Shades of Deception

by Piper Dow

  David sighed, leaning back on one of the nearby desks. “Look, I know you don’t trust me, and you have no reason to. I have answers, though. I can help you, and I think you can help me. Would you at least hear me out?”

  Kelly reached out a hand toward the wet towel he still held. When he handed it to her, she used it to wipe her face off before tossing it on the top of the vomit in the trash can. Wordlessly she straightened from the desk, reached down to grab her backpack, and walked to the door. She turned to see him watching her from his spot near the trash can. Tipping her head, she waited until he took a few steps toward her before opening the door and walking out of the room. He matched her stride as she headed for the end of the building away from the cafeteria.

  “Where did he go?”

  “Back up to Bridgeville. He said he’s got deliveries to make.”

  Kelly glanced at him as they took the stairs to the first floor. She stayed silent as they wound their way through a crowd in the vestibule, then pushed the door open and stepped out on the sidewalk. Kelly’s eyes swept the campus quickly as she headed for the bus stop. Halfway across campus, though, she stopped. Turning to face David, she waited.

  “He’s a werecoyote.”

  Kelly stared at him. She wanted to accuse him of thinking she was an idiot, of lying to her, but she could think of no plausible explanation for what she had just seen.

  “Never heard of those,” she finally said, looking around campus again.

  He nodded. “Most people think werewolf, but those are actually bigger and less accommodating.”

  Kelly shot him a glance to see if he was being sarcastic. To his credit, he was keeping a straight face. He continued looking steadily into her face. “Werecoyote are cunning and sneaky. They are more in control of their actions when they change than werewolves are. You saw Mark - as a werecoyote, he can control how much he changes, and when. He keeps greater control of his urges, so to speak, when he does change. A werewolf would likely not have been able to only show you a peek, and once changed, would react as an animal if provoked.” He rattled off the information like Wayne comparing hood scoops or manifolds when he was thinking about changing something on his car.

  “What do you change into?” Kelly asked boldly.

  David was shaking his head. “I told you, I’m not one of them. I don’t change into anything - what you see is what you get.”

  “Hmph. So, sneaky, drug dealing fan-boy it is, huh?” Kelly almost regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, but none of this felt real to her. If she woke up and realized this had all been a dream, and she had allowed herself to be manipulated and patronized and hadn’t even tried to stand up for herself, she would be horrified.

  David was shaking his head again. “OK, maybe I worded that poorly. What you see is not exactly what you get, but I don’t change into anything - think of me as wearing a disguise. It’s taken me three years to get where I am in Mark’s organization, and I’ve only gotten this close because of my disguise. We’re at an impasse, though, and I could use your help.”

  Kelly surveyed his features skeptically. “Right. You’re some kind of undercover myth hunter, you’ve been working on this for years, and all of a sudden I’m the one who can help you? Not buying it, sorry. Come up with a better cover story, see if I bite.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and braced her legs. “Go ‘head. But hurry it up, because I’m getting cold.” She was getting cold. A wave of shivers crossed her shoulders, and she tightened her crossed arms.

  David was looking across campus, shaking his head at her attitude. “Listen, is there a library we can go to? The one on our campus has study rooms - I imagine most do. We could use one of those - it’d be warm, it’s open, so you’d know you were safe, and it’s private, so we know no one will overhear what we have to say. No, wait,” he put up one hand in the air, palm side toward her, as she made a motion to leave him standing there. “Mark will come looking for your family, Kelly. He wasn’t bluffing. You’re going to have to give him the book. If I can’t convince you to work with me, I still have to keep an eye on you - there’s so much more riding on this!” He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking out in strange places. “Could we just go to the library and talk?”

  Kelly sighed, then shivered again. Nodding once, she grabbed the straps of her backpack and altered her course toward the library.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “So you’re an undercover cop? Show me a badge,” Kelly said.

  They were sitting with the table between them, safely ensconced in one of the private study rooms in the history section.

  David rolled his eyes. “If I was an undercover cop, how stupid would I be to carry a badge on my person?” He asked. “But no, I’m not a cop. I work for a quasi-governmental taskforce. We’re like a black ops unit - meaning that there is no official recognition of the taskforce and no recognition of me as an agent at all. Yes, I know, this sounds far-fetched and like I’m trying to pull a terrible joke over on you. I’m not. Just let me explain.”

  He was leaning forward over the table, one arm stretched forward as if to pull understanding out of her. She had pushed her chair back from the table as far as it would go and sat stiffly, her arms crossed in front of her. She felt tightly strung, suspicious of every muscle twitch, every raised eyebrow of every person they had passed on the way to this room.

  “Yes, it does sound like some far-fetched story from the Twilight Zone or something. I don’t happen to like the Twilight Zone, by the way. Why don’t you just cut to the chase?”

  David leaned back in his chair, considering her. He shook his head.

  “No, you really need me to start at the beginning. You need to understand. I need you to understand - because you need that in order to be willing to work with me,” he said. “Just, listen. Take a deep breath, and listen.”

  For the next half hour, Kelly listened. She was skeptical, then horrified, disgusted, and finally, willing to give David the benefit of the doubt - doubt she still carried, in spades.

