in the back of the Bronco.”

  As soon as Alex said snake, Ollie ran for the door.

  It was too late. Adrian’s leg was a mass of blood and torn fabric.

  Ollie couldn’t see a snake anywhere, but Adrian was shaking and yelling, “I told you! I told you!”

  A sheen of sweat bloomed on the man’s forehead. He was panicking, and Ollie knew he’d been bitten. The poison was now surging through his bloodstream.

  “Adrian, you need to calm down,” Ollie said. “We’ll get you some help. Alex!”

  “I’m dead. I knew it. I’m so dead.”

  “Deep breaths, man.”

  They were half an hour from the nearest hospital, but even snake shifter bites, far more toxic than a wild snake, were rarely deadly unless they went untreated. The safest course would be to take him to Ted, who was rarely short of antivenin and could be discreet, but could they wait an hour and a half? His leg was bleeding profusely, almost as if the snake had bitten then torn the skin.

  “Please,” Adrian begged. “Please, don’t let me die.”

  Alex stood in the doorway. “He doesn’t look good. I’ll call Ted.”

  Ollie took out his knife, and the human flinched. He bent over the man and swiftly cut the plastic strips that tied him to the chair. He cut away the pant leg from around the bites and winced.

  There were four deep bites going up his leg. The shifter had aimed for the softer flesh on the interior of Adrian’s legs. Luckily, the young man was muscular enough that the fangs could only go so deep. The amount of swelling around the bites told Ollie the snake had still managed to push a sizable amount o
f venom into the young man’s system.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna move you, Adrian.”

  “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t—”

  “We’re not leaving you.” He and Alex might have been fine with interrogating the man—even roughing him up if he didn’t cooperate—but they weren’t monsters. “We’ll get you to a doctor.”

  “Can you call my mom?”

  Christ, how old was this kid? Ollie had thought he was in his late twenties, but the look on his face put him closer to a teenager. Despite his misgivings, Ollie felt his protective nature rise.

  “I’m going to pick you up, and it’s gonna hurt like a bitch. Try not to pass out.”

  Adrian nodded, his face already pale and sweating. Ollie decided they couldn’t afford to wait for Ted. He lifted Adrian up and carried him toward the Bronco.

  Alex lifted the window and dropped the tailgate of the truck. “Ted said if he’s already sweating to get him to the hospital.”

  “Got it.”

  Adrian started to shiver.

  “What kind of snake was it, Alex?”

  “I couldn’t see. I just saw Ashford’s clothes.”

  Adrian started babbling in Spanish. Ollie wasn’t fluent enough to understand him, but Alex was. He got in the back seat, leaning over the bench and speaking to the man who lay in the back while Ollie started the truck.

  “He’s saying something about Ashford.”

  “What?”

  A longer stream of Spanish.

  “Shit,” Alex said. “I think this kid was there when they killed Joe.”

  Did you kill Joe Russell?

  No.

  But he’d never said he hadn’t been there.

  “Find out what he knows before he passes out!”

  Ollie didn’t want the kid to die, but he still wasn’t his best friend. Alex hammered Adrian with questions, and the kid practically wept when he answered.

  “I’m pretty sure Ashford killed Joe. Lobo wasn’t even there.” A pause while Adrian spoke. Then Alex continued, “He didn’t tell them anything. Not even where he was from. They didn’t know he was from the Springs until the papers reported it. That’s when they searched Allie’s house.”

  More panicked words from Adrian. Softer questions from Alex.

  “He says that Joe was laughing at Ashford. Said he’d never find the money, even when Ashford threatened his family. He said… I think Joe said something about a hotel?”