by Laura Wylde
“So, you just left that night, without saying goodbye?”
“Your dad said he was going to tell you about this and turn you against me. I had killed the two deputies and I mauled him. He was the sheriff even back then and I knew if I didn’t leave, he was going to succeed in killing me as he had failed to before. Between that and you hating me, I just couldn’t do it. I had to leave.”
I could understand more of it now. There was pain in his eyes, and I could only imagine what it would be like to hold that sort of secret. I didn’t want to tell anyone my own secret. It was locked tight in my memory where I tried to keep it buried. It was the best that I could do to not feel it. Is that how he felt about me? Did I bring him that sort of pain? I really didn’t like the idea of it. I also couldn’t believe that Dad knew and didn’t tell me, though it does make sense why he was so sure that he didn’t want me to have Baron’s baby. What would that have even looked like?
“I knew that it was something that was keeping you away from me. I know that it’s hard to take it all in at once, but for the longest time, I thought you just got sick of me, moved on and didn’t want to tell me. You never were very confrontational.”
He moved closer in the bed and pulled me to him. His arms and shoulders were strong enough for both of us, and I cried a little bit. It was from relief and a little fear. I knew that he hadn’t moved on and found someone better. I don’t know why, but it was comforting to know that, even though the real reason was far worse. It was better to know that he had to leave and not that he wanted to, though then there was my father and that was a whole other ballgame. I almost told Baron about what happened when he left, and I found out I was pregnant, but there is nothing that we could do about it now. It would only make relations between him and my father worse. I knew that they hated each other, and it didn’t seem wise to mess with either one of them.
“You’re not afraid of me in my bear form?”
“Well at first, it’s shocking, but you seem harmless. You were towards me; that’s when I knew that it was really you and that everything was going to be okay.”
“Harmless? What about the scratches and all of that?”
I didn’t have an answer for that yet, but by the way he’d acted, I had a feeling that he didn’t have it in him. Yes, he would do something like that to Dad and his deputies, but it sounded like self-defense to me and considering I knew how my father was, it made more sense that way than any other way. It made sense that Baron do that to save his own life, but killing random people didn’t seem like his MO.
Then it occurred to me that whoever knew this secret about Baron would have been able to use his homecoming as a chance to off a few people. But I didn’t get what that meant and who it would be. It also stands to reason that the only way he was going to be blamed was for someone to oust him. I didn’t want to think that it was possible.
“Are you sure no one else knows about you and how you are?”
I didn’t know what to call it, so I skipped over the words, trying not to let it bother me too much.
“I don’t know. I don’t think there was anyone else there that night who survived except your father. He could have told people, or someone could have seen something. I don’t know. I left. I don’t even know how or why I’m like this, so I don’t know what to say about the rest of it. I just know that I didn’t kill anyone. I really don’t think I did.”
“So, you think that someone else is a shifter in town? How does someone become a shifter?”
I knew that he’d read all of those books, but I thought he would have a more personal answer. I wanted to know how he became a bear shifter.
“I don’t know honestly. I wish I knew because I would want to see if I could be changed back. The books that I’ve read suggest that it is hereditary, but I don’t know much about my family or if any of them have it. It’s only supposed to effect males of a shifter bloodline. Since I don’t even really know Dad or where he is now, there is not much I can do but try and track down bear attacks. Most of them are legit, but there have been several that showed signs of it being something more along the lines of someone like me.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. This is crazy, but it looks like someone that knows what you are is trying to get you arrested. Do you have anyone here that wants to do that?”
He looked at me like I was being silly and then it occurred to me that he was talking about Dad. Dad certainly had an alibi, and I was still thrown off by the fact that he knew it was a person we were looking for.
“If it was my dad, which I wouldn’t put it past him, I just wonder how he did it? How would he kill those people like he did and why? And then how is he going to convince everyone that you did it without outing the fact that you’re…this?”
I was stumped as well with my questions. I knew that Dad was capable of murder, but not murder for random kicks. It didn’t make sense. I hated my father, but I didn’t want to believe that he would hold a grudge and try to hurt Baron after all this time. But who am I kidding? It sounds exactly like something that my dad would do.
“I don’t know, Kayla. I am still trying to figure out how I got scratches all over me, and I didn’t leave the hotel or break anything or be seen. None of this makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t, but I’m going to figure this out. There’s no way that I’m going to let Dad or anyone else do this to you. I would never forgive myself. You’ve gone through enough because of me.”
“You know that you’re worth it though, Kayla. I would go through this and so much more. Anything to be with you. I wish I would have realized this sooner. It could have saved us both a lot of grief.”
I kissed him and agreed, though he’d never know how much grief that had been. That was to just be my grief. I didn’t want to share that with anyone, not even the man I loved.