  “If you’re sure he’s part of this smuggling ring, why haven’t you moved in before now? Why wait until Jill and Sam got hurt?”

  “He’s definitely part of the smuggling ring. The problem is that the deeper I get in his organization, the bigger I find that the ring is. Shifters like Mark are called shades, because they operate just at the edge of society, using their skill-sets to blend, like shadows. They’re hard to police; some are more difficult than others. Initially, we thought it was drugs, and then we found out about the peyote and other cactus strains. Mark’s gotten very good at using the cactus on other people, and making concoctions that give ‘trips’ without nausea. He uses the cactus as a way to control the people around him. Then I found out about the bears. I don’t think he even really believes in them possessing any real medicinal value - he’s just in it for the money, and the thrill of being a player on the black market. From comments he’s made, though, I think he’s got an even more valuable commodity he’s been trading,” David had been watching the library beyond the study room through the windows as he spoke. Now he looked directly into Kelly’s eyes. “Jill isn’t dead, Kelly. I know that Sam thought she was - two of the coyotes smelled Sam’s presence when they were bringing Jill to the warehouse. Mark had miscalculated how much K it would take to make her compliant, and he knocked her out. He was turning her over.”

  Ice had entered Kelly’s veins. “What - what do you mean?” She whispered, horror-struck. “You mean, like a prostitute?”

  David was running his hands through his hair again, his elbows on the table. “I don’t know what they end up being used for - but yes, I mean he’s trafficking humans. He’s selective. He hasn’t taken too many from campus - I think he’s gotten a couple there, but he’s gotten more from cities nearby. I’ve seen a few of them, and then we don’t see them anymore. I’ve heard a few comments that make me think he’s selling them.”

  Kelly opened her mouth
to speak, then closed it. She began again. “And your plan is for me to help you - help you with what? I’m not going to -”

  “No! No,” David cut her off before she could finish her protest. “I absolutely am not asking you to put yourself in any more harm’s way than you already have,” he assured her. “But you have to realize - you already are in danger. You put yourself there when you went to Sam’s apartment. Mark is not going to forget that you have seen his products, and, probably even more importantly, you either have or will have the book. He’s going to believe that you will read it, right? He wouldn’t send anyone to get it, he made sure he came for it himself, and I’ve been expressly directed to call as soon as you find it. He was acting too casual about it, which leads me to believe that he’s concerned I will look at it, but afraid that if he tells me not to, it will make it more like forbidden fruit.”

  David shoved his chair back and began pacing on his side of the table. He glanced around the room beyond the window again, and then back at Kelly. “I have to tell you, I don’t have a good feeling about this. I’m not a coyote, but I’ve lived with them and worked with them long enough to know a bit. Mark needs you to get the book, but I don’t think he’s going to leave it at that.”

  “Why am I not going to the police, then? I could just turn the stupid book over to them - let them deal with him!” Kelly’s thoughts were slamming around in her head - she couldn’t think straight. What was she supposed to do? How could she keep her family safe?

  David shook his head. “If we were just dealing with a drug dealer or even a smuggler, I would agree with you - but I wouldn’t even be here if that’s all we were dealing with. Mark’s a werecoyote. How are you going to explain that to your police? Who’s going to believe you? And Mark has this, well, I don’t know exactly what it is, but he has this charm that can completely take people in. You saw a little of it, with those girls in the room where we found you. Say he decides to turn that on, and they let him go? What do you really have on him?”

  “I have his stinking book!” Kelly’s voice rose as she struggled to control her panic. “Oh, God, help me,” she murmured. She jumped to her feet - she just couldn’t sit still anymore.

  In two steps, David was at the end of the table near the door, neatly preventing her escape. “What do you mean, you have his book? You already know where it is?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Kelly gave a shrill laugh, barely restraining her panic.

  “I know exactly where it is - Sam didn’t take it, I did! I didn’t know it was his; I thought it was just Jill’s diary. I was looking for answers for what happened to Jill, and maybe what happened to Sam. Oh, my God,” she muttered the last sentence into her hands as she squeezed her temples. “What have I done?”

  A curious expression flitted over David’s face and was gone. He shrugged his shoulders and pulled his own chair back up to the table. “I’ve got an idea. We’ve got to get Mark’s book back to him, and then convince him that you and Sam are dead. It’s the only way he’s going to let this go. If he thinks you two were the only ones to see it, he’ll leave the rest of your family alone. He thinks Sam took it, and that you’re going to find it and give it back, so there is no way to not include the two of you. With all the trouble Sam caused, he’s not going to let her get away, anyway.”

  Kelly was stunned. The situation was getting stranger and scarier with every minute that ticked past, but she was mired in shock. “How are we going to convince him that Sam and I are dead? Sam is still at the hospital. Mom and Dad were thinking of taking her to our aunt’s house, but the hospital wanted another day of observation. She had a reaction to the anesthesia because of whatever he’d been dosing her with - a serotonin overdose, the doctor said. He could have really killed her!”