Chapter 15
Kayla
I didn’t know how I was going into work Monday morning and see my father, talk to him and pretend that I didn’t know what was going on. I knew everything now or almost everything, and I wanted to know why. I had questions for him, but they were not questions that were meant to be asked. I wasn’t supposed to know, so I couldn’t ask about it. All I knew for sure was that Dad had ruined mine and Baron’s life enough. I wasn’t going to let someone, anyone, frame him for a crime that he didn’t commit. I just wasn’t going to let that happen.
Freddy was early, and he wanted to know what we were doing today. Ever since I referred back to him a couple of times, he seemed eager to get my opinion. I was the better investigator, and that wasn’t just said in vain. It was said with the knowledge that I was. I care. Maybe too much and this case in particular had me wondering how I was going to make this work. I had to figure out who was behind this before whoever framed him made their move. I had a feeling that now that Dad had told me that he was a suspect, there was going to be evidence and testimony brought in soon enough. I had to find out the truth of that before it was too late, and it was pinned on Baron. I knew he was innocent, even if everything pointed to him being guilty. I knew that he wasn’t.
“I was thinking that we would have a look at the scene of the second victim. I don’t know why, but I feel like we should do a once-over in the light of day and see if anything pops out at us. We need a lead.”
He agreed, and it was nice not to have him questioning everything that I said and suggested. Something had happened in the last week, and we were getting along better than ever before. I wasn’t sure what it was that had changed, but I was just going to be thankful for it. I never wanted to fight with him. He was my partner, after all.
Freddy drove because my mind was still trying to figure out a way to find out the real truth and catch the real killer. I was somehow thinking that this was related to the attack on my dad, but now I knew that it wasn’t the case. We weren’t looking for a bear either. I was now looking for a person, and there was a good chance that they could turn into a huge bear like Baron d
id. That didn’t put my mind at ease. I knew that much for sure. I was worried about running into that sort of person alone, and I was actually happy to have a partner today.
“What do you think we’re going to find there?”
I shrugged because I wasn’t really sure. First, I wanted to see if there was evidence of the first case, but I also wanted to corroborate another story that had taken place there. I wasn’t sure if I didn’t believe him, because I did believe Baron, but I wanted to see it for myself. I had to know that he wasn’t just in my head. I would never forgive myself if I let my feelings for him cloud my judgement in other ways. I just had to be sure before I moved forward on Dad. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Dad could do it, but what I was thinking was going to happen next was going to be big. I needed to fact check just this once before I turned my back on everything that I’d been working towards for the last ten years.
When we got to the scene, memories came flooding back into my mind, and I tried one last time to find tracks leading out of the house. They moved into the building and then they disappeared. While Freddy was awestruck by those facts, I wasn’t. I knew what it meant. It meant that I wasn’t looking for a bear or a man. I was looking for a shifter. Walking around the woods around the house, I told Freddy that I was looking for any clues or something discarded, but I was really looking for a tree that wasn’t supposed to be too far from the house.
I knew that I was looking at it when I saw it. There was part of a chain still attached to it, deep scratches high up in the tree and when I toed the leaves around the tree, it wasn’t long before I found a decaying rope, raveled and dark-colored in some spots. I would have bet anything that the dark spots were blood. Everything he said had been true and for some reason, that gutted me further.
This was the tree where it had all happened, and now I knew for sure which side I was on. I believed Baron before, I really did, but there was something inside of me that had to be sure. I was not going to forsake my career and go against blood without being one hundred percent sure. What I was going to have to do next had to be done, and now I could do it without anything in the back of my head wondering. Dad was going to make excuses and deny it, but now I had all the proof that I needed.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
I looked up at Freddy and smiled. “I think so.”
“More tracks?”
He didn’t know what I was looking for. “No, no tracks at all. This isn’t just an open and shut case. A bear doesn’t just disappear into thin air.”
“So now what?”
“We need to go to the last crime scene and look again. Talk to the witness again. Something.”
I knew that I was grasping at straws, but I had to do this. I had to figure this out, and I was sure that if I just went over it all again, something would finally pop in my head, and it would make some sense. Both bodies were found at night and a daylight search was what I was hoping was needed to root out what was going on here. I just had to get Baron out of my father’s grasp. He wasn’t able to kill him, so he had to put him away. He must bescared or intimidated by Baron for Dad to be acting this way and trying to set him up.
When we got to the third crime scene, everything looked different in the light of day and no dead body strewn in the yard. It was one of those times where I wished that I hadn’t got into police work at all. I wanted to help, but maybe I was just feeding into Dad’s plan, and now I was going to have to figure out how to unravel it. There were still a few things that I was unsure of, but the more I thought about it, the surer I was that it was the sheriff behind it all. The one that was supposed to stand for truth and justice was the worst one of them all.
I was going through the yard, searching for something dropped in the heat of the moment or discarded. Freddy was looking on the other side of the fence in the back to see if something was thrown over, but I didn’t think that he was going to find anything. If my father had done it, he was going to be hard to catch. He knew how to not be caught.
The witness from the night of the crime came up to me and asked if I knew who had done it.
“I’ve been sleeping with one eye open, when I do sleep. We’d all feel much better when this horrible person is off the street.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“Well, you told me to call you if I remembered anything. I lost your card though.”
“Did you remember anything from the other night that might be pertinent to the investigation to help us get this guy off of the street any faster?”
“He had cuts on his chest and arms.”
“Cuts? You know, like scratches.”
“The ME didn’t find anything under the victim’s nails. Are you sure that you saw that?”
She agreed that she was sure, and I knew then that she was lying. I just didn’t understand why. What was she hiding or who was she covering for? It made no sense. How did she know about the scratches if Baron wasn’t actually there? Could he have actually done it? He said himself that sometimes he couldn’t control it.
Now I was even more confused, and I didn’t know what to do. It was hard for me to do small talk with Freddy when we were on our way back. I was still trying to figure it all out, but there were some missing pieces.
“Did we ever find out what the witness did? Did we do a background check on her? I don’t recognize her.”
“I’m pretty sure she works at that small diner out by the highway. She has come to see your dad a couple of times at the precinct after her husband beat her, and one of the deputies had to shoot him. How do you not remember this?”
“That wasn’t the story that I got, though I vaguely remember it now. Are you sure that’s her?”
He nodded his head that he was sure and that gave me an idea, though there were still many missing pieces to find before I could put this story to rest in my head. I was getting closer though. Freddy was helping, whether he knew it or not.
Chapter 16
Baron
When Kayla left me this morning at the hotel, she promised me that she wasn’t going to do anything stupid. I don’t want her to fight my battles for me. I was more than capable of doing that myself.
She had something against her father, of that I was sure, but I didn’t want her fighting him. Not when I was here for him, among other things. I was on the fence about Mike, because of who his daughter was. I still was. But now it was more to keep her safe from doing something stupid. She’d had that kamikaze look in her eyes that I knew well.
After getting dressed, I was about to leave when I felt someone close. My shifter instinct was raising up hackles. I was worried that I was going to change again. I really needed to get ahold of my emotions but being around Kayla again was screwing me up big time. I just wanted her so badly, and I wanted this to work. If anyone was going to stand in the way, they wouldn’t be standing for long.
Telling myself that I was just on edge, it was only when I put my hand on the knob that I saw the shadow behind the front door. It was a cheap one that came crashing in not long after I moved back because I knew something was going to happen. It was hard to figure out what was going on, but I immediately recognized one of the men from when I was at the police station. I don’t remember his name, but I knew his face, and the fact that he had a gun in his hand did not settle me. It appeared that I didn’t have to go to Mike. He was coming to me.
There were three more men with him, and it occurred to me then that at least Mike didn’t come halfcocked. He had learned from the last time, and I was going to take that as a compliment.
“Are you here to shoot and kill or kidnap?”
The man I recognized smiled and moved closer.
“We’re taking you to see the boss. I don’t know what you did to him, but he is pissed off at you. I would hate to be you right now. Boss has a way of breaking men like you.”
The man was trying to taunt me, but I was pretty sure that Mike hadn’t told anyone what I was capable of. These m
en, no matter how many there were, were human, and I could have taken them. I knew that, but I wanted to see Mike. Now they were going to take me to some closed-off place that would have no witnesses. I knew that it was a trap, a poorly laid one at that, but it had been a decade since he’d fought me, and if he hadn’t gotten into his vehicle and run away, he would have been as dead as his deputies. He had been lucky before, but this time, I wanted to make sure that he wasn’t as lucky. The man needed a reckoning, and I was more than willing to be the one that gave it to him.
“Come on, Baron. You can come with us the easy way or the hard way.”
I kind of grinned and put my hands up like I wasn’t going to fight them. A bullet or two probably wouldn’t kill me, but there was always that chance, and I did not get Kayla back into my life to lose her again. That wasn’t the plan.
I was pushed from behind, and the leader of the fivesome told me to follow him. There was an SUV out front, and they insisted that I get into the trunk. I didn’t like the idea of it, but it wouldn’t take much to get free if I had to. There was always my true form ready to come out, and I hoped that I could keep it in as long as I needed to. I was done hiding, and I was done living without Kayla. Getting rid of her father once and for all was the only way that I was going to be able to get my life back.
The trunk was smaller than it looked because I was tall and cramped up into it. I don’t know why they did this, only that it would give them bigger kudos points when it came time to give me to Mike. It would look like they roughed me up a bit, though I had to think that Mike must not have cared too much for them. That, or he was underestimating me still. He thought five would be enough, but he really had no clue what I was capable of. He was capable of treachery and slyness that changed people’s lives, but I was capable of mass violence and destruction.