  David was nodding. “Mark thinks Sam is already at a drug rehab about an hour away. That buys us a little time, but probably not enough. Shoot,” Mark rubbed his forehead again, “I wish we could have had this conversation before Mark got to the hospital. I had to act quickly - he had a syringe, probably of his ‘cactus juice,’ he was going to inject into her I.V. I sent a quick text because it’s all I had time for. We were already in the building.” He shook his head, lifting his chin a fraction. “Well, it bought us time. If he had found her at the hospital, she would be dead, and we wouldn't get the chance to figure out a way to fake it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kelly said. “What do you mean, you made a quick text? Who did you text? How could you hide her?”

  “I sent word to a guy in my unit to call the nurse’s station. He told them he was with the police, and that they had reason to suspect her dealer was trying to find her. They have protocols in place to take care of at-risk patients. He asked them to use them. So, when we showed up a few minutes later, asking about her, they told us she had already left the building, and suggested she might be at a facility a distance away. In actuality, she’s still in the same room. I had to tell Mark I knew which room was hers, but I stood outside some other patient’s room to throw Mark off.” He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “If Mark had really wanted to test me, he would have gone into the room to see who was in there, or he would have asked the nurse at the desk where Sam was himself. It was risky, but I needed to know he still trusted me, too. It’s the only way this plan has half a chance of succeeding.”

  Kelly tried to think logically, but the underlying panic thrumming through her body kept her mind spinning fruitlessly.

  “This isn’t possible. None of this makes sense,” she muttered, closing her eyes. Opening them again, she found David looking at her sympathetically. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

  “That’s good,” David said, nodding. “Deep breathing helps. You can try to focus on calming your heart rate, too. Don’t think about the chaos around you, just the slow, steady beat.” He waited, watching as she closed her eyes and took another breath. “I know this is a lot to take in, Kelly. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but it’s the only way I can think of that will get you and your family out of Mark’s path. As it is, I don’t have all the details worked out, yet.”

  Kelly focused her mind on the image of the storm she had seen on the Facebook meme on the bus ride home the other day, silently repeating the verse that had been with it. She opened her eyes again. “You said you’re part of a government agency. If we can’t go to the police because of his charm, or whatever it is, why can’t we go to your agency? Shouldn’t your guys be able to protect my family?”

  David sighed. “My team is small. When we do move on him, and we were getting close to that point, but we weren’t there yet, it will be to manage the whole ring, not just Mark’s cut of it. If we expose our hand too early, which interfering to protect your family would do, we lose more than just Mark and his pack - we lose the whole ring, and they double down on their efforts to hide their trail. I wish there was another way to do this, I do, but it’s not just your family at stake here. Imagine the chaos going on with your family multiplied by hundreds - that’s the size of what’s at stake.” David looked at her closely. “Kelly, I know that Sam is a Christian - I’ve heard her mention her Bible study and I have seen her prayer lists at the apartment. I’m not saying this to manipulate you - but if you are a believer, too, then you must know that God sometimes puts people into situations to stretch them. I’m not saying this is that, exactly. I’m just, I don’t know - asking you to trust him, even if you don’t trust me.”

  Kelly stared into David’s face, trying to see if his sincerity was genuine. She licked her lips, aware of the taste of sour vomit. Glancing at the clock in the main library, she saw that it had been less than three hours since she’d first seen Mark in the cafeteria. “Tell me your plan.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Sam, we don’t really have a choice!”

  “Kelly! There has to be another way - you can’t get that close to him again!”

  Sam was
sitting in the chair near the window, wrapped in her bathrobe. She still had the IV lines taped to her hand, though they weren’t connected to the IV at the moment. When Kelly had walked into the room, she’d gestured at David to stay in the hallway and let her talk to Sam first, but he’d shaken his head and followed closely on her heels. Sam had glanced up, then jumped backward in the chair and grabbed for the call light cord. Kelly had rushed forward to catch her hands and hugged her tightly, repeating over and over that she was OK, that everything was going to be OK, until Sam stopped fighting her and calmed enough to listen to them. David had moved the call light cord far enough away so that Sam couldn’t reach it, then backed up and stood quietly against the wall where Sam could see him easily.

  “Sam. You’ve seen enough of what Mark can do,” he said now. “He is coming for you, and he’s coming for Kelly. The best way that I know to keep you safe is to try this.”

  Sam had refused to do more than cast furtive glances in David’s direction while Kelly had laid out the plan. Now she lifted her chin a fraction as she stared accusingly at him. “To keep us safe? You? You were there the whole time he was poisoning me! You were there when he killed Jill! You don’t care about keeping us safe!”

  “Jill is not dead,” David said. “At least, I’m fairly certain she isn’t. In any case, Mark didn’t kill her. He dosed her with drugs - I’m not saying he’s a nice guy!” David was holding up his hand to stop Sam from interrupting him. “I’m just saying that he didn’t kill her.”

  Sam sat upright in the chair. “But, I saw him! I saw him, and those, those things, that were dragging her on the ground - I took pictures!”

  David nodded. “You saw them at the party, and then saw Jill when he had dosed her. At the warehouse, you saw the coyotes bringing her to the room Mark keeps them in until the exchange. She’s not dead, Sam. We may still have a chance to help her - but we can’t help her without using my plan.”